Automatic Scrolling Behavior

OpenOffice.org 3.0 Writer

Document - ID	Specification Owner	Last Change	Status
	Matthias Müller-Prove	02/02/05	draft
Conforms to	
Applies to	OOo Writer
Task ID(s)	i53167
Category	Feature

Abstract

OpenOffice.org 1.1 does not keep the speed of autoscrolling on a reasonable rate. Users that do drag&drop or extended selections with the mouse easily overshoot the target position. This spec defines the regions where autoscrolling can be initiated and the speed of the scroll action.

i-Team Members

	Name	E-mail Address
User Experience	Matthias Müller-Prove /MMP	mprove@sun.com
Development	Oliver Specht /OS	oliver.specht@sun.com
Quality Assurance	Stefan Balzer /SBA	stefan.balzer@sun,com
Documentation	Frank Peters /FPE	fpe@sun.com
		mail to iTeam

Approved for Implementation

	Approved by	Date
User Experience		<Date>
Development		<Date>
Quality Assurance		<Date>
Documentation		<Date>
String Review	n/a	n/a

Document Change History

Rev. Level	Change	Initials	Date
1.0		MMP	<DD/MM/YY>
	task created	MMP	08/10/05

Contents

Glossary	1

1	Motivation	1

2	User Scenarios	1

3	Goals	1

4	Requirements and Dependencies	1

4.1	Requirements	1

4.2	Technical Dependencies	1

5	Competitive Analyses	1

5.1	Apple Human Interface Guidelines	1

6	Detailed Specification	2

7	Future Tasks	2

8	Notes	2

9	References	2

Glossary

Term	Description
autoscrolling	scrolling of the document view without using the scroll bar controls.

Motivation

<What is the reason for pursuing this project?>

User Scenarios

A user likes to drag and drop a selection to a position in text that is currently not displayed in the view. She starts the drag action and moves the mouse close to the top area of the windows to initiate the autoscrolling behavior. She watches the document move by and move the mouse back from the region if her target area comes into view.

Goals

<The goals section must be short but also provide a clear statement of the goals, to achieve with this feature, project or task. A clear statement in this section gives Development, Quality Assurance and Documentation guidance.>

Requirements and Dependencies

Requirements

<State the requirement(s) of this feature here.>

Technical Dependencies

<Are there any technical dependencies for this feature? Does the implementation of this feature create any technical dependencies to other program parts?>

Competitive Analyses

Apple Human Interface Guidelines

Apples guidelines state about automatic scrolling [AppleHIG] (highlighting by the author):

When the user moves the pointer past the edge of the window while holding down the mouse button to make an extended selection, scroll the document automatically in the direction the pointer moves. The rate of scrolling can be the same as if the user were pressing on the corresponding scroll arrow. In some cases, it makes sense to vary the scrolling speed so that it is faster as the user moves the pointer farther away from the window edge.

Apple points out the following on automatic scrolling [AquaHIG, p215] (highlighting by the author):

When an item is being dragged, your application must determine whether to scroll the contents or allow the item to “escape” the window. If your application allows items to be dragged outside of windows, you should define an autoscrolling region. Automatically scroll a destination window only if it is also the source window and is frontmost. Don’t autoscroll inactive windows.

Detailed Specification

TBD

brainstorming ideas

where to start. Definition of active scrolling region. A frame with a same width as a scroll bar framing the visible content area

when to start, i.e. wait “a second” until autoscrolling starts. This enables the selection of text up to a position within the active scrolling region

acceleration & speed

how to deal with smooth scrolling feature

Future Tasks

Adopt this spec to other modules than OOo Writer. Esp. OOo Calc is a candidate where it makes sense to implemented this enhancement.

Notes

MMP-1 Idea i41919

I like to see the scrolling behavior of Firefox implemented for OOo. On

continuous PageUp/Down the speed smoothly decelerates near the top/bottom of the

References

[AppleHIG] Macintosh Human Interface Guidelines, Apple 1995, http://developer.apple.com/documentation/mac/HIGuidelines/HIGuidelines-121.html#MARKER-2-166

[AquaHIG] Aqua Human Interface Guidelines, Apple 2001. http://staroffice-doc.germany.sun.com:8080/Teams/User_Experience/HCI/Usability/guidelines/Apple/AquaHIGuidelines.pdf

[DnDSpec] Drag & Drop Specification for OOo 2.0.
http://specs.openoffice.org/appwide/clipboard_drag_and_drop/Drag_and_Drop_and_Clipboard.sxw

[J2Platfom] Interface Autoscroll. http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/docs/api/java/awt/dnd/Autoscroll.html

The source of software product implementation and change is the I-Team (Implementation Team). I-Teams are typically comprised of people who have skills in the areas of Product Marketing, Development Engineering, Technical Publications, and Test Engineering. I-Teams define the features or set of changes (based on input from SCs, customers, Engineering, or Marketing), plan the implementation project, perform the implementation and testing...

Automatic Scrolling Behavior in Writer

Page 2

http://specs.openoffice.org/writer/autoscrolling/AutoScrolling.sxw

Matthias Müller-Prove

2003-10-09T11:34:39

Matthias Müller-Prove