Posted: Thu Aug 31, 2006 8:53 am Post subject: My wish list
Hello group.
Here's my wishList for a NeoOffice 2.0 aqua app:
1) Real Aqua interfaces... In the sens of beeing more strictly compliant to the Apple Human Interface Guidelines. (see developer.apple.com
here)
2) Original icons set, not for the toolbars but the Application's icon set. The icon with the old ship is OK, but not could be greatly improved. Could have a more professional look.
I'm a UI designer, I can help for that! Where can I get the source code?
Joined: Apr 25, 2006 Posts: 2315 Location: Montpellier, France
Posted: Thu Aug 31, 2006 9:12 am Post subject:
NeoOffice remains a port of OpenOffice.org, and creating an AHIG-compliant version would require re-writing lots of OOo code, something that can't be achieved by the two NeoOffice developers.
Patrick (the main developer) is attached to the ship icon, so it's highly unlikely that we will replace it in the near future.
Quote:
2) Original icons set, not for the toolbars but the Application's icon set. The icon with the old ship is OK, but not could be greatly improved. Could have a more professional look.
We already have nice Finder document icons, but some people are working on a new (toolbar, I know) icon set here.
The source code for NeoOffice is available as part of the disk image. Source for the various icons etc. should be somewhere in the src folder (I think).
if you follow the instructions on how to build, the first thing done is to download all of the sources.
not to sound harsh, but the UI code of openoffice.org is not easy to deal with. ed has spent months to get it to where it is now. while a designer is nice (esp for icons) actual redesign of the UI will require you to be a programmer as well.
Patrick (the main developer) is attached to the ship icon, so it's highly unlikely that we will replace it in the near future.
Well, I guess that I should submit my own version of the ship icon then!
I understand that Patrick is attached to the idea behind the ship, but maybe it's the concept that he likes most.
I have nothing against the idea, I don't think it's bad one, however I think that the old sailing ship just dispatch the idea of an old technology. And it does not either inform novice users about what's behind the icon (an Office Suit of applications) if they double click it.
But again, lets go with the sailing ship. Let's us conquer a New World.
jakeOSX wrote:
if you follow the instructions on how to build, the first thing done is to download all of the sources.
Thanks! I just found all of it.
jakeOSX wrote:
... actual redesign of the UI will require you to be a programmer as well.
Well, fortunately I am too. Graphic Arts is my first love, OOP is my second. But Mac programming for me is just a hobby, and I played only with Cocoa/XCode for now and I may not be the best one here to redesign. But I'll give it a try since I think that the UI plays a very important role in software usability.
just thought i'd spill the beans early, there have been a few photoshop experts who were hurt that their expert PSD files couldn't be very easily transformed into the new face of neooffice =)
I think I agree with "Blue Pill / zzal", though maybe BP/z is talking mostly about the visual elements of the interface & that’s not what’s eating me.
I’m really, really pleased with recent developments in NeoOffice (the Aqua interface & quick improvements for some issues like s-l-o-w opening of documents).
I’m sure this topic has been discussed many times, but you’re going to hear it from me for the 1st time. I wish the controls could be more Mac-like rather than OOo-like, in particular the modifier keys. That is, I wish the Option key would move over or delete single words, and the Command key would move or delete to the end / beginning of the line. There’s no problem using NeoOffice because of this idiosyncrasy--I try the option key & nothing happens, so I immediately remember to use Command. The problem is, I get used to doing it that way & then get all messed up when using other apps.
I would be just as happy if the ability to customize the key commands included being able to assign the Option key. This way I could set up NeoOffice to work like a normal Mac program. At present (as far as I can tell) that’s impossible.
I also wish the first click in an inactive window would just bring the window to the front, instead of also moving the insertion point. It would save a whole lot of time repositioning the cursor when copying passages or cell ranges from 1 document to another.
I’m quite naive about Mac programming. I have no idea how hard or easy it would be to do these things, but they would be most helpful.
Joined: Oct 24, 2005 Posts: 561 Location: Edinburgh, Scotland
Posted: Wed Oct 18, 2006 7:04 am Post subject:
wstites wrote:
I’m sure this topic has been discussed many times, but you’re going to hear it from me for the 1st time. I wish the controls could be more Mac-like rather than OOo-like, in particular the modifier keys.
So do we all, but some things will never happen, and if you really hate the way NeoOffice does some things, sadly, the only solution is to use an application that didn't start life on Windows.
Quote:
That is, I wish the Option key would move over or delete single words, and the Command key would move or delete to the end / beginning of the line.
Sadly due to its non-mac origins the underlying OpenOffice.org code doesn't have a clue what the Option key is, and frankly, is quite unlikely ever to learn. It is possible to set some Opt- keystrokes using the Mac OS system preferences, however people have had mixed success with this.
Have a look at this article in the wiki for more info:
I also wish the first click in an inactive window would just bring the window to the front, instead of also moving the insertion point. It would save a whole lot of time repositioning the cursor when copying passages or cell ranges from 1 document to another.
Try clicking on the window title or frame, or use Cmd-~ to switch windows within an application or Cmd-Tab to switch between applications.
Quote:
I’m quite naive about Mac programming. I have no idea how hard or easy it would be to do these things, but they would be most helpful.
I'm no programming wizz either, but Patrick and Ed are, and you can be pretty sure that if it can be done it already has been!
I'm no programming wizz either, but Patrick and Ed are, and you can be pretty sure that if it can be done it already has been!
Not necessarily.. Ed and Patrick have limited time, so they cannot implement every feature.
That said, OOo is not the easiest codebase in the world to work with. Be prepared for a steep learning curve.
What you might be able to do to get into the code initially is help Brett to improve Iconic. This is a bit of software to replace the toolbar buttons. There's already quite a set of new ones, but some of them do not get replaced properly. This includes a few basic icons and the language specific ones.
Finding which icons lack and where they should go would require an initial dive into the code but not require you to fix something in the main codebase immediately (Iconic is a seperate script with another seperate file for icon data). Thus it could serve as a training session.
Beyond that, I suggest looking through bugzilla or asking Ed and Patrick to point out a manageable first coding activity.
best wishes and good luck,
Oscar _________________ "What do you think of Western Civilization?"
"I think it would be a good idea!"
- Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi
Joined: Apr 25, 2006 Posts: 2315 Location: Montpellier, France
Posted: Wed Oct 18, 2006 1:36 pm Post subject:
I think things got a bit confused here.
The original poster, zzal, was asking about where to find the source, although he appeared mostly interested in redisigning graphics, and perhaps doing a bit more if he could.
The second poster, wstites, posted because he agreed with zzal, and gave us a few suggestions of his own, adding that he didn't know how easy or hard it would be to implement them. I believe he doesn't have the intention (and probably not the ability either) to code this functionality.
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