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

[Gary C Martin]

On 11 Oct 2008, at 22:49, Martin Dengler wrote:

> On Sat, Oct 11, 2008 at 09:20:56PM +0100, Gary C Martin wrote:
>> On 11 Oct 2008, at 11:34, Tomeu Vizoso wrote:
>>> On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 5:27 PM, Eben Eliason wrote:
>
>>>> The main problem here is potential length of the scrolling page.
>>>> [...] 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.
>>>
>>> Yes, I like this idea and I think it's pretty much doable.
>>
>> [...] the longer the page the smaller the scroll-bar, the more  
>> sensitive
>> it's movement, and the harder it is to navigate in a controlled,
>> refined manner.
>
> We're not preparing kids for the real world:
>
>  http://www.martindengler.com/tmp/journal2.jpg

:-)

> (also an example of: what 1200x900 px can be used for; what temporal
> section headers get chosen for me by the real world;

Oohh that takes me back (shudder).

That 1200x900 UI on the XOs 200dpi screen would be pretty bad on the  
eyesight for something as critical as the Journal, kind'a like using  
Scratch is just now on the XO. Cursor targeting would be frustrating,  
and the 1200x900 is only true for grey pixels, any colour in the UI  
would basically be at 800x600. Also I'm sure there's some faint future  
navel gazing to be done given the XO-2 needing a UI fat enough for  
potentially chubby fingers to poke at ;-)

Nice to see an example of temporal section headers, I guess in this  
example you'd need to fold them all auto closed, except one at a time.  
That would ideally keep displayed entries below some max total, give  
easier scroll bar manipulation, and keep the memory footprint down for  
when I add my 1001'st TurtleArt sqrt Journal entry ;-)

> and how sometimes
> I've given up and created temporal sections myself)


I guess tag's will be the tool here, hmm I wonder if date could be  
part of the search string, say if I typed "2008 lesson plan", where  
lesson and plan could be tag or part of the title, and 2008 matched  
the year (where creation and modification dates could be treated as  
'auto tags' set by the system, a little like activity type can be  
considered a system 'auto tag'). Might be useful for a kid to type in  
"friday" and get all their activities that they've generated for their  
classes on a Friday. Need to watch translation issues though.

--Gary