Starting Office - UI and Feature Spec

applies to StarOffice 7 / OpenOffice.org 1.1
status: final v1.1, 11/05/03

Version History

11/27/02	MMP	Matthias Müller-Prove	first draft
11/28/02	EM	Elizabeth Matthis	Linguistic review
11/29/02	MMP		New Application menu structure for Gnome and other UNIX desktops
12/02/02	MMP		6.3: progress indicator for splash screen
12/03/02	FL	Frank Loehmann	Spec Review Done
12/06/02	MMP		minor changes
12/09/02	MMP		7: on Windows enable Repair option in SetUp 4: added StarOffice 6.1. Setup menu item for Gnome Application menu
2/10/03	MMP		4: specifications for CDE desktop
4/16/03	MMP		4.4 CDE Panel 5: soffice w/o parameters
5/27/03	MMP		changes because of Snowwhite. Replace “6.1” with “7”
5/28/03	CJ	Christian Jansen	Snowwhite changes reviewed
6/12/03	MMP		Future Tasks
7/8/03	MMP		changed reference to illistration 3 in section 4.1
07/14/03	MMP		Chapter 4: “StarOffice 7 Setup” is no longer part of the Application menu for Gnome, KDE
07/17/03	MMP		New section 3.2 Mercury
11/05/03	NNP		3.2 Mercury : added note to document a different implementation

Abstract

Improve the user experience on starting StarOffice by adding new commands to the Start menus. Additionally the splash screen displays a progress bar to provide feedback on the progress of the launch process.

Table of Contents

1 TaskIDs	3

2 Windows	3

2.1 Windows Start Menu	3

2.2 Windows Quickstarter	4

3 Solaris/Linux	5

3.1 Gnome Application Menu	5

3.2 Java Desktop System (fka Mercury)	6

3.3 KDE Application Menu	6

3.4 CDE Panel	7

4 Command Line Interface	7

5 Interaction	7

5.1 Startup Behavior	7

5.2 Open Document	8

5.3 From Template	8

6 Setup	9

7 Future Tasks	9

8 References	9

TaskIDs

#105740 : Windows Start menu

#105512 : Gnome++ Application menu

#105723 : Quickstarter

#105845 : Show progress in splash screen

#106122 : StarOffice Setup for Windows

#108971 : CDE panel

#108972 : CLI for soffice

#110208 : Mercury Launch menu item

Windows

Windows Start Menu

The Windows Start menu for StarOffice 7 gets two new items. From Template and Open Document.

The three Start menu items Formulas, Master Document and StarOffice 7 Setup are no longer part of the Geordi installation.

The order of items is:

menu title	comment
Text Document	
Spreadsheet	
Presentation	New position
Drawing	New position
HTML Document	
From Template	New item
Open Document	New item

The order of items is triggered by the order of item in the registry file. Some older Windows versions do not use this information and display the items in alphabetical order.

Illustration 1 New items "From Template" and "Open Document" (Start menu item should be “StarOffice 7”)

String List

string	German translation	comment
From Template	Aus Vorlage	Menu item for Start Menu
Open Document	Dokument öffnen	Menu item for Start Menu

Windows Quickstarter

In order do be consistent with the Start menu items some items of the Quickstarter have to be renamed.

Illustration 2 Quickstarter menu

String List

string	German translation	comment
From Template	Aus Vorlage	Was “From Template...”
Open Document	Dokument öffnen	Was “Open File...”

Solaris/Linux

Gnome Application Menu

The StarOffice application menu for Gnome gets a new item StarOffice 7 Open Document. The folders Other, AutoPilots and Information and Setup are no longer part of the menu. The position of the menu is Application>Office. The order of items is:

menu title	comment
StarOffice 7 Text Document	
StarOffice 7 Spreadsheet	
StarOffice 7 Presentation	New position
StarOffice 7 Drawing	New position
StarOffice 7 HTML Document	
StarOffice 7 From Template	
StarOffice 7 Open Document	New item
StarOffice 7 Printer Administration	New position

“StarOffice 7 Setup” is not part of the menu.

Illustration 3 StarOffice 7 Application menu for Gnome 2.0 ( Note, StarOffice 6.1 should be “StarOffice 7”)

Note: Currently it is not possible to define a proper order under Gnome 2.0.

Java Desktop System (fka Mercury)

Whenever possible this item should create a new StarOffice Writer document; regardless of the state of the application (running, not running) and regardless of the collection of open documents. Only exception is a modal state of StarOffice (e.g. a pending Templates & Documents dialog). In this case the creation of the new document is postponed until the user leaves the modal state of the application. If no Writer module is installed the StarOffice icon in the StartMenu creates a document of the next present module -- same as a call to soffice would do.)

The icon to use is the StarOffice application icon as specified by STS: http://staroffice-doc.germany.sun.com:8080/Teams/StarOffice_Applications/Extras/CI/new_logo/logo_icons.html

Note:

The Java Desktop System (fka Mercury) calls the “Templates and Documents” dialog. cf. [Mercury]

KDE Application Menu

The KDE desktop should also comply to this specification.

CDE Panel

On CDE the StarOffice/OpenOffice.org document icon gets displayed in the CDE panel. A click calls “soffice -writer” that opens SO/OOo Writer. The popup menu is the same as in Illustration 3 – but the application name and version number is omitted. It is not necessary to to have an item “StarOffice 7” in the menu.

Command Line Interface

Command	action
soffice (w/o parameters)	Launch SO/OOo into backing window state

Interaction

Startup Behavior

In order to give feedback to the user that StarOffice is still starting up the splash screen displays a progress bar.

Illustration 4 Splash screen with progress indicator (mockup)

The sequence is as follows:

> open splash (without empty progress indicator)
> after about 4 seconds start to show progress indicator in splash
> close splash (progress indicator has reached 100%)
> open first StarOffice window

The StarOffice window is the document window of the required component.

If the StarOffice/OpenOffice.org does not start with a document window the splash is closed before the first dialog window is displayed. The following to sections describe the details for the Open Document startup and the Templates startup behavior.

Open Document

If StarOffice is not running Open Document opens StarOffice and displays immediately after the splash screen the Open dialog. A Cancel in this dialog exits StarOffice. The sequence is as follows:

> open splash
> close splash
> open dialog

If StarOffice is already running Open Document opens the Open dialog. A Cancel simply dismisses the dialog.

Technical note

The Open dialog is modal.This has the effect that if the user ignores the Open dialog and chooses another item of the Start/Application menu nothing will happen until the user dismisses the Open dialog.

From Template

If StarOffice is not running From Template opens StarOffice and displays immediately after the splash screen the Templates and Document – New Document dialog. A Cancel in this dialog exits StarOffice. The sequence is as follows:

> open splash
> close splash
> open dialog

If StarOffice is already running From Template opens the Templates and Document – New Document dialog. A Cancel simply dismisses the dialog.

Setup

Due to the changes in the Windows Start menu the StarOffice Setup application can no longer be startet here. If the user wants to change or remove a StarOffice installation she is required to go to the Windows control panel Add or Remove Programs. The entry for StarOffice 7 offers 2 choices.

The Change button starts the StarOffice Setup and preselects the Modify option. The Repair option is activated too, and can be selected by the user. The Remove option is disabled.

The Remove button starts the StarOffice Setup and preselects the Remove option. The options Change and Repair are disabled.

Future Tasks

Order of items in Windows Start Menu should be fixed for Q (c.f. iBIS 105740)

References

Backing window is specified in “File Close Bahavior” at <http://staroffice-doc.germany.sun.com:8080/Teams/StarOffice_Coordination/Product_Management/Development/HCI/Star/Geordi/UISpecs/FileCloseSpec.sxw>

Gnome menu integration by Suzanna Smith at http://hci.eng.sun.com/desktop/branding/so_menu_integration.html

Changing the Version Number (Snowwhite) at <http://staroffice-doc.germany.sun.com:8080/Projects/StarOffice/SO_6.x/Proposals/Drafts/ranaming/snowwhite.sxw>

[Mercury] Desktop Configuration Specification Project Mercury, Standard Edition Specification version 1.4, August 18, 2003 http://webhome.sfbay/dbaigent/docs/DesktopSpecs/

Starting Office - UI and Feature Spec	8

8	Starting Office - UI and Feature Spec

<!--StartFragment-->

<!-- SELECT SystemId,Id,State,Submitter,Owner,Reported_by,Title,Type,Status,Target,Prio,Platform,Submitdate,Ver_bug_fixed,Dev_Notes,BugtraqId,Unlock FROM view_task (NOLOCK) WHERE 1=2 OR ( systemid=1 AND id IN (101350))

-->

<!--EndFragment-->

Starting Office - UI and Feature Spec

User Interface Specification

Matthias Müller-Prove

2002-05-03T10:31:00

Matthias Müller-Prove