[Sugar-devel] [PATCH] Sort the activities in the home in alphabetic order

[Gary Martin]

On 4 Oct 2012, at 16:48, Manuel Quiñones <manuq at laptop.org> wrote:

> 2012/10/4 Gonzalo Odiard <godiard at sugarlabs.org>:
>> 
>> 
>> On Thu, Oct 4, 2012 at 12:00 PM, Martin Langhoff <martin.langhoff at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>> 
>>> On Thu, Oct 4, 2012 at 10:33 AM, Gonzalo Odiard <godiard at sugarlabs.org>
>>> wrote:
>>>> We are sorting by localized name.
>>>> It's true than the order will be different if you use a different
>>>> language,
>>>> but we think is better for the users.
>>> 
>>> Less consistency in icon location better? How?
>> 
>> 
>> You have less consistency only if you change the language.
>> 99.9% of our users will not do it,
>> and will prefer have a consistent order = alphabetic.
>> 
>> "Navegar" is after "Medir", does not have sense have it sorted as "Browse"
>> 
>> Have sense use the same order in the listview and in the favorites view too.
> 
> In internal discussions with Gary and Simon I gave +1 for alphabetic
> ordering in list view, and -1 for favs view.  My cons were: 1.
> inconsistency between languages for first boot layout, 2. icons
> displacement while switching language 3. I like how new added
> activities appear right at the top of the buddy icon head.  I think
> alpha ordering have no sense in only-icons views.

I'm still +1 for localised alphabetical ordering.

Installation date ordering (e.g. modification date of Activity) is rather arbitrary and unstable, you have no idea where anything will be, and they keep changing over time. Alphabetical sorting on the localised names provides a stable, understandable sort order for both list and favourite views (unless you are frequently switching between locales, a minority edge case). For newly added activities, they will first appear as grey stroke icons, so unless you've not been not using your favourite Activities, the new one should be reasonably obvious, and we have a nice search feature if you have a large number installed.

Regarding screenshots for documentation (mentioned by Martin), I would argue this is a relatively minor case, less than the previous date sort case where documentation screen shots, over time, have icons in seemingly arbitrary positions as the documentation authors update to different activity versions. Martin, could you clarify this example a little more, did you have some specific documentation task in mind?

Regards,
--Gary

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