Re: Discussion for a more robust panel layout
On 3/20/07, Manu Cornet <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Hi! > > Recently the problem of changes of resolutions has been raised [1] on > the usability list. I would like to start a discussion about how to > manage the effect of resolution changes on the panel layout better > than what we do today. This implies another way of storing the panel > layout. > > I know Vincent Untz already thought a bit about this and there were a > few short talks on this matter, but I'd like to make a proposal and > try to start a discussion about this. > > Here is the wiki page I set up for this: > > http://live.gnome.org/GnomePanel/RelativeLayout > > Does this seem sane to you? How would you do otherwise? How would you > enchance the current proposal? I'd just make sure that one of the use cases which the final design covers is devices which rotate, like tablet PCs and iphone-like devices. It seems likely that they will become more common, and while I can't think of any situations offhand where they are substantially different from merely changing resolution, it should be kept in mind. Luis ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Discussion for a more robust panel layout
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't order not guaranteed to be respected in an XML file? You mention using order within the file to determine order of icons. Maybe add an attribute to each item, something like order="". The problem I see with that idea though is that when you insert a new applet you have to change the order attribute of everything after it. That's not a good design, I know :-( For those padding elements, it'd be nice if you could choose between static sizes and relative sizes. Maybe the padding objects could have properties window just like the applets do? That might be too complicated. Anyway, I think relative sizes are only important if the panel is expanded. I feel like there's a shortcoming in this percentage of free space system. How do you plan to indicate right- and left-alignment? What if we create a sort of applet group? An applet group consists of one of more applets. The panel layout would consist of zero or more of these groups, separated by padding elements. Unless there is padding as the first element in panel the first applet group should be left aligned, and similarly the last applet group should be right-aligned if no padding exists there. Every other applet group is separated by a padding specified as a percentage of free space. Now for a neat idea for an edit mode for the panels. This idea is sort of in the same vein as making the panel layout handle resizing nicely, but I'm thinking of a way to improve usability of the panel when you're moving stuff around. The main point is to give users visual feedback about spacing. Also, I think this would be absolutely necessary if implementing applet groups as described above, otherwise there would be no way to move a "group" vs. just moving an applet. I'm picturing in my head a mode that is automatically entered when you start dragging an applet anywhere on the panel, or if you explicitly open some sort of panel edit mode. A red (or other color) bordered box indicate the boundaries of an applet group. You can drag applets or applet groups by grabbing their border. If you move an applet or applet group close enough to another then it snaps to surround the applet or applet group you're dragging. Being in a group indicates that the applets you're dragging is now positioned directly beside the icon to the left/right with 0px (or some other small, predetermined padding amount) space between them. Each applet group has a padding block separating it from other applet groups. There will be some sort of lines with percentages written into the middle to indicate percentage of free space attributed to that padding area, like a measurement for a wall in an architectural drawing. The basic idea here is that any applet you put on the panel constitutes a group, and you can easily say that two applets belong together this way. Also, the size of your spacing is visually indicated so you can easily tell spacing characteristics. If this all makes as much sense as it does in my head then I'll be relieved! I think that the applet groups makes for a nice way of preserving groups, and even if no one likes my idea of panel edit mode then this would still make a good way of implementing a left and right alignment area on the panel. Thoughts? Martin Meyer On 3/20/07, Luis Villa <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On 3/20/07, Manu Cornet <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Hi! > > > > Recently the problem of changes of resolutions has been raised [1] on > > the usability list. I would like to start a discussion about how to > > manage the effect of resolution changes on the panel layout better > > than what we do today. This implies another way of storing the panel > > layout. > > > > I know Vincent Untz already thought a bit about this and there were a > > few short talks on this matter, but I'd like to make a proposal and > > try to start a discussion about this. > > > > Here is the wiki page I set up for this: > > > > http://live.gnome.org/GnomePanel/RelativeLayout > > > > Does this seem sane to you? How would you do otherwise? How would you > > enchance the current proposal? > > I'd just make sure that one of the use cases which the final design > covers is devices which rotate, like tablet PCs and iphone-like > devices. It seems likely that they will become more common, and while > I can't think of any situations offhand where they are substantially > different from merely changing resolution, it should be kept in mind. > > Luis > ___ > desktop-devel-list mailing list > desktop-devel-list@gnome.org > http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list > ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Discussion for a more robust panel layout
On Tue, 2007-03-20 at 15:23 -0400, Martin Meyer wrote: > Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't order not guaranteed to be > respected in an XML file? You mention using order within the file to > determine order of icons. Maybe add an attribute to each item, > something like order="". The problem I see with that idea > though is that when you insert a new applet you have to change the > order attribute of everything after it. That's not a good design, I > know :-( Order of elements is absolutely guaranteed to be respected. Documents written in XML vocabularies (like, say, XHTML) would look mighty funny otherwise. It's attributes that aren't guaranteed to have any order. So these two are equivalent at the infoset level: But these two most certainly are not: fifum fumfi -- Shaun ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Discussion for a more robust panel layout
On Mar 21, 2007, at 3:58 AM, Manu Cornet wrote: > ... > Recently the problem of changes of resolutions has been raised [1] on > the usability list. I would like to start a discussion about how to > manage the effect of resolution changes on the panel layout better > than what we do today. This implies another way of storing the panel > layout. > ... > http://live.gnome.org/GnomePanel/RelativeLayout > > Does this seem sane to you? How would you do otherwise? How would you > enchance the current proposal? > ... The proposal looks very good as it is. Well done! -- Matthew Paul Thomas http://mpt.net.nz ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Discussion for a more robust panel layout
On Tue, 2007-03-20 at 16:58 +0100, Manu Cornet wrote: > > Recently the problem of changes of resolutions has been raised [1] on > the usability list. I would like to start a discussion about how to > manage the effect of resolution changes on the panel layout better > than what we do today. This implies another way of storing the panel > layout. Just store all locations as percentage of screen width/height. -- behdad http://behdad.org/ "Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." -- Benjamin Franklin, 1759 ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Discussion for a more robust panel layout
2007/7/8, Behdad Esfahbod <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> On Tue, 2007-03-20 at 16:58 +0100, Manu Cornet wrote:
> >
> > Recently the problem of changes of resolutions has been raised [1] on
> > the usability list. I would like to start a discussion about how to
> > manage the effect of resolution changes on the panel layout better
> > than what we do today. This implies another way of storing the panel
> > layout.
>
> Just store all locations as percentage of screen width/height.
That would mean creating gaps between applets when growing the width,
unless some special "keep me next to that guy"-states exist.
I'd rather see some gravity settings ("always try to go towards the
left edge"), since that's where you'll want to have the applets
anyway, on the edges.
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Re: Discussion for a more robust panel layout
On Sun, Jul 08, 2007 at 05:22:30PM +0300, Kalle Vahlman wrote:
> 2007/7/8, Behdad Esfahbod <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> > On Tue, 2007-03-20 at 16:58 +0100, Manu Cornet wrote:
> > >
> > > Recently the problem of changes of resolutions has been raised [1] on
> > > the usability list. I would like to start a discussion about how to
> > > manage the effect of resolution changes on the panel layout better
> > > than what we do today. This implies another way of storing the panel
> > > layout.
> >
> > Just store all locations as percentage of screen width/height.
>
> That would mean creating gaps between applets when growing the width,
> unless some special "keep me next to that guy"-states exist.
>
> I'd rather see some gravity settings ("always try to go towards the
> left edge"), since that's where you'll want to have the applets
> anyway, on the edges.
Not true. Maybe grouping (if space_beetween applets <
half_panel_width, then move applets close together). Keeping applets
only on edges isn't practical -- it takes more time to differentiate and
target tightly grouped applets.
I personally hate when unrelated applets end up together after few
resolution changes. I prefer this layout: http://nsm.pl/~niria/fckvm1.png
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Re: Discussion for a more robust panel layout
2007/7/8, Tomasz Torcz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> On Sun, Jul 08, 2007 at 05:22:30PM +0300, Kalle Vahlman wrote:
> > I'd rather see some gravity settings ("always try to go towards the
> > left edge"), since that's where you'll want to have the applets
> > anyway, on the edges.
>
> Not true. Maybe grouping (if space_beetween applets <
> half_panel_width, then move applets close together).
Grouping, yes, also _GRAVITY_NONE and _GRAVITY_CENTER. Maybe even a
"light" gravity option, eg. your applet is already in the left 1/3
portion of the panel => no change.
> Keeping applets
> only on edges isn't practical -- it takes more time to differentiate and
> target tightly grouped applets.
I wasn't too clear, but I didn't mean _only_ edges, if you have your
applets on the edge you'll likely want them to be in the edge after
the resolution change too, no?
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Re: Discussion for a more robust panel layout
On Sun, 2007-07-08 at 17:22 +0300, Kalle Vahlman wrote:
> 2007/7/8, Behdad Esfahbod <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> > On Tue, 2007-03-20 at 16:58 +0100, Manu Cornet wrote:
> > >
> > > Recently the problem of changes of resolutions has been raised [1] on
> > > the usability list. I would like to start a discussion about how to
> > > manage the effect of resolution changes on the panel layout better
> > > than what we do today. This implies another way of storing the panel
> > > layout.
> >
> > Just store all locations as percentage of screen width/height.
>
> That would mean creating gaps between applets when growing the width,
> unless some special "keep me next to that guy"-states exist.
>
> I'd rather see some gravity settings ("always try to go towards the
> left edge"), since that's where you'll want to have the applets
> anyway, on the edges.
In that case just keep the gaps in a percentage of extra space
available. You doesn't even have to be percentage. For each gap keep a
number which is its stretchiness. Then allocate extra space to gaps in
proportion to their stretchiness.
--
behdad
http://behdad.org/
"Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little
Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
-- Benjamin Franklin, 1759
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