[Sugar-devel] FreeDesktop integration UI discussion

[Sam Parkinson]

On Tue, Jul 26, 2016 at 12:34 PM, Sebastian Silva 
<sebastian at fuentelibre.org> wrote:
> Hi Sam, Dave,
> 
> Thanks for bringing this up.
> El 16/07/16 a las 18:18, Sam Parkinson escribió:
>> 
>> 
>> 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.
> I'm leaning for drag and drop into home view.

 From where?  Dragging what?

> 
>> 
>>> 
>>> 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.
> xfdesktop is the component of XFCE which draws the "Desktop" 
> including icons and wallpaper. That's where I think Sugar could live 
> (as a root window handler and fancy launcher).
>>> 
>>> 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.
> Sugar shell already supports resizable windows (basically MDI) 
> because we use Metacity as a window manager.
> 
> It is Sugar Activities that are maximized and not resizable by 
> default [because that's what sugar-toolkit does].
> 
> However, they are supposed to adjust to screen rotation, so in 
> principle they could become resizable.
> 
> Was forced maximization a design decision based on the XO laptop's 
> screen size?
> I think it would make sense to allow resizing or tiling of Sugar 
> Activities (as an option for larger screens).
> 
> Other desktop environments expect to be able to resize and move 
> windows so I think we should allow it at least in that case.

We should defiantly allow sugar activities to be resized when they are 
run inside of GNOME.

Inside of Sugar, it would be nice to expose this feature as well.  But 
I think that we need to design it an do it well.  I'm personally a fan 
of how Apple's iOS split view implementation.  It is very simple and 
friendly. It appears to be a design that works well on laptop sized 
screens - from your 7" xos/ipad minis to the 11" ipad.  It probably 
would work well on larger laptops too - I personally just use 
fullscreen or vertical split in GNOME.  But this is for discussion!

Thanks,
Sam

[1]  http://osxdaily.com/2015/12/04/use-split-view-multitasking-ipad/
> 
> 
> Regards,
> Sebastian
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