[sugar] A Sugar TODO List, of Sorts

Tue Apr 8 12:56:38 EDT 2008

Hi,

• Add "AlertBox" for use with palettes/notifications

Eben, can you elaborate here a bit more?

Eben Eliason wrote:
>>  >   • Make notifications "slide into" or "out of" the Frame
>>  Which notifications slide in or out?
>>  >   • Create notification API (delay, type (in|out|remain))
>>  Can you specify how the different types of notifications behave?
> 
> There are three basic types of notifications, which appear according
> to the action they represent.  A notification may indicate one of (a)
> an object is being added to the frame (eg. made a clipping, started an
> activity, buddy joined, plugged in storage device) or (b) an object is
> being removed from the frame (eg. buddy left an activity, unplugged
> storage device, etc.) or (c) an object which is represented within the
> frame needs attention, but is neither being added nor removed (eg. a
> running activity has something to say, the battery is low, etc.)
> 
> The behaviors for these are as follows:
> 
> (a) Notification appears in the corresponding corner, pulses, and then
> slides off screen in the direction of the corresponding edge after
> delay.
> (b) Notification slides onto the screen from the corresponding edge,
> pulses, and disappears after delay.
> (c) Notification slides onto screen from the corresponding edge,
> pulses, and then slides back off after delay.
> 
>>  >   • Add clipping previews (related to above)
>>  Which clipping types can be previewed? Just images and text?
> 
> These are certainly the most straightforward, but I would leave it to
> the activity to provide a meaningful clipping as it considers
> appropriate.  For instance, TamTam might desire to represent a sound
> as a waveform preview.
> 
>>  >   • Color copy/paste buttons in activities
>>  Which colors should take? Just the local colors?
> 
> We have tickets for this.  We want to color the copy button in the
> color of the activity being copied from.  Ideally, we'd color the
> paste button in the color of the selected clipping on the clipboard.
> (#3692, #3693)  We could allow the activity to override the color of
> the copy button, if they wish to provide fine grained support for
> coloring it based on the author of the current selection.
> 
>>  >   • Fix visual style for drag'n'drop
>>  Can you specify?
> 
> Please refer to the last few slides at
> http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Designs/Frame.  The plan is to continue
> using the standard cursor while dragging, but placing an icon
> representation (or a graphical one?) centered under the cursor.  When
> the cursor is placed over an object that can accept the drop, it
> should turn into the modified cursor with the '+'.  When the cursor is
> placed over an object that accepts drops, but not of the type provided
> (or not at all?) it should turn into the modified cursor with the
> 'N/A' symbol instead.  Where applicable (toolbars, frames, trays), it
> would be great to highlight the item (or region) accepting the drop
> with the black hover effect.  Note the difference between a tray that
> accepts a drop (such as the clipboard, or the people tray) and an
> object that accepts a drop (such as a running activity, or a storage
> device).
> 
>>  >   • Expose an avatar property for buddies in PS?
>>  svg? any pixbuf? which size limit?
> 
> This is one of those "just for fun" features, which would be helpful
> to have at some point in the future, if not now, for identity
> purposes.  It would require, of course, adding a "take a photo" step
> to the intro sequence and the control panel.  I imagine that a small,
> static, 256px (square) image would suffice here.  It would be a
> pixbuf, I imagine.  The possibility of creating SVG avatars (which
> could still use XO colors) is intriguing, but we don't yet have an SVG
> editor for Sugar anyway.
> 
>>  >   • Expose the activity name, activity preview in PS
>>  Activity preview is doable? Which screen size? Which maximum size for
>>  transfer in the mesh?
> 
> The hope would be to use the same code that creates the Journal
> preview for this purpose, so an activity would only have to worry
> about generating a preview in one way.  The preview would be passed
> around at the same size, and potentially only when requested (for
> instance, only when a child hovers to reveal the secondary palette.)
> A placeholder could appear while the image loads in.
> 
>>  >   • Make activity zoom level button cycle active activities?
>>  What's the doubt here?
> 
> Not much really.  I wanted to see other's opinions on it, I guess,
> though it seems quite reasonable.  It effectively retains precisely
> its current behavior, and adds a potentially useful function to it.

Don't we would use alt-tab to cycle through the available activities. I 
would leave the activity zoom level button to only reveal the current 
active one.

>>  >   • Tweak "battery fully charged" behavior
>>  What needs tweaking?
> 
> It continually tells me my battery is fully charged even though the
> meter isn't maxed out.  I don't care so much about fixing the
> underlying code which calculates this....simply make sure that if we
> report that it's full, we ignore the actual reading and fill up the
> meter to be internally consistent in what we show the kids.

This looks more like an issue in the logic to me. Should not be hard to fix.

>>  >   • Implement white vs. colored battery style
>>  When is one or the other?
> 
> I have more detailed mockups of the device icons somewhere.  The basic
> idea is that the colored icons represent when a device is active, and
> a white when inactive.  An inactive battery is one which is charging,
> instead of discharging.  An inactive speaker is muted.  Etc.  We
> should apply this logic consistently across the devices for which it
> makes sense.
> 
>>  >   • Add device notifications (battery, storage, etc.)
>>  Can you specify each of those?
> 
> I can make this more clear in tickets or the wiki later.  To summarize:
> 
> - when external devices get plugged in, removed
> - when wireless devices connect/disconnect
> - when any device needs attention (low battery, weak wireless, etc.)
> 
>>  >   • Identify the school server visually in the mesh
>>  Ok. Which actions contains the palette?
>>  >   • Attach "register" option to the school server icon
>>  Ok
> 
> For starters, let's offer "connect" (just like APs should have), and
> "register".   Perhaps we'll have other services available in the
> future.
> 
>>  >   • Add list view, group people under activities
>>  Do we have mockups?
> 
> Not yet, working on them. They will appear very similar to the
> activities list in home.  The big difference is that we might have
> grouping for all of these, with activities in home grouped by
> "identity threads", and the other views revealing participants lists
> under the activity icons.
> 
>>  >   • Add modal alert before destructive changes (eg. change channel)?
>>  From where can the channel be changed?
> 
> Well, as far as I understand it, choosing an AP on a given channel
> will destroy any communications on the current mesh channel.  If the
> selection of an AP would break communications, we'd want to indicate
> this.

I guess one point that we should put on the list is an API for modal 
alerts. The Wep-key dialog for example could be 'sugarized' with the new 
API as well.

>>  >   • Refactor visualization of Groups, according to designs
>>  Do we have mockups in the wiki?
>>  >   • Provide basic support for creating groups, inviting people to groups
>>  Can you specify?
> 
> I'm not sure we do yet, apart from the MoMA demo videos.  We need to
> flesh this out in some static screens in the near future anyway.  The
> current thought is to make groups almost identical to Neighborhood,
> but with a slightly different toolbar, and of course the zoomed-in
> look.
> 
>>  >   • Add list view, group people under activities
>>  Mockups?
> 
> Same as Neighborhood....design forthcoming.
> 
>>  >   • Implement basic launcher service for search field
>>  Can you specify?
> 
> The launcher as designed offers to start an activity, resume matching
> recent entries, or jump into the journal with the current search term.
>   Ideally we would be able to offer the first and last of these to
> make the presence of the search useful in Home.
> 
>>  >   • Add grouping (by "identity thread") to activities list
>>  Pending on ongoing discussions about bundle signing.
> 
> Indeed.  This seems to be a pretty core part of the (future)
> experience, so we need to make sure we're all on the same page here.
> 
>>  >   • New activity launch behavior
>>  Needs to be specified.
>>
>>  >   • Remove activity toolbar, add non-modal naming notification?
>>  Needs to be specified.
>>
>>  >   • New toolbar design?
>>  Needs to be specified.
> 
> All of these probably need a review in a design call before we move
> them forward.
> 
>>  >   • Fix startup sequence colors, etc.
>>  Can you detail more?
> 
> For the  most part, we want to ensure that the boot sequence
> integrates smoothly with the new design. This will mean changing the
> boot frames to a white background with a gray outlined XO, and
> removing the stages which reveal the ring and frame themselves, which
> are no longer part of Home.
> 
>>  >   • Create a sane color picker
>>  Mockups?
>>  >   • Improve object picker design, add search/filters
>>  Can you specify?
> 
> In progress.
> 
>>  >   • Use new visual style for list
>>  Do we have mockups?
> 
> Yup.  Basically, we want to apply the visual treatment show here:
> http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Designs/Journal#03 until we get around to
> the full Journal redesign with the action/object separation.
> 
>>  >   • Add palettes to activity icons
>>  Ok, with which items?
> 
> The palette should contain some reasonable subset of:
> http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Designs/Journal#04. If we start using
> previews ubiquitously, we'll want to add that too.  I'll refine this
> palette mockup.
> 
>>  >   • Add "anyone"" filter
>>  Not so sure about this. Will need PS changes plus maybe DS changes.
> 
> Bah!  OK.
> 
>>  >   • Fix appearance of icons in "anything" filter
>>  Can you specify?
> 
> They should appear as white strokes with transparent fills.
> 
>>  >   • Reconfigure detail layout
>>  Mockups?
> 
> http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Designs/Journal#12
> 
>>  >   • Add "no results" screen
>>  Mockup?
> 
> http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Designs/Journal#11
> 
>>  >   • Add "no entries" screen
>>  Mockup?
> 
> Not posted, but it will look almost identical to the "No results"
> screen, but have a "back" (to home) button instead.