[Sugar-devel] Design review plea.. OLPC desktop switcher

[Sayamindu Dasgupta]

On Fri, Jun 19, 2009 at 8:29 PM, Daniel Drake<dsd at laptop.org> wrote:
> Hi Eben/other interested victims,
>
> I've designed (it's usually bad news when I've designed things) some
> interfaces that allow for switching between Sugar and GNOME for the
> XO-1.5 builds. I'm looking for feedback on the design and any
> suggestions/contributions.
>
>
> By default, laptops boot straight up into Sugar.
> But you might notice a new icon in the control panel named "Switch
> desktop"
> http://dev.laptop.org/~dsd/20090619/sugar-controlpanel.png
>
> If we click on that, under normal circumstances you will see:
> http://dev.laptop.org/~dsd/20090619/sugar-active-sugar.png
>
> Then, when you click the "Switch to GNOME" button, it will look like
> this:
> http://dev.laptop.org/~dsd/20090619/sugar-active-gnome.png
>
> And if everything works right, this one will never be seen, but allows
> for an escape route if something goes wrong:
> http://dev.laptop.org/~dsd/20090619/sugar-active-unknown.png
>
>
> When you're in GNOME, there is an icon that says "Switch to Sugar" on
> the desktop. It's also on the Applications menu, under System. When you
> click on it, it brings up a dialog box that tells you to restart and
> then you'll be back in Sugar again.
> In this screenshot you can see the desktop item, the menu item, and the
> output dialog box:
> http://dev.laptop.org/~dsd/20090619/gnome-ui.png
>
>
> Code for all of that is at
> git://dev.laptop.org/users/dsd/olpc-switch-desktop
> (latest updates to be pushed in a few minutes)
>
>
> The Logout menu item in sugar is disabled. It's still there in GNOME,
> but I'll look for a way to hide it. (when you logout, it just basically
> restarts the desktop environment, so it's kind of pointless. A reboot is
> acceptable for changing DE, and the logout concept is confusing when
> there wasn't any logging in to begin with.)


Minor nitpick (and this has been discussed again and again on various
lists), but the foot icon may be regarded as highly offensive in
certain cultures (eg: certain places in S-E Asia). Granted that GNOME
uses the foot icon at various places, but somehow the icon on the
sugar-control-panel "felt" more prominent/jarring to me, maybe because
of the color scheme, or maybe for something else.

Thanks,
Sayamindu

-- 
Sayamindu Dasgupta
[http://sayamindu.randomink.org/ramblings]