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List:       koffice-devel
Subject:    Re: KOffice 2.2, usability and the Q4 sprint
From:       Jos van den Oever <Jos.van.den.Oever () kogmbh ! com>
Date:       2009-09-02 7:10:59
Message-ID: 200909020910.59178.Jos.van.den.Oever () kogmbh ! com
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On Wednesday 02 September 2009 08:16:30 am Thomas Zander wrote:
> On Tuesday 1. September 2009 22.23.45 Inge Wallin wrote:
> > I doubt that, actually.   A vision that is so vague that it can't be
> > described in text is hardly a vision at all.
>
> Ah, you don't remember ;)
>
> http://dot.kde.org/2006/06/05/koffice-20-vision
>
> I personally am not convinced by your email; getting Celeste there doesn't
> make people have more time for user interfaces or re-prioritize their tasks
> to fix not-great UIs before missing essential features.
> Even something as simple as designing which (default) tools can be grouped
> and which not is not being done for months now. People rather have an ugly
> 11 toolbuttons main section in the taskbar.

A good API and stable software without bugs is much more important than a nice 
and friendly UI. A nice UI is no use if it renders and edits documents wrong. 
Currently KOffice needs a lot of work on making sure that ODF and MS Office files 
are supported properly and to have a framework where we avoid regressions and 
can monitor progress. The current development model is fragile. We see 
regressions and crashes and do not have a good enough way of ensuring quality. 
I think quality monitoring is a topic more important than user interface or 
API, although discussing a good API and learning from the trolls how to make 
and maintain one will help a lot in ensuring quality.

Focusing on UI design in the current state is disruptive. Once we have good 
library, it will be easier to design and even implement many UIs on top of it. 
This is not the time for working on the user interface. We are going to Oslo 
to be close to knowledgeable trolls. Let us make use of this opportunity. 
Flying everybody to Oslo is not cheap on expenses or the environment and flying 
in a  UI designer from across the ocean at time when we should be working on 
other parts of KOffice is not productive. 

Cheers,
Jos

-- 
Jos van den Oever, software architect
+49 391 25 19 15 53
http://kogmbh.com/legal/
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