[Sugar-devel] [Design] BulletinBoard feedback

2012-07-17 Thread Gary C Martin
Hi Walter,

Finally had a chance to have a play with your Bulletin Board-2 activity [1][2] 
and just wanted to pass along some quick design related feedback from my first 
impressions:

- The default view for the activity feels like it should be Thumbnail view, not 
Slide view. Instantly presenting a user with a 'Bulletin Board' like view of 
the activity showing numerous thumbnails pinned to the screen makes the 
activity intent more obvious. Slide  Thumb primary toolbar icon positions 
should swap if Thumb becomes the default view.

- The canvas fill colour should be a neutral light grey or white, the two 
colour fill/stroke border frames around the thumb images are strong enough 
already to clearly see the owners custom fill/stroke colours. I was pretty 
swamped with some un-expected user choice of lurid colour fullscreen ;)

- The 'Update description' tool in the primary toolbar is rather confusing with 
regard to the similar functionality and similar icon in the Activity secondary 
toolbar 'Description'. Suggestion; drop the primary toolbar tool 'Update 
description' and make the description text areas editable on the main canvas 
below each slide. It can have a subtle help hint in the input area where a 
description text is empty, tempting folks to interact (e.g. the standard 
Description icon with some hint text next to it, something like Empty 
description and a button marked (+) Add description, as per an empty Journal 
search, or see Jukebox for a similar canvas use case, mockup here [3]).

- Ideally the Title on the canvas would also support editing (to match the 
above behaviour) so the Journal entry titles can be modified as well.

- [Bug] The 'Update description' tool in the primary toolbar was used to add a 
description to one slide, the same text was then in that palette for every 
other slide (the other slides had no descriptions of their own). The palette 
field only updates if there is description text already there, otherwise it 
shows previously displayed stale text.

- In thumbnail view can a single click interaction switch to Slide view for 
that slide.

- Is there any way to transfer a specific shared entry into your own Journal 
rather than just viewing low-res thumbnails, or is this out of the scope of the 
activity?

- My expectation for the audio recording feature was that there could be an 
audio recording per slide, so you could navigate through and hear a description 
of each slide. It appears to be a single audio recording which is over written 
if you record again, requiring manual navigation of the slides if it is 
intended as a narration. If audio recording can be per slide, the 'buddy with 
speak bubble' icons could appear on the main canvas in the text description 
area, rather than the secondary toolbar, to allow playback of the different 
recordings from each collaborator for each slide).

- [Bug] Audio recording only produced a series of clicking echo like audio 
feedback (tested on an XO-1.75)

- [Bug] Main canvas does not re-scale or re-centre. Opening secondary toolbars 
pushes the description area slightly off screen, and rotating the screen causes 
a grey area of undrawn canvas at the bottom and the main content to partially 
disappear off the right side of the display.

- [Bug] Still trying to examine this one so apologies for vagueness. Sharing 
issues using two XO-1.75 running latest 12.1 build 18 on a local network, with 
no collaboration server defined. Share from 1st machine with 6 item starred; 
join activity from Neighbourhood view on 2nd machine with no items shared; 
result is 2nd machine showns the warning about having no items starred; stop 
both activities; star a few Journal items on 2nd machine; resume activity on 
1st machine; join activity from Neighbourhood view on 2nd; result, 1st machine 
still just sees its own starred items, 2nd machine see only its own starred 
items. The machine joining the other displayed the other in the right Frame 
buddy area, but the initial sharing machine did not see the other in the right 
Frame buddy area (I tried this a couple of times starting with different 
machines first).

- [Bug] Given the above, I was not sure what the Refresh tool was for in the 
Activity secondary toolbar, I clicked it a number of different times in 
different situations (starring extra items in my Journal after beginning the 
activity, after trying to collaborate). From the wiki I guess this is intended 
for case 2 rather than case 1 (rescan of journal starred items).

- [Bug] (After testing with a 3rd XO-1 on 12.1 build 18 I managed to see share 
working) Thumb view shows incomplete state if the activity is in the progress 
of synchronising with another's slides when you switch to it. Should show a 
loading or progress bar if state is incomplete (or a spinner if you're not sure 
how many items are to by synched). If the number of items is known, you could 
open blank thumb containers with spinners or a loading message in each so that 

Re: [Sugar-devel] [Design] BulletinBoard feedback

2012-07-17 Thread Martin Abente
I'm in :)

On Tue, Jul 17, 2012 at 4:22 PM, Gary C Martin
garycmar...@googlemail.comwrote:

 Hi Walter,

 Finally had a chance to have a play with your Bulletin Board-2 activity
 [1][2] and just wanted to pass along some quick design related feedback
 from my first impressions:

 - The default view for the activity feels like it should be Thumbnail
 view, not Slide view. Instantly presenting a user with a 'Bulletin Board'
 like view of the activity showing numerous thumbnails pinned to the screen
 makes the activity intent more obvious. Slide  Thumb primary toolbar icon
 positions should swap if Thumb becomes the default view.

 - The canvas fill colour should be a neutral light grey or white, the two
 colour fill/stroke border frames around the thumb images are strong enough
 already to clearly see the owners custom fill/stroke colours. I was pretty
 swamped with some un-expected user choice of lurid colour fullscreen ;)

 - The 'Update description' tool in the primary toolbar is rather confusing
 with regard to the similar functionality and similar icon in the Activity
 secondary toolbar 'Description'. Suggestion; drop the primary toolbar tool
 'Update description' and make the description text areas editable on the
 main canvas below each slide. It can have a subtle help hint in the input
 area where a description text is empty, tempting folks to interact (e.g.
 the standard Description icon with some hint text next to it, something
 like Empty description and a button marked (+) Add description, as per
 an empty Journal search, or see Jukebox for a similar canvas use case,
 mockup here [3]).

 - Ideally the Title on the canvas would also support editing (to match the
 above behaviour) so the Journal entry titles can be modified as well.

 - [Bug] The 'Update description' tool in the primary toolbar was used to
 add a description to one slide, the same text was then in that palette for
 every other slide (the other slides had no descriptions of their own). The
 palette field only updates if there is description text already there,
 otherwise it shows previously displayed stale text.

 - In thumbnail view can a single click interaction switch to Slide view
 for that slide.

 - Is there any way to transfer a specific shared entry into your own
 Journal rather than just viewing low-res thumbnails, or is this out of the
 scope of the activity?

 - My expectation for the audio recording feature was that there could be
 an audio recording per slide, so you could navigate through and hear a
 description of each slide. It appears to be a single audio recording which
 is over written if you record again, requiring manual navigation of the
 slides if it is intended as a narration. If audio recording can be per
 slide, the 'buddy with speak bubble' icons could appear on the main canvas
 in the text description area, rather than the secondary toolbar, to allow
 playback of the different recordings from each collaborator for each slide).

 - [Bug] Audio recording only produced a series of clicking echo like audio
 feedback (tested on an XO-1.75)

 - [Bug] Main canvas does not re-scale or re-centre. Opening secondary
 toolbars pushes the description area slightly off screen, and rotating the
 screen causes a grey area of undrawn canvas at the bottom and the main
 content to partially disappear off the right side of the display.

 - [Bug] Still trying to examine this one so apologies for vagueness.
 Sharing issues using two XO-1.75 running latest 12.1 build 18 on a local
 network, with no collaboration server defined. Share from 1st machine with
 6 item starred; join activity from Neighbourhood view on 2nd machine with
 no items shared; result is 2nd machine showns the warning about having no
 items starred; stop both activities; star a few Journal items on 2nd
 machine; resume activity on 1st machine; join activity from Neighbourhood
 view on 2nd; result, 1st machine still just sees its own starred items, 2nd
 machine see only its own starred items. The machine joining the other
 displayed the other in the right Frame buddy area, but the initial sharing
 machine did not see the other in the right Frame buddy area (I tried this a
 couple of times starting with different machines first).

 - [Bug] Given the above, I was not sure what the Refresh tool was for in
 the Activity secondary toolbar, I clicked it a number of different times in
 different situations (starring extra items in my Journal after beginning
 the activity, after trying to collaborate). From the wiki I guess this is
 intended for case 2 rather than case 1 (rescan of journal starred items).

 - [Bug] (After testing with a 3rd XO-1 on 12.1 build 18 I managed to see
 share working) Thumb view shows incomplete state if the activity is in the
 progress of synchronising with another's slides when you switch to it.
 Should show a loading or progress bar if state is incomplete (or a spinner
 if you're not sure how many items are to by synched). If the number