I hate to sound brusk, but I sense that this forum topic is turning into an abstract redesign discussion so I really need to set expectations for what we can and cannot do. Basically, what we can do is add existing widgets in the Format :: Paragraph dialog to the Formatting toolbar and making those copied widgets take immediate effect when changed.
Also, since implementing only copying of the existing widgets to the Formatting toolbar and making the widgets take immediate effect when changed will require a not so small investment of our limited donation resources to implement, I will only start work on the toolbar changes once 20 NeoOffice donors have posted that they want it to.
If no one other NeoOffice donors posts, it tells us that this is something that is not of value to most donors and, in turn, we are not likely to recoup our investment if we implemented it.
Posted: Sat Feb 13, 2010 1:05 pm Post subject: Re: Bad blood?
exhodus202 wrote:
@Sardisson:
Are you saying that the OOo community snubs us NO folk? Seems to me that they'd be happy to have as many people coding, collaborating, promoting, repurposing OOo/ODF as possible. Isn't that the "open source way"? Or am I just being way too
FYI. I removed your duplicate post.
I will jump in and answer this. I have no idea what you mean by "the open source way". I have heard all sorts of marketing people over the years talk like there is some magic to software that is open source, but open source is a code license. That is all. Open source software is subject to the same business constraints as proprietary software. In other words, someone needs to fund the development and whomever funds it tends to set the project's development priorities.
Sure, there are some people that portray open source as a bunch of volunteers coding for the sheer joy of it. But for the most part, most successful open source projects are staffed by developers who are paid by an employer. OpenOffice.org's engineers are paid by Oracle and they are tasked with doing what Oracle wants them to do. Most NeoOffice users are not customers of Oracle or at least don't appear to be so their requests are pushed to the bottom of their priority list.
We are no different. Open source software development is not a hobby but a way to earn a living. For the last several years, we have run NeoOffice like a small "mom and pop shop" business. The software is free, but for an optional donation we provide services like Early Access releases and online support. Collectively, donor's donations pay our salaries so that we can imcremental add small feature improvements. The business model is that we keep providing the small features and services in the hope that it will entice donors to continue donating.
That is why we set a minimum number of donors to post their support for a new feature before we devote any time to implementing it. If we spend all of our limited time implementing something that only a few people will care about, our donation revenue will drop quickly like it did in mid-2009 and we would quickly be out of business.
Joined: Jul 05, 2005 Posts: 685 Location: North West England
Posted: Sat Feb 13, 2010 2:44 pm Post subject:
My own thoughts are that this is one of those areas where I am content to accept some limitations because I pay (next to) nothing for the software. Sure if greater usability/functionality comes along I'm as pleased as the next user - but this particular issue is not a deal breaker for me.
The only reason I suggested the toolbar panel is because I wondered if it might exist as part of the standard Mac UI toolkit and wouldn't be too hard to hook into - if you were already making changes to this area. But as you can tell already I am not a software builder/designer/programmer. _________________ MacBook Pro
13-inch, Mid 2012
Processor 2.5 GHz Intel Core i5
Memory 4 GB 1600 MHz DDR3
Graphics Intel HD Graphics 4000 512 MB
OS X 10.9.3 (13D65)
Posted: Sat Feb 13, 2010 11:37 pm Post subject: Re: More Refinement
exhodus202 wrote:
I think that the NO/OOo Styles and Formatting toolbar comes the closest to what I'm looking for.
[...]
What I don't like:
* Seems to be float-only; no ability to dock (use as a toolbar on the top like Standard, Formatting, etc.).
It does dock, only on the left or the right; see Docking Palettes in the wiki for a little more about docking and positioning it.
Smokey _________________ "[...] whether the duck drinks hot chocolate or coffee is irrelevant." -- ovvldc and sardisson in the NeoWiki
Posted: Sat Feb 13, 2010 11:48 pm Post subject: Tidying Up
@ Patrick,
You've gone the extra mile (as usual) and been very patient with me.
I apologize for the double post; I had hit the "new post" instead of the "reply to post" button by mistake.
Okay, so you want me to come back down to earth with something you can actually do w/ max return for your effort. Fair enough.
Here are some requests that hopefully fulfill that criteria:
* Format>Paragraph et al: Could you put in an "Apply" button so I could see the results of my changes right away and not have to go back and forth from the dialog box to the document and then back again to get the results I want?
* Styles and Formatting floating window:
** I'd like to be able to mouse over a style and have some lorem ipsum text with that style applied pop up to give me an instant visual idea of what that style would actually do to my selected text in my real document. That pop-up would have to be big enough to enable me to distinguish it from other styles at a glance (probably something along the lines of 3x5 inches or 7x12 cm).
** Further, I'd like that pop-up window to have a summary of the actual values of that style (e.g., "Times New Roman, 12 pt, left-justified, single space, first line indented .25"...). That way, if I wanted to edit that style, I'd have an instant idea of where to start (e.g., "Oh, yeah, I need to change that to a hanging indent...").
Posted: Sat Feb 13, 2010 11:58 pm Post subject: @ Sardisson
Thanks for replying to my post.
But, um, I'm not sure if I'm able to replicate what the NeoWiki page seems to be referring to.
What I was wondering was if I could turn the Styles and Formatting floating window into a toolbar.
What you seem to be talking about is nailing down the Styles and Formatting floating window to a certain position on the screen (or within the document?).
I'm not entirely sure that what you are talking about is what interests me (but thanks for the try!). If you'd like perhaps you could post some screenshots so I had a clearer idea. Thanks.
Posted: Sun Feb 14, 2010 10:14 am Post subject: Re: Tidying Up
exhodus202 wrote:
* Format>Paragraph et al: Could you put in an "Apply" button so I could see the results of my changes right away and not have to go back and forth from the dialog box to the document and then back again to get the results I want?
Toolbar buttons and listboxes only work one way: when you change any value in a toolbar listbox or press any toolbar button, they take effect in the current document immediately.
exhodus202 wrote:
* Styles and Formatting floating window:
** I'd like to be able to mouse over a style and have some lorem ipsum text with that style applied pop up to give me an instant visual idea of what that style would actually do to my selected text in my real document. That pop-up would have to be big enough to enable me to distinguish it from other styles at a glance (probably something along the lines of 3x5 inches or 7x12 cm).
** Further, I'd like that pop-up window to have a summary of the actual values of that style (e.g., "Times New Roman, 12 pt, left-justified, single space, first line indented .25"...). That way, if I wanted to edit that style, I'd have an instant idea of where to start (e.g., "Oh, yeah, I need to change that to a hanging indent...").
You just expanded the scope of your feature request by a massive amount again. Given that no donors other than James3359 has voiced any interest in the original toolbar scope, I don't think it is a good use of time to investigate your new extra feature requests as they would definitely require a whole separate set of changes to NeoOffice's underlying OpenOffice.org code and it is unclear if these new extra features would even be feasible.
So I would recommend that we give other donors time to review the original toolbar changes and decide if they want that feature.
For anyone else reading this forum, the original new feature that I said I could implement if 20 NeoOffice donors post that they want it is summarized below:
1. Add to NeoOffice's Fomatting toolbar the following buttons and listboxes that are in Microsoft Word's Formatting Palette window but are not in NeoOffice's Formatting toolbar:
2. Adding code to the above new toolbar buttons and listboxes so that if a button is pressed or a listbox value is changed, the change is applied immediately to the current document.
Posted: Sun Feb 14, 2010 4:27 pm Post subject: Re: Tidying Up
pluby wrote:
exhodus202 wrote:
* Format>Paragraph et al: Could you put in an "Apply" button so I could see the results of my changes right away and not have to go back and forth from the dialog box to the document and then back again to get the results I want?
Toolbar buttons and listboxes only work one way: when you change any value in a toolbar listbox or press any toolbar button, they take effect in the current document immediately.
Patrick
I think we're talking apples and oranges here. You are correct; toolbar buttons and listboxes take effect in the current document immediately. What I asked for was just that effect (via an "Apply" button or the like) in the dialog box that opens up e.g. when you go Format>Paragraph, Format>Character, etc. Changes made via the latter type of dialog box only take effect (in their current configuration) once you hit "OK".
Adding the ability to see instant changes, or even to make a couple of changes in a dialog box and then see the effect of all of them in that dialog take effect at once via an "Apply" button, would go a long way in making my life easier.
As for expanding my feature request exponentially yet again, apologies; as a non-programmer I think in terms of what I'd like and not how hard it'd be to get there. Appreciate your feedback on the difficulties involved.
Posted: Sat Mar 27, 2010 12:20 pm Post subject: Re: Formatting pallete in NeoOffice
exhodus202 wrote:
Finally, the core functionality I'm looking for isn't so much this or that widget in a floating toolbar as much as being able to edit formatting features on-the-fly. In my workflow, I'm constantly thinking about content and format at the same time (very different, I know, from the LaTex crowd, or the "don't distract me when I'm writing"/WriteRoom-type crowd). That's what I really want - real-time, seamless WYSIWYG. That's the idea; this or that widget simply implements that idea.
I have exactly the same need/desire. In my work/play, I am often tweaking documents: adding inset single-spaced quotes in the middle of a 1.5-spaced paragraph, changing the first-word indent. Not being able to see the result until I close format/paragraph is rather tedious -- especially when it is so easy in MSW.
Posted: Sat Mar 27, 2010 2:29 pm Post subject: Re: Formatting pallete in NeoOffice
snokeja wrote:
I have exactly the same need/desire. In my work/play, I am often tweaking documents: adding inset single-spaced quotes in the middle of a 1.5-spaced paragraph, changing the first-word indent. Not being able to see the result until I close format/paragraph is rather tedious -- especially when it is so easy in MSW.
OK. That makes a total of 3 donors who are in favor of adding the 5 new widgets in the existing Formatting toolbar. That means that another 17 donors are needed to reach the 20 donors minimum that is needed for implementation work to start on this feature request.
snokeja wrote:
How do I "float" the format toolbar?
To make the Formatting toolbar or any other toolbar a floating window, move the mouse over the vertical dots at the far left end of the toolbar and drag the mouse out of the toolbar area of the window. A floating window will appear if the mouse is outside of the toolbar area when you stop dragging.
Posted: Sat Mar 27, 2010 10:59 pm Post subject: Kudos
Patrick, it speaks volumes for you that you remember a rather pesky and obscure user (yours truly) and his rather annoying request(s)! Or perhaps there was something about the tenor of this thread that piqued more than your usual interest? We'll see how many more users pile on the bandwagon.
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