Opening up a conversation with Eben about the activity startup animation.  The pulsing, scaling icon appears to slow down activity startup, at least on slow hardware like the XO.<div><br></div><div>I suggested replacing the pulsing icon with a static one, and surrounding it with dots at a rate of 1 per second.  </div> <div>Eben suggests an alternative, replacing the pulsing one with a blinking icon.</div><div>It strikes me that the two could possibly be combined.</div><div><br></div><div>Anyone else want to weigh in?</div><div><div><br> </div><div>Cheers,</div><div>Wade<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">---------- Forwarded message ----------<br>From: <b class="gmail_sendername">Eben Eliason</b> <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:eben.eliason@gmail.com">eben.eliason@gmail.com</a>></span><br> Date: Mon, Feb 23, 2009 at 3:27 PM<br>Subject: Re: Activity startup idea<br>To: Wade Brainerd <<a href="mailto:wadetb@gmail.com">wadetb@gmail.com</a>><br><br><br><div class="Ih2E3d">On Fri, Feb 20, 2009 at 1:04 AM, Wade Brainerd <<a href="mailto:wadetb@gmail.com">wadetb@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br> > Hey Eben,<br> ><br> > There has been some back and forth about the pulsing activity startup icon<br> > hurting performance.  Benjamin Berg recently did some optimization to<br> > improve it, but it's still costing us something tangible, maybe a second or<br> > two.<br> <br> </div>Yes, this sucks.  So small....yet so CPU consuming.<br> <div class="Ih2E3d"><br> > I'm writing to ask if you would consider an alternate visual design that<br> > uses less CPU.  An idea of mine is to replace the pulsing icon with a static<br> > icon, which becomes encircled by dots (one per second) in a clockwise ring.<br> > Excuse my poor ASCII art (circles are hard to render!):<br> <br> </div>I'd much sooner replace it with a blinking icon, opposed to a pulsing<br> one, because the important visual metaphor is the transition from the<br> outline (activity bundle template) to colored fill (activity<br> instance).<br> <br> I recognize that your suggestion conforms to the startup design, which<br> is nice, but I'd actually strongly prefer XO startup to mirror<br> activity startup, with the XO blinking/pulsing from stroke to fill, as<br> per the initial design.  Perhaps now that Sugar isn't tied directly to<br> OLPC (That is, boot sequence is dependent upon the distro, I think),<br> we should publicize a new startup spec and/or write some code to make<br> it work.<br> <div class="Ih2E3d"><br> > Second 1<br> ><br> >       *<br> ><br> >       =D<br> ><br> ><br> > Second 2<br> ><br> >     * *<br> >    *<br> >       =D<br> ><br> > Second 3<br> ><br> >     * *<br> >    *<br> >       =D<br> ><br> > Second 4<br> ><br> >     * *<br> >    *<br> >   *    =D<br> ><br> ><br> > Second 5<br> ><br> >     * *<br> >    *<br> >   *   =D<br> >   *<br> ><br> > ....and so on until there is a full circle, at which point they start over.<br> > The dots could be spaced apart around 15 to 20 degrees, which would mean<br> > about 20 seconds of startup time before they reach a full circle.<br> ><br> > In addition to reducing the screen updates to one per second (and turning<br> > them into simple dots versus a pulsing SVG icon) the user would be able to<br> > count activity startup in seconds, by counting the dots :)<br> <br> </div>We could likewise blink/pulse at such a rate.<br> <div class="Ih2E3d"><br> > So, what do you think of this idea?  Or have you got another idea that might<br> > reduce the performance hit?  I spoke with Benjamin and he said he would<br> > consider implementing an alternate design if it were approved by you.<br> <br> </div>I think the first step would be to try the blinking and see how much<br> time is saved.  If it's substantial, perhaps we should do it.  I<br> wonder, too, if this is a problem for Sugar in general or just on XO-1<br> hardware...<br> <br> - Eben<br> <br> PS.  Feel free to forward this to the lists, if you want.<br> <br> > Best regards,<br> > Wade<br> ><br> ><br> ><br> </div><br></div></div>