Task Launcher - mockups

[Thomas Pfeiffer]

On Thursday 31 January 2013 13:03:39 Marco Martin wrote:
> Aaanyways, to expose a bit how i tought things to be (and wrote stuff
> accordingly):
> * applications may be basically of 3 categories: "browsers",
> "viewers/editors of a single thing" and what doesn't really fall in those
> categories (that is pretty much 99% of mobile apps, not only games but the
> typical half toy half utility of the typical mobile app)

This view is completely application-centric.
I've heard repeatedly from members of the Plasma Active team that a bunch of 
isolated "half toy half utility" apps is precisely what PA is _not_ supposed 
to be. If users want that, they have a gazillion of existing systems to choose 
from, each with way more Apps to choose from than we'll ever have.
With Plasma Active instead, they get a tightly integrated productivity tool 
where things work together elegantly and there are no borders between 
applications anymore. This is a vision most participants of the last IRC 
meeting agreed upon, and I still firmly believe this is where we can shine.

> * in the top menu there would be just links to "browsers", like web, files,
> music, books.. and one single "creator" application that would allow to
> create files/stuff (or could be confined as a function in the corresponding
> browser, note the pim applications pretty much match 1:1 this), and it must
> be quite strict for an application to "qualify" for being elected in the
> top menu

Again: Don't forget communication (see my other mail in this thread). If we 
treat different means of communication isolatedly (as all app-centric systems 
to), we're missing out on a _huge_ opportunity to be a whole lot better than 
existing platforms.

> * simple applications to view just one kind of thing wouldn't be in the
> menu, but only invoked by opening the proper type of thing (like okular
> active, calligra stuff, the image viewer, probably videos needs one as
> well)

Agreed.
 
> * the "rest" would have a browser of its own, an application browser that
> has categories, tags, search and all that, that makes finding an
> application easy no matter how many are installed... probably not super
> fast to start when you already know what to start, but that's what linking
> it to an activity is for.

That would leave out most of the ideas for task-centric design we came up with 
during the last two IRC meetings. We need a way for users to start all kinds 
of tasks, not just file creation tasks.

> in general, applications to fit in the workflow would be "recommended" to be
> as small tools as possible to make one and only one thing, otherwise they
> go in the big catalog, the top area stays an icon grid, nice, simple and
> symmetric but with even less icons than now.

I agree there will inevitably be a "rest" of applications that were created 
from an app-centric perspective. We don't want to lock them out, but we don't 
want to be "just another shell to start Apps from".