Task Pane Specification

OpenOffice.org 2.0

Document - ID	Specification Owner	Last Change	Status
	Christian Jansen	March 08, 2005	Final
Conforms to	
Applies to	Impress, but in future all modules
Task ID(s)	20056
Category	Feature

Abstract

The Task Pane is a window which gives users access to commonly used commands. The Task Pane is organized into a number of tabs which are arranged from the top to the bottom. Each pane can also be sub divided in sub task sections. A pane can provide for example access to presentation AutoLayouts (changes the layout of the selected slide.). These can be applied from the presentation by using drag & drop.

i-Team Members

	Name	E-mail Address
User Experience	Christian Jansen (CJ)	Christian.jansen@sun.com
Development	André Fischer (AF)	Andre.w.fischer@sun.com
Quality Assurance	Wolfram Garten (WG)	Wolfram.garten@sun.com
Documentation	Uwe Fischer (UFI)	Uwe.fischer@sun.com

Approved for Implementation

	Approved by	Date
Development	André Fischer	November 22, 2003
Quality Assurance	Wolfram Garten	November 20, 2003
Documentation	Uwe Fischer	November 17, 2003
String Review	Elizabeth Matthis	July 22, 2005

Document Change History

Rev. Level	Change	Initials	Date
1.0	Intial specification	CJ	22/10/2003
1.1	Updated based on prototypes	CJ	11/14/2003
1.2	Panes in disabled state specificed	CJ	12/27/2004
1.3	Closing behaviour of opened panes changed	CJ	March 8, 2005

Contents

Glossary	1

1	Motivation	1

2	User Scenarios	1

3	Goals	1

4	Requirements and Dependencies	2

4.1	Requirements	2

4.2	Technical Dependencies	2

5	Competitive Analysis	2

5.1	Microsoft Task Pane	2

5.2	Mozilla	3

6	Detailed Specification	5

6.1	The Title Area	6

6.2	Tasks Panel Containers	7

6.3	The Task Container	8

6.4	Applying commands	10

6.5	Visual Design	11

6.6	Key Board Shortcuts	12

6.7	Accessibility	13

6.8	Task Panes in Disabled State	14

6.9	Error Conditions	15

7	Future Tasks	15

8	Notes	15

9	References	16

Glossary

Term	Description
Task Pane	The Task Pane is a floater like window which stored Task Containers
Task Container Title Tab	This is the click area for opening or closing a Task Container. The Task Container Title Tab displays also the name of the Task Container
Task Container	A dialog like pane which gives users access commonly used command or actions
Sub Task Container	Every Task Container can be divided into sub section these sub sections are called Sub Task Container.

Motivation

The motivation for this feature is to enhance the speed of accomplishing tasks.

User Scenarios

User A, an inexperienced presentation program user creates a presentation which is based on a company presentation template. The presentation shall contain some clip-art to pepp it up.

In OpenOffice.org 1.1 the users has to open the template and to fill it with content. Than for adding the clip arts the user has to find the gallery or, if special company related clip arts are needed the method of getting images into OpenOffice.org. Adding images is in general done by inserting them via Insert -> Graphics ->From File.

User B, an experienced presentation program user, wants to apply animations to objects and some transition effects to the presentation slides. The users has to open the template and to fill it with content. For applying slide transition effects the user has to search in the menus for Slide Transition. Same for applying Animations. In both cases a dialog appears from where the user can apply effects.

Goals

The goal for OpenOffice.org 2.0 is to provide a tool which gives users the possibility to apply frequently used used commands without the hassle of searching for them in menus or tool bars. Like it can be read in the User Scenario examples, nowadays users have to navigate thru different dialogs for adding images or effect to slides. A Task Pane combines such dialogs into one single window. The most important advantage of a Task Pane is that everything what users generally need are located at one prominent place.

Requirements and Dependencies

Requirements

Provide a tool which gives users the possibility to apply frequently used commands without the hassle of searching them in menus or tool bars.

Technical Dependencies

N/a

Competitive Analysis

Microsoft Task Pane

The Microsoft Office Task Pane is called “Task Pane” (Figure 1). It is located by default on the right hand side of an application window (exceptions are Publisher & Visio the place their Task Pane on the left hand side). The Task pane is some kind of large tool bar which provides commonly used commands. The Task Pane is by default docked. It can be undocked by dragging the whole task pane. Like toolbars the Task Pane is equipped with a drag area. The visibility can be toggled from the “Task Pane” command located in the View menu. It is also possible to close the Task Pane by clicking the “X” -closer. Under Office XP not possible to toggle the visibility by pressing a Keyboard shortcut.

At the top of a docked Task Pane there is a title bar. The title bar is clustered into four sections (from left to right):

Back and Forward buttons for making the next Task Pane visible.

The name of the Task Pane which is currently visible.

A drop down menu which reveals all available Task Panes.

A closer which closes the Task Pane.

Right below the title area starts the “main Task Pane” from where users can access the commonly used commands.

Office XP provides in all applications a set of standard task panes and application dependent a set of additional panes. The table below list the panes:

Application ->	Word	Excel	PowerPoint	Access	Publisher	Front Page
Task Pane						
Getting Started Pane	X	X	X	X	X	X
New (File, Document, Presentation...)	X	X	X	X	X	X
Clipboard	X	X	X	X	X	X
Search	X	X	X	X	X	X
Insert Clip Art	X	X	X		X	
Slide Layout			X			
Slide Design – Design Templates			X			
Slide Design – Color Schemes			X			
Slide Design – Animation Schemes			X			
Custom Animation			X			
Slide Transition			X			
Quick Publication Designs						X
Publication Designs						X
Color Schemes						X
Font Schemes						X
Styles & Formatting	X					X
Mail Merge	X					
Reveal Formatting	X					
Translate	X					X

Figure 1 Screen shot of the PowerPoint XP Task Pane.

Mozilla

Mozillas Task Pane (Figure 2) is called “My Sidebar”. It is located at the left hand side of Mozilla and can't be moved or get undocked. The sidebar can be made visible by pressing F9 or by going to the main menu and there by choosing from “View / Show/Hide” the Sidebar menu command.

The Sidebar organized into a number of tabs which are arranged from the top to the bottom within the Sidebar-container. The client area associated with a tab comes visible by clicking a tab. When the mouse pointer is positioned over a tab it gets highlighted.

Figure 2 Screen shot of the Mozilla Sidebar

The Sidebar provides a title area which contains the name of the control, a menu and a closer. The menu, named “Tabs” is located between the title and the closer. It is used to give users an entry point from where they can customize the Sidebar. Customize allows users to add or remove tabs. One neat thing is that users can install additional tabs from a web page (e.g. http://dmoz.org/Netscape/Sidebar/). If users add more than eight tabs to My Sidebar, Mozilla hides the remaining tabs to reduce clutter. To scroll through hidden tabs, users have to click the down arrow button at the bottom of My Sidebar until they see the desired tab. Clicking the up arrow button scrolls up again. These buttons appear omly when more than eight tab are assigned to the Sidebar.

Hiding tabs is possible by right clicking a tab title and than selecting “Hide tab” or by unchecking the tab listed in the “Tabs” menu located in the title area of the Sidebar.

Reorganization of the tabs is also possible. For doing this users have to go to the Customize dialog. From there order of the Sidebar tabs can be changed by using the up or down buttons.

Detailed Specification

The OpenOffice Task Pane (Figure 4) shall be located at the right hand side of OpenOffice.org. By default the Pane is docked. Users can can change the state from docked to float like it is possible with tool bars.

The Task Pane can be docked on the left hand side, on the right hand side, at the top or at the bottom.

Tool bar Task Panel Docking Area Status bar Figure 3 Task Pane docking areas

The Task Pane is divided into four areas.

Title Area

Task Container Title Tab

Task Container

Sub Task Container

Figure 4 The OpenOffice.org Task Pane is divided into four parts.

Due to the concept of using tab like user interface there will be one container being opened at a time. It is not possible to close all tabs. By default a “Getting Started Pane” is displayed. From the “Getting Started Pane” users can perform commonly used task like “File Open” or having access to a “Recently Used”
file list.

The visibility of the Task Pane can be toggled by pressing CTRL & F1, by clicking the Task Pane command located in the View menu. Every module of OpenOffice.org which comes with a Task Pane has to have this menu entry located at the same place. Figure 5 below shows the exact position.

	View	
	....	
	Task Pane	
	Tool bars >	
	...	

Figure 5 New Task Pane entry in the View menu.

String list

Item	English	German	Comments
Menu Item	Task Pane	Aufgabenbereich	

The Title Area

The Title Area (Figure 6) provides a drag indicator from where users can release the docked pane and move it around to the place of their belongings. Next to the drag indicator there is the title of the window located. In this case “Task Pane”.A drop down menu is next. This menu gives users access to Task Pane customization features and to options for modifying the state of the Task Pane. The “X” located at the end of the Title Area allows users to close the Task Pane Window.

Figure 6 Sketch of the Task Pane title area.

Item	English	German	Comments
Menu Item	Task Pane	Aufgabenbereich	

The menu reveals first the Panes available for each application, than follows a list of commands which modify the state of the whole Task Pane. The table below lists the content and order of the menu.

Menu Item	Description
Task Container 1	Toggles the visibility of Task Container 1
Task Container 2	Toggles the visibility of Task Container 2
...	....
Separator	
Undock Task Pane	Active when docked, inactive when floated; selecting this item changes the Task Pane state to float.
Dock Task Pane	Active when floated, inactive when docked; Selecting this item docks the Task Pane at the
Separator	
Close Task Pane	Close the Task Pane

String list

see section 6.3: http://specs.openoffice.org/impress/multipane/MultiPaneGUI.sxw

Tasks Pane Containers

The OpenOffice.org Task Pane is organized into a number of tabs which are arranged from the top to the bottom. The client areas are associated with a tabbed like dialog called Task container. The content of a Task container comes visible by clicking its associated Task Container Title Tab. When the mouse pointer is positioned over a Task Container Title Tab it gets highlighted and the mouse pointer changes to a hand shaped pointer (Figure 5).

The action are as follows:

Clicking the tab once - opens the associated Task Container. To visualize that the selected Task Container is opened the triangle located in front of the Task Container Title Tab name changes its direction. Instead of pointing to the right it points to the bottom. Additionally the name of the Task Container turns bold. Clicking the tab of an already opened Task Container leaves the container in open state. For closing the opened container users have to choose another Task Container.

Figure 7 Visualization of mouse over when pointer is over a pane tab.

The Task Container

The Task Container is a dialog like pane. These Container appear in a modern “Web-like” user interface. The Container can handle all kind of controls like the are used in other dialogs of OpenOffice.org. In general it is recommended to change the border style of controls from 3D to 2D. This assures a more state of the art look (Design of the control used in the Task Container can be found in Chapter: XXXXXX).

For example a “Getting Started” pane can be sub divided into section like.

Open a document

MRU list

New

Text document

Spreadsheet

...

New From template

Templates

If needed the Task Container can be divided into so called Sub Task Containers. A Sub Task Containers Works in the same way like the open and close mechanism of the Task Contain. These Sub Task Containers can be minimized or maximized by clicking the Sub Task Containers title (Figure 6). When the content of a Task Container needs more space in height as the Task Container currently is a scroll bar appears. (Figure 7). To intensify users feed back of what Sub Task Containers will be opened the mouse pointer changes while an Mouse Over of a title from a pointer to a hand shaped form. The background of the title gets additionally highlighted. The title of opened Sub Task Containers are highlighted also, but a little bit darker. OpenOffice.org uses for the highlighting effects in the Sub Task Containers the same the same colors and the same transparency values as they are used in the Hyperlink-dialog.

State	Transparency of Selected Items Color
Mouse Over Title	80%
Selected Sub Task Container	70 %

Figure 8 Mouse over effects when the mouse is located over a Sub-container title

Figure 9 Task Pane equipped with sub-containers (here called Task Sections) When the content of the Task Pane needs more space as the task pane is a scroll bar will appear.

Applying commands

The Task Pane is like other docking windows a non modal dialog. Commands can be applied directly to an selected item, this means no OK or Apply button has to be pressed. A lot of commands shall be applied by using a context menu or by using drag & drop. For example applying AutoLayouts to a presentation can be applies by dragging a small thumbnail of the AutoLayout to the current presentation slide or by applying it via context menu.

Due to the fact that it is not evident to the users what can be dragged and what not, the mouse pointer changes it shape while it is located over an item which can be dragged. Figure 8 shows a mock-up of how the mouse pointer changes.

Figure 10 Visualization of Drag & Drop.

Visual Design

To provide a modern look the Task Pane appears in a flat 2D style. The table below list the control how they look in OpenOffice.org 1.1 and how they look shall look for using in the Task Pane. By default the Task Container background shall be 85 % lighter than the dialog color is.

OpenOffice.org 1.1	Platform Native Style in this case Windows XP

Key Board Shortcuts

The Task Pane is fully keyboard accessible. The Table below lists the keyboard shortcuts used for the Task Pane.

Keyboard Shortcut	Action
CTRL+F1	Opens the Task Pane or hides the Task Pane
F6	Moves to the Task Pane (The Title Area gets an darker shade)
CTRL+TAB	Moves to the Task Pane (The Title Area gets an darker shade)
TAB	After entering the Task Pane: The first pane below the Title Area will be select.
TAB	On a Pane Tab or Task Section: Selects the next Pane Tab/Task Section below.
SHIFT+TAB	On a Pane Tab or Task Section: Selects the Pane Tab/Task Section before; if not available jumps the the last Pane Tab/ Task Section
SPACEBAR	Performs the action assigned to a selected button
CTRL+SPACEBAR	Opens the “Pane” menu of the Task Pane
+	On a Pane Tab or Task Section Divider: Opens the Pane Tab/Task Section and the focus jumps to the first item in the Task Pane (NOTE: Should be discussed and tested)
-	On a Pane Tab or Task Section:Closes the Pane Tab/ Task Section
ARROW RIGHT	On a Pane Tab or Task Section:Opens the Pane Tab/ Task Section
ARROW LEFT	On a Pane Tab or Task Section:Closes the Pane Tab/ Task Section
ALT+HOME	Goes directly to the “Getting Started Task Pane”, Pane will be opened and focus is on first item in Task Pane
RETURN	Performs the action assigned to a selected button
ESC	Exits a control, the Task Pane, or the whole Task Pane
SHIFT+F10	Opens the context menu to the selected button
PAGE UP	Scrolls up in the selected Task Pane
PAGE DOWN	Scrolls down in the selected Task Pane
CTRL+HOME	Moves to the top of the selected Task Pane
CTRL+END	Moves to the bottom of the selected Task Pane

Accessibility

Like all other areas in Openoffice.org the Task pane has to be accessible, too. The Title Area, the Task Container Title Tab, the Task Container and Sub Task Container have accessible names they are listed below:

Accessible Names String List

Item	English	German	Comments
Task Pane	Task Pane	Aufgabenbereich	
Task Container Title Tab	Title Tab	Registerkartentitel	EM->AF: this string is not in the resource database, please delete here if not used.
Task Container	Task Area	Aufgabenbereich	EM->AF: this string is not in the resource database, please delete here if not used.
Sub Task Container	Sub Task Area	Aufagenunterbereich	this string is not in the resource database, please delete here if not used.

In High Contrast-mode the user interface of the Task Pane change in a way that only the most important items are displayed in a bright color. Figure 9 shows the differences between Normal-mode and High Contrast.

. Figure 11 Task Pane in Normal-mode and in High contrast.

Task Panes in Disabled State

Task panes can also be disabled. For example, if whole pane does not fit to a context. In this case the following items shall appear in disable state.

The whole content of the pane,

The scroll bar,

and nothing within the pane shall be selectable

The only item which stays active is the title tab.

Figure 12 shows an example of a disabled pane.

Figure 12 Example of a disabled pane

Error Conditions

Currently no error messages are needed.

Future Tasks

-

Notes

-

References

Specification of the Mozilla Sidebar:
http://www.mozilla.org/projects/ui/communicator/framework/sidebar/

The values listed in this table here are not final

Required - Give references to related documentation, such as engineering designs, technical specs, and other sources for related units. Also include links to documents that other sections in this spec need to refer to, such as user opinions usability test reports.

Task Pane Specification

Page 16

http://specs.openoffice.org/ui_in_general/task_panel/task_panel_spec.sxw

Christian Jansen

2003-10-22T13:29:09

Elizabeth Matthis