GSOC Kontact Touch
I'd like to participate in GSOC 2013. This year’s theme is "KDE++ aka polish everything" so Kontact Touch seems to be a good candidate in my eyes. Now I am looking for a mentor and the right scope for my project. I want to do mostly UI work. Would porting things over to plasma-qml components be a good project? I am not sure how much work that will be and if I can manage to port every application of the suite in the given time. So maybe just focus on one or two? The UI seems to be designed with a smaller form factor in mind. Is it supposed to stay this way or am I free to experiment and make it more suitable for tablet use? cheers Mike ___ Active mailing list Active@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/active
Re: GSOC Kontact Touch
Am 26.02.2013 17:13 schrieb "Michael Bohlender" : > > I'd like to participate in GSOC 2013. This year’s theme is "KDE++ aka polish everything" so Kontact Touch seems to be a good candidate in my eyes. > Now I am looking for a mentor and the right scope for my project. I want to do mostly UI work. Would porting things over to plasma-qml components be a good project? > I am not sure how much work that will be and if I can manage to port every application of the suite in the given time. So maybe just focus on one or two? > The UI seems to be designed with a smaller form factor in mind. Is it supposed to stay this way or am I free to experiment and make it more suitable for tablet use? One, maybe two parts would be best I think. I know, that KMail has already a versioon for PA, if there are other parts ported already, I don't know. > > cheers > > Mike > > ___ > Active mailing list > Active@kde.org > https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/active > ___ Active mailing list Active@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/active
Re: GSOC Kontact Touch
On Tuesday, February 26, 2013 17:46:06 Daniel Kreuter wrote: > One, maybe two parts would be best I think. I know, that KMail has already > a versioon for PA, if there are other parts ported already, I don't know. mail, calendaring and contacts are all available .. -- Aaron J. Seigo signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part. ___ Active mailing list Active@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/active
Re: GSOC Kontact Touch
On Tuesday, February 26, 2013 17:12:43 Michael Bohlender wrote: > polish everything" so Kontact Touch seems to be a good candidate in my > eyes. +1 > Now I am looking for a mentor and the right scope for my project. I want to > do mostly UI work. Would porting things over to plasma-qml components be a > good project? from the perspective of Plasma Active, yes :) at the very least, a number of the UI concepts in Kontact Touch are a bit dated and could use some updating. > I am not sure how much work that will be and if I can manage to port every > application of the suite in the given time. So maybe just focus on one or > two? there is a lot of possible work in Kontact Touch, so limiting the scope is absolutely going to be required. some are small things like getting rid of the odd little "show apps" button in the top left that is a legacy from Nokia N900 days. the side drawers could be harmonized with the Plasma Active look 'n feel. there are bigger issues as well such as the extensive use of QGraphicsProxyWidget which will become a really uncomfortable thing when moving to QML2. all the search and config widgets, for instance, are QWidgets imported into the scene via QGraphicsProxyWidget (which is horrible for performance) .. thse should be replaced with pure QML. the Calendar widget is another, but imho that is going to be too large for a realistic GSoC project for someone who is not already intimately familiar with the calendar widget. there is the multi-window workflow that is honestly pretty awkward and performance problem on device. so there are lots of possible targets there. picking one class of issue in Kontact Touch is probably good for a GSoC project. > The UI seems to be designed with a smaller form factor in mind. Is it > supposed to stay this way or am I free to experiment and make it more > suitable for tablet use? preferably the UI should scale, within reason, to higher and lower resolutions. the current design is pretty limited, but then it was written in another time when QML itself was more l imited and was targetting a very specific device ... -- Aaron J. Seigo signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part. ___ Active mailing list Active@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/active
Re: GSOC Kontact Touch
On Tuesday 26 February 2013 17:12:43 Michael Bohlender wrote: > I'd like to participate in GSOC 2013. This year’s theme is "KDE++ aka > polish everything" so Kontact Touch seems to be a good candidate in my > eyes. Absolutely! Kontact Touch is one of our strong points functionality-wise, but the UI clearly needs a major face lift for it to become a prime Plasma Active citizen. So yes, it is a great candidate for polishing! > Now I am looking for a mentor and the right scope for my project. I want to > do mostly UI work. Would porting things over to plasma-qml components be a > good project? Since this is work which will have a major impact on Plasma Active's overall user experience, I'd like to be a co-mentor for the UX/usability perspective of things. I guess the primary mentor for a GSoC project needs to know more about the code, though, so we'll still need a developer as mentor. > I am not sure how much work that will be and if I can manage to port every > application of the suite in the given time. So maybe just focus on one or > two? As Aaron already wrote: Yes, you'll definitely have to focus on some part of Kontact Touch, you can't do it all in one project. > The UI seems to be designed with a smaller form factor in mind. Is it > supposed to stay this way or am I free to experiment and make it more > suitable for tablet use? It is not supposed to stay this way and you are free to experiment, but since you'll likely define some new standards with this, I'd like to co-mentor you to keep an eye on things. ___ Active mailing list Active@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/active
Re: GSOC Kontact Touch
Hi all, as I have defined most of the UI concepts in Kontact Touch I would be willing to support any project as good as I can. There are lots of ideas that have not been realized during the initial project. I would love to see some more to come real! So my offer to Thomas - I would support your co-mentorship :) Cheers, Björn Am Dienstag, 26. Februar 2013, 19:08:48 schrieb Thomas Pfeiffer: > On Tuesday 26 February 2013 17:12:43 Michael Bohlender wrote: > > I'd like to participate in GSOC 2013. This year’s theme is "KDE++ aka > > polish everything" so Kontact Touch seems to be a good candidate in my > > eyes. > > Absolutely! Kontact Touch is one of our strong points functionality-wise, > but the UI clearly needs a major face lift for it to become a prime Plasma > Active citizen. So yes, it is a great candidate for polishing! > > > Now I am looking for a mentor and the right scope for my project. I want > > to > > do mostly UI work. Would porting things over to plasma-qml components be > > a > > good project? > > Since this is work which will have a major impact on Plasma Active's overall > user experience, I'd like to be a co-mentor for the UX/usability > perspective of things. I guess the primary mentor for a GSoC project needs > to know more about the code, though, so we'll still need a developer as > mentor. > > I am not sure how much work that will be and if I can manage to port every > > application of the suite in the given time. So maybe just focus on one or > > two? > > As Aaron already wrote: Yes, you'll definitely have to focus on some part of > Kontact Touch, you can't do it all in one project. > > > The UI seems to be designed with a smaller form factor in mind. Is it > > supposed to stay this way or am I free to experiment and make it more > > suitable for tablet use? > > It is not supposed to stay this way and you are free to experiment, but > since you'll likely define some new standards with this, I'd like to > co-mentor you to keep an eye on things. > ___ > Active mailing list > Active@kde.org > https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/active -- 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 Active@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/active
Re: GSOC Kontact Touch
On Tuesday 26 February 2013, Thomas Pfeiffer wrote: > On Tuesday 26 February 2013 17:12:43 Michael Bohlender wrote: > > I'd like to participate in GSOC 2013. This year’s theme is "KDE++ aka > > polish everything" so Kontact Touch seems to be a good candidate in my > > eyes. > > Absolutely! Kontact Touch is one of our strong points functionality-wise, > but the UI clearly needs a major face lift for it to become a prime Plasma > Active citizen. So yes, it is a great candidate for polishing! and btw, right now was an attempt to have almost 1:1 functionality of the full kontact... if it got simplified down quite a bit, but what remains would start to work very well, i would be happy ;) > It is not supposed to stay this way and you are free to experiment, but > since you'll likely define some new standards with this, I'd like to > co-mentor you to keep an eye on things. yeah, in the end a new ui would be discussed here just as usually happens for the other bits. and as mentor for ui design, I fully support Thomas. what would be super cool is a kdepim developer to mentor the code part. Cheers, Marco Martin ___ Active mailing list Active@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/active
Re: GSOC Kontact Touch
On Tuesday, February 26, 2013 20:04:52 Marco Martin wrote: > On Tuesday 26 February 2013, Thomas Pfeiffer wrote: > > On Tuesday 26 February 2013 17:12:43 Michael Bohlender wrote: > > > I'd like to participate in GSOC 2013. This year’s theme is "KDE++ aka > > > polish everything" so Kontact Touch seems to be a good candidate in my > > > eyes. > > > > > > > > Absolutely! Kontact Touch is one of our strong points functionality-wise, > > but the UI clearly needs a major face lift for it to become a prime Plasma > > Active citizen. So yes, it is a great candidate for polishing! > > and btw, right now was an attempt to have almost 1:1 functionality of the > full kontact... > if it got simplified down quite a bit, but what remains would start to work > very well, i would be happy > > > It is not supposed to stay this way and you are free to experiment, but > > since you'll likely define some new standards with this, I'd like to > > co-mentor you to keep an eye on things. > > yeah, in the end a new ui would be discussed here just as usually happens > for the other bits. > and as mentor for ui design, I fully support Thomas. > what would be super cool is a kdepim developer to mentor the code part. Putting kde-pim back into CC: :) -- sebas http://www.kde.org | http://vizZzion.org | GPG Key ID: 9119 0EF9 ___ Active mailing list Active@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/active
Re: GSOC Kontact Touch
@all Thanks for your feedback. You can expect a first draft of my proposal by tomorrow. Having a concrete proposal might attract a mentor better than just a vague idea. Also, I will try to limit the scope to an achieve able minimum. I guess less is more in this case. @Thomas I was kind of hoping to get to work with you. Thanks for offering your co mentorship. I will gladly accept it. @Björn Where can I get documentation about the ideas that didn't find their way into Kontact Touch? Also, thanks for offering your help. With two UX experts on my side, I will make this proposal as UX specific as possible. I am really looking forward to this. Cheers Mike ___ Active mailing list Active@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/active
Re: [Kde-pim] GSOC Kontact Touch
Tirsdag den 26. februar 2013 18:23:29 skrev Aaron J. Seigo: > On Tuesday, February 26, 2013 17:12:43 Michael Bohlender wrote: > > polish everything" so Kontact Touch seems to be a good candidate in my > > eyes. > > +1 +1 > > Now I am looking for a mentor and the right scope for my project. I want > > to > > do mostly UI work. Would porting things over to plasma-qml components be > > a > > good project? > > from the perspective of Plasma Active, yes :) at the very least, a number of > the UI concepts in Kontact Touch are a bit dated and could use some > updating. > > I am not sure how much work that will be and if I can manage to port every > > application of the suite in the given time. So maybe just focus on one or > > two? > > there is a lot of possible work in Kontact Touch, so limiting the scope is > absolutely going to be required. > > some are small things like getting rid of the odd little "show apps" button > in the top left that is a legacy from Nokia N900 days. the side drawers > could be harmonized with the Plasma Active look 'n feel. > > there are bigger issues as well such as the extensive use of > QGraphicsProxyWidget which will become a really uncomfortable thing when > moving to QML2. > > all the search and config widgets, for instance, are QWidgets imported into > the scene via QGraphicsProxyWidget (which is horrible for performance) .. > thse should be replaced with pure QML. > > the Calendar widget is another, but imho that is going to be too large for a > realistic GSoC project for someone who is not already intimately familiar > with the calendar widget. Somebody is or was working on a QML implementation, which can be used, I believe. For me as a user, the main issue with the kontact touch calendar is that it can show only one resource at a time. It's pratically useless for me. (using kde 4.9 kontact touch on nexus 7) > there is the multi-window workflow that is honestly pretty awkward and > performance problem on device. > > so there are lots of possible targets there. picking one class of issue in > Kontact Touch is probably good for a GSoC project. Consider the list that is used for mail folders, calendars and addressbooks, which is really a pain to use, because it is so difficult to navigate, always hiding everything but the active object. On a tablet, there is room enough to have a list along side a mail or contact, allowing for better navigation. The android mail client does that nicely. Date selection widgets badly needs an update, more modern ones exist. The way dialogs are implemented with slide-in pages instead of tabs is not working very well, it is confusing and unintuitive to use in my experience. > > The UI seems to be designed with a smaller form factor in mind. Is it > > supposed to stay this way or am I free to experiment and make it more > > suitable for tablet use? > > preferably the UI should scale, within reason, to higher and lower > resolutions. the current design is pretty limited, but then it was written > in another time when QML itself was more l imited and was targetting a very > specific device ... I believe we need some guidelines for how to support that, like other multiinterface systems have (android, ubuntu touch). In android, there is an organized way of having different definitions for different form factors, making it quite easy to realize. Anders ___ Active mailing list Active@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/active
Re: [Kde-pim] GSOC Kontact Touch
On Tuesday, February 26, 2013 18:42:16 Anders Lund wrote: > The way dialogs are implemented with slide-in pages instead of tabs is not > working very well, it is confusing and unintuitive to use in my experience. "Dear $DEITY, please do not bring the plague of tabs to Plasma Active." but yes, the workflow needs re-examining. we have 3 sets of tools at our disposal to achieve this and keep the Plasma Active design harmony: * column based categorized lists (Add Ons, News, Settings) * side drawers (Files, okular active) * in-line UI (page stack and friends) i don't think there will be a single silver bullet for all the ways dialogs and drawers are currently used in Kontact Touch, but mapping out the overall workflow using the above three approaches should be possible and result in improvements. -- Aaron J. Seigo signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part. ___ Active mailing list Active@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/active
Re: [Kde-pim] GSOC Kontact Touch
On Tuesday 26 February 2013 18:56:21 Aaron J. Seigo wrote: > On Tuesday, February 26, 2013 18:42:16 Anders Lund wrote: > > The way dialogs are implemented with slide-in pages instead of tabs is not > > working very well, it is confusing and unintuitive to use in my > > experience. > > "Dear $DEITY, please do not bring the plague of tabs to Plasma Active." Well, we already have tab-like interfaces both in Files and in the Add Items dialog, and they work well there. They are not the solution to everything, though, of course. > but yes, the workflow needs re-examining. we have 3 sets of tools at our > disposal to achieve this and keep the Plasma Active design harmony: > > * column based categorized lists (Add Ons, News, Settings) > * side drawers (Files, okular active) > * in-line UI (page stack and friends) > > i don't think there will be a single silver bullet for all the ways dialogs > and drawers are currently used in Kontact Touch, but mapping out the overall > workflow using the above three approaches should be possible and result in > improvements. I think this project will be crucial to find what can be done with the UI patterns we already have, and where we need new ones. And to avoid creating new patterns where it's not necessary, I'd like to co- mentor the project (as already stated in my previous mail). ___ Active mailing list Active@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/active
Re: [Kde-pim] GSOC Kontact Touch
On 26.02.2013 21:27, Aaron J. Seigo wrote:
Well, we already have tab-like interfaces both in Files and in the Add Items
dialog, and they work well there.
i'd actually like to see them go away in Add Items, replaced with a list down
the left side ala Add Ons, Files, etc.. i don't know of a reasonable
replacement for the ones in Files, unfortunately.
I don't think the specific column-based design of Add Ons makes sense in
the Add Items dialog since we only have two levels, but I don't really
care a lot whether the categories are stacked horizontally or
vertically. The benefit of a vertical list would be that it has less
problems with lots of categories, of course.
I think for cases like in Files, the tabs are okay since they offer
different perspectives on selection and the number of tabs can be limited.
I don't think tabs are a bad concept in general. They just got a bad
name when people tried to use them for _everything_, especially dynamic
tabs ("Hey, it works for browsers, why shouldn't it work for my
application?"). For a limited, fixed number of sets of controls which
can be clearly categorized, they work pretty well imho.
They are not the solution to everything,
though, of course.
indeed; nothing is :)
but yes, the workflow needs re-examining. we have 3 sets of tools at our
disposal to achieve this and keep the Plasma Active design harmony:
* column based categorized lists (Add Ons, News, Settings)
* side drawers (Files, okular active)
* in-line UI (page stack and friends)
i don't think there will be a single silver bullet for all the ways
dialogs
and drawers are currently used in Kontact Touch, but mapping out the
overall workflow using the above three approaches should be possible and
result in improvements.
I think this project will be crucial to find what can be done with the UI
patterns we already have, and where we need new ones.
+1
And to avoid creating new patterns where it's not necessary, I'd like to co-
mentor the project (as already stated in my previous mail).
yeah, i think that would be immensely helpful.
Great! Now we just need to find a mentor for the GSoC project. Marco
wrote that it would be nice to get someone from PIM as mentor (he didn't
CC the kdepim list in his mail though, so they don't know it yet).
Should we ask them if one of them can mentor?
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Re: [Kde-pim] GSOC Kontact Touch
On Wednesday, 2013-02-27, Thomas Pfeiffer wrote: > On 26.02.2013 21:27, Aaron J. Seigo wrote: > >> And to avoid creating new patterns where it's not necessary, I'd like to > >> co- mentor the project (as already stated in my previous mail). > > > > yeah, i think that would be immensely helpful. > > Great! Now we just need to find a mentor for the GSoC project. Marco > wrote that it would be nice to get someone from PIM as mentor (he didn't > CC the kdepim list in his mail though, so they don't know it yet). > Should we ask them if one of them can mentor? Aaron CCed an earlier message in this thread to kde-pim. I am subscribed here now as well, just in case :) I am quite confident that we can find a mentor on the PIM side for that, potentially even more than one. On a related note: one thing that I tried (and failed) already last year is to get someone interested in general workspace intergration for PIM infrastructure components [1]. IMHO this is even more important for Active than for Desktop. When being suggested as a PIM GSOC idea it seems to fail to get students' attention. Any chance someone from Plasma workspaces thinks this woud be worthwhile? Cheers, Kevin [1] being able to check and control the state of background processes, e.g. pausing mail fetch, triggering synchronization. Potentially with activity based policies. -- Kevin Krammer, KDE developer, xdg-utils developer KDE user support, developer mentoring signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part. ___ Active mailing list Active@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/active
Re: [Kde-pim] GSOC Kontact Touch
On Tuesday 26 February 2013 18:56:21 Aaron J. Seigo wrote: > On Tuesday, February 26, 2013 18:42:16 Anders Lund wrote: > > The way dialogs are implemented with slide-in pages instead of tabs is > > not working very well, it is confusing and unintuitive to use in my > > experience. > "Dear $DEITY, please do not bring the plague of tabs to Plasma Active." > > but yes, the workflow needs re-examining. we have 3 sets of tools at our > disposal to achieve this and keep the Plasma Active design harmony: > > * column based categorized lists (Add Ons, News, Settings) > * side drawers (Files, okular active) > * in-line UI (page stack and friends) > > i don't think there will be a single silver bullet for all the ways > dialogs and drawers are currently used in Kontact Touch, but mapping out > the overall workflow using the above three approaches should be possible > and result in improvements. Sorry to bother but I can't help it - I saw this today: https://sailfishos.org//navigation-article.html And these guide lines for UI seem to be something we need, too... ;-) Hugs, Jos signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part. ___ Active mailing list Active@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/active
UI guidelines (Re: [Kde-pim] GSOC Kontact Touch)
Hi, > > Sorry to bother but I can't help it - I saw this today: > https://sailfishos.org//navigation-article.html > > And these guide lines for UI seem to be something we need, too... ;-) My thoughts too... Though http://community.kde.org/Plasma/Active/Development/ActiveHIG seems a nice starting point. As I'm not a UX designer, I can help only with some more basic UI stuff like the home screen, peek & run diagrams and similar. More like the way they start on https://sailfishos.org//core-article.html (I'm preparing a simple presentation about Plasma Active, so I needed a few basic diagrams anyway... here is a quick draft (sorry for the export quality, I'll redraw them in SVG): http://dl.dropbox.com/u/61856678/plasma-active/active-basic.png http://dl.dropbox.com/u/61856678/plasma-active/active-peek.png http://dl.dropbox.com/u/61856678/plasma-active/active-run.png ... and so on for the activity wheel, recommendations, share-like-connect,...) > > Hugs, > Jos Best regards, Andrej ___ Active mailing list Active@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/active
Re: UI guidelines (Re: [Kde-pim] GSOC Kontact Touch)
On Saturday 09 March 2013 15:05:17 Andrej Vernekar wrote: > Hi, > > > Sorry to bother but I can't help it - I saw this today: > > https://sailfishos.org//navigation-article.html > > > > And these guide lines for UI seem to be something we need, too... ;-) > > My thoughts too... > Though > http://community.kde.org/Plasma/Active/Development/ActiveHIG > seems a nice starting point. Thanks for reminding Jos that these exist (Jos, weren't you actually in the audience of my talk at Akademy?). Or did you mean that there were no guidelines for these specific things, Jos? Actually there are guidelines for drawers ( http://community.kde.org/Plasma/Active/Development/ActiveHIG/Drawers ) and at least a specific kind of inline dialog is covered in (http://community.kde.org/Plasma/Active/Development/ActiveHIG/Settings) but we definitely need one for the column-based UI (I hope I'll find time to write that soon, it really is important) and maybe a more general one for inline dialogs. > As I'm not a UX designer, I can help only with some more basic UI stuff like > the home screen, peek & run diagrams and similar. More like the way they > start on https://sailfishos.org//core-article.html > > (I'm preparing a simple presentation about Plasma Active, so I needed a few > basic diagrams anyway... here is a quick draft (sorry for the export > quality, I'll redraw them in SVG): > http://dl.dropbox.com/u/61856678/plasma-active/active-basic.png > http://dl.dropbox.com/u/61856678/plasma-active/active-peek.png > http://dl.dropbox.com/u/61856678/plasma-active/active-run.png > ... and so on for the activity wheel, recommendations, > share-like-connect,...) Those diagrams by themselves won't be of much help without accompanying text, but they can be used in HIGs which still have to be written. Maybe we can create stubs for HIGs, place the images in them and then write text around them later? Thanks for preparing them. Thomas ___ Active mailing list Active@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/active
