[Sugar-devel] [DESIGN] Instant palette popdown - a usability improvement

[Sam Parkinson]

Hi All,

I have made a patch to implement this proposal:  
https://github.com/sugarlabs/sugar-toolkit-gtk3/pull/326

You really should try it out.  It is surprising how much quicker it 
makes Sugar feel.  Sugar feels much more snappy.

It probably might even Sugar feel snappier on the XO1s, given that it 
isn't draining any more cpu cycles.  In fact, it probably uses less CPU 
given it removes some code and "animations", but that is so marginal

Thanks,
Sam

On Sat, May 28, 2016 at 11:50 PM, Walter Bender 
<walter.bender at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> On Sat, May 28, 2016 at 9:22 AM, Tony Anderson 
> <tony_anderson at usa.net> wrote:
>> Hi Walter,
>> 
>> I am not sure why the right-click should not open a palette whose 
>> function is comparable to the context-menus in other systems. I 
>> don't know how a
>> right click is used as an accelerator.
> 
> It is accelerating what hover does.
> 
>> 
>> The issue is that a right-click can open a palette which stays open 
>> until there is another click or the user clicks in the palette. This 
>> is much better than our current disappearing menus (if you move the 
>> cursor so as to leave the boundary of the icon and its palette for a 
>> microsecond, it disappears and you have to start over. This also 
>> means hover can be used for tooltips - a single piece of information 
>> (the name of the activity, for example.
> 
> We have more info the longer you hover. We could perhaps delay the 
> disappearance or expand the hit area to address your concern.
>> 
>> I think Sam's concerns about the home view arises from its being 
>> used to resume activities which is redundant to the use of the 
>> Journal view for that purpose.
>> Originally in Sugar, a click on the icon launched an activity (as it 
>> does now in the List View. A click on an icon in the Journal view 
>> resumed the activity. This
>> was a very simple and understandable interface. In most cases users 
>> did not have to see or understand a palette menu.
>> 
> 
> We went through this many times. The current behavior reflects the 
> need to address among other things, journal spam. In my computing 
> life, 90+% of the time I am continuing existing work rather than 
> starting something new. And we have a keyboard shortcut for the 
> latter behavior. We did discuss having some activities be able to 
> override the default behavior. Which would you suggest?
> 
>> Actually this style probably promotes discoverability. When a user 
>> clicks on an icon in the Home View and an arbitrary activity 
>> instance is launched, the
>> user does not have a predicable starting point. This is particularly 
>> difficult in situations where an XO is shared among multiple users 
>> since Sugar has no
>> way to know who was the last to launch an activity.
> 
> We need to address the multiple user issue separately. Each user 
> should have their own history.
>> 
>> 
>> Tony
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On 05/28/2016 02:29 PM, Walter Bender wrote:
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On Sat, May 28, 2016 at 8:18 AM, Sam Parkinson 
>>> <sam.parkinson3 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> Hi Tony,
>>>> 
>>>> On Thu, May 26, 2016 at 8:58 PM, Tony Anderson 
>>>> <tony_anderson at usa.net> wrote:
>>>>> Hi Sam
>>>>> 
>>>>> I like the Google apps button on the Google main page and the 
>>>>> menu button at the far right of the Firefox toolbar. They show as 
>>>>> a popup and have
>>>>> plenty of screen space for icons and larger font sizes. This 
>>>>> could support a design in which a left-click always causes an 
>>>>> action and a right-click is required
>>>>> to open up the 'palette' This is done well on the standard 
>>>>> toolbar.
>>>>> 
>>>>> On the Home View, for instance. I would prefer that left-clicking 
>>>>> on the icon launches the activity (new start). The tooltip shows 
>>>>> the name of the activity (and nothing else). A right-click can 
>>>>> open a list of instances available to be resumed. Using the 
>>>>> Google or Firefox style, the list of instances can look exactly 
>>>>> like the corresponding entry in the Journal.
>>>> 
>>>> I think that if we make palettes right click only, we loose an 
>>>> important discoverability aspect.  Do you find the hover-to-open 
>>>> helpful or harmful to discoverability in your experience?
>>> 
>>> +1. I implore you not to make any aspect of the interface depend 
>>> upon right click. It should always be an accelerator, but nothing 
>>> more.
>>>> 
>>>> I also think that the homeview palettes are a special case.  We 
>>>> aren't going to be able to add more items or elaberation to the 
>>>> running activity palettes, or the buddy palettes.  If we wanted to 
>>>> make the journal more intergrated with the homeview, couldn't we 
>>>> just replace the homeview with an enhanced journal?  (Did we 
>>>> discuss this on list? [1])
>>> 
>>> I think a lot could be done in that space. Love to see some 
>>> concrete proposals.
>>>> 
>>>> I find the idea of a larger font size interesting.  Is the current 
>>>> palette font size too small?  It is also important to remember 
>>>> that any font size increase makes the distance you need to move 
>>>> the mouse bigger, which could be a negative.
>>>> 
>>>> Thanks,
>>>> Sam
>>>> 
>>>> [1]  https://www.sam.today/blog/sugar-nohomeview-design.html
>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> Tony
>>>>> 
>>>>> On 05/26/2016 12:44 PM, sam at sam.today wrote:
>>>>>> Hi All,
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> A while ago, I dropped a mention on the list to how many users 
>>>>>> found the palette system confusing, at least in my usability 
>>>>>> testing experiment.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> I recently wrote this up, with a more detailed rational;  
>>>>>> https://www.sam.today/blog/sugar-with-instant-palettes/
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> I invite you to comment on this.  This could be an interesting 
>>>>>> change for sugar (0.)110.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Thanks,
>>>>>> Sam
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>> Sugar-devel mailing list
>>>>>> Sugar-devel at lists.sugarlabs.org
>>>>>> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
>>>>> 
>>>> 
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>>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> --
>>> Walter Bender
>>> Sugar Labs
>>> http://www.sugarlabs.org
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
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>> 
>> 
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> 
> 
> 
> --
> Walter Bender
> Sugar Labs
> http://www.sugarlabs.org
> 
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