[Sugar-devel] Aside: Neighborhood participants

[Gary C Martin]

On 2 Feb 2009, at 16:43, Benjamin M. Schwartz wrote:

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> Morgan Collett wrote:
>> Also don't blame avahi for the fact that we send out updates every
>> time you alt-tab between shared activities, so that your icon can  
>> jump
>> to the appropriate snowflake on everyone else's Neighborhood Views...
>
> I _strongly_ object to this behavior.  Not only is this flooding the  
> mesh
> with useless broadcasts, but it provides exactly the _wrong_ result  
> in the
> UI.  When I look at the Neighborhood view, I want to see who is
> participating in each shared instance.  Instead,  the view shows me  
> who is
> in that particular window at this time.  It's as if IRC clients only
> showed you as present in the room that is currently visible on your  
> screen.

+1

> We should remove this "feature" and instead show each person in the  
> ring
> around each activity they have joined.

However there are some interesting UI design issues (). XO buddy icons  
are currently unique identities, this will lead to your icons being in  
multiple places in the neighbourhood (and group) view (on each shared  
activity). More icons mean less space... Have you seen ~30-40 buddies  
on a jabber server? Wow it's crowded as is, let's hope gadget and  
smart filters work well. i.e see who you want by default and be able  
to easily find those gadget decides to hide from you... Actually I can  
almost see this being a case for replacing the neighbourhood with just  
custom smart groups UI; you start with some reasonable default gadget  
filter; then create new groups for your different needs (perhaps a  
maths class group, a friends group, a pen-pals group, an artists group  
etc). Maybe the neighbourhood view ends up pretty much just showing  
icons for subgroups.

An interesting design challenge, especially trying to keep the zoom  
metaphor consistant...

--Gary

> - --Ben
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