Re: Shelling Epiphany

[Allan Day <allanpday gmail com>]

Alexandre Mazari wrote:
> Hi Everyone,
> 
> I recently joined the Epiphany effort thanks to my awesome employer
> letting me contribute to this lean and mean browser.

Whoop!

> I am particularly interested in the integration of the Web with the
> desktop, and think ephy has strong advantages in that regard.
> 
> Indeed, being a non-multi-platform browser, ephy is free of the
> constraints/compromises the others have to make in order to coherently
> run in different environments. We should take this opportunity and go
> wild on integration with gnome-shell and the Gnome 3 Desktop in general.
> Really become "the Gnome Web Browser".

Couldn't agree more!

> Obviously, the gnome-design team members have a clearer view on the kind
> of global experience the desktop should offer to the user. Ephy being a
> part of that whole, their input/directions is invaluable. There are
> already some (controversial, see below) mock-ups regarding ephy in their
> git repo. Lets build a stronger communication channel.

Definitely.

> Here are some ideas/user stories/brainfarts on how we could achieve such
> a synergy. 
> Feedback, comments, other ideas, even bashing, are welcome!

Boo to bashing, that's what I say.

> = Let the user use web-applications in the same way they use "native"
> ones  =
> The idea here is to make web applications first-class citizen of the
> desktop. Those applications would benefits from the same integration
> level that the "native" apps have:
> • be launch-able in the overview app pane/dash
> • have their window be manageable by g-s application switcher and
> alt-tab switcher independently of ephy
> • send notifications using the g-s notification area
> • have nice icon badges for unread mails etc... (I think this feature is
> planned in post-3.0 g-s)
> • ...
> Epiphany's role here would be to create/manage those webapps, actually
> making a browsed site an application.

Yes! We spoke with the Epiphany crew about this at GUADEC...

> Also Ephy could be used to display those apps, with a streamlined
> interface. Or a separate visor could be created.
> see https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=644002

Perhaps. The shell might be able to do that work on its own.

> = Let the user switch to a specific epiphany's opened site using g-s
> facilities =
> I am using the term site here, instead of tab, because it is not really
> clear we should to keep the tabs management in ephy IMHO.
> Tabs and notebooks are just a way to have application-local window
> management, mostly duplicating wms/shells facilities, compensating for
> their missing features (windows grouping for instance).
> Re-giving that responsibility to the shell seems like a natural thing to
> do, reducing the number of different ways to switch to a specific
> site/app/context.
> It seems the design team shares this opinion, as seen in
> http://gitorious.org/gnome-design/gnome-design/blobs/raw/master/mockups/epiphany/epiphany2.png .

That particular design was my effort. I wouldn't say it was the view of
the 'team' ;) (though one or two people did seem to like it). The way I
left things, I was hoping for a prototype to do some user testing with.
(The design needs a lot more work, too.) That said, I'm of the opinion
that tabs don't make a huge amount of sense in the context of the shell.

> This idea being very controversial, going against years of tabbing
> browsers usage, displaying ephy tabs contents in alt-tab switcher and/or
> overview might be an intermediate solution.
> Here is a quick and dirty mockup:
> http://people.igalia.com/amazari/ephy-tabs-in-switcher.webm

I think one of the real shell designers should comment on this. It makes
sense in one way, but it also breaks the convention that each of those
thumbnails is a window.

> = Let the user open a recently visited or a favourite site from g-s =
> - integrate with the future g-s jump-lists
> - make gnome-shell's search box access ephy bookmarks/history
> - make gnome-shell's search box delegates to ephy if the entered text
> looks like an URL

Including browser history makes a lot of sense. That history is noisy
though: we'd need to be smart about how the history gets processed. We
also need a way to present those search results. This is something to
consider when the GS documents stuff is designed.

> = Make the user's experience coherent with the rest of the desktop =
> - comply with http://live.gnome.org/ThreePointZero/AppIntegration
> (notably regarding dialogs)

Yep.

> - use symbolic icons wherever possible, see
> http://jimmac.musichall.cz/log/?p=974

Yep, see:

http://live.gnome.org/GnomeShell/Design/Whiteboards/SymbolicIcons

> - share data with the shell and other applications (Zeigeist ?
> Tracker ?)

I guess this will largely depend on how the shell's document stuff gets
implemented.

> - get the warning theme colours for the location entry in https mode
> - ...


> What do you think ?

That this is awesome. Integrating the shell and the browser could be
amazing.

Allan
-- 
Blog: http://afaikblog.wordpress.com/
IRC: aday on irc.gnome.org