Frame Decision (was [sugar] OLPC priorities for Sugar in the August release)

[Gary C Martin]

On 18 May 2008, at 04:45, Eben Eliason wrote:

> This is actually a very promising idea indeed.  I think this merits
> some exploration for sure, and save the delay miraculously pleasing
> everyone, something we should definitely try in the near future.
> Someone mentioned this could be hard without compositing, but we can
> certainly just toss up a (frame-colored) 75px square window in the
> appropriate corner (or all of them?).
>
> Another interesting addition to this idea would be to turn the corners
> of the Frame itself into "retract" buttons.  If someone chose (and we
> still support) instant corner activation one /did/ accidentally invoke
> the Frame, a quick click would send it happily back off screen.  I
> offer this mostly as an addition to your suggestion, though, since it
> could be a nice reciprocal action. Eg. move to the corner and see the
> frame icon with an arrow pointing "into" the screen, and click it to
> reveal the frame; instantly see the arrow reverse to point "out of"
> the screen, and click again to hide.  Thoughts?

Yes, this has promise I think (and there's even a set of corner frame  
arrows kicking around from old joyride build). A couple of random  
thoughts:

  - Do the 'frame reveal corner arrows' only appear when you hit the  
corners, or when your mouse is over the corner area (discoverability)?

  - If you're dragging something to an object in the frame (could be  
to clipboard, or content to a user icon for sharing a document etc)  
does the frame revert to auto reveal (you're dragging so can't click)?  
If it auto reveals when dragging it could still appear unintentionally  
(but I guess a low probability once the twitchy track pad gets fixed).

  - A simple check of 'is mouse down and in corner' would probably be  
too simplistic as a paint/draw type activity would likely often  
trigger the frame unintentionally. Would need to be a click or a mouse  
known to be dragging an object.

> Agreed that an attempt at a fix has taken too long.  You're also  
> rightthat the frame is in several ways experimental.  Hot-corners have
> certainly been used in other places (I admit, I use them in OSX all
> the time), but never (as far as I know) made mandatory.

Yes, I use them in OSX all the time also, however I soon added a key  
constraint so I have to hold the Command key + hit a specific corner.  
Without that I was always accidently triggering Expose or the  
Dashboard and momentarily wondering where everything went. Having to  
hold a key down also seems to provide some mental/tactile action  
reinforcement - panning an image while holding space seems such a  
natural action (Photoshop, Preview with an image) when you compare it  
to having to select a specific 'hand' tool first (Preview with a PDF,  
Grapher).

Looking forward to the day that the grab keys start to work for  
panning ;-)

It's a pity the current frame key is in such a distant place, having a  
key on the bottom row that you hold to reveal the frame (and/or press  
once to toggle) would have likely solved a number of issues.

--Gary