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List Info
Thread: new deskbar UI
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| new deskbar UI |
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2007-08-28 17:04:26 |
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Hi,
Just took a look at the latest iteration of deskbar (2.19.90 on my system). As some of you may know we're embedding deskbar in our sidebar prototype for the online desktop.
So I guess from a high level I'm not sure I understand where deskbar is going. The mode of having a persistent entry with attached popup results seems to be gone. ; Instead deskbar seems to be moving more towards a transient "search" interface. Kind of like the Beagle search dialog.
Another way to phrase this is - why is there an applet at all? It seems strange to have an icon that one clicks to pop up a window where one then types. The workflow makes more sense when there is a keybinding (as exists now in Alt-F3) to show the window, then one can continue typing.
The default deskbar config (on Fedora at least) seems to be oriented mostly towards launching programs. Why not just replace Alt-F2 instead of having both Alt-F2 and Alt-F3? In other words, deskbar is a "daemon" that is always running. The selection of plugins would move to a capplet instead of a right click on the applet.
I completely understand the removal of multiple UIs; having them pluggable on that level seemed kind of unmaintainable. But the UI other than the one we use in the sidebar was chosen, so I'm a bit stuck as to what to do for the search UI in the sidebar.
To summarize here - there is a functional difference between always-visible-entry (old deskbar Entriac UI) and keybinding-pops-up-search (Cuemiac), the primary one being discoverability. ; How would someone new to the system know they can search? There's no way to know beforehand that typing Alt-F2 or Alt-F3 will bring up a dialog; nor would I be able to guess that clicking on the applet icon as it is now would show a search dialog.
So, are there any plans to keep the ability to have a visible search box?
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| Re: new deskbar UI |
 
Germany |
2007-08-29 06:07:45 |
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Colin Walters schrieb:
> Hi,
>
> Just took a look at the latest iteration of deskbar
(2.19.90 on my system).
> As some of you may know we're embedding deskbar in our
sidebar prototype for
> the online desktop.
>
2.19.91 is the newest version. But GUI is almost identical.
> So I guess from a high level I'm not sure I understand
where deskbar is
> going. The mode of having a persistent entry with
attached popup results
> seems to be gone. Instead deskbar seems to be moving
more towards a
> transient "search" interface. Kind of like
the Beagle search dialog.
>
We don't want to make another beagle, tracker or whatever.
The main
feature in the upcoming 2.20 are actions, i.e. you search
for something
get a match and this match can have more than one action.
E.g. you found
a image you can open it with gimp, gthumb, f-spot, ...
> Another way to phrase this is - why is there an applet
at all? It seems
> strange to have an icon that one clicks to pop up a
window where one then
> types. The workflow makes more sense when there is a
keybinding (as exists
> now in Alt-F3) to show the window, then one can
continue typing.
>
> The default deskbar config (on Fedora at least) seems
to be oriented mostly
> towards launching programs. Why not just replace
Alt-F2 instead of having
> both Alt-F2 and Alt-F3? In other words, deskbar is a
"daemon" that is
> always running. The selection of plugins would move to
a capplet instead of
> a right click on the applet.
>
AFAIK, you can enter a complete command, like you would
enter it in a
terminal, into the Alt-F2 dialog and execute it. This is
currently not
possible with Deskbar.
You could of course remove the applet. But I think it's more
difficult
to discover when you have to press Alt+F3 to bring up
Deskbar when
there's no sign (the icon on the panel) that something like
that exists.
> [...]
> To summarize here - there is a functional difference
between
> always-visible-entry (old deskbar Entriac UI) and
keybinding-pops-up-search
> (Cuemiac), the primary one being discoverability. How
would someone new to
> the system know they can search? There's no way to
know beforehand that
> typing Alt-F2 or Alt-F3 will bring up a dialog; nor
would I be able to guess
> that clicking on the applet icon as it is now would
show a search dialog.
>
The icon has a tooltip that tells you what it can do.
> So, are there any plans to keep the ability to have a
visible search box?
>
There are no plans to bring back the old UIs. However, as
you can see
the entry is still there, but not in the panel. As I already
told you I
would help to make it as easy as possible for big-board to
make use of
the new deskbar. I already wrote a very rough sketch how
that might look
like (see attachment). You can then place the entry, the
list of matches
and the list of actions wherever you want. If that's not
want you want,
just tell me. I'm sure we find a solution.
- --
Greetings,
Sebastian Pölsterl
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| Re: new deskbar UI |
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2007-08-29 08:53:03 |
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Before I reply inline here - I realized my last mail was kind of excessively negative. Or maybe un-positive. Anyways I just wanted to say that the work on the latest deskbar is very cool. ; I don't think the app/quicksilver style approach is wrong, but it's different and leads to a different program.
Also after looking at Nigel's post I realized I should have read the blog...most of this came up before. Sorry for rehashing =/
On 8/29/07, Sebastian Pölsterl < mardukk-d-w.org">
mardukk-d-w.org> wrote:
AFAIK, you can enter a complete command, like you would enter it in a
terminal, into the Alt-F2 dialog and execute it. This is currently not
possible with Deskbar.
True...though I doubt many people pass arguments.
You could of course remove the applet. But I think it's more difficult
to discover when you have to press Alt+F3 to bring up Deskbar when
there's no sign (the icon on the panel) that something like that exists.
I think for most normal computer users, pretty much all icons are impossible to understand. Not just the deskbar one, but even like the Reload button in the web browser. How did we learn to click it? I think a lot of the time it's having someone else tell us what they do. Or, you build the association between the website from software you installed.
So I guess I could imagine one person saying to another "Hey, this icon shows a search dialog". But even then - you don't actually want people to click anything to start searching, because it's kind of awkward. First, the icon is not a large target. Second, once you do click, you have to move your hand from the mouse to the keyboard to start typing.
Try it now! Pretend you're someone new to computers and forget you know about the Alt-F3 keybinding. Use deskbar only by clicking the applet icon.
What if instead of being an applet, a "Quick launch..." menu entry was in the "Places" menu in GNOME?
> So, are there any plans to keep the ability to have a visible search box?
>;
There are no plans to bring back the old UIs. However, as you can see
the entry is still there, but not in the panel. As I already told you I
would help to make it as easy as possible for big-board to make use of
the new deskbar. I already wrote a very rough sketch how that might look
like (see attachment). You can then place the entry, the list of matches
and the list of actions wherever you want. If that's not want you want,
just tell me. I'm sure we find a solution.
Ah, interesting! I'll have a look at this when I get into work. ; Thanks!
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| Re: new deskbar UI |
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2007-08-29 08:54:50 |
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On 8/29/07, Colin Walters < waltersredhat.com">waltersredhat.com> wrote:
What if instead of being an applet, a "Quick launch..." menu entry was in the "Places" menu in GNOME?
And also, the first time you use it, it has a little display at the bottom that says "You can press Alt-F3 to show this dialog." or something?
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| Re: new deskbar UI |
Germany |
2007-08-29 09:01:16 |
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Colin Walters schrieb:
> On 8/29/07, Colin Walters <waltersredhat.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>> What if instead of being an applet, a "Quick
launch..." menu entry was in
>> the "Places" menu in GNOME?
>>
>
> And also, the first time you use it, it has a little
display at the bottom
> that says "You can press Alt-F3 to show this
dialog." or something?
>
I really like that idea. And we get rid of the applet stuff
as well. We
have to remove the "Applet" from the name then as
well.
- --
Greetings,
Sebastian Pölsterl
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| Re: new deskbar UI |
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2007-08-29 19:05:37 |
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On 8/29/07, Colin Walters < waltersredhat.com">waltersredhat.com> wrote:
On 8/29/07, Sebastian Pölsterl < mardukk-d-w.org" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">
mardukk-d-w.org> wrote:
> So, are there any plans to keep the ability to have a visible search box?
>;
There are no plans to bring back the old UIs. However, as you can see
the entry is still there, but not in the panel. As I already told you I
would help to make it as easy as possible for big-board to make use of
the new deskbar. I already wrote a very rough sketch how that might look
like (see attachment). You can then place the entry, the list of matches
and the list of actions wherever you want. If that's not want you want,
just tell me. I'm sure we find a solution.
Ah, interesting! I'll have a look at this when I get into work. ; Thanks!
Ok so I had a chance to play with this and I was able to get something basic working, like the old Entriac style:
http://svn.mugshot.org/bigboard/trunk/bigboard/deskbar_embed.py
which imports:
http://svn.mugshot.org/bigboard/trunk/bigboard/bigbar/
It's kind of buggy at the moment but thankfully I have a lot of experience in very fiddly dynamic window popups in PyGTK since I spent a few solid days tweaking the completion window for Hotwire[1] a few months ago.
Anyways, I'll see how things work out; thanks for the code!
[1] http://code.google.com/p/hotwire-shell/
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| Re: new deskbar UI |
Germany |
2007-08-30 11:22:24 |
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Colin Walters schrieb:
> On 8/29/07, Colin Walters <waltersredhat.com> wrote:
>>
>> On 8/29/07, Sebastian Pölsterl < mardukk-d-w.org> wrote:
>>>
>>>> So, are there any plans to keep the ability
to have a visible search
>>> box?
>>> There are no plans to bring back the old UIs.
However, as you can see
>>> the entry is still there, but not in the panel.
As I already told you I
>>> would help to make it as easy as possible for
big-board to make use of
>>> the new deskbar. I already wrote a very rough
sketch how that might look
>>> like (see attachment). You can then place the
entry, the list of matches
>>> and the list of actions wherever you want. If
that's not want you want,
>>> just tell me. I'm sure we find a solution.
>>
>> Ah, interesting! I'll have a look at this when I
get into work. Thanks!
>>
>
> Ok so I had a chance to play with this and I was able
to get something basic
> working, like the old Entriac style:
> http://svn.mugshot.org/bigboard/trunk/bigboard/de
skbar_embed.py
> which imports:
> http://svn.mugshot.org/bigboard/trunk/bigboard/bigbar/
>
> It's kind of buggy at the moment but thankfully I have
a lot of experience
> in very fiddly dynamic window popups in PyGTK since I
spent a few solid days
> tweaking the completion window for Hotwire[1] a few
months ago.
>
> Anyways, I'll see how things work out; thanks for the
code!
>
Great! If need further assistance let me know.
- --
Greetings,
Sebastian Pölsterl
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