[Sugar-devel] Initial implementation of toolbars design

[Simon Schampijer]

On 07/30/2009 10:02 PM, Walter Bender wrote:
> On Thu, Jul 30, 2009 at 3:46 PM, Simon Schampijer<simon at schampijer.de>  wrote:
>> On 07/29/2009 07:03 PM, Gary C Martin wrote:
>>> Hi Simon,
>>>
>>> On 29 Jul 2009, at 08:55, Simon Schampijer wrote:
>>>
>>>>> FWIW: Picking the top level tool set is going to be a real tough call in
>>>>> a number of cases as we loose toolbar space for each extra tab, plus the
>>>>> activity icon on far left (essential for Activity recognition), plus the
>>>>> stop icon on far right (essential, no questions, no doubts). The
>>>>> features that actually fit in the remaining space may seem quite an
>>>>> arbitrary hotchpotch.
>>>> Gary, I am not sure I get your arguments right :/ Can you elaborate?
>>>> What I conclude of all the answers, I think that space in the primary
>>>> toolbar is an issue. So we need to decide what to put there. Does
>>>> activity icon and stop icon sounds good to you as well?
>>> Sorry if that wasn't clear. Activity icon and stop icon are essential.
>>> The Activity icon is going to be critical for identifying what activity
>>> you are in at a glance, especially if the actual title name is hidden
>>> away in a sub toolbar. A downside if we loose the title in the primary
>>> toolbar is reinforcement of knowing what activity you are in (say you
>>> are copy/pasting between two similar Write documents)...
>> Ok, thanks for the explanation. The differentiation of the running instance
>> of two activities of the same type is a good point. But, does this happen
>> often? I guess many kids will run one activity of each type at a time, and
>> remember performance constraints ;p And one can use the frame to distinguish
>> the activities.
>
> I often copy items from one open instance of an activity to another...
> e.g., grabbing a passage from a Write doc to paste into another.
> Keeping both open, as oppose to opening and closing is advantageous (I
> can alt-tab or use the frame to switch back and forth). But there is
> not an issue with names in those cases.

Ok, makes sense. Personally I would like to have the axtivity instance 
title entry available in the primary toolbar - as I think it is a quite 
important action. But I see as well the space issue... :/

>> Personally, I see more the issue of naming an activity, since as said in
>> another post I am not really convinced about the naming alert.
>>
>> One little thing I am a bit worried about, is that we miss labels for the
>> sub-toolbars. I hope the icons are meaningful enough for the users - but
>> then labels can be misleading as well, and many of our users can't possibly
>> read.
>
> Are there not tool tips?

Not like 'edit', 'view' or something similar. The name of the tab in the 
old design is gone.

Regards,
    Simon