[Sugar-devel] [DESIGN] icons for import/export document proposal

Walter Bender walter.bender at gmail.com
Fri Jun 17 09:16:52 EDT 2011


On Fri, Jun 17, 2011 at 9:06 AM, Walter Bender <walter.bender at gmail.com> wrote:
> 2011/6/17 Gary Martin <garycmartin at googlemail.com>:
>> Hi Manuel,
>>
>> On 16 Jun 2011, at 05:29, manuel quiñones wrote:
>>
>>> El día 16 de junio de 2011 01:23, Gonzalo Odiard <gonzalo at laptop.org> escribió:
>>>> NIce!
>>>
>>> Thanks! :)
>>>
>>> Two options more:
>>>
>>> http://dev.laptop.org/~manuq/import-export/document_import-export_2.png
>>>
>>> I think they are more clear, but the objects (arrow and doc) may be
>>> too small on screen.
>>
>> Sorry for this rushed email, I'm late to this thread!
>>
>> - I agree the 2nd two designs don't provide enough space for the object being imported/exported (the blank document is the simplest visual case).
>>
>> - The 1st design is better in size but is too similar to the existing 14 transfer-from-XXXX and transfer-to-XXXX icons already used in sugar-artwork for the object transfer over the network feature (Journal "Send to -> friend").
>>
>> - I think introducing a 3d metaphor with the use of perspective is not ideal – I'm sure there was a past thread about avoiding 3D metaphors in the flat silhouette design style, but I can't find it, no mention of perspective in the HIG either. There are only a few cases of 3D styling in Sugar designs at the moment (the open Journal cover in the Keep icon, the my computer XO icon, the long/lat lines on the Browse related icons) and none try to show perspective.
>>
>> Taking a step back, here's a quick list of the goals I have written down:
>>
>> 1) ability to show different object types (pdf, png, generic image, python, etc)
>> 2) visually distinguish importing vs. exporting from/to the Journal
>> 3) distinguish between the existing "Send to --> friend" and importing/exporting from your Journal
>> 4) visually distinguish saving/loading from the file system tree
>>
>> Personally I have a strong dislike for case 4. It seems a short term compromise/hack to raise a traditional gnome file chooser. Ideally if this is seen an essential Sugar feature, the Object Chooser should allow switching to view of the filesystem which – to be honest – seems like an almost solved problem already as the Object Chooser will display any extra mounted volumes in its toolbar (like a USB stick). Walter has a proposed patch already that shows your ~/Documents folder in just such a way in the Journal, so the same could be done for the Object Chooser (not sure the if ~/Documents patch works at the volume mount level so might need some extra work). The need for case 4 could then be dropped and all activity authors would automatically benefit from the new ability.
>>
>> If case 4 goes away, we could go back to the original design used for the Keep icon. Where we have a large user fill/stroke coloured image of the object in question (pdf, png, generic image, python, etc) and a small white arrow in the top right corner. Pointing to the document visual to indicate creation of it (export to ...), and pointing away from it to indicate loading of it (import from ...).
>
> +1. But we need to take care about what parts of the file system will
> be made available this way: maybe something set through gconf?
> Indexing everything would incur a lot of overhead and result in a very
> long flat (but searchable) list -- not very useful). I could see
> indexing $HOME/Documents, $HOME/Activities (if you set some developer
> switch or some other trigger), and perhaps some $HOME/Media directory
> that encompasses the usual Pictures, Video, Music...).

One footnote: We probably still need some explicit mechanism for
saving to the filesystem. If, for exampke, you open a document from
$HOME/Documents in Write, the file you save is in the Journal. You
could drag that file back into $HOME/Documents, but it would probably
be nice to be able to explicitly write to it as well. (See my fork of
Edit in git as an example.)

-walter
>
> -walter
>
>>
>> Regards,
>> --Gary
>>
>>>> Gonzalo
>>>>
>>>> 2011/6/16 manuel quiñones <manuq at laptop.org>
>>>>>
>>>>> Hi, I'm sending my first try at this icons, based on a discussion in
>>>>> the design meeting past sunday (sorry Gary you missed the last part).
>>>>>
>>>>> It becomes apparent that we need icons for export and import of
>>>>> documents.  For example, Write reuses the document-save icon for
>>>>> export.
>>>>>
>>>>> http://dev.laptop.org/~manuq/import-export/document-import.svg
>>>>> http://dev.laptop.org/~manuq/import-export/document-export.svg
>>>>> http://dev.laptop.org/~manuq/import-export/document_import-export.png
>>>>>
>>>>> This is how they can be used in Write:
>>>>>
>>>>> http://dev.laptop.org/~manuq/import-export/import-export_mockup.png
>>>>>
>>>>> Regards,
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> Sugar-devel mailing list
>>>>> Sugar-devel at lists.sugarlabs.org
>>>>> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> .. manuq ..
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>>
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Walter Bender
> Sugar Labs
> http://www.sugarlabs.org
>



-- 
Walter Bender
Sugar Labs
http://www.sugarlabs.org


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