[Sugar-devel] seeking feedback on sketch of a new color selector

[Gary C Martin]

Hi Walter,

On 7 Dec 2009, at 17:52, Walter Bender wrote:

> On Mon, Dec 7, 2009 at 12:39 PM, Gary C Martin <gary at garycmartin.com> wrote:
>> Hi Walter/Simon,
>> 
>> On 7 Dec 2009, at 10:37, Simon Schampijer wrote:
>> 
>>> On 12/06/2009 11:05 PM, Walter Bender wrote:
>>>> On Sun, Dec 6, 2009 at 8:54 PM, Simon Schampijer<simon at schampijer.de>  wrote:
>>>>> A few questions:
>>>>> - in the Feature page you mention the 'random selector', is this option
>>>>> still available in the latest design?
>>>> 
>>>> This is still in the new design in that I didn't remove it from the
>>>> code. (If you click on the central XO icon, you get a random color as
>>>> before.) It is a decision I leave to the design team.
>>> 
>>> Ok. Maybe the design team want to comment if they think that the random
>>> functionality is a good one to have.
>> 
>> Sorry, not quite following the 'random functionality' comment. Just to check, my understanding that 'forwards' and 'backwards' are hooked up to change a seed value used for a random calculation of the fill/stroke colour choices (an almost infinitely large carousel of random choices, left or right). Where the buttons act something like the below image to maintain the current behaviour where clicking the large Xo icon still progresses forward:
>> 
>> Regards,
>> --Gary
> 
> Just to bring clarity to what I have implemented so far:
> 
> (1) clicking on the left xo icon or the < icon causes the color pair
> to cycle to the "previous" color pair in the list of colors found in
> xocolor.py
> (2) clicking on the right xo icon or the > icon causes the color pair
> to cycle to the "next" color pair in the list of colors found in
> xocolor.py
> (3) clicking on the large xo icon causes a random color pair to be
> selected from the list in xocolor.py and resets the index used in #1
> and #2. (Essentially the same as the present behavior).
> 
> There is also a "hidden" button (a temporary kludge) to undo (useful
> for undoing the random selection). The intention is to associate a key
> (Ctrl-z) to the undo function.

Ahhhh... Hmmm. Now, for me I think that implementation would be rather an unexpected/confusing behaviour, click the large XO and the little ones would seem to randomly change as well. Now I understand why the videos you posted caused me some confusion (I was expecting 3 colour choices in the xo < XO > xo to always scroll left or right). Do you have a clone somewhere on git.sugarlabs.org I can look at?

As per previous button mockup image, marching through a random set, left or right, would seem to provide the existing behaviour, plus the equivalent of an undo, and a mini-me preview for what would be next/before undo.

Sorry for the confusion.

> Of course, you can still back out of the whole thing by canceling the
> changes in the manner currently supported: hitting x instead of ✓ on
> the panel.
> 
> Comments on the above:
> 
> (a) The order of the colors in xocolor.py is reason to cycle through.
> If you get a close approximation from random, you can fine-tune your
> selection by searching through adjacent colors.

But only fine tune in 1 dimension? Would have to scroll a long way to see a change in the other fill/stroke colour.

> (b) I don't know how to get icons that can both be recolored and use
> accelerator keys, hence the kludge above. For accessibility purposes,
> it would be nice to add short-cuts to all the buttons in the control
> panel.
> (c) Gary, I tried the stacked icons vs running them in a row. The
> stacked icons didn't do it for me (or Eben, as I recall). The current
> configuration is xo < XO > xo.

OK, sorry missed that. FWIW, I think my main objection was that for the control panel positioning case, the XO was no longer central, being off centre to the right. I guess this could be easily fixed by moving the xo < XO > xo widgets down below the grey text "Click to change your color:" so the text does no longer pushes the widgets off to the right.

Regards,
--Gary