Re: Dashboard Dbus Frontend

["kim wroblewski" <kimwroblewski gmail com>]

>Neat.  The idea is that all of this information would come up as a
>notification on the side?

Thanks, 
Yes, each tile is its own notification popup on the side.
It's nice how the dashboard popups integrate and inter-mix with other notifications like logins and warnings. 

I think it is interesting that the layout is completely based on the quality of the information sent. 
Dashboard presents prioritized information. 
Notify has logic that displays information. 

There is one visual field, but there are many sources of information.
Even if the visual field is multi-dimensional, complex or changing:
Dashboard can concentrate on following the task at hand as clued by the user's apps.
Notify can concetrate on displaying priority information.

The dashboard currently states when the tile should be shown and taken down.
It says:
What information is shown.
What priority it is.
What type it is.

A popup is a stackable block that can contain widgets tailored to displaying 'types' of information.
Current types are:
* text
* picture 
* url, with an application "chooser"
* button, that executes a callback function

Is there an application which would be impossible to make with popups?

Could a text editor be made where each dialogue box was a specified popup box to appear at a given location in a given context? And for the file dialogue box to appear when it was appropriate? The easiest set of rules is to say the box should be shown at all times in all cases.

>(a)unobtrusive to the user
>(b)a dedicated Dashboard UI is pretty useful on its own as well.

The easy answer is, 'dedicated' means stable across space and time. And dashboard currently says when a popup-tile goes up and comes down.

The hard answer is, Dashboard need not be a second class citizen.

A Beagle-Filter for scoring how we view images is the same as a set of rules that lays-out graphical information popups, only running in the other direction.

image -> priority list
prioritized list -> image

The rules I am using in my Image Filter are taken from classical image composition. Constraint rules such as:
1)The most important element takes up the greatest area.
2)The most important element has the greatest value contrast.
3)The most important element has the most saturation.
4)The most important element has complimentary colors at it's boarder.
5)The circle has a higher visual attention score than a square.
6)pop-art icons score higher than foreign shapes.
7)progressions of space divisions, or gradients have an attention gradient
8)symmetry develops visual tension.
9)golden ratios develops visual relaxation.
10)tangency develops visual tension.
11)a subsection of color is relative to it's context
etc.
*For pictures you look at day-in and day-out, you can add rules of reinforcement-association, as your autonomic reactions learn instinctual responses for locations and behaviors. Thresholds above which increases attention scores.

From what I have seen, previous tries at dynamic UI layout were unable to apply such constraint rules effectively because it did not 'know' the task at hand, and the priority of interest for that task.

Or if it was given the task priority, the constraint-rules were lacking any real expert knowledge and it was more of an academic exercise. Maybe a system dedicated to collecting such contextual task information is prime to drive such a layout machine. 

Circuit board layout seems no more complicated than plotting information-layouts.

If it sees that your going to put your glass down, it pops up a coaster.
If it sees that your typing C# code, it alerts you the food store closes in 30 minutes.
If it sees that your watching a movie, it takes down the clock popup.

The intrusion is the priority.

The human body has both more thoughtful motives and autonomic reactions. They compete for your attention.

Right now we have 95% app/5% toolbar ratio.
The 95% is used to show search engine results, and web-design layouts.

When Dashboard starts firing notifications of more interest than going to a public search engine, or website directly, it will command more screen realestate.

For example, I'm sick of checking my bank account with the human web-interface. It's a terrible interface to return a single integer. Can we put in a Beagle Filter for 'web screen-scrapers'?