[Sugar-devel] Ad-hoc network UI feedback

[Gary C Martin]

On 21 Aug 2009, at 21:15, David Farning wrote:

> On Fri, Aug 21, 2009 at 1:45 PM, Gary C Martin<gary at garycmartin.com>  
> wrote:
>> Sorry, late to this party, but I've finally got a recent build with  
>> Tomeu's
>> Ad-hoc network support installed on 2 XO's here for testing (no  
>> luck with
>> SoaS-on-XO-1 builds yet, but F11-for-XO-1 build 5 works well).  
>> OK... some
>> quick screen grabs and discussion.
>>
>> Here's what it currently looks like for an XO:
>
>>
>> Hmmm... 2 grey circles... Hovering over both 'grey circles' shows  
>> this same
>> palette:
>>
>> 1) Is it a bug that there are 2 'grey circles' showing the same  
>> "Create new
>> wireless network" entry?
>>
>> 2) The empty secondary palette strips feels like a bug, like some  
>> text is
>> missing. Should it be used to show the title describing the  
>> palette? Perhaps
>> something like "Wireless network\nInactive" would be a good?
>>
>> 3) Showing grey device icons feels like the old NM bugs we used to  
>> get, and
>> IMO is a bit of device icon design flaw going way back. Inactive/ 
>> disabled
>> network devices should be just simple white outlines, as per other  
>> devices
>> when not in use.
>>
>> 4) Obviously a new icon for when in ad-hoc mode will help, I'll try  
>> to make
>> a few mock-ups and see if any work out.
>>
>> Really great to see we have 'kids under a tree' scenario covered  
>> again in
>> Sugar – big high five for Tomeu! :-) Looks like we might need to  
>> try to get
>> some feature dispensation from Mr Release Manager to apply some  
>> polish now
>> we are sliding into the feature freeze.
>
> We needs to stay away from feature freeze dispensations as much as  
> possible.

+1, but if no one ever asks for a dispensations (and I most certainly  
haven't yet, as I don't have a formal proposal) then we live in an  
inflexible sausage software factory. All I raised here was the  
discussion of a potential of a change for some svg pixels and a (may  
be just XO HW) bug fix (likely an OLPC deployment issue we would need  
community feedback on) for potentially  ~99.9% of our potential  
upgrading users.

> Release manager is a hard, thankless job!  And Simon is doing a great
> job at it.

+1!

> If something does not make it this release, it can mature
> and make it into the next release.

No question, agreed.

> The challenge is that in a project like Sugar, the _only_ authority
> that a release manager has is the trust and respect he or she has
> earned in prior releases.  That respect is earned though successfully
> balancing that needs of individual developers (and their feature)
> against the needs of the entire project.

If a stable 0.86 is never shipped for XO users, then I guess we (or  
distro) avoid ever needing to fix this. I'm just trying to establish  
where the bug is (2x grey icons, Tomeu's screen shots only show 1).

> Let's keep thinking about how to build the community, work flows, and
> processes which enable us to double the number of new features we can
> add each release!


Apologies if I ruffled feathers and hit a tender spot, but open  
communication is essential to community building, and not reporting  
feedback is so much worse than not bothering.

Regards,
--Gary