[Sugar-devel] adding 3G devices support to sugar

[Benjamin M. Schwartz]

Eben Eliason wrote:
> I'd be happy to sketch some icons.

This is not so easy.

Users care about whether a connection is wired or wireless.  They care
about how fast and reliable it is.  They care about who they can talk to
on it.  They care about how much it costs to use.

They don't care whether it's WiFi, EDGE, EVDO, GPRS, WiMAX, UMTS, LTE,
HSPA+, CDMA2000-1x-RTT, or something else.

I think the right way to go is to show an iconic representation of the
wired or wireless nature of each step in the connection chain.  i.e.:

Internal wireless adapter: show classic outgoing radio waves.
External USB wireless adapter: show a wire to a device with radio waves
External USB wired ethernet adapter: show a wire to a device with another
wire coming out
External Bluetooth wireless adapter: radio waves to a device emitting more
radio waves.

This approach deliberately regards all through-the-air communications as
being of a single type.  For iconic representation, I think that's about
the best we can do.  We can, and should, show more in the detail palette.

--Ben

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