Re: Roadmap for the future.

[Robb Beal <robb usercreations com>]

Fellas.

Robb Beal, functional software designer, here!

I'd like to throw some ideas/comments into the mix.

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FOCUSED APP DELEGATING PRESENTATION TO DASHBOARD
Has the notion of the focused app supplying the context *presentation* 
been considered/discussed? I'm imagining a scenario where the Dashboard 
engine, acting more like a service, supplies the context data with the 
focused app integrally presenting the context as appropriate for its 
UI. (The focused app would still be able to delegate display to the 
Dashboard UI.)

Some arguments in favor of allowing the focused app to get first crack 
at context presentation:

- The focused app is less likely to present context that's duplicitous 
with its own. Dashboard has subtractive value when a user switches to 
it only to prominently see, for example, the same feed details as (a 
focused) Straw was showing.

- The focused app may be able to better prioritize the Dashboard engine 
context for presentation. Similarly, it may be able to better filter 
out context that's not appropriate.

- The focused app may itself have context that's not appropriate 
outside of the app, especially context that has associated behavior. 
Presenting this context and Dashboard engine supplied context 
integrally in the focused app is a much better experience than 
presenting them separately.

- The focused app will likely be providing the preference UI for when 
to ask Dashboard to display context, so it would not be surprising to 
the user for the focused app to present the context integrally. (I 
suspect every front end will won't to minimally provide a Dashboard 
opt-out preference.)


FIXING HORIZONTAL SPACE
Consider the experience of someone with poor vision who must use a 
large font size. For textual content with fixed horizontal space, the 
number of words per line would be so small as to make something like an 
email excerpt unreadable. (To say nothing of the vertical space it 
would take up.) So, the horizontal space (ie, window width) needs to be 
a function of font size, preferably such that you'd have a constant 
number of words per line.

Another possibility is zooming (out) the Dashboard view to fit the 
window with some minimum zoom level that cannot be exceeded.
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Exciting stuff! Glad to have the ability to contribute!

Robb