[Sugar-devel] FreeDesktop integration UI discussion

[Sam Parkinson]

On Sun, Jul 17, 2016 at 12:33 AM, Dave Crossland <dave at lab6.com> wrote:
> 
> Hi
> 
> Sebastian just edited the wiki about the amazing FreeDesktop 
> integration work he's been doing:
> 
> https://wiki.sugarlabs.org/index.php?title=Features/FreeDesktop_integration&diff=next&oldid=98058
> 
> He added 2 ui questions:
> 
> > How to choose .desktop files to show in Sugar Launcher.
> 
> I think something similar to the "Fonts v1" activity would be good to 
> start; a simple activity that lists all of the .desktop files 
> available, and a star to select/deselect them. Would the output 
> likely be a simple text file with all the selected files's full 
> paths? That way, anyone could easily make such a text file before the 
> UI is ready.

I'd think that this would be best placed in a new My Settings panel - 
activities are about documents.  But, I'd agree with you that we just 
need a list, with icons and a check to select/deselect.

> 
> https://github.com/sugarlabs/edit-fonts-activity/tree/94c443f1b1c394f12edcb0af156542a4cee6c808
> 
> > How to make Journal and Activities behave well outside sugar (i.e. 
> handle resize, multiple screens or virtual desktops)

Maybe we could go with a more simple idea in the current?  When the 
user opens an activity, a prompt is shown asking them to select a 
jobject to resume, or to title a new entry?

> 
> I think the core question is if Sugar becomes a MDI outside of its 
> SDI desktop context.
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_document_interface
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_document_interface
> 
> For me, I think a MDI Sugar is a simple solution to all those issues 
> you list: it means the Journal and each Activity are each just 
> another window. Perhaps the only 'special' window is a "Home" 
> activity where the frame is always visible, and in which its possible 
> to switch from Home to Groups to Neighborhood to Network.
> 
> Of course, it might be nice to add - as GIMP did when it went the 
> other way from MDI to SDI - a preference so that there could be a 
> single "Sugar" window that offers an experience similar to running a 
> SOAS VM.

Like sugar-runner?

> 
> That could even be done using suitably configured 3rd party software 
> rather than writing our own code... I remember a long time ago when 
> Sawfish was the GNOME 2 window manager that you could write lisp 
> scripts to programmatically place windows, and I think there was 
> something specific for that purpose when GNOME moved to metacity 
> (that was also scripted in lisp) but I forgot its name. =)
> 
> Cheers
> Dave
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