[Sugar-devel] [Design] New Home View Framebar proposal

[Frederick Grose]

mockup at:
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Design_Team/Proposals/Home_View/Toolbar

The current Home View toolbar is mostly wasted space.

There have been a number of Design discussions suggesting that
* The Home list view is confused with and should be replaced by the
  Journal.
* The Journal Icon should always be available in the Home View.
* The Frame is not discoverable enough.
* The number of and memory consumption of open Activities should be
  more apparent.

This proposal addresses these by replacing the Home View toolbar with the
Frame upperbar.

The Home View framebar would
* Activate the full Frame on hover, exposing the Frame for greater
  familiarity.
* Provide a permanent link to the Journal.
* Reveal the number of open Activities.
**  A dynamic, region for each open Activity instance that was
    roughly proportional to the fraction of available memory (back-
    highlighted as currently for the active Activity instance) would
    help to reveal the memory economics.

* Continue to offer Home View layouts by moving that palette under
  the Home F3 palette.
* This design would also eliminate the non-functional search tool,
  (F5 or the Search button would still take one to the Journal search
  tool).
**  A search tool could be added to the Home F3 icon palette.

* Until folks are comfortable with and have a 'System' Journal
  available through Journal_s_, setting favorites for installed
  Activity bundles could be done on a list or gallery view accessed
  from the Home F3 palette that would popover the Home View, like the
  'My Settings' dialog, to distinguish it from a Journal view (for
  now).
**  Homunq's sidepane might also be suitable.

          --Fred
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