[sugar] the ring
It was terrible to lose the pie chart for resource usage. That was very useful for both developers and kids. The new design makes the loss permanent, while still keeping a visual design that no longer makes any sense. Fixing the old ring doesn't seem so difficult. You can't have a minimum activity size, and you must have an entry for the OS. With those changes, things should work well enough for a visual tool. ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
Re: [sugar] the ring
Hi, Maybe is not necessary to back to the old ring, new designs comes with new features. In this case can be created an activity to show the resources usage by the activities, the only problem with this, is that the activity need to access the /proc filesystem and other files just restricted to root user... cheers. Eduardo On Wed, May 7, 2008 at 2:45 AM, Albert Cahalan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > It was terrible to lose the pie chart for resource usage. > That was very useful for both developers and kids. > > The new design makes the loss permanent, while > still keeping a visual design that no longer makes > any sense. > > Fixing the old ring doesn't seem so difficult. You can't > have a minimum activity size, and you must have an > entry for the OS. With those changes, things should > work well enough for a visual tool. > ___ > Sugar mailing list > Sugar@lists.laptop.org > http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar > ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
Re: [sugar] the ring
> It was terrible to lose the pie chart for resource usage. > That was very useful for both developers and kids. Was indication (by the ring) of resource usage actually released to users? My G1G1 showed only fixed-width pie slices. Here is an opportunity for a new "user-information" Activity. A 'log viewer' already exists; why not a 'resource viewer'? > The new design makes the loss permanent, while > still keeping a visual design that no longer makes any sense. I like the new design. I can choose which Activity-icons are shown by the ring. That means I have to go into the 'list' view much less often than in the old design I had to "scroll" its Activity-icons. Also, as others have mentioned, the currently "running" Activities can be seen (or switched to) anytime by bringing up the Frame -- without having to EXIT the current screen to bring up Home view. mikus p.s. I see that the *order* of the icons in the ring can change when Sugar is restarted. I liked it that in the old design I could manually adjust the ordering of the Activity-icons. pps. The 'list' view appears to not include a Shutdown entry. If my last use of Activity Management was in 'list', F3 takes an extra click (to switch to 'ring') to get to Shutdown. ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
Re: [sugar] the ring
On Wed, May 7, 2008 at 9:28 AM, Mikus Grinbergs <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > It was terrible to lose the pie chart for resource usage. > > That was very useful for both developers and kids. > > Was indication (by the ring) of resource usage actually released to > users? My G1G1 showed only fixed-width pie slices. It never shipped because the information was never accurate enough to be meaningful. In fact, it was most times confusing. It is unfortunate that we lost this (potential) means of conveying more info, but I think the new designs gain us a lot over the previous version in terms of usability. > Here is an opportunity for a new "user-information" Activity. > A 'log viewer' already exists; why not a 'resource viewer'? I think this is what the Analyze activity is supposed to be about...it's a tool for looking at all the technical "goings on" of the laptop. I think there are a few sections within that activity, and if none of them currently cover this particular resource viewer, we should certainly add it to the list. > > The new design makes the loss permanent, while > > still keeping a visual design that no longer makes any sense. > > I like the new design. I can choose which Activity-icons are shown > by the ring. That means I have to go into the 'list' view much less > often than in the old design I had to "scroll" its Activity-icons. > > Also, as others have mentioned, the currently "running" Activities > can be seen (or switched to) anytime by bringing up the Frame -- > without having to EXIT the current screen to bring up Home view. These are both big wins for the new design in my mind, and have made my interactions with Sugar much more pleasant since I've been using the new builds. Two other advantages are the placement of the devices in the Frame for easy at-a-glance access, as well as the new [people, places, objects, and devices] edges of the Frame which will support the forthcoming notification system. > p.s. I see that the *order* of the icons in the ring can change >when Sugar is restarted. I liked it that in the old design >I could manually adjust the ordering of the Activity-icons. Really? File that one in track ASAP, as that's clearly an undesired behavior. The ring should remain fixed so that kids can recall from memory where to find the one they are looking for. Reordering of activities within the ring via drag'n'drop is something I wholly support, but something I doubt will happen in the short term since there are many more important bugs to fix. This actually came up when I discussed the new designs with Jim yesterday, and it was flagged as a great community project, since we have no dependency on it working but would love to see someone take a stab at it! > pps. The 'list' view appears to not include a Shutdown entry. >If my last use of Activity Management was in 'list', F3 takes >an extra click (to switch to 'ring') to get to Shutdown. This is true, but I'm not sure I have a better solution than the extra click at the moment. I do like the association of those machine management controls with the XO, and we couldn't come up with a reasonable way to include the XO in a list view. Of course, we expect that true shutdowns will be limited in practice, so it's not something I'm personally that concerned about at the moment. - Eben ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
Re: [sugar] the ring
On Wed, May 7, 2008 at 10:41 AM, Eben Eliason <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Wed, May 7, 2008 at 9:28 AM, Mikus Grinbergs <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > It was terrible to lose the pie chart for resource usage. > > > That was very useful for both developers and kids. > > > > Was indication (by the ring) of resource usage actually released to > > users? My G1G1 showed only fixed-width pie slices. > > It never shipped because the information was never accurate enough to > be meaningful. In fact, it was most times confusing. It is > unfortunate that we lost this (potential) means of conveying more > info, but I think the new designs gain us a lot over the previous > version in terms of usability. > I recall that in one of the early sketches for the new design, the position of the open activity icons on the frame was serving to indicate the memory usage. What I don't recall is why that idea was abandoned. But regardless, it suggests that the new design is not incompatible with the notion of making resource consumption more explicitly evident. -walter ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
