[Sugar-devel] Journal feature request--more data in main display

[Gary C Martin]

Hi Aleksey,

On 3 Jul 2009, at 05:25, Aleksey Lim wrote:
> On Fri, Jul 03, 2009 at 04:29:47AM +0100, Gary C Martin wrote:
>> Aleksey was keen to see any Journal mock-up work in progress I had,
>> early as possible, so here's where I'm at :-) There's plenty to do
>> still, images are intended to help bounce ideas about, poke at the  
>> grey
>> matter between our ears, and get a feel for how things could (or  
>> not) be
>> done:
>>
>> 	http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Design_Team/Proposals/Journal#Tollbar_and_palettes
>
> Some thoughts:
>
> * what about adding ultra compact list view for objects(not actions)
>  like list view in Library[1]
>  the purpose is, if user has lots of objects it could be useful idea  
> to
>  show as much as possible objects on one screen

We do want to show plenty of entries, but need to keep in mind visible  
size of each text/icon row entry. My current call is to make each  
Journal entry row 'richer' rather than trying to cram on more rows  
(encourage folks to search/filter down to a small number of results).  
The grid view is better for looking and scrubbing through many  
entries. In Library you've made your rows richer by adding many more  
options for showing extra columns of information (author, artist,  
date, album, disk, track, genre, copyright, ...) at the cost of lots  
of horizontal scrolling, and option complexity.

>  * having several column/grid layouts
>    for example its very useful for books to have columns for author,
>    genre, date; so, user can see the whole valuable info at once and  
> sort
>    objects by these columns; and so separate layouts for video audio
>    etc. files

The option complexity is too high for me, and causes horizontal  
scrolling (mentioned above), though the ability to sort on any  
arbitrary column is a bonus. Personally I think all the extra column  
information would be much better treated as tags, that way you can use  
the existing Journal tagging mechinisum, search and drill down to the  
entries you are after, and with the title + tag row entry still get to  
directly browse that information if needed.

> * additional types of filters
>  for example Library has[2] several types to filter objects

As a user, I don't like to see dot notation bundle id's displayed in  
the UI (i.e org.laptop.sugar.ReadEtextsActivity), it's way too  
scary :-) I think the anything/what activity/mime filter is more user  
friendly.

>  * user tags

Library does confuse me here in that it seems to have it's on separate  
tagging data and process while ignoring actual Journal tag metadata.

>  * object traits(additional columns from previous section) like  
> author,
>    genre, date for books

Found this separation confusing, if really necessary, are 'traits' not  
just tags?

>  * activity creators(grouping by activity_id field)

Yes, I have a TODO to add a button and palette for anyone/who.

>  * types of objects(like top section in filter palette)[3]

Yep, that's my anything/what funnel filter icon (looking for better  
icon) :-)

>  * filter by participants

I see that as part of above anyone/who. The most common filter would  
be to be able to search for Journal entries from "Walter".

>  * filter by sources(if we are in shared mode)

For your Library Activity, but not sure this is relevant (in short to  
mid term) for Journal. And, perhaps covered by above anyone/who  
filter. Once you 'borrow' an entry you now have a local copy in the  
user colours of the person you borrowed from.

>  I'm not sure that all of these modes are useful, but something could
>  be(or another types)
>
> * several levels of chosen filters
>  dunno about others but for me its very useful
>  (see bottom panel on [4])
>  for example I can filter all text/plane files and separate from them
>  only objects that were made by Terminal activity

I found this complicated in Library, actually I'm not sure I have is  
solved yet :-) I think tagging is a simple wide ranging panacea for  
many of these types of search.

> [1] http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/File:-3.png
> [2] http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/File:-1.png
> [3] http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Design_Team/Proposals/Journal#.232
> [4] http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/File:-4.png

I have Library-1 as per activities.sugarlabs.org but my screens look  
slightly different to your screenshots (you have more side bar icons  
than I see). Is there another version I should be looking at?

Thanks for all the feedback!
--Gary

P.S. I'm still hacking on the http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Design_Team/Proposals/Journal#Tollbar_and_palettes 
   mock-ups, so this is all great stuff to keep in mind while I tweak.