Design/Whiteboards/Status bar

    From The Document Foundation Wiki
    Gnome-document-open-recent.svg

    This page was marked as inactive and is retained for historical reference.
    Either the page is no longer relevant or consensus on its purpose has become unclear. To revive discussion, seek broader input via a forum such as one of our mailing lists.

    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
    • Fix current usability issues
    • Simplify
    • Introduce new features

    Relevant Bugs

    Definition of Terms

    This section is yet to be completed. In the meantime, refer to these help pages for terminology:

    Discussion

    -

    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

    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

    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
    Current-libreoffice-writer-statusbar.png

    Document related items:

    • Digital Signature
    • Document Modification

    Selection related items:

    • Combined Display
    • Insert Mode
    • Selection Mode
    • Language

    Page related items:

    • Current Page Style
    • View Layout
    • Zoom Slider
    • Zoom
    • Page Number
    Draw/Impress
    Current state Proposed reorganization
    Current LO draw impress status bar.png

    Document related items:

    • Digital Signature
    • Document Modification

    Selection related items:

    • Object description
    • Pointer/object position/dimensions

    Page related items:

    • Slide design
    • Zoom Slider
    • Zoom
    • Page Number
    Calc
    Current state Proposed reorganization
    Current LO calc status bar.png

    Document related items:

    • Digital Signature
    • Document Modification

    Selection related items:

    • Insert mode
    • Selection mode
    • Standard formula, date/time, error warning

    Page related items:

    • Page style
    • Sheet Number
    • Zoom Slider
    • Zoom

    Relevant Art