KTp and Plasma Active

[Marco Martin]

On Thursday 03 January 2013, Artur Dębski wrote:
> I talked to Thomas today. Here comes summary as requested:

first of all: grat job! it's a badly needed application and i think is pretty 
near to be really good looking :)

> - Thomas suggested different method of setting you status message. To do it
> now you have to enter status selection mode and click on the button next to
> it. I disliked it but couldnt think of anything else. Thomas idea was to
> spilt the button clickable area into to part: icon and text. When you click
> on text you enter message editing mode. When you click on icon you enter
> status selection mode. It will be easier to use and will save you one step
> when changing status message.

it can just stay a lineedit, in this case is obvious it's always editable and 
there are no "modes"

> - Active conversations sidebar will be overlay drawer as primarliy
> intended. It looks like the feature I was seeking was just not implemented
> yet. It should be available now.
>
> - The contacts list will end up in the split drawer as well. When drawers
> were created there was an assumption the applications will have only one
> drawer (if any), and it will be positioned on the right. In KTp Active it
> feels ok to have two drawers at the same time. The reason behind this is to
> give user a possibility to hide whole contact list to save space on smaller
> devices. However we will have to wait for this. This feature takes some
> work to implement and was not scheduled by PlasmaActive team.

just wondering: there seems to be plenty of space anyways.. any particular use 
case for wanting to close the contact list?
i can think about very small screens or vertical ones

> - Thomas was not so sure about the menu sidebar idea. I kind of insisted it
> stayed as it is. Its meant to give you options not only related to contact
> list, such as link to application settings dialog. You can toggle its
> visibility and since it isnt using much space I imagine some people who
> want to have it visible all the time.

what is it? the round buttons at a side?
I'm really not sure about them: at the moment they add quite a fair amount of 
visual noise (especially because they have a background always there) and are 
not really clear to me what they do, i would have to press them and see the 
effect to discover what they are about.

a side note:
The oxygen icons don't work that well in active, especially for actions. They 
are ok, but only if in any given moment there aren't more than 2-3 together in 
the same screen.

> - The lightbulb idea was appreciated.

what does the lightbulb icon exactly?

again, if those actions were in a menu of only text, except the 2 or 3 more 
used te effect is probably slightly better.

just a couple of other comments related to the look (meant in a purely 
constructive way eh ;)
* if the sidebar is directly attached to the edge not only removes that column 
of icons but also the left shadow, that is an element more in the screen

* what is used as background for the contact list? there is a standard element 
for that that is a bit more light (and will probably become even more)

* bold text should usually be avoided (we still have to implement in a good 
way font guidelines)

* toolbars: would be possible to merge the two top toolbars in just one? 
(again by limiting the number of actions to the bare minimum)
  right now the bottom one is also displayed with all the 4 borders, adding 
more graphical elements

* instead a place where it may look better *adding* a toolbar is the textarea 
used to write a message: right now the messages kindof disappear into nothing 
and most components don't work too much in the blue area, if there was a 
toolbar around (arranged in a way only the top border is visible) the messages 
would look like they are scrolling behind it, would look more organic

* messages: now the dialogs/background element of framesvg has a balloon-tip 
element (just a little triangle), it may be used as a comic balloon tip to 
connect the avatars and the message frame 


Cheers, 
Marco Martin