[tdf-discuss] Re: [libreoffice-design] Breaking out of the box (applications versus objects)

Hi Greg, *,

yes I read it all and I'm fully with you. But what you are proposing here
is not a Design choice it's a general choice and should be on the discuss
Mailinglist from libreoffice. discuss@documentfoundation.org

What I can say is that for the moment they have all the different
applications work with shared scripts and all, to minimize the data they
use. (I'm not going further because I'm not quit sure)

I have forwarded this mail ;-)

Houbsi

On Fri, 28 Jan 2011 00:44:46 +0000, "noh.way.jose"
<noh.way.jose@dsl.pipex.com> wrote:
> I'm new to this community, so please forgive me if the topic I'd like to 
> discuss has already been aired.
>
> To set the scene, first a bit of summarised, probably partisan and
probably
> only partially accurate context. I point this out because I wouldn't want
> the 
> thread to spin off into pedantic historic details and corrections.
>
> Having been around the computer industry for many years now, I have kept 
> abreast of computing advancements by reading the industry news,
developing 
> products and using them. A pattern of acquisitions, mergers,aggregations,
> best 
> practice, standards and plain copying has been going on so relentlessly
> that I 
> believe that the fruits of these enterprises no longer adequately meet
> users 
> needs as well as can be. 
>
> The original modern interface (Xerox Star) didn't differentiate by
> application 
> but by  objects familiar to users. The application rot started with the 
> commercial versions of this approach but really got application centric
> with 
> Windows '95. My rough recollection is that MS Office started as a bunch
of 
> acquisitions that map pretty much to the applications we see now, whether
> MS, 
> OOO or LO. That is; a word processor, a presentation manager, a
spreadsheet
> and a database. Leaving the DB out of the argument for the moment, as a
non
> presentation centric technology, I'd like to propose Libre Office
consider
> a 
> mid to long term strategy to ditch the artificial boundaries between 
> applications. Let us return to the idea of supporting users' needs
without 
> filtering them through artificial application capabilities!
>
> Instead of applications, let's have a document, a variety of choices of 
> rendering the document (print, screen, presentation, web, edit,
> collaborative 
> edit, &c.) and tools. The tools can still be categorised, but not as they
> are 
> in applications, where the application is a hard boundary. The tools here

> could all be used, irrespective of the presentation mechanism.
> Categorisation 
> of the tools need only be done as a means to support user tasks, perhaps
> along 
> multiple dimensions, using tags. This proposal means only having to
develop
> a 
> tool once and allowing the concurrent availability of tools that the 
> artificial applications boundaries would normally exclude. For example,
DTP
> tools, such as layout grids and text flow, which could be used alongside
> more 
> traditional word processing tools in documents, presentations and other 
> formats.
>
> Of course, the toolset and the rendering mechanisms could be extended in
a 
> modular way, making the development time-line much more appropriate to an
> open 
> source community, with competition for tool developers to build a better
> tool. 
> If the core design team act in an editorial and standards capacity, then
> the 
> result can hang together seamlessly. (Apple seems to have cracked this a
> bit 
> ;o)
>
> Enough rambling from me. I'd be really interested to see if there's
anyone 
> else who gets what I'm on about and whether there's enough interest to
> start 
> investigating in more detail. If on the other hand you think I've got it
> all 
> wrong, I'm happy to defend my views or admit defeat, depending on the 
> feedback.
>
> If you read this far, well done :o)
>
> Cheers,
>
> Greg

-- 
Mike Houben
UI - Coding - Animation 

http://www.crazyhstudio.net

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