Contour/Active global context menus

[Aaron J. Seigo]

On Wednesday, May 25, 2011 00:12:55 Marco Martin wrote:
> suggestions? comments?

imho we should try and maintain precise clarity in each part of the UI. i see 
no reason to duplicate every possible action in every possible place. that 
will just lead to, as Sebastian already noted, clutter.

i don't think that this feature needs to Do Everything(tm). in the scope of 
Plasma Active. it should probably allow the user to do one specific kind of 
thing.

there isn't enough space, really, to offer a ton of options there and keep it 
easy to use on a touch screen.  there's also the issue of someone using the 
interface understanding why that exists and what it is for.

...

that said, one thing that keeps occuring to me as i see these features evolve 
is that this is really just share-like-connect.

rating? that's a measure of "like".
add tag? that's connecting.
add to activity? that's also connecting.

a question we need to step back and ask ourselves is this: "Do we want the 
connection of items to be something that one does while interacting directly 
with the object, or do we want these features to be a global function with a 
central location for interaction?"

the context menu idea is the former, SLC is the latter. both have pros and 
cons.

Context Menu
	Pros:
		It is right at the object itself; you don't have to change focus to act
		The object might be able to influence the menu contents more as it may 
have more internal knowledge about what it represents

	Cons:
		Discoverability is questionable
		It means having a "magic" interaction pattern to bring it up
		It will remain specific to components that implement/support this menu

Global SLC-type approach
	Pros:
		Shows in tests to be discoverable and intuitive
		Can be applied to any application or source of data, not just Plasmoids
		By dividing the tasks up into 3 top level categories, each list can be 
longer
		Can be combined with complimentary functionality such as "live device 
pairing"

	Cons:
		You need to move from object to control
		Relies on a global UI being there; remove the SLC buttons and it's all 
gone


it would be nice to add to the above list and figure out which directions we'd 
like to go based on that. it may also help define more clearly what the 
different pieces of UI we create are intended to do.

-- 
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
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