Am Mittwoch, 30. Januar 2013, 19:00:45 schrieb Thomas Pfeiffer: > On Wednesday 30 January 2013 08:51:09 Aaron J. Seigo wrote: > > On Tuesday, January 29, 2013 21:45:18 Marco Martin wrote: > > > On Tuesday 29 January 2013, Aaron J. Seigo wrote: > > > > pros: > > > > * it means every new thing created will be associated with that > > > > activity > > > > by > > > > default > > > > * it means i don't have to have to pull down the launch and start a > > > > different app to get to this functionality > > > > > > > > as a wild thought: would it work at all to have a "create" button > > > > between > > > > "+" and "configure"? > > > > > > hm, another button would probably be quite redundant, and not very clear > > > the difference... > > > > yes, i struggled with that as well. > > > > > I think i would prefer starting this kind of actions from the top menu, > > > that doesn't *have* to be the list of all applications as now btw. > > > It may even have just icons to browsers (files, books, web, images..) > > > and > > > a > > > launcher for the start task ui (applications that can't really be melted > > > in > > > a task, such as games may be listed in a "category" of tasks) > > > > this got me to thinking if we could make even more use of the Launch area. > > it's where you "start" stuff, so "starting something new" makes sense up > > there ... but perhaps instead of starting a new application (making it > > also > > feel heavy in a different way), if selecting a "create" entry could cause > > the launch icons to slide away and be replaced by the options of things > > you > > can create. iow, integrate the "create" interface into the Launch. > > > > i also like the idea (if i read your email properly anyways ;) of > > providing > > a clearer visual separation between content browsers and other > > applications. > > > > if we were to go that route, when we get to creating the "create" > > application, it may be a nice opportunity to revisit the Launch area and > > see if there are any small (non-complexity-increasing :) improvements we > > can make there. > > > > the more i think about having "create" in the Launch area, the more i like > > it, btw :) it feels .. like the right place. > > I know it's easy to say that now ex post facto, but I imagined putting a > task starting interface in the Launch area at a later point all along (as I > mentioned in the thread-starter mail, my idea would only have worked for > file creation tasks anyway), and your ideas made me come up with something > even more radical: Why not turn the whole Launch area into a task- starter? > I love the idea of a task description grammar Aaron brought up in our last > meeting, so I thought "Why not turning all launchers into actions?" > > Attached you'll see my idea for a new task-centric Launch area, in which > everything is a task, and the categories are verbs (see "select task.png"). > Each list would be flickable vertically (I know, this conflicts with > flicking the whole Launch up, but I don't think this would be too much of a > problem since I guess users are more likely to flick from from the Peek or > Top Bar anyway). If there are more categories than fit on the screen, the > categories could be scrolled horizontally. > > The idea is that if a task involves more than one step to specify or is > actually a group of tasks (the ones with the ellipses at the end), after it > is tapped the whole area morphs into the column design of the Add Ons store > (see "specify task.png") with one column for each step (hat tip to Marco > for that idea). Ideally we would always stay in the sentence construction > metaphor, but I'm not sure if it works (I was too lazy to try fitting my > example tasks into this scheme). > > Directly starting with the column layout would make the whole thing more > consistent (and easier to implement), but I think it would be annoying to > insert another category selection step into one-step tasks, so I'd prefer > making better use of available screenspace by displaying several categories > in the first step. > > Of course there can be more than one task associated to an application, > possibly even in different categories (e.g. "Browse calendar", "Create > event" and "Manage calendars" are all accomplished using Calendar). > > I think this approach would reflect our move from app-centric to > task-centric design in a very consequent way and therefore I'd strongly > prefer it over a mix of task and classical application launchers. Plus, it > would fit the name "Plasma Active" well, because you select actions, not > names. > > Final remark: I don't think this should be the only point to start a task > from. Users should should be able to start a task from wherever it makes > sense, for example starting a contact-related task from a contact's context > menu. And that's why I thought it might make sense to also add starters for > file creation tasks to the Add Items dialog. > If that feels too wrong for you guys, I think I'd be fine with limiting file > creation to the main task launcher, though. > > I'm very curious what you think about this approach, so comment away! :)
This rocks! I wonder how many verbs would we need to provide a sufficient set of task starters? Some ideas for potential improvements: - Browse -> Perhaps better (or additionally?) Find... ? - Contact -> I do not like the technical approach on the next level. It is about whom you contact not how. If a friend is only available via one certain chat protocol, then I use it. - We could add a category 'Start...' with a list of traditional applications. I really have to sleep over the ideas - so expect more comments from me to come. Please keep attaching the pencil files - makes life easier ;) Cheers, Björn -- Dipl.-Psych. Björn Balazs Business Management & Research T +49 30 6098548-21 | M +49 179 4541949 User Prompt GmbH | Psychologic IT Expertise Grünberger Str. 49, 10245 Berlin | www.user-prompt.com HRB 142277 | AG Berlin Charlottenburg | Geschäftsführer Björn Balazs _______________________________________________ Active mailing list [email protected] https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/active
