Design/UI Elements

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    UI Elements proposals and evaluation

    The LibreOffice User Interface consists of hundreds of single UI elements allowing to reach all the mighty features of this office suite.

    The present UI is based on design created about 20 years ago and many new ideas have been developed in the meantime.

    This page is dedicated to single UI elements (or groups of them), we want to discuss them, find previous implementations (and refusals to implement them) in other software, describe advantages and disadvantages and finally prioritize and present them to the developers asking for implementation.

    Full mockups should not be included in this table, as we should discuss the single features of the UI first. You can link to such mockups from the elements you describe, but please stay with the elements, not the mockups here on the page.

    Element description Image Proposal by Date Last Activity Description Implementations Advantages Disadvantages Priority / Implementation Status
    Document management
    Vertical tabs
    Dummy.png
    Bernhard Dippold 05.07.2011 05.07.2011 vertical tabs are areas where different documents can be reached stacked one above the other.

    more details...

    Mockup containing the proposed element

    don't know of any better usage of vertical vs. horizontal desktop space in broad desktops with Writer width used space in Calc not yet decided upon
    Command sorting
    Ellipsis menu
    Citrus-floatbar.png
    Mirek2 17.07.2011 17.07.2011 Menu providing access to all the unshown commands of a toolbar more details...
    • Quick access to unshown commands
    • Quick customization of toolbar through drag-and-drop
    n/a


    Float Bar
    Trs-float.png
    Mirek2 09.07.2011 09.07.2011 Contextual toolbar that floats centered above a selectionmore details... a similar toolbar appears in iOS, Android, and ByWord
    • Doesn't cover the selection
    • Less distance to travel for mouse
    n/a
    Insert Bar
    Trs-insrt.png
    Mirek2 17.07.2011 17.07.2011 Vertical toolbar containing Insert and Draw commands more details... known as the Toolbox in most graphics software
    • One toolbar for insertion
    • Obeys Fitts's law
    • Quick show/hide with status bar button
    • Status bar shows the selected tool
    n/a


    Add page/slide button
    Citrus-addpage.png
    Mirek2 17.07.2011 17.07.2011 Button for inserting slides/page breaks at the end of a document more details... known as the Toolbox in most graphics software
    • Quick insertion of pages/slides
    n/a


    Impress UI
    Animation sorter
    animation sorter in Impress
    Kévin PEIGNOT 16.07.2011 16.07.2011 Add the possibility to sort animations in Impress without using the arrows, but by drag & drop. Actually, if you have a lot of animations, it take very long with the arrows to sort them. Actually, drag & drop is possible in MS Power Point. Fastest than actually unknown unknown


    Scrollable slides
    Trs-impress.png
    Mirek2 17.07.2011 17.07.2011 Slides shown under each other, like pages. more details...
    • Makes browsing and referencing quicker and easier
    • Saves room by not requiring a slide pane
    n/a


    Object selection
    Page handles
    Trs-slide.png
    Mirek2 17.07.2011 17.07.2011 A page/slide number shown next to a page/slide used for selecting a page/slide. more details...
    • Quick access to page formatting commands
    • Makes it possible to copy/cut a page/slide easily
    • Big page number helps with browsing
    n/a