Design/Whiteboards/Accessible insert

    From The Document Foundation Wiki

    Summary

    Make insertion commands easily accessible, expecially on touch devices.

    Status

    call for proposals analyzing proposals design taking shape implementation in progress implemented

    Scope

    In Scope Out of Scope
    • Touch support
    • Drawing tools
    • Contextual insertion commands
    • Include drawing tools not related to insertion, such as "Edit points"

    Discussion

    -

    Personas

    • Joe: a college student with limited funds. He takes notes on a small netbook. Screen real estate is very important to him -- every pixel counts. Speed of access is also important, as the professor talks quickly and he doesn't have time to stop making notes and customize his toolbars. He wants a toolbar to be hidden when he doesn't need to use it, but he needs to be able to quickly show it when he does.
    • Francine: an artist that gets easily put-off by computers. She gets frustrated when she can't draw a table from the Drawing toolbar. She'd like a single toolbar from which she could insert everything.
    • Dan: a designer used to applications with Tools docked on the left side of the screen, where buttons are easier to click, according to Fitts's law. To work efficiently, he needs a toolbar that takes advantage of Fitts's law.


    Tentative Design

    This section is created after we've agreed on a single design based on the submitted proposals and are just ironing out the details. It includes the spec and high-quality mockups.

    Proposals

    Proposal by Mirek2

    Mockups

    Description

    Insert bar

    A toolbar containing these commands:

    • Paste
    • Text frame
    • File
    • Table
    • Chart

    • Fields (if within a text field)
    • Special character (if within a text field)
    • Formatting mark (if within a text field)

    • Freeform line
    • Curve
    • Rectangle
    • Ellipse
    • Line
    • Basic shapes
    • Stars
    • Symbol shapes
    • Block arrows
    • Flowcharts
    • Callouts
    • Floating frame
    • Formula
    • OLE object
    • Plug-in
    • Bookmark
    • Comment
    • Cross-reference
    • Script
    • Indexes/Tables
    • Footnote/endnote
    Behavior
    • The bar could be shown and hidden either from the View menu or through a button on the left of the status bar.
    • Every button would have the same behavior as its current counterpart (from the drawing toolbar or the Insert menu).
    • What are currently split buttons in the drawing tool bar would become drop-down menus only, as the small arrow on split buttons would be hard to target.
    • The bar would be docked on the left, but could also be docked on the bottom and on the right through the bar's right-click menu.
    • Instead of a "mouse pointer" icon, there is a red "X" icon to get back to standard editing mode. (The "X" denotes the cancellation of the current insertion mode.)
      • This button temporarily replaces the "hide insert bar" button in the status bar, so that it would be quickly accessible according to Fitts's law.
      • On Android devices, a checkbox button on the Action bar would be used instead.
    • The clickable area of all commands on the bar reaches to the left border of the screen, so that all commands are quickly accessible in accordance to Fitts's law.
    Design
    • None of the commands are split buttons: they're always either simple buttons or drop-down menus.
    • All icons on the insert bar are monochrome.
      • "Inactive buttons" (i.e. buttons which would change the current mode) are gray
      • To show that a certain insertion mode is active, the "active button" would have a distinctive color and be completely opaque.
    • When rulers are hidden, the bar takes on the application background.