[sugar] doubts about shell redesign

[Eben Eliason]

I have solid answers for some, and partial answers for others...

- what happens when the user enters a search in the home toolbar?
> non-matched icons grey out as in the mesh view?


There is a clear mockup of how search behaves from the ring view of Home:
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Designs/Activity_Management#10.  The list view
will function just like the Journal, with only matching entries shown in the
list.


> - should we get a nicer design for the "About my XO" dialog?
>

Indeed we should.  One option we have been considering is to make this
option reveal the control panel, with the first pane being "about my XO."
 We have two categories of info that could make sense here: personal and
technical.  The personal section would provide a way to change one's
nickname, choose new colors, and set other biographical info.  The technical
section would provide info about the laptop's identity, including its serial
number, current build (with a "check for update" button?), firmware,
hardware specifications, etc.

Do people think that a) this is the correct way to access the control panel
and b) that both of these sections belong in an "about my XO" pane?  In any
case, it would be helpful to have everyone compile a list of the technical
details worth exposing on such a screen.

- what's the prelight behavior of the icons in the ring view? and in
> the list view?
>

The prelight for all people and activity icons, both in the zoom level
spheres, their list views, and the Journal, will be a 61px button-gray
rounded rect outline (the same size and shape as the selection on toggle
buttons).  You can see examples here:
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Designs/Activity_Management#04,
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Designs/Activity_Management#07.

Note that there is an additional effect which applies to activity icons
within the ring: on rollover they assume the colors the activity will take
when launched.  For the "start new" ring, this means they take on the XO
colors.  Note also that as the options under "Resume" are rolled over the
icon changes to reflect the color of the activity about to be resumed:
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Designs/Activity_Management#07.

- what options should appear in the "Start with" option? all visible
> buddies? only friends? how should scrolling work?
>

I'll have to mock this up at some point, but the basic idea is to have a
submenu with two sections: "Groups" and "Friends".  This allows one to start
an activity with either a group of people, or with a specific individual on
your friends list.  Right now, the "Groups" section should include both
"Everyone" and "All my friends", and the "Friends" section should naturally
include all friends, alphabetically by name.  The friends should also have
their colored XO icons.  We don't have a similar identifier for groups, at
present.

- by which fields can be sorted the activity list? what's the default?
>

Alphabetically by name, and by date seem to be the obvious ones.  I'm not
sure that sorting based on version number has any meaningful uses.  That
said, I'm also unclear which should be the default; alphabetically seems to
make the most sense to me in this context.

- what should happen when we upgrade to a new release and base
> activities get updated? should disappear from the list?
>

Definitely not.  If a new version of an activity gets installed, it should
be reflected in the list view.  Were you asking what should happen to the
previous version of an activity (meaning, what happens if we have two
versions installed at the same time)?

- did we agree on showing or not the bundles in the journal?


I think we agreed that it's necessary insomuch as we must at least log the
actions

- what should happen when we switch zoom levels?
>

I think the current working version is the best we can do without
compositing.

- and what's the exact behavior for activity swtiching?


There are two ways to switch activities.  First, one may expose the frame
and immediately switch to any running activity by clicking on its icon.
 This appears to be working at present.

Second, one may use the alt-tab (and alt-shift-tab) shortcuts to accomplish
the same.  The following description depends on the reordering of the
activities in the Frame such that the most recent is always shown at the far
left, adjacent the activity sphere icon.  When alt-tab is pressed the first
time, the Frame should be revealed, and the second activity in the Frame
(immediately to the right of the current one, and the last one used prior)
should be highlighted.  The highlight should simply be the same white
rounded rect outline used for keyboard focus in general.  Subsequent presses
of the tab key should cycle through the list of activities, from left to
right (most recent to oldest), looping around as necessary. The active
activity should *not* be switched during this phase.  Only when one releases
the alt key should the newly selected activity be focused.

Ideally, the selection of a new activity will provide visual feedback about
the reordering of the activities.  By visually sliding the selected activity
to the "head" of the list, and shifting the others to the right we can make
this action quite clear.  If we cannot provide this form of feedback, we may
need to reconsider the rearranging of icons, and in turn the alt-tab
interaction.


- You didn't mention it, but the exact behavior of activity
launching/joining needs further discussion as well.

Loosely speaking, we know that we want to remain in the sphere where the
activity was launched when possible (we won't transition to Home view from
Groups or Neighborhood, for instance).  Instead, an icon within the view
should pulse as usual to indicate the act of initiating/joining.  If we
support launching in cases where there is no icon, we may either switch to
home to reveal it, or make use of a notification to provide similar feedback
without leaving the view (from the Journal, for instance).  In all cases,
the activities should appear within the Frame when launched/joined as well.
 The icons in the Frame could pulse as well, or we could render them as
their white outline until they have successfully started.

- Eben
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