Re: Mockup of overlay layout changes

[Marina Zhurakhinskaya <marinaz redhat com>]

Hi Sander!

Thank you for taking time to do such nice mockups!

The original idea of having Applications and Documents positioned right under the Activities button was to make it feel just like a menu when you click on it. I guess the perspective on what it is a menu of (current activities or new possible activities) can dictate what should be positioned on the left. It still feels more natural to me to have more granular targets on the left under the Activities button the user clicks, rather than to have the user move the cursor all the way across the screen. 

The way the overlay code is written is pretty modular, so both layouts can be experimented with. I like how in your design portions of the display exist on the same plane, but just might be off-screen. I'm currently implementing an expanded view for applications and documents and the way it works now is that workspaces slide to the right and additional items appear from underneath them. 

I also agree with some other ideas for the overlay mode that you brought up:

1) It should include access to devices and also access to the file browser (beyond just a Nautilus application being available in the applications menu).

2) It should enable the user to explore applications that are not installed and install them. In particular, if the user is searching for something, the search results can include applications that are not installed.

I think it is useful to have both applications and documents (and possibly devices) in a unified display because that lets the user select activities in a document-first manner, which is not promoted by the current desktop, but is just as useful as an application-first manner.
 
Finally, showing most used applications is a pretty convenient feature as not all of them might be open all the time (e.g. you can use F-Spot often enough to have it be in the most used applications list, but not have it open all the time). In addition, as Andrew pointed out, the list is a good substitute for launchers, in case we end up not having those.

Windows key does bring up the overlay at the moment. 
 
Thanks,
Marina

----- Original Message -----
From: "Sander Dijkhuis" <sander dijkhuis gmail com>
To: gnome-shell-list gnome org
Sent: Monday, February 23, 2009 2:26:45 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern
Subject: Re: Mockup of overlay layout changes

Thanks for the thorough comments and nice words about the mockup!
Comments are below.

I've made another mockup at:

http://student.science.uva.nl/~sqdh/gs-mockup/2/

This one is interactive.  You can press the Applications button, open the
Internet category and go back to the main view with a big button on the left.
It should work in Firefox 3.0, but it might be quite heavy and not work on
other browsers. Here is a backup screenshot:
http://student.science.uva.nl/~sqdh/gs-mockup/2/screenshot.png

It uses a 'column browser', as seen in OpenStep systems like Mac OS X.  By
expanding from the right, it minimizes mouse movement: when a category is
clicked, the item list appears under the mouse.  Columns can contain various
types of lists and displays, and they wouldn't all need to have the same size.

This overlay also gives access to connected/mounted devices, which might
replace the need for a media applet as suggested in another thread.


On Sun, Feb 22, 2009 at 4:54 AM, Larry Reaves <larry yrral net> wrote:
> [...]
> Personally, I love these mockups.  I particularly like the idea of the
> whole screen shifting to the left (the "camera" moving to the right)
> when you select an application category.  However, if we do this, I
> think we need to make sure the cursor goes with the screen, so that the
> user doesn't have to go to the far right, click a category, then move
> left.
> [...]

You are right that something would need to be done to reduce mouse movement.
I didn't really think about that.  But moving the cursor automatically seems
very confusing, especially if the user is still moving the mouse herself.


On Sun, Feb 22, 2009 at 10:02 AM, Johannes Schmid <jhs jsschmid de> wrote:
> [...]
> These markups are really nice. I like the removal of the "most used
> applications", too, because I already find this quite annoying on
> Windows. The applications menu looks also very nice.
> [...]

The main problem I personally have with the most used application list in the
Windows Start menu would be that it often lists the wrong applications.

(The nice application menu was copied from the GNOME Live! page, by the way.)


On Sun, Feb 22, 2009 at 11:23 AM, Milan Bouchet-Valat <nalimilan club fr> wrote:
> [...]
> While your ideas are very interesting, I'm still not convinced that your
> layout would be more efficient. First, I fear that the overlay mode will
> never be as easy to use as the task switcher, and thus I'd prefer to reach
> more quickly the applications area than the workspaces (but this would need
> to be checked).

An argument for using the overlay instead of the task bar, is that the overlay
shows recognisable thumbnails of open windows.  Thumbnails should make
switching to the right window easier, as is shown with the new task switcher
in Windows 7.  Of course they could be added to a GNOME task bar too, but I
hope the overlay can be sufficient.

> Then another issue is that moving the applications zone to the other
> side of the screen at the moment you've just clicked on it is quite
> strange, and will force you to go back to the left with the cursor. If
> you do so, this means that the initially-shown area is useless, and then
> you'd better add a button (or text area) on the left of the screen that
> makes it appear (and thus go directly to the second mockup).

Good point, I didn't think of that.  The new mockup doesn't add any useless
space when clicking, but still moves a just-clicked target.  I'm not sure
whether this is a problem -- in essence the classic iPod works the same way
as my second mockup, and iPod navigation feels good to me.

> If you want to use the overlay as a task switcher, maybe it would be
> good to use hot corners so that you don't need to click on "Activities"
> to start it, but only to reach an angle or a specific border of the
> screen. That would avoid positiong problems in the layout, since you can
> bring the cursor where you want to run the overlay.

I have no experience with system that use hot corners, but to me they sound
unintuitive and prone to errors.  (You mean that the overlay would appear
whenever you throw the mouse to the bottom-right corner for example, right?)
How about showing the overlay when the Windows key on the keyboard is pressed?

> [...]
> Now about recently used applications that you find useless, I must
> disagree - first because I wrote this code and I don't want it to be
> lost! ;-) More seriously, I think that when we have the support for
> different activities, recent apps will really be those that you want to
> use. I already have used a little the new application monitoring branch,
> and I was honestly surprised by how useful it could be. The old
> categories menu is useful when you don't know the apps you want to use,
> but when you do it's really not optimal. I'll let you make your opinion
> when the code will be merged! And of course mixing ideas is often a good
> solution if it's done intelligently...
> [...]

I believe you're right and will use the recently/most used app list when it's
merged.  I was hoping to have only one canonical way to launch apps, but as
you point out a category list isn't the most efficient one.  So the new mockup
only shows the recently used apps by default. :-)


On Sun, Feb 22, 2009 at 9:39 PM, coulamac <aigiskos yahoo com> wrote:
> [...]
> If you have a launcher on the panel, you open the application with one
> click.  (This assumes, of course, that you can figure out how to create a
> launcher.)[1][2]  If you have recently used applications, you open the
> application in two clicks (one to click on the Activities button; one to
> click on the correct recently-used application).  It seems unfortunate to
> force a user to use three clicks. Even two clicks is less than optimal.
> [...]

In the original mockups at GNOME Live!, applications could be launched using
the overlay with one 'composite' gesture: move the cursor to Activities, press
the mouse button, move the cursor down to the application icon / name, release
the mouse button.  In my mockups this would take a bit more effort,
unfortunately.
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