Enrico Ros proposing a SoC project for improving the GUI

[Nikolaj Hald Nielsen]

I have some strong reservations about this. A "let's make the gui
rock" project sound nice, but the scope of it is really staggering! I
have done a significant amount of work on the current GUI, and as a
quick scroll through my old blog entries will reveal, I went through 4
or 5 different ideas for looks before finally settling on the current
one based on a mockup by Nuno. Now, I will be the first to admit that
the current look could be much better, but it was the best anyone
could come up with at the tie that did have half the devs hating it
with a passion.

My point is basically that I dont believe having a single person try
to define and implement a new look will work as a GSoC project ( or
any other project for that matter ). There is a reason that we are
currently setting up our lines of communication with the Oxygen
artists to help us, not only create the actual svgs and whatnot that
will be used in the app, but also, and perhaps more importantly, come
up with an overall vision of how Amarok should look. We are also
starting to work with more usability people in order to ensure that we
don't overlook this point.

Furthermore while exploratory work in this regard can get you so far,
what we really need with regards to the overall look right now, is a
strong sense of where to go.

Even if Enrico actually manages to do all the work and create a new
look in the time frame of GSoC, I know from bitter experience, that if
not done right, with the participation of enough artists ( Something
that has really been one of the main issues so far ) that it is likely
that half the devs will hate it.

So, in essence, what I am trying to say I guess, is that the process
of defining a new vision for the look of Amarok has already started,
albeit slowly. Because of being dependent on so many people, it is
unlikely to make for a good GSoC project in my opinion. It is also, in
my opinion, unlikely that this work will have progressed far enough
that there is anything concrete to start implementing by the time GSoC
starts.

That said, it is very possible that we could define a GSoC project to
support this process somehow.

- Nikolaj


On Wed, Mar 18, 2009 at 9:37 AM, Bart Cerneels <bart.cerneels at kde.org> wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 18, 2009 at 9:09 AM, Mark Kretschmann <kretschmann at kde.org> wrote:
>> On Wed, Mar 18, 2009 at 1:03 AM, Enrico Ros <enrico.ros at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> On Tuesday 17 March 2009 20:33:43 Mark Kretschmann wrote:
>>>> I assume that you have by now read our discussion about your ideas
>>>> here on this list. Could you please comment on them, and decide if you
>>>> would like to make an official SoC proposal?
>>>>
>>>> While there still is bit time left until the deadline, it would be
>>>> better to discuss this earlier, so that we could reach a conclusion
>>>> about this without hurrying.
>>>
>>> Hello Mark, hello All,
>>>  yes, I've read the discussion and I've been waiting for all the pieces to
>>> fall in place before committing to the Summer of code.
>>>
>>>  About the "still unnamed" Summer of Code project: what I want is to make
>>> Amarok's interface look prettier and be faster essentially. Easy enough if you
>>> have a magic wand.
>>> But instead of proposing my take on the job (top-level qgraphicsview container
>>> + using OpenGL where available + fx (w/shaders) + qt kinetic - (minus) plasma,
>>> etc..) I'd like to know what do you guys think about a "let's make the gui
>>> rock" kind of project. So this is still an "evaluating if and how..." kind of
>>> mail.
>>>
>>> We should decide:
>>>  - which are the criteria for judging the gui? how the current is rated?
>>>  - do we feel the need to have "the best gui" we can have?
>>>  - who should decide how to make it? (coders, designers, usabs, etc..)
>>>
>>> My personal opinions:
>>>  When looking at today's Amarok (and I saw it made lots of progress in the
>>> last months) I see a big gray area with many different type of gray, different
>>> icon sizes, and the central area is corrupted [1]. What should itlook like?
>>> Like the mockups floating around [2], or better: the UI should be like a
>>> plugin; in this way the current gui could be kept as the default gui
>>> implementation and new guis could be developed in parallel (even switched at
>>> runtime).
>>>  If the SOC happens for me I'd like to experiment with a new gui, like the
>>> [2]. In this case I'll do a call to anybody wanting to contribute to make such
>>> a thing, collect all the ideas, do the design in team and implement as much as
>>> I can to have nearly the same functionality as the default gui.
>>>
>>> I'm open to all the kind of suggestions expecially criticism, since it helps
>>> to shape my SOC proposal better ;-)
>>>
>>> Enrico
>>>
>>>
>>> [1]  http://img16.imageshack.us/img16/9933/amaroklayouting1.png  - I know this
>>> may be a small window, but users make no discounts, this looks broken.
>>>
>>> [2] http://www.kde-
>>> look.org/content/show.php/A+Media+Player+for+KDE4?content=94472
>>
>> Well, from me this gets a thumbs up. I like your willingness to be
>> flexible with the actual implementation details (even if this is
>> unusual for a SoC project, but who gives a shit?), and I know that you
>> are the right person to do it.
>>
>> Plus, I believe that we do really need an expert for polishing up our
>> GUI. While I don't find the current GUI extremely bad, it certainly
>> could be greatly improved. And especially for a media player the looks
>> are very important (as opposed to office software or so).
>>
>> About the actual wording of the "official" proposal, I don't really
>> care much about it. Just write it in such a way that it explains the
>> intentions (the usual stuff), and don't make it too wordy. Your
>> proposal is special anyway in so far that you are not a typical SoC
>> student (inexperienced), but rather an expert.
>>
>
> Perhaps we should invite Enrico to our developer sprint May 1th-4th in
> Berlin [1]? There will be a couple of artists already and most of the
> core team. Excellent opportunity to discuss this in a high-bandwidth
> way.
>
> Bart
>
> [1] http://www.google.com/notebook/public/11569211367747894993/BDROpQwoQmImF5PMj
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