LibreOffice 4.1 Beta Arrives With New Features

[GreatEmerald]

Of course, it would be more intuitive to people who'd never used a computer before, but that'll be a tiny minority of new LO users, and it would still be inconsistent with its surrounding environment - users will still have to learn the meaning of a floppy-icon for every other program out there, and then remember that LO is different.

Well, hopefully more programs will adopt that icon, then

[intellivision]

I don't really see the whole fuss between MS Office or Windows vs Libreoffice or Linux.
Both are different OS's that meet different needs.

Even I run Apache Openoffice myself and I don't feel the need to criticise other's choices.

[Nevertime]

For my needs Google docs is the best word processor. I'm dyslexic and I write a resonable amount so what's important for me is a quality spelling/grammar check that makes a good guess at what I'm attempting to type and doesn't slow down to a halt when dealing with large documents. In this department Google Docs is clearly the best I've used, Ms Office is acceptable and Libreoffice (or at least the available spelling/grammar plugins) still needs a hell of a lot of work.

Other features I like in google docs is the ability to quickly look words up online via the right click menu and the ease in which I can share my work.

Personally I don't mind the ribbon interface. It seems intuitive but... well... windows.

[smitty3268]

Well, hopefully more programs will adopt that icon, then

I don't have the link, but i'm pretty sure the Oxygen icon folks did a user study where they brought in a bunch of people and showed them alternative save icons for KOffice. The LibreOffice icon was 1 option. Guess which one the users thought was the easiest to understand? It was the floppy disk icon, in a landslide. They didn't even know what a floppy disk was (this wasn't a technical audience). They just know that icon means save, and it's a very distinctive one that people don't get confused by.

That said, over time standards do change so maybe eventually people will stop associating that icon with saving.

[Serge]

Interesting, I didn't know that (Oxygen icons here).
You don't have to have used a computer since the floppy era to recognise the floppy-save icon - anyone who's used a computer for more than ten minutes will know what it means, because pretty much every program uses it to represent the same function.
As an extension of that, any new LO users will be looking for a floppy-icon on the toolbar when they want to save their document, and will then have to re-scan it, looking at each icon and thinking 'what does this represent' until they find the one they want.
For buttons where users will have to do that anyway (no standard icon to represent the function) it's of course a good thing to have easily-identifiable icons - but with something as common as 'save' it's counterproductive, because users already know what icon they're looking for even if it doesn't make intrinsic sense.
Of course, it would be more intuitive to people who'd never used a computer before, but that'll be a tiny minority of new LO users, and it would still be inconsistent with its surrounding environment - users will still have to learn the meaning of a floppy-icon for every other program out there, and then remember that LO is different.

Floppy icon: Believe it or not, until I read you guys debating the topic, I would have been hard-pressed to name the usual icon used for "save". Floppy definitely would not have been my first guess. Then again, I "imprinted" on a DOS version of Word Perfect, so I've always viewed icons for common tasks to be screen real-estate wasters.

We'll have to disagree on the first thing - I really hate distracting animations. They're a great way to draw my attention to something I don't need to be looking at (because I did what it's telling me about; that's what caused the animation in the first place) and away from whatever the actual task was.

Agreed on the grey though. It didn't try to be 'beautiful' or 'interesting', it just sat there in a neutral way and avoided drawing attention to itself. Which is perfect.

Well, maybe we don't need to disagree, necessarily. With my icons example above, while I disable whichever toolbar contains the common actions right away, I like to keep other toolbars containing actions more specific to the program at hand visible for at least a little while until I am more familiar with the program's functionality and how to access it via hotkeys or menus. Would that be a viable approach for visual aids like my trash can animation example?