Re: Hello all

[Karl Lattimer <karl qdh org uk>]

On Wed, 2007-10-24 at 14:20 +0100, John Carr wrote:
> Hi Karl
> 
> Very very interesting and exciting!
> 
> First off with this, I think when you plug in a device we will simply
> ask the user which datatypes they want to sync. They will be added to
> the relevant part under each authority. This is much nicer than the user
> have to pick where they want to sync I think.
> 
> How do you feel about having "sensible defaults". For example, a tab for
> Contacts, Calendar, Todo, Notes, Photos, Music etc. Not sure quite how
> far to go! Or perhaps none and just have an attractive start page. If
> you plug in a device that supports a datatype you don't have a tab for,
> it would be created automatically?
> 
> More sensible defaults: Under Contacts, the default authority is
> Evolution. Under Notes, Tomboy. I dare say these defaults will be set
> via something a distro could customise - gconf defaults?

This sounds exactly the kind of thing I was thinking about, because the
idea that the top of the relationship is an authority it makes sense to
assume these authorities, unless the user wants to change that.

> 
> In this UI, I imagine that the list of dataproviders down the side is
> removed? Or do you imagine a context sensitive list? Initially I thought
> no list and a user interacts with the canvas to invoke some kind of
> chooser dialog?
> 
> If there is no list of dataproviders down side, do you prefer idea of
> having a list of datatypes downside or tabs of datatypes at top?


Both options sound interesting, the idea was to have a list of relevant
dataproviders down the left and the list of active relationships down
the right. With a switcher of sorts at the top, lets call it tabs for
now although it probably won't be.


> 
> The more I think about this the more I want it to happen! Perhaps I can
> coerce you into some kind of UK hackfest :)

Erm, maybe? We can work some details out, but I have a busy schedule for
the next few weeks.

K,

> John/Jc2k
> 
> On Wed, 2007-10-24 at 12:57 +0100, Karl Lattimer wrote:
> > Hello everyone, I'm Karl, and this is my introduction :)
> > 
> > For some time I've been musing over the user interface in conduit, and
> > as John has already blogged about was my first attempt at making the
> > conduit UI rock.
> > 
> > Since then I've been thinking in great detail about the way that
> > information is presented to the user. In an attempt to clean things up
> > and make an interesting jump into a dare I say it "new sync paradigm"
> > what I've thought is the following;
> > 
> >  * If there is only one type of data type per relationship then the most
> > important UI feature is that data type. Therefore a tab type philosophy
> > should probably be adopted to represent the data types the user cares
> > about, i.e. notes, calendars, contacts, files etc... 
> > 
> >  * If there is essentially one authority in a relationship then that
> > authority should be shown at the root of the relationship. Currently
> > conduit does this by showing the authority on the left. 
> > 
> >  * Further to the authority, elements in the relationship can be either
> > a replicant or a publishing destination depending on whether or not they
> > can provide two way sync.
> > 
> > After making these grand assumptions about the use case of conduit I
> > have put together a display of what one of these relationships would
> > look like. It becomes obvious that a vertical approach provides a
> > cleaner and more spacious display. (see attached screenshot), within
> > each of the tabs (and I'm not convinced about tabs but I'm yet to design
> > the glade mockup), management of data providers and a list of the
> > relationships that exist are a necessity but these should be displayed
> > relevant to the task at hand, if I'm managing my notes relationships I
> > don't want to see data providers that don't allow me to sync notes.
> > 
> > I'm eagerly awaiting comments on this, as I've been drawing sketches on
> > paper over the last few months wracking my brains on how I can make
> > conduit UI zen happen.
> > 
> > Regards,
> >  K,
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> 
>