Project “Renaissance” - Create a New User Interface for OOo

[newbie2]

Our Mission

“Create a User interface so that OpenOffice.org becomes the users' choice not only out of need but also out of desire.”

Our Goal
... to know and to understand our users as they are, and to help them accomplish what they want to, by providing efficient access to valuable functionality through a desirable user interface.

Scope of the Project
We want to rethink the interaction and visual design of OOo. We do not want to build new features.
http://blogs.sun.com/GullFOSS/entry/project_renaissance_kick_off1

[hessiess]

get rid of the GUI, and map everything to the keybord. WAY bore productive ;)

[Dragonbite]

Have you looked at IBM's Symphony? There is a beta version for Ubuntu (and Fedora and openSUSE I believe) and it is based off of OpenOffice.

The interface is a little cleaner and takes up less real estate.

Symphony, though, is slow and unstable but the interface is an improvement.

[screaminj3sus]

Thank god, I know some people here don't like the ribbon in office '07 but I personally find it to be a godsend, and it is MUCH more polished than OOo's ui. Even office 2003 has a much better ui imo. I really hope OOo can polish the ui a lot more and make it more usable, that is one major area where it is lacking.

I also wish it would follow the font hinting settings that gnome uses, the fonts look hideous and aliased.

[screaminj3sus]

Have you looked at IBM's Symphony? There is a beta version for Ubuntu (and Fedora and openSUSE I believe) and it is based off of OpenOffice.

The interface is a little cleaner and takes up less real estate.

Symphony, though, is slow and unstable but the interface is an improvement.

wow that actually does look much cleaner than OOo, thanks for the tip.

[DeadSuperHero]

Awesome! I'm stoked about this!