Re: [marketing] ODF desktop icons for OOo (without OOo branding ATM) - volunteers?
Hi Drew, * Drew Jensen schrieb: Juergen Schmidt wrote: [...] the key message of the icons is to strengthen the ODF brand. And that application independent! For ODF it is important that people understand the openness of the format, that it is based on a standard and that it can be used with different applications. From my point of view it makes really sense to have this unique icons for ODF files. And hopefully most often OpenOffice.org is the default app on the system to open these files. [FYI - I started this email a few days ago and some of the points have been made by others, but I wanted to comment so will just send it as is..] Could not agree more with that opinion, when the discussion is regarding mime file type icons. The value of branding the actual file types for ODF it seems to me is one of the most important steps to be performed at this point. OpenOffice.org, thanks to the work of many individuals and organizations, has achieved a strong name recognition. [...] Name recognition and market share are capital, and capital needs to be invested - an investment targeted to building an ODF brand like a winning proposition from even an OpenOffice.org centric perspective. I'm all with you on that point - branding ODF is good investment for OOo. (OK - I already wrote this several times and should not repeat myself too much...) The new file type icon set developed appears quite good to my eye; the lack, or singularity, of the color theme seems to me a good thing. Think Adobe here for their simple red themed PDF format. PDF is only one file type, the ODF file types differ much between each other. Recognition by their grey symbols might be not enough IMHO. Microsoft has already established a rather strong association between blue and doc file format - OK, we have a little different blue - works for me :) After all we want folks to refer to text documents and mean Open Document Text Documents...right. Not only text documents: With the new icons we refer to spreadsheets, presentations, databases too. There is no assiciation with blue - and users (especially the MS Office users we want to convince to move) await green, orange or crimson/violet colors for these file types. This could be solved with different colors for the ODF area, but it would reduce the strength of the ODF branding. I'd keep one color scheme for ODF branding (preferably colors not already associated with a certain file type - and the ODF logo already uses such colors: yellow and violet), but add the file type information otherwise. With the MS Offfice color similarities we used up to now people keep present associations - so why not add them (less prominent) to the icons? Another way would be using the different ODF file formats in the same style as branding elements: ODT ODF text document ODS ODF spreadsheet document ODP ODF presentation document ODG ODF graphics document and so on. The brackets symbolize the ODF origin as XML based file format, together with the repetitive usage of OD and the colored background this might give a sufficient association with ODF as the basis for different document file formats. That said, and just to be sure, there is no talk here of changing the icons displayed by the OpenOffice.org executables - in all their current and glorious color. I believe that's correct? I don't understand the reason to reduce the visual relation between application and document icons. The application icons are much less visible than the document icons: People tend to open a file directly instead of opening the application first and then open a document inside this program. I'd add the ODF badge to the application icons too - this shows that all the OOo applications support ODF, it keeps consistency between application and document icon and improves branding on both ODF and OOo. To me then the issue that is of concern is the start center. I really think that users will have no problem making a distinction, in their minds, between what we display in the start center and what we display in the operating system supplied functionality for file types. ( Explorer, Finder, Browser, etc ) At the moment the start center displays the document icons, but it might be discussed if they don't behave like the app icons: They open the apps with an empty document. So why not show the app icons instead? Once we found a common design for the document icons, the start center will have to get a new design - perhaps a new functionality too ... That does not mean I feel *strongly* that the current application icons must not be changed, or the actual start center graphics - if someone in the arts group wants to take a run at adding our current color theme to the proposed mime type icons for use in the start center I for one would love to see it. I don't see a reason for a third set of icons besides the app and the doc icons. (You know my
[marketing] marketing discussion on ODF document icons - collection of comments
Hi all, I tried to collect thoughts and opinions about the ODF mime type icons inside the marketing project. It seems to me that most of the people interested in this topic already posted their opinion, so I think we should go back on disc...@ux.ooo to find a common agreement on the different, partially opposite opinions. It is not easy to summarize the discussion on the marketing list, therefore I filled a list of topics and comments by the contributors to the discussion. If I misunderstood someone or changed the meaning of any posting by shortening it, please correct me - it was not on puropose. You'll find the list in the wiki: http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/File:ODF_icon_discussion_on_mk-dev.ods If I'll find the time I'm going to summarize the discussion during the next days. Best regards Bernhard - To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@marketing.openoffice.org For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@marketing.openoffice.org
Re: [marketing] ODF desktop icons for OOo
Peter Junge wrote (1-12-2009 8:18) General remark: I didn't find the time to read the whole discussion here, so I might reiterate things that have already been said. Anyway I think this discussion is mostly happening at the wrong place. As we have often emphasized OOo is not equal ODF. Consequently, a standardized set of icons for ODF should be specified and provided by the ODF Adoption TC at OASIS [1]. Subsequently the ODF Adoption TC would recommend the use of this icon set to the implementers and later measure the success of its work. True. Also it is understandable that the OpenOffice.org project spends some extra energy on the topic. But the more in coop. with ODF Adop TC, the better. Ciao - Cor -- Cor Nouws - nl.OpenOffice.org marketing contact - Community Contributor Representative in the Community Council Gevoel niet vrij te zijn? Zie www.nieuwsteversie.nl - To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@marketing.openoffice.org For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@marketing.openoffice.org
Re: [marketing] [Fwd: [releases] 3.2 New Features page]
I comprehend 'brain dead', John :-) Following is some alternative copy for your consideration, prefaced by explaining that only the text up to (my added) 'technical imrovements' heading has been revised... however the text following that (up to the snip) was left in place verbatim to include a formatting note on Proprietary File Types and the text on Writer wherein [as the brackets identify] there is a sentence that seems to me to make no sense smile. Also in the alternative text, note the addition of a footnote aimed most specifically at communicating accurate information to mainstream reporters, one of whom I heard on CNN the other day making comments regarding OpenSource ideologies which (I believe) were errantly based. Anyway, hope these comments prove useful. Glad my previous notes made sense. Thanks for all the pains you take to 'get it right'. ~Christine NEW CORE IMPROVEMENTS Faster start up times OpenOffice.org 3.2 Calc and Writer have both reduced 'cold start' time by 46% since version 3.0 was released just over a year ago. Enhanced ODF Support Open Document Format (ODF) standards, as promulgated by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)*, sets international compatibility criteria for the electronic/digital storage of documents. These standards recognize the importance of interoperability and intelligent information exchange and seek, for example, to ensure that office documents created today on any given computer system will be readable by other computer systems everywhere, including the technology of tomorrow. OpenOffice.org 3.2 has made great strides in compliance with ODF 1.2, including closer conformance to OASIS ODFF/OpenFormula specifications. Proprietary File Support OpenOffice.org 3.2 supports the import of password protected Microsoft Office XML files. (for a list of all supported file types, click here) [*footnote: The W3C is the main international standards organization for the World Wide Web. Founded and headed by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the consortium is made up of member organizations which maintain full-time staff for the purpose of working together in the development of standards for the World Wide Web. W3C also engages in education and outreach, develops software and serves as an open forum for discussion about the Web. As of 8 September 2009, the W3C has 356 members. In accord of this ongoing improvement process, on November 13, 2009, Mary P McRae, Director, Standards Development and Technical Committee Administration OASIS, initiated the public review procedure for Part 3 of the OpenDocument Format 1.2 specification.] TECHNICAL IMPROVEMENTS As OpenOffice.org 3.2 currently requires a superset of the ODF 1.2 specification, the software now warns users when ODF 1.2 Extended features have been used. The document integrity check now proves whether an ODF document conforms to the ODF specification (this mainly affects ODF 1.2 documents). If an inconsistency is found, the document is treated as a broken one, and OpenOffice.org offers to repair the document. Proprietary File Support OpenOffice.org 3.2 supports the import of password protected Microsoft Office XML files. All document types are supported that are handled by the MSO XML import filters: - MS Word 2007 documents (*.docx, *.docm) - MS Word 2007 templates (*.dotx, *.dotm) - MS Excel 2007 documents (*.xlsx, *.xlsm) - MS Excel 2007 binary documents (*.xlsb) - MS Excel 2007 templates (*.xltx, *.xltm) - MS Powerpoint 2007 documents (*.pptx, *.pptm) - MS Powerpoint 2007 templates (*.potx, *.potm). [NOTE: This would be easier to read as a bulleted list.] Encryption support within the Microsoft Word 97/2000/XP filter allows password protected Microsoft Word documents to be saved (using the Microsoft Office standard RC4 algorithm). Filters for AportisDoc and PocketWord now support type detection based on DocType. As a result, files in these formats can be loaded without explicitly selecting the document type in the file picker. When writing string data to SYLK files, embedded double quotes are no longer escaped by doubling; semicolons are now escaped by doubling. This improves compatibility with files created by other applications. Support for Postscript based OpenType fonts There are many high quality commercial and free OpenType fonts that are based on Postscript outlines. They are now supported for formatting, printing, PDF-export and display. Writer Autocorrect word completion Writer can remember permanently any additions to the autocorrect list collected while working on a document. [A new CheckBox When closing a document, remove the words collected from it from the list makes this functionality more obvious.] snip - Original Message - From: John McCreesh jp...@openoffice.org To: dev@marketing.openoffice.org Sent: Friday, December 04, 2009 2:56 AM Subject: Re: [marketing] [Fwd: [releases] 3.2 New Features page] On Thu, December 3, 2009
