Issue 89948

Summary: Deploy changeable Workspaces that switches between different toolbar layouts
Product: General Reporter: anjalip222 <anjalip222>
Component: uiAssignee: AOO issues mailing list <issues>
Status: CONFIRMED --- QA Contact:
Severity: Trivial    
Priority: P3 CC: issues
Version: OOo 2.4.0   
Target Milestone: ---   
Hardware: All   
OS: All   
Issue Type: FEATURE Latest Confirmation in: ---
Developer Difficulty: ---

Description anjalip222 2008-05-26 07:30:45 UTC
This concerns with adding a UI feature in OOo which would aid users in a more
streamlined and more productive way to do things. 

Some users like myself handle different kinds of files in the same app. For
example, while using Writer, I can work on an e-book or a colour-catalog with
rich textures. Both jobs require different tools to work with - but
unfortunately, one has the same set of toolbars on OOo. The result: either you
have to open lots of toolbars which may not be needed in a particular job, or,
you have juggle toolbars to open them whenever a job requires it. This is a very
tedious business.

The same happens for Calc. Sometimes I do accounting stuff that requires a
specialized set of tool-bar I had complied with great pains. While at other
times, I need to scientific jobs that require diiferent toolbar sets.

I feel there should be a provision to switch the UI on-the-fly. Let me point out
that AutoCAD 2006 (and above) has this feature called "Workspaces" (I liked the
feature very much and I feel there is plenty of scope to use it in OOo as well
for increasing its productivity). It is an impressive feature that lets people
change the combination of open toolbars and their positions on-the-fly. After
setting your combination on the screen, you can save your "Workspace" under a
name. You can save more than one "Workspace". Later, when you want to switch to
another screen combination, you can just select the appropriate "Workspace" name
from a pulldown menu (there is a separate "Workspaces" toolbar to do this, which
can be kept on the screen) and there you go! The whole UI gets changed - newer
toolbars, different positions, different tools and a whole new Workspace.

Additionally, there is also something called a Home Workspace, just like a
Homepage in your browser. Once a Home Workspace is set, you can click on its
button to go to Home settings. (AutoCAD actually saves these settings in XML files.)

The feature of switching workspaces should be a power tool that can separate OOo
from its competitors.
Comment 1 Olaf Felka 2008-05-26 09:09:33 UTC
reassigned