Design/Whiteboards/Accessible insert

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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

Insert bar in Lubuntu
Inserting a text box on a desktop
Inserting a text box on a tablet

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.