#3972 NORM Never A: Sugar should be "self-documenting", one idea would be to use a 3rd state of palettes

[Zarro Boogs per Child]

#3972: Sugar should be "self-documenting", one idea would be to use a 3rd state of
palettes
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 Reporter:  HoboPrimate       |       Owner:  Eben          
     Type:  enhancement       |      Status:  new           
 Priority:  normal            |   Milestone:  Never Assigned
Component:  interface-design  |     Version:                
 Keywords:                    |    Verified:  0             
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 There are various options in Sugar which could really make use of a more
 verbose description and explanation of its function and "nature". I think
 that this is even more so, if we consider that the laptops will be given
 to many kids with no previous computing experience and probably none to
 little past "science exposure". Even by choosing the best names and icons,
 providing options in context, expecting kids natural curiosity, it will
 still not sufice for many kids and in many circumstances (either the kid
 has already been blunted of his born-with natural curiosity, or is
 environment is not conducting to learning and exploring and testing, or he
 simply has "bad" teachers).

 One example of this is Measure, where the meaning of AC and DC can't be
 intuitivelly understood, although, again, the hope is that self and group
 exploration, good guidance and good teaching materials and projects will
 help the kids in doing so.
 My point is exactly that the teaching could be some way more integrated
 into Sugar.

 Of course, I don't know what the plans are for Help in Sugar, but this is
 my suggestion of one way to integrate it (without excluding more thorough
 and detailed help, either inside sugar or in its built-in and external
 conventional documentation).

 Currently, interface "objects" can have a primary and a secondary
 rollover. The primary rollover usually describes succintly what the
 "object" is or what it does. The secondary can provide extra information
 and options.
 For self-documentation to properly work, that is, to be imediatelly
 available to kids when they need it and in the context of what they are
 trying to acheive, it should be associated to the exact thing that it
 relates to.
 So, one possible way would be to have a 3rd final stage on the palettes
 behaviour. After a 3rd and longer delay, the entire palette (primary and
 secondary) would grow to leave space underneath each option that is
 appropriate to document more fully (example: Alternate Current is this and
 that). This would of course dinamically (or brutally depending of how you
 look at it) change the width of the palettes and insert text inside it,
 but I think that this documenting would be usefull enough, and would have
 a sufficiently long delay to appear, to not have to adhere strictly to the
 design option that palettes widths should remain constant and new added
 text should appear on its end.

 In the future, instead of giving my loose thoughts here, I will better
 organize them and place them on the wiki instead. Don't want to make Trac
 my personal soapbox.

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Ticket URL: <https://dev.laptop.org/ticket/3972>
One Laptop Per Child <https://dev.laptop.org>
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