Design/Whiteboards/Status bar
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This page was marked as inactive and is retained for historical reference.
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Summary
Make the status bar more usable.
Status
| call for proposals | analyzing proposals | design taking shape | implementation in progress | implemented |
Scope
| In Scope | Out of Scope |
|---|---|
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Relevant Bugs
Definition of Terms
This section is yet to be completed. In the meantime, refer to these help pages for terminology:
- Writer/Status_Bar
- Calc/Status_Bar
- Impress/Status_Bar
- Math/Status_Bar
- Status_Bar_in_Basic_Documents (Development Environment)
Discussion
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Personas
- Leah: A graphic designer. Needs to be able to quickly zoom in and out to finetune the design of her presentations, documents, and drawings.
- Ushna: A film student. Needs to know how many words and characters her document has while writing.
- Pirmin: A German studying abroad. He needs to be able to quickly choose the language of the text.
Proposals
Proposal by Mirek2
Mockups
Zoom slider overlapping a page
Zoom sl. over the background
Zoom sl. on hover
Page handle
Status bar
In overwrite mode
Language picker
Selection mode picker
With a "show sidebar" option
Document signature
Statistics
Description
Status bar
The status bar would be reorganized as follows:
- On the left and right edges would be buttons for showing the toolbars/sidebars docked to the left or right edge.
- On the left, there would be a "Document signature" indicator, a "Selection mode" menu, a "Language" menu, and an "Overwrite mode" indicator
- In the middle, there would be selection information. If nothing was selected, it would show document information. When clicked, it would launch a statistics pop-over.
- On the right, there would be a zoom slider and a handle for resizing the window.
Elements that don't apply should be hidden and the layout should be adjusted accordingly.
The active area of the status bar should reach to the bottom border of the window, to take advantage of Fitts's law.
Zoom slider
- Even with the status bar hidden, the status bar would still show up, just above the toolbars docked to the bottom, the window's horizontal scroll bar, or the edge of the window (depending on what is shown).
- A zoom level indicator would show up on hover over the zoom slider. This indicator would float above the slider thumb.
- If the status bar is shown, the zoom slider should take its traditional place within it, but it should exhibit the new behavior.
Print view layouts
The current status bar houses 3 layouts: Single column mode, Side-by-side mode, and Book mode. Since these layouts are different variations of the Print layout, they should be moved into a "View>Print layout" menu. "Print layout" would now be a menu, not a button.
Language picker
The language picker should be made available under the context menu for text and as a hidden-by-default toolbar button, so that it's easily accessible for multilingual users who opt to not use the status bar.
Page number and style
The page number would be shown to the left of each page. The number should also act as a page handle. Clicking on this handle would show the page toolbar, allowing the user to see and pick the page style.
Save state
The save state of the document would be apparent on the Save icon (a disabled Save icon indicates "Saved", an enabled one indicates "Unsaved").
Proposal by Paulo José
Mockups
Writer's status bar
Description
The proposal for reordering the items of Status Bar is based in two concepts:
- Grouping by context: Screen's sides for Document and Page related item, placing Selection (content) related items in the center.
- Grouping by function: Separating editable and info-only items from middle to edges of screen, placing editable ones first.
The first concept is motived by the goal of minimize the cursor movement when editing items. The text body is centered to screen, so Selection's items should be placed closer to it. It takes advantage from fact of the user eyes are focused locally, minimizing its effort to interact with items. Zoom and others page and document items are used when the user want to change the global view, spending more time to interact with these items, in general.
Writer
| Current state | Proposed reorganization |
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Document related items:
Selection related items:
Page related items:
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Draw/Impress
| Current state | Proposed reorganization |
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Document related items:
Selection related items:
Page related items:
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Calc
| Current state | Proposed reorganization |
|---|---|
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Document related items:
Selection related items:
Page related items:
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Relevant Art
- Zoom_in_Statusbar describes the Zoom slider in all major components but Writer
- Multiple_Pages_View_and_Zoom_Control describes some status bar items in Writer
- Documentation of ProgressIndicators shows on slide #5 the "Document Progress" in the status bar
- Electronic_Signatures_and_Security tells us on page 29ff about some icons in the status bar
- Zoom slider proposals for OOo
- Firefox's status bar
- LibreOffice and M$Office