Feedback current Contour UI

[Marco Martin]

On Wednesday 11 May 2011, Fania Jöck wrote:
> Hi Marco,
> 
> Thanks for the shots. I will hopefully have a working version here on
> Meego soon as well, to test the interaction - I'm already in contact
> with Maurice :)
> 
> Here is my Feedback to the Shots. I find all the points mentioned
> crucial for a good looking demo; only the last point with the second
> activity-Switcher would be nice-to-have. So please have a look, when you
> can adapt the following points in the UI. I also send you again our
> current status of the UI design. Maybe we have to adjust also a bit our
> workflow, because the current Contour layout sometimes doesnt look at
> all like the specifications in the Design. How can we improve that for
> avoiding lots of iterations?
> 
> Context Menu Shot (L8NBx,png):
> - selected resource should be highlighted more (its still very grey-ish,
> dark)-> should be really highly visible

i can change the theme image, i still think we need a new theme (the current 
one is an adaption of the desktop one), but still consistent, so like one 
button graphics, one single frame, one single delegate per resource type, one 
single font, one single font color (this is not a technical limitation, is 
possible to do differently, but a choice, both in graphical style and 
reusability that has always been done in pasma)

> - Long Names: problem with Sebastian right? I will contact him for that
> - Why is the type of resource mentioned? Doesn't the icon already
> display that information? Or do we have to use the same icon for
> different types?
this is for views with types not grouped together, the name there needs to be 
controlled and disabled in this case, of course

> - The name of the resource please below the icon, long names with text
> elide (... 3 points in the end), as specified in the wireframes

the delegates depend from what is global (they will be shared between all 
clients)
they are not below the icon to maximize the text witdh, because with probably 
the exception of applications that would usually have a short enough name,
otherwise everything goes to icon+at least 2 lines of text, really taking a 
lot of vertical space

so now writing here for an important architecture opinion:
resource delegates: how much possible for their user would be to customize 
them?
making possible for plasmoids to completely replace the delegate qml file 
kinda defeats he purpose: of introducing almost forced consistency
in some cases a minimal customization would be needed (like for instance 
dropping the type where it's already shown elsewhere)..

> Activity Switcher Screen (ppRIJ.png):
> - The switcher in itself seems to be squeezed horizontally? Or the
> aspect ratio of the desktop images dont seem to work.

there seems to be a problem in aspect ratio calculation somewhere, yes 
(happens with both activity switchers at the moment, investigating why)

> - Please provide the arrow for activating the activity only for the
> selected activity in the front (see wireframe Contour_WheelySwitcher.jpg
> for details).
ok
> - For the demo every activity needs a different desktop image to
> differenciate them quickly. Shall I send you pictures, that fit to the
> content (I like an image from grandma for example to underline the
> idea). Please provide sizes, so I can send you pictures.

they should probably be packaged on obs as well (they would need to follow the 
right packagestructure, so a bit late do do correctly for the demo), or 
alternatively i can provide you a config file using them (and would reside in 
the home directory of the device).
an alternative is to package the default kde wallpapers, that are good photos 
as well and are already installed in the right directory structure

> - The title in the activities should be like the UI design: white text
> font with black outerglow/shadow - what is possible here in Plasma? If
> the title is too long for displaying it, we can elide here as well (note
> for later: we should limit the entry fields while creating a new
> activity to a maximum length of characters as a name)

the shadow is not binded in qml at the moment, not sure it should be (see 
below)

> - Icons delete and duplicate are missing (but this function is for later
> anyway - do you need icons from me for that?)
> - The borders of the activity images are rounded, as seen in the
> wireframe Contour_WheelySwitcher.jpg
> - The diameter of the wheel/circle should be smaller, please orientate
> on wireframe as well (important: dont overlay the topbar, stay in the
> "content area"); its sufficient to see the 2 next and 2 beforehand
> activities. The activities  below should have more transparency (one
> layer behind: 70 %, two layers behind 35%)

ok

> Recommendations:
> wait for real version to work in my ideapad...

there still seem to be problems in nepomuk for that unfortunately :/

> Activity Screen (GpmUM.png):
> - Titel should be as in wireframe (again white font with shadow/dark
> outline). Bigger font, can we use capital letters only?

uhm, SCREAMED doesn't look that nice ;)
again, i do agree with the halo behind the text, have to figure out how to 
bind it in qml (i wonder if could be worth waiting the qml2 shaders backport 
to qml1, that should be in Qt4.8 if i understood correctly)

> - More space between title and first box row
> - please adjust left alignment of title and left edge of the boxes to
> stay in the layout
> - The titel in the boxes should be left-aligned as well, and bigger font

ok (again, i think Plasma::theme should have bindings)

> - Can we provide the amount of resource in the box, as specified in the
> concept?
sure, that's provided in the data.
> - Again (see above): name of resource underneath
> - In general we should differentiate between the recommendations opening
> icon and the activity switcher. In my current UI design I put the
> recommendations icon in the left bottom corner (see
> Contour_wetab_UI-110429_inactive.jpg). At least we should use the
> Contour Icon instead of the Arrow ( please use icon
> Contour_Logo_Recommendations.png)

not sure about the asymmetry, but it could make sense however if the activity 
switcher would go in the new top panel design (my bad, i still have all the 
designs on my hard drive, but didn't really found time this crazy week to 
publish them ;)

> Second activity switcher/fanstack (L3Dcn):
> - question in general: can we switch between thos two different UIs for
> the activity switcher in de Demo? That would be nice :)

not on the fly, needs to be stopped and a  (could be put two different flaps 
at a side buut would look quite weird)
right now is possible to do a thing quite weird: have two different shells 
running at the same time (plasma-tablet and plasma-contour commands)
and switch between the two as they were apps, that would show different 
activity switchers, different contents and everything.

> - Similar issues: there seem to be aspect ratio problems; the SlideIn
> arrow should only be at the first image; the second activity image
> behind should not overlay to the left; opacity should reduce with every
> image behind

at the moment this switcher has a bug: changing its size (so in a shell of 
different resolution) its "normal" status becomes what it seems "in between" 
of the switching animation, seems a weird behaviour of PathView (that seem not 
present in the other switcher, so have to see what is the difference that 
makes only one happen)

Cheers,
Marco Martin