Activity Screen : Resize and Dragging

[Aaron J. Seigo]

On Monday, July 18, 2011 15:21:24 Marco Martin wrote:
> On Monday 18 July 2011, Fania Jöck wrote:
> > For resizing of boxes, I think the user needs a little hint, that this
> > feature is possible. Currently no test user got that feature, if he
> > didnt watch it before. Normally the edges get just a small icon, that
> > indicates the "grip", see scribble for two possible icons:
> > http://share.basyskom.com/contour/UIDesign/Contour_ResizeBox.jpg. For me
> > the first row with the little dots is a better symbol; the arrows
> > indicate more an enlargement in 2 directions, but our feature currently
> > supports only extension in a horizontal direction.
> 
> here is an attempt of a resize handle.
> http://wstaw.org/m/2011/07/18/plasma-desktopxO2158.jpg
> 
> probably looks a bit too noisy.. maybe with a single dot, or that dot
> looking somewhat triangular would look better...

so much visual noise :(

to show 4 items in two groups we have:

* 6 arrows
* 2 triangles of dots
* two buttons: Add Item and Configure (do we really even need text there i 
wonder?)
* two titles with underlines
* a large title

i know we're still at the "making things work" stage, but i am already 
wondering if Add and Configure could be stripped of text and put next to the 
main title? esp since that is also where the button bar for the activity 
switcher goes, it's a very busy area that isn't visually connected with 
anything very well. 

(or does moving them away from the edge ruin the "thumbability" of the UI on a 
landscape oriented tablet? does that matter so much in this case?)

can we do something else with the recommendations other than another thumb-tab 
on the side of the screen? e.g. just another button with Add and Configure?

can we make the switcher arrow something more visually descriptive and more 
beautiful than an arrow?

if a drag thumb is shown on the item groups, how subtle can we make them? do 
we even want to put something like this on the UI forever when it's really an 
issue of communicating to the user _once_ that you can resize these things 
from the edge(s)?

for this to be something slick enough to be adopted by 3rd parties, it has to 
look great as well as function great, and the upper limit on looks is at least 
to some extent dictated by the choices in arranging the default UI bits. (to 
state the obvious that everyone already knows :)

-- 
Aaron J. Seigo
humru othro a kohnu se
GPG Fingerprint: 8B8B 2209 0C6F 7C47 B1EA  EE75 D6B7 2EB1 A7F1 DB43

KDE core developer sponsored by Qt Development Frameworks
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 198 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part.
Url : http://mail.kde.org/pipermail/active/attachments/20110718/08c9e279/attachment.sig