[sugar] Choosing "defaults" for the activity ring

[Gary C Martin]

Hi Eben,

On 4 Apr 2008, at 17:46, Eben Eliason wrote:

> We'd like some
> feedback on which perspective is the most rational so we can implement
> the solution as soon as possible to prevent the "empty ring"
> phenomenon.

Another slightly different option for a 'fallback' mode ? for when no  
favourites have been set ? could be simply to default the home view to  
the list mode when no favourite activities are set. It would also be  
good if the 'favourites activities appear in ring mode' concept were a  
little more visually discoverable. I guess either the ring view frog's  
egg icon could be more favourite icon like (perhaps circle with are  
small star inside?). Or the frog's egg ring view icon could be used  
instead of the favourite star icon used in list view (make 'add to  
ring' the explicit function).

Also a few quick misc. observations:

- The ring of activities appears vertically unbalanced with the XO +  
activity icon. Lot's of white space above the XO, cramped space below.  
Potential improvement would be to move the XO and activity icon up by  
50% height of the below activity icon. Would likely need a similar  
small upward shift to the other two zoom mode XO icons so they align  
when switching zoom views.

- I vote for making the ring activity icons much larger when they are  
few in number. Start with them really rather large (and with a larger  
starting radius circle layout). Icons scale down as number increases,  
as you have already. Might as well use that screen space, and make the  
click targets as large as is within reason, given all the feedback  
about twitchy track pads and lack of fine motor control for young kids.

- When in Neighbourhood, Group, or Home view, the new frame activity  
icon for the current activity is no longer clickable (you can't click  
it to switch back from a zoom view). Feels like a bug or omission  
rather than intention, though this does make the Activity zoom level  
frame icon feel almost redundant now.

Just thinking out loud, it is really nice to see the Sugar UI moving  
onwards!

Gary