[Sugar-devel] Initial implementation of toolbars design

[Gary C Martin]

On 30 Jul 2009, at 20:46, Simon Schampijer wrote:

> On 07/29/2009 07:03 PM, Gary C Martin wrote:
>> 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.

OK, next nit pick (apologise as it is clearly a design oversight not  
implementation issue).

Are we suggesting we make all the lovely, really simple, Activities  
(the ones who have managed to avoid tabs and just a "title", "keep",  
"stop", and perhaps sharing) now show a 95% empty top bar (with just  
the activity icon at one end and the stop over at the other). And  
require popping up and potentially adjusting the canvas sizes to fit  
the Activity sub toolbar? Just did a very (very) quick/rough dig  
through.

Pippy (though we could finally move "run" and "stop" into the toolbar).
Maze
IRC
Chat
Typing Turtle
EToys (has title, sharing, keep, stop, and other buttons, )
Most (all?) of every MaMaMedia (Slider Puzzle, Jigsaw Puzzle, Poll  
builder, Story builder Joke Machine, etc...)

et al...

Ideally I'd like to see an activity icon, and its journal title  
appearing, so you have the best chance of knowing 'what' you are  
currently looking at.

OT: Activity icon followed by title makes an activity instance look  
like the Journal entry row it came from, which would be a good thing,  
but I couldn't find a reliable design for that formula.

> 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.

I know what you mean. I did wonder once if a modal activity alert  
style pop-up, below the activity toolbar, would be less intrusive, and  
more in context with the activity than a pop-up dialogue that hides  
most of the Activity context.

> 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.

+1

Extremely good icons are essential or else WE FAIL and walk backwards  
here. :-( At least this is something we can iterate on before the 0.86  
official release that gets documented and pushed out to deployments.

> 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?

My vote is for no right align. Put those icons (share with, keep) left  
aligned near any other icons (perhaps a tag feature can show here in  
future). My main concern here would be for a child trying to drive the  
mouse all the way over from the far left of the display, to the far  
right to hit a target.

Regards,
--Gary