[Sugar-devel] Design mockup of a different activity launcher

[Eben Eliason]

On Sat, Oct 17, 2009 at 4:53 PM, Wade Brainerd <wadetb at gmail.com> wrote:
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvDdN1t-0yE
>
> I was in the code and have wanted to try this for awhile!  If anyone
> else thinks it would be better than the pulsing icon, I'll clean up
> and post the patch to a Feature on the wiki.
>
> Rationale:
> 1) Less flashy

Perhaps, although the screen actually feels busier to me. Perhaps with
some visual tweaks it would work (smaller ring, maybe?), since showing
how long it will take to launch is useful feedback.

I lament the loss of the pulsing icon, though. This approach doesn't
retain the transition from outline to fill that's important to the
activity paradigm. Could we retain that, or is that the "flashy" part
you aim to eliminate?

> 2) Clock theme represents time

I don't understand how we know how long the launch is going to take.
Is that something that we can estimate to a reasonable degree? Or do
you plan to estimate the average launch time across many launches?

> 3) Ability to count how many seconds the launch takes

I'm not sure I see usefulness in knowing how long it takes overall;
knowing how much longer it will take is definitely something a kid
will want to know, though, so it's good to show that.

> 4) Close button (instead of timeout) when there is an error

This is definitely a big improvement. I like this a lot, and think we
should also add options for looking at the crash reports and/or
submitting a bug containing them to the maintainer of the activity,
eventually.

> 5) Possibly less startup overhead; needs to be tested on XO

True. If CPU is a concern, I'd vote to simply blink the icon between
stroke and fill states, instead of pulsing, in order to reduce the
animation overhead while retaining the visual metaphor.

Eben


> -Wade
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