[Sugar-devel] Shell Port: RandomLayout (FreeFormLayout)

[Simon Schampijer]

Hi,

while porting the Home View I am dealing as well with the RandomLayout. 
When it was introduced the idea was to give learners a chance to 
personalize their home view and group activities together if desired. 
This was basically mimicking the desktop metaphor.

I agree that there is value in letting users customize their home view, 
in grouping activities for example, like grouping in subjects (e.g. 
math, language). I question a bit that the RandomLayout is a good tool 
for that. There is no grid where the icons get snapped to, no visual 
indication of groups only by positioning. And the current implementation 
is mainly a proof of concept which is not very precise in placing icons 
close to each other.

So my questions are now:

- is it used in deployments? If, in which ways do kids use it? What do 
they like about it and what do they try to achieve with it?

- do we want to keep supporting the FreeFormLayout? Or work on a better 
activity managing layout?

- if we remove it, do we still want to port it? I am close for the 
no-hippo part, but it is another complex bit, that we need to invest and 
if we don't want to go forward with it no need to invest there.

Regards,
    Simon