[Sugar-devel] Choosing to merge: a mockup

[Eben Eliason]

Sorry, I've let some threads linger in my inbox...

On Mon, Jul 13, 2009 at 5:22 AM, Tomeu Vizoso<tomeu at sugarlabs.org> wrote:
> On Tue, Jul 7, 2009 at 20:12, Benjamin M.
> Schwartz<bmschwar at fas.harvard.edu> wrote:
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>> Mockup:
>> http://dev.laptop.org/~bemasc/merge_share_selection_mockup.png

The mockup doesn't look bad, though I wonder a few things. I think
this would work well visually if the "merge" visual were a real-time
representation of the group currently working on the activity, rather
than an icon. (This may be your intent, but I wanted to make it
explicit). In the same vein, I think "your XO" should appear above the
same activity icon, so that the picture painted is clear...if you
click on "work alone", you'll have your own copy and they'll have
theirs.

I'd also greatly simplify the text to something like "Join" and "Work alone."

>> Idea:
>> If I resume an Activity session from my Journal, and there is already a
>> session in progress with the same activity_id, and the Activity in
>> question supports automerge,  then Sugar will show me the above screen,
>> asking me whether I want to merge my work with the shared session, or to
>> work alone.  This is enough to enable basic asynchronous collaboration.

Visual details aside, I'm still unsure if we actually need to expose
this choice. I'm still partial to doing the merge/join automatically
if the entry being opened is the most recent in the history, and
opening it as a separate instance otherwise.

>> The screen simply has two buttons.  One is the image of the shared session
>> in question, identical to the one shown in the Neighborhood View.  The
>> other is an image of my XO icon.  The text below each button explains its
>> purpose, and also gives the name of the shared session and the local
>> session, as these may have diverged.  Knowing the names may help the user
>> to decide whether or not to merge.

That's a good point. Perhaps I have to retract my statement about the
simplified text, though perhaps it could still be shortened some.

>> As I understand it, the current activity architecture requires an activity
>> to know if it is a joining a shared session as soon as initialization
>> begins, so activity startup cannot proceed until the user makes a choice.
>
> Perhaps we should review this. Is providing the choice in the launcher
> screen our best option user experience-wise? Or would be better to
> leave it entirely in the activity's hands if it was possible?

Yeah, perhaps. Another thought, if there has to be Some Way to prevent
automatic merge is to offer "Resume alone" next to the "Resume" and
"Resume with" options, to override the merge and start a separate
session.

Eben