[Sugar-devel] [DESIGN] Problem with Pippy layout on <=0.84

[Gary Martin]

On 30 Jul 2010, at 20:28, Daniel Drake <dsd at laptop.org> wrote:

> On 30 July 2010 10:59, Anish Mangal <anishmangal2002 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> I think you should revert to the original design.
>> 
>> I agree that 'hiding' the action buttons away in a toolbar is rather
>> unfortunate :-( , but wouldn't placing buttons as in the original
>> layout eat up vertical space?
> 
> No more than before (as has been the design for years).

Yes, this is the unfortunate fallback position.

> 
>> 2. I'd like to know how often are the buttons actually used? When
>> people code, they usually don't like to take their hands of the
>> keyboard and prefer quick keyboard shortcuts rather than using the
>> touchpad or mouse. However, the situation may be very different in the
>> case of students, and the positioning of these buttons in the original
>> layout seems to reflect that.
> 
> Sugar has little visibility of keyboard shortcuts (is there even any
> documentation of them?) so I think its safe to assume that children
> will use the buttons a lot more often.

Keyboard accelerators landed some time ago, even Sugar 0.84 has their support I believe, but I agree that visual buttons are the major usage vector (and will be even more critical as we move to a touch screen based world).

> Given the changes you're proposing, perhaps the most sensible course
> of action is to drop compatibility with sugar versions that don't have
> new toolbars. Then you can change the design without worrying about
> the implications of space usage by old toolbars.

Maybe, but I'd personally hate to drop such compatibility at this point if it can be avoided. 

Regards,
--Gary 


> Daniel
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