Look-and-Feel Summit

[ovvldc]

People expressed the need for a discussion about what parts of the look and feel should be adapted. Well, here goes:

The look:
- Patrick and Ed are well on their way to have native menu's, blue buttons and such.
- Patrick and Ed have decided they will focus on implementing this and not worry about the rest until this is finished.
- Patrick and Ed do great work when not interrupted, so I suggest we don't bug them to redirect their efforts.

The only left might be to make a complete list of the elements of the look we want to have made native. For now I'll list:
-Menus (halfway done, some bugs remain)
-Print and file dialogs (print mostly done, some bugs)
-Scroll bars
-App background color

-Toolbar and file icons (these are relatively easily changed by the users without a recompile and will therefore be discussed below).

The feel:
- Some of this can be changed by users. The resulting config files can be exchanged.
-Other parts will require a recompile. Patrick and Ed may eventually look at this.

What do we want here (again, elaborate and discuss as you desire):
-Reorder menu's so that the items that have a fixed place in the Apple Aqua HIG are actually in that place ("About," "Options/Preferences")
-Adapt keyboard shortcuts to comply with Aqua HIG.
-Change any relevant sounds, or other prettiness.

End-user tasks:
-Discuss what menu items should be moved.
-Discuss keyboard shortcuts.
-Draw and/or cobble together icon sets (see other threads for sources and means of doing so).
-Any other changes (I personally exchanged 'Paste' for 'Paste special' in the toolbar because I usually prefer to paste text from other application without the cumbersome formatting codes). Maybe a good guide or help file for end users would be nice.
-Wrap one or several of these adaptations in a nice installer package and put it up for downloading.

What I don't quite understand is any possible connection to the Menu->Extra->Options->NeoOffice/J->Display options for a Default, XWindows, Macintosh or OS/2 look and feel. To what extent does this change the UI and to what extent is it possible to install extra choices here? Maybe this is best discussed in a seperate topic, to distance it from the cosmetic discussion I'd like to start here.

Anyone care to inject their view?

Oscar

[sardisson]

[sardisson]

[sardisson]

For the menu configs, we also need to remember locali[zs]ation. When we add/rename/move/delete items, we'll have to create sets in each of the other languages NeoJ supports (at at least that we have volunteers for); otherwise they will inherit all of our [English] items--it seems that saving a config writes out all the existing entries (rather than indicating what/where changes were made), so upon switching my system language to French, my NeoJ menus came up mostly English....

[ovvldc]

[Guest]

Has much/any thought been put into the file open and file save dialog boxes? The current File Open dialog box has the following "bits":

Navigation Window to traverse and/or select the file
Text Box: "File Name"
Text Box: "Version"
Text Box: "File Type"
Checkbox: "Read-Only"

Buttons: "Open", "Cancel", "Help"

Graphical Buttons: Up One Level, Create New Directory, and some other one I don't know what it does.

Question:

What would a mac equivalent of this dialog box look like?

References:



http://developer.apple.com/documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/OSXHIGuidelines/XHIGDialogs/chapter_9_section_4.html

Question #2:

What would the mac equivalent of the SAVE dialog box look like?



References:

http://developer.apple.com/documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/OSXHIGuidelines/XHIGDialogs/chapter_9_section_5.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/20000962/TPXREF29

BONUS QUESTION #3:

What about the Save Changes Alert box? What should it say?



Hint: current version has question-mark graphic and reads:

The document "NAME OF DOCUMENT" has been modified.
Do you want to save your changes? [Save][Discard][cancel]


Would mockups or NIBs or something be helpful here?

[yoxi]

I realise this may constitute blasphemy, but when NeoJ gets fully aquifered I'm going to miss being able to move from button to button in the dialogs using the cursor keys - especially in the save/discard/cancel dialog.

The one thing that narks me [British for 'annoys', in case you're wondering] with the aqua interface in general is the stubborn refusal to allow easy navigation using keyboard as well as mouse. When using text-input apps such as word processors and spreadsheets, it's daft to be forced to use a mouse half the time, and especially with e.g. open, save - you've just used a key combo to call them up, most likely, and then you have to use the mouse to finish the job. Grumble, gripe.

So what I'm saying here is that if the aquification of NeoJ is actually a behind the scenes top class imitation of aqua rather than the real thing (if we're talking ducks here, or something...) then if you code barons could keep in the possibility of as much keyboard navigation as possible in the dialogs, I for one will be very grateful. I'll understand if that's not the way it's going to go, however. Maybe the aqua-lookalike dialogs that are to come will actually be genuine aqua dialogs, so there might not be any choice.

- yoxi

[sardisson]

[sardisson]

[jakeOSX]

I've looked into the open and save dialogues a couple times. i got it in my head that i would be able to do this little thing...

the dialogues are just a simple call, so it seems to me, you just have to replace the function that generates the open/save in OO.o with this call to the native open/save and poof! that's it.

problem is, i don't know where to start to test this idea. i suppose if i could find the function we could do a swap out there...

anyone with a head about this stuff see any error in my thinking? because surely it can't be that easy. (yes, jake it can be... and don't call me shirely)

-j

[Guest]

[Guest]

BTW-- when I double-clicked on Ed's file_picker.sxw.gz file, I got a folder with a bunch of xml files that N/J wouldn't read.

When I gunzipped it from the Terminal, a readable "file" with the proper N/J icon appeared.

In case anyone else had that problem....

[sardisson]

[yoxi]

[sardisson]