[sugar] A Launcher Activity

[Carlos Neves]

Marco Pesenti Gritti wrote:
> On 8/14/07, Carlos Neves <cn at sueste.net> wrote:
>   
>> The problem with current builds, specifically 542, is twofold:
>> - the 'success' and 'error' signals no longer exist and
>>     
>
> The idea is to show error messages on launch failure?
>
> Ccing Eben, it was discussed recently and our feeling was that the
> icon disappearing from the home page was all the feedback we could
> give to the user. Displaying a "Activity blahblah cannot start." would
> just be more intrusive without providing any additional information.
>
>   
>> - Home view is brought to front
>>     
>
> I guess I don't see why we should not use the normal startup
> notification in the case of an activity launching another one.
>
> Marco
>   
I can understand the whole concept of giving some information without 
giving all information being nothing but puzzling, but the whole idea of 
clicking on an icon that launches an Activity (remember you are already 
in an Activity, all be it a launcher one) just to get that activity to 
magically disappear and the Home view appearing with a flashing icon 
stating that there is something going on, which may or may not be 
related to the action the user took (clicking the icon to start an 
activity) is a bit confusing.

Sure, once everyone knows by heart that the flashing icons in the home 
circle are activities being launched and that particular icon (remember 
many more may be there) relates to the activity you just launched, then 
it's obvious and all, but isn't this 'obvious beacuase you learned 
before' system what we try to avoid with sugar? Is it not more intuitive 
to click on the icon and, without more changes, getting the wait cursor? 
If you then press F3 you'll get to the home view, the flashing icon will 
be there, but that was your action.

I don't believe that having Launcher applications getting hid is a good 
thing, honestly.

About error notifications, well, the 'sorry, no can do' volatile message 
could be substituted by a red circle (we use circular 'bubbles' for 
icons) but again, we are assuming red as the color for error, and it's 
not understood that way in some places, like china.


--

cn