[sugar] scrolling the journal list view (was Re: alt-tabbing to the Journal)

[Eben Eliason]

On Sat, Oct 11, 2008 at 9:38 AM, Walter Bender <walter.bender at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sat, Oct 11, 2008 at 6:34 AM, Tomeu Vizoso <tomeu at tomeuvizoso.net> wrote:
>> On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 5:27 PM, Eben Eliason <eben.eliason at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 3:26 AM, Gary C Martin <gary at garycmartin.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> - Realtime scrolling so you can just grab, drag, and look as it goes past.
>>>
>>> Indeed.  I have never been satisfied with the row-by-row scrolling,
>>> but we couldn't do better in terms of performance before.  In
>>> redesigning the Journal, it was very important to us (to me, at the
>>> very least) that smooth pixel-scrolling was part of the plan. Tomeu,
>>> do you think we can make a transition like this for 9.1?  I think it
>>> would be another big boost to using the Journal.
>>
>> Sure I think we should do something for 9.1, but right now the
>> resourcing part is a bit complex. Maybe Scott can comment on this?
>
> Is this the right place to expend effort? From my experience, better
> paging control would be more useful than fine-tuning the scrolling.

The path to better scroller, actually, is to define a proper form of
paging control, which we don't yet have at all.  A paging system that
works will make it possible to scroll smoothly through the portion of
the Journal which is currently visible, so we'll win on both fronts
with this effort.

>>> The main problem here is potential length of the scrolling page.  Its
>>> unbounded, except by space constraints, right now.  There are two
>>> viable options here that we've talked about.  First, we could
>>> introduce the notion of paging, so that after scrolling to the bottom
>>> of a page in the Journal, you have (older) and (newer) buttons to get
>>> to other results.
>>>
>>> Second, and my preference, we could introduce temporal section
>>> headers.  After scrolling far enough back in time, there might be
>>> sections for each month, and further back, for each year, etc., with
>>> each section being represented by a header only, and a disclosure
>>> button.  Clicking on a section would open it inline, closing the
>>> currently open section, thus keeping everything in the Journal
>>> temporally ordered on a single "infinite" page, but allowing one to
>>> dive into it in any range of time.
>>
>> Yes, I like this idea and I think it's pretty much doable.
>
> Eben, weren't there a bunch of sketches regarding smart exponential
> timescales we had developed early on? Maybe dust those off? Some where
> quite good.

Every time we tried to come up with an inline timeline view for a
scrollbar, we hit complications and ultimately wound up simplifying
back to a standard scrollbar.  I think there are definitely
possibilities here still, but in terms of what's feasible for some
real improvement in the next 6 months, I think continuing to use the
standard scrolling mechanisms while introducing smarter "folding of
time" is the better course.

- Eben

>> Regards,
>>
>> Tomeu
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>
> -walter
>
> --
> Walter Bender
> Sugar Labs
> http://www.sugarlabs.org
>