Text styles UI IRC meeting

[Pierre]

On Tuesday 14 December 2010 02:24:58 Marcus Harrison wrote:
> On Monday 13 Dec 2010 22:07:05 Elvis Stansvik wrote:
> > 2010/12/13 C. Boemann <cbo at boemann.dk>:
> > > On Monday 13 December 2010 22:02:37 Elvis Stansvik wrote:
> > >> 2010/12/11 Elvis Stansvik <elvstone at gmail.com>:
> > >> > 2010/12/11 Elvis Stansvik <elvstone at gmail.com>:
> > >> >> Hello Calligra people,
> > >> >> 
> > >> >> With Chrismas closing in, I've been tasked with organizing an IRC
> > >> >> meeting on the design of the text styles UI, which is badly in need
> > >> >> of a re-work.
> > >> > 
> > >> > Of course I forgot to say (it's in the Doodle though); the meeting
> > >> > will take place in #calligra-styles-ui on Freenode.
> > >> > 
> > >> > Elvis
> > >> > 
> > >> >> I've created a Doodle with suggestions for times/dates:
> > >> >> 
> > >> >> http://www.doodle.com/p8bc5difrvw45brn
> > >> >> 
> > >> >> People who want to attend should fill in their preferred
> > >> >> dates/times.
> > >> 
> > >> Okay, so me, Casper, PierreSt and Thomas P have filled in dates, and
> > >> it seems either Monday 20/12 (in one week) or Sunday 26/12 is the best
> > >> date.
> > >> 
> > >> How about you Cyrille, are you available on any of those dates? Anyone
> > >> else that really feels like/should participate?
> > >> 
> > >> If I get to pick one of those two dates, I'd say I prefer sunday
> > >> 26/12. Especially since I'm not sure that Internet access has been
> > >> delivered to our new apartment by monday 20/12. But either of the two
> > >> dates works; If there's no Internet I'll just do it from school. They
> > >> have Inkscape installed there.
> > >> 
> > >> Elvis
> > >> 
> > >> >> Having at least Casper and Cyrille there is important. And we'd
> > >> >> really like to have Thomas Pfeiffer there for usability input.
> > >> >> Thomas, are you available on any of those dates?
> > >> >> 
> > >> >> I recently dug up an old mockup for the text styles UI I did once
> > >> >> and put it on the wiki [1]. I'm willing to do some Inkscaping
> > >> >> during/after the meeting to make a new mockup that reflects the new
> > >> >> design decisions. I'll also log the conversations and write meeting
> > >> >> minutes.
> > >> >> 
> > >> >> I estimate the meeting will take a couple of hours, plus minus 30
> > >> >> minutes.
> > >> >> 
> > >> >> Best regards,
> > >> >> Elvis
> > >> >> 
> > >> >> [1] http://community.kde.org/Calligra/Words/Text_Styles_UI_Mockup
> > >> 
> > >> _______________________________________________
> > >> calligra-devel mailing list
> > >> calligra-devel at kde.org
> > >> https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/calligra-devel
> > > 
> > > I'd prefer 26th as well as I'm in London on the 20th (though I am able
> > > to attend as I indicated)
> > 
> > Alright, but then we're two against Cyrille ;) Preliminary date for
> > the meeting is now instead:
> > 
> > Monday 26/12, 20:00 CET.
> > #calligra-styles-ui on Freenode
> > 
> > If people have preferences, keep them coming. Let's say I'll announce
> > the definitive date tomorrow at noon, based on preferences indicated
> > on this thread.
> > 
> > Elvis
> 
> Since the discussion about the text styles UI is going to happen soon, I'd
> like to throw in my tuppence. It isn't much, so I'd like to put it here
> instead of jumping in on the conversation in IRC just to mention this.
> 
> Text styles are really, really important, incredibly useful and massively
> under-exposed. For example, in school and even in college, when my peers
> wanted a heading they'd increase the font-size, click Bold and Underlined,
> type the heading, then turn off Bold and Underlined, create a new line,
> then decrease the font size. That just has to stop. That behaviour was
> consistent across MSOffice 2003-2010 and all the latest versions of
> OpenOffice.org. There's a bunch of other stuff I'd like to say about it,
> since I've griped about it for a long time, but I'm trying to keep this
> short. So, I'd just like to really quickly ask that you to consider three
> things in the UI's design:

> 1. Make it easy to find and understand;
> 2. Make it easy to apply styles - one-click?;
One double-click is already possible using OpenOffice.org using the 
style&formatting "dock". I don't know the latest MSO interface. The textmaker 
interface for styles just sucks, there is no other word...
BTW, they claim great ODF/DOC/DOCX compatibility, I think we can beat them 
considering the number of features they forget, and their quite terrible 
performance when loading one of my internship reports...
Having styles intuitive and easy to find is a really great challenge. It would 
be interesting to have usability experts opinions on this topic.

> 3. Make it easy to edit styles - you know that nightmare that is the OOo
> style-editing window? Yeah, avoid that.
That window is a nightmare, but you can edit a piece of text, and create a style 
from that piece of text. Or apply a style, change the style on the piece of 
text, and update the style... Thus that window is useless in most case, except 
that it can expose many really interesting options that would be hard to find in 
another place.
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