[Sugar-devel] Initial implementation of toolbars design

[Simon Schampijer]

On 07/29/2009 07:03 PM, Gary C Martin wrote:
> Hi Simon,
>
> On 29 Jul 2009, at 08:55, Simon Schampijer wrote:
>
>>> FWIW: Picking the top level tool set is going to be a real tough call in
>>> a number of cases as we loose toolbar space for each extra tab, plus the
>>> activity icon on far left (essential for Activity recognition), plus the
>>> stop icon on far right (essential, no questions, no doubts). The
>>> features that actually fit in the remaining space may seem quite an
>>> arbitrary hotchpotch.
>>
>> Gary, I am not sure I get your arguments right :/ Can you elaborate?
>> What I conclude of all the answers, I think that space in the primary
>> toolbar is an issue. So we need to decide what to put there. Does
>> activity icon and stop icon sounds good to you as well?
>
> Sorry if that wasn't clear. Activity icon and stop icon are essential.
> The Activity icon is going to be critical for identifying what activity
> you are in at a glance, especially if the actual title name is hidden
> away in a sub toolbar. A downside if we loose the title in the primary
> toolbar is reinforcement of knowing what activity you are in (say you
> are copy/pasting between two similar Write documents)...

Ok, thanks for the explanation. The differentiation of the running 
instance of two activities of the same type is a good point. But, does 
this happen often? I guess many kids will run one activity of each type 
at a time, and remember performance constraints ;p And one can use the 
frame to distinguish the activities.

Personally, I see more the issue of naming an activity, since as said in 
another post I am not really convinced about the naming alert.

One little thing I am a bit worried about, is that we miss labels for 
the sub-toolbars. I hope the icons are meaningful enough for the users - 
but then labels can be misleading as well, and many of our users can't 
possibly read.

About alignment (attached is a snapshot), should we align the 'share 
button' and the 'keep one' to the left that the way to get to this 
button is not so long, when revealing the toolbar?

Thanks,
    Simon
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