[Sugar-devel] [DESIGN] [PATCH RFC sugar] Wireless network Frame device: add suport for disabling wireless devices

[Gary Martin]

On 8 Jul 2011, at 10:28, Daniel Drake <dsd at laptop.org> wrote:

> On 27 June 2011 12:27, Sascha Silbe <silbe at activitycentral.com> wrote:
>> This duplicates the existing functionality in the Control Panel for more
>> convenient access. Disabling wifi devices can save power, thereby increasing
>> battery life.
> 
> On XO-1 (and also currently on XO-1.5) we have the option of removing
> power from the wifi device when it is disabled. While this is clearly
> desirable, we don't have the code in place right now, but it will
> come.
> 
> So, this will cause the device to disppear and the frame will be
> updated accordingly. This means that you'd lose symmetry - you could
> disable the device from the frame, but then the icon would disappear
> and you wouldn't have the same way of enabling it again.
> 
> I know it is a rare case for a user to have multiple active wireless
> devices, but the way that you are linking a global wifi on-off switch
> to an individual wireless device lacks a bit of consistency in design
> (and is actually the cause of the above).

I have to agree with you, Sacha has quite a long list of network related UI design change preposals and this seemed like the least offensive one, but if, as you point out above, the frame icon will be removed when the device is really powered off (with some future patch), then I'd not want to see this extra menu item landed.

My original suggestion for covering the extra functionality that Sacha has been preposing was to work on a feature allowing a control panel module to be opened directly from else where in Sugar (the wireless device palette opening the networking module in this case), so that a user could quickly access the relevant cp module, in context, for more advanced tweaking. The new features can than be added to cp modules as needed. I believe this was originally preposed by Eben some time back to try and help keep the primary Sugar UI design as focused as possible and avoid feature creep/clutter.

Regards,
--Gary

> Daniel