New Designs!

[Allan Day <allanpday gmail com>]

Hi all,

I've been gradually working on a new set of contacts designs for a
while, but I wanted to wait until the wider application design effort
[1] that has been going on recently has settled down. That's more or
less has happened now, so we are can really get stuck back into
contacts!

The new designs aim to improve on the existing ones and to be
consistent with the other GNOME 3 application designs. A few things
might seem a bit strange, but they are features that are going to
become increasingly familiar in the future.

So let me walk you through the new designs...

 * Search [2] is accessed in the same manner as the other GNOME 3
applications - by dragging the list down when you are at the top or by
just typing. (One consequence of this is that drag and drop isn't
feasible, unfortunately.)

 * The new design [3] features simple buttons in the 'header' for
starting a new email, chat or call. If there is more than one email
address (for example) the button will become a menu so you can select
which one you want to use.

 * The button in the top right is for sending a contact.

 * Editing is done inline [4]. Clicking on a detail opens it in
editing mode. Designer note (!) - it is really important that we have
a nice, smooth, transition to and from this editing mode.

 * The accounts where contact information is stored are much more
obvious in this design. This is to both facilitate inline editing and
to make the aggregation/linking/unlinking logic clearer.

 * I've also introduced a new section for recent activity [5], such as
messages, shared documents and photo uploads. This is probably
something that can wait for now, but could be a fun project for
someone.

 * I've also done designs for some standard dialogs, such as contact
selection [6] and new contact [7].

We certainly don't have to implement all of this at once! Some of the
things like the new search behaviour and the checkmark button (which
is used for multiple selections) can wait until similar functionality
is implemented in Documents and Boxes, and we should try and follow
the development of those other apps as much as possible. My priority
is to try and get the sidebar and contact pane in good shape for the
next release.

I'd be interested to hear what you all think of the new designs and if
you have any questions. Anything look wrong? Anything you'd like to
see that isn't there?

Best wishes,

Allan

[1] http://live.gnome.org/Design/Apps/

[2] https://github.com/gnome-design-team/gnome-mockups/raw/master/contacts/png/search.png

[3] https://github.com/gnome-design-team/gnome-mockups/raw/master/contacts/png/contacts.png

[4] https://github.com/gnome-design-team/gnome-mockups/raw/master/contacts/png/editing.png

[5] https://github.com/gnome-design-team/gnome-mockups/raw/master/contacts/png/contact-pane.png

[6] https://github.com/gnome-design-team/gnome-mockups/raw/master/contacts/png/contact-selector.png

[7] https://github.com/gnome-design-team/gnome-mockups/raw/master/contacts/png/new-contact.png

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