[sugar] Home Design: Free Layout View

[Eben Eliason]

I think you make valid points.  However, since you reference the
limits imposed by the ring, I want to point you back to the wiki to
look at the previous version of the Home screen design (which is still
different from that currently in stable builds) and the other design
mockups for the new Frame, since they change some other fundamentals
of the system which it seems you aren't away of yet.  Please update
your comments after reviewing those as well!

wiki.laptop.org/go/Designs/Activity_Management (the new one)
http://wiki.laptop.org/index.php?title=Designs/Activity_Management&oldid=112067
(the previous one)
wiki.laptop.org/go/Designs/Frame

Thanks!

- Eben


On Thu, Jun 12, 2008 at 6:03 PM, Bastien <bzg at altern.org> wrote:
> Let me add my 2 cents of discrepancy here.
>
> What I like about the current circular Home view is:
>
> - *order*: in the free-form desktop, there is no way to vizualize the
>  order in which activities have been launched.  Knowing this is useful
>  when children and teachers try to share activities and want to know
>  what was the first one they opened, for example.
>
> - *limits*: it has been often noticed that children tend to open too
>  many activities at the same time, thus making the machine hanging.
>  While I understand the clear-horizon hypothesis (explore freely!), I
>  guess it's somewhat contradictory with this recurrent complaint.  A
>  circular view might as well be some kind of metaphor about the
>  memory/computational limits of the XO...
>
> - *distinction*: the current Home view is very easy to recognize. With
>  the free desktop view there is less visual distinction, and children
>  might consider activities are organized as a network of activities
>  talking to each others (which will become reality for XO-3, I'm pretty
>  confident.)
>
> Ok: order, limits, distinction, this sounds a bit fascist.
>
> But I guess it's possible to imagine switching from this current design
> to the free Home view with a single key combination.  The free Home view
> would be for reorganizing activities, searching for old ones, or waking
> up "dormant" ones...  and the traditional view would be for actual work.
>
> What do you think?
>
> "Eben Eliason" <eben.eliason at gmail.com> writes:
>
>> The main issue of concern was one of scalability; The circular
>> arrangement suggested an inherent finite quality which runs counter to
>> our goals of allowing children to create and explore as much as
>> possible.  After experimenting with a number of layouts, it became
>> clear that a more traditional freeform view maximizes potential use of
>> the available space, retains the XO at the center (which is core to
>> the zoom metaphor and reflects the philosophy of child ownership of
>> laptops), and also provides, via drag'n'drop, the ability for kids to
>> further personalize their Home by arranging and categorizing
>> activities as they see fit.
>
> --
> Bastien
>