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List:       koffice-devel
Subject:    Re: KOffice 2.2, usability and the Q4 sprint
From:       "C. Boemann" <cbo () boemann ! dk>
Date:       2009-09-02 7:48:14
Message-ID: 200909020948.14856.cbo () boemann ! dk
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I find myself strongly agreeing with Inge's arguments. For the health of the 
KOffice project in terms of user appreciation I feel that ui is much more 
important than API review.

I think a dual track as suggested by Inge is the right way to approach this. 

best regards
Casper

On Wednesday 02 September 2009 09:33:35 Inge Wallin wrote:
> On Wednesday 02 September 2009 09:10:59 Jos van den Oever wrote:
> > A good API and stable software without bugs is much more important 
than a
> > nice and friendly UI.
>
> That is where we disagree.  Your point of view is a developers.  I'm trying
> to look at the users.
>
> > A nice UI is no use if it renders and edits documents
> > wrong.
>
> That is wrong in two ways. First, you mix API with implementation.  The 
API
> can be crap but the implementation still correct or vice versa.  the
> correctness was never up for discussion until you brought it up here.
> Second a UI is frozen over a minor release, but errors in rendering can be
> fixed by bugfix releases. I agree that bugs are bad, but that doesn't have
> much to do with how the UI looks and works.
>
> > 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.
>
> I maintain that not focusing on user interface now will make KOffice 2.2
> not ready for end users.  Do you and Thomas thus advocate that we 
move the
> "user ready" stamp to 2.3?
>
> In the choice between making the API stable and getting end users, I 
would
> actually choose the end users. I think you put far too much faith in that a
> stable API will get us external developers.  The ones who work within
> KOffice will not be affected by if we move the freezing of the API's to
> 2.3, only external ones will.  More to the point, I think that if somebody
> develops an external shape and we do change the flake API, they can 
adapt
> pretty easily. An end user who tries out KOffice and finds it cumbersome 
to
> use will not be back soon.
>
> 	-Inge
>
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