Adding widgets to panel?

[Thomas Pfeiffer]

 On Tue, 13 Sep 2011 11:10:20 +0200, Aaron J. Seigo wrote:

> or switch to the activity with it on it. if i am, indeed, constantly
> monitoring something (not just checking it every so often visually)
> then i am
> probably going to be in the relevant activity.
> if i just want to check from time to time, having it on another
> activity isn't
> a big problem.

 Let me rephrase my suggestion:
 I think there should be a way for users to put widgets at some place
 where they can - at any given time - access them without having to do
 too much.

 Let me give an example: On my desktop I usually have a network traffic
 monitor always in sight. The reason for that is that if a web page
 seems to take forever to load, I want to know if it does actually still
 load or if it stopped transferring but the browser just hasn't realized
 it yet.
 Of course I could add the monitor to an activity. But then, just to 
 check
 out why the page doesn't finish loading, I have to do the following:
 1. Pull down the panel
 2. Switch to the homescreen
 3. Change the activity if the monitor is not on my current one
 4. Check what causes the slowness
 5. Switch back to the browser

 If I could have the monitor in the panel, the number of steps would be
 reduced to one (which does not even require an action, just a quick 
 peek).
 But it does not necessarily have to be in the panel. I just would not
 want to have to take five steps to look at it.

 I might be part of a minority of users who do that, but I can imagine
 that many users have _something_ they often want to check (say, an 
 auction
 on ebay or the current value of a certain stock), regardless of their
 current activity.

> alternatively, the widget strip app could be used.

 The widget strip does work better than a widget on just one activity 
 for
 that, true (although it definitely has to be explained to the user,
 I for one did not have a clue what it's used for until it was mentioned
 in an email). But even that is not always visible (and not even with
 one action).

> we can/should monitor future usage of these devices to see how people 
> end up
> using them over time, of course, and adjust our positions in 
> accordance if
> needed.
 
 I would replace can/should with "have to". The "... and listen to your 
 customers"
 part of the "release early, release often" philosophy (although I'd 
 strongly
 prefer "... and observe your customers using the product" whenever 
 possible)
 is crucial.

>> > What do you think?
>
> we can't do everything :)
>
> adding configuration to the panel leads to a lot of complexity. we 
> know this
> from the desktop, where that complexity is warranted for a number of 
> reasons
> (historical and actual). for the tablet UI, i really don't think the
> panel is
> somewhere we should allow complexity to creep into.

 We definitely should not offer the extent of configurability the 
 desktop panel
 currently has. That's way too much for the tablet. And as stated above, 
 I am
 not hell-bent on actually adding widgets to the panel. Just having a 
 way to
 quickly look at stuff without too much hassle is important imho.

> it is already used to show status information and as a handle for 
> both peek
> and launch. that, to me, is already plenty.

 Agreed.