/srv/irclogs.ubuntu.com/2009/06/15/#ayatana.txt

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ccookeso... is this channel still used, or has all traffic shifted to the mailing list now?11:23
* gus_ is wondering the same since some days ago....11:24
SiDiwell, not everyone in ayatana ML is idling here 24/711:25
ccookeSiDi: please don't read any negative into my question - I'm just wondering where I should be looking mostly11:26
SiDiccooke: i think irc is better suited for discussions11:27
SiDibut if anything important is said here it'd be good to repeat it to the ML11:27
ccookeI'd agree, but I don't see much traffic here (at least, there doesn't seem to have been any that coincides with me, which is of course Not The Same Thing.11:28
SiDiI dont see anyone speaking here either to tell you the truth :)11:30
ccookeah, well. 11:30
ccookeI've been away for a few days - once I've caught up, I guess I should try starting a discussion here :-)11:31
agateauccooke: lots of people from Canonical DX and Design teams are here, if you have questions, just shoot11:31
ccookeagateau: I need to get caught up first :-)11:31
* MacSlow -> lunch11:55
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GreySimMaybe you guys have already seen this, and dunno if you care or not, but 100 paper cuts was covered on Ars Technica. http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2009/06/canonical-to-boost-ubuntu-usability-by-tackling-papercuts.ars19:49
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tedgGreySim: Thanks for the link.20:11
tedgI do find it funny that the comments are all about how flglx sucks....  which seems relatively unrelated :)20:11
seg|arsthat's pretty common for discussion threads at Ars20:12
seg|arsthey did the same thing when I posted the article about the 10-second boot time goal for 10.0420:13
seg|arseverybody wants canonical to invest in fixing their personal pet peeve. ;-)20:13
tedgseg|ars: Heh, well, we'd love too.  Just too many people with pet peeves.20:13
seg|arsyeah20:13
tedgI'd love to see the AMD drivers open as well as the nvidia ones... hope with time.20:14
seg|arsimo that's only going to happen if Linux goes mainstream. And Linux is only going to go mainstream if it's usable20:14
seg|arsso I'd argue that in the long run Canonical *is* contributing to a solution to the broader problems by focusing on usability. :-)20:14
tedgIn many ways it's a chicken and the egg problem.  I'm hoping that the driver folks will change their story if we can get mainstream with OEMs, so that mass market users don't have to deal with the issues.20:16
GreySimOh, I didn't realize seg was IN HERE. >.<20:16
seg|arshaha20:16
seg|arsGreySim: thanks for linking my article. ;-)20:17
GreySimseg|ars: Thanks for writing it. :D20:18
ivankaseg|ars, hi20:19
seg|arshello20:20
seg|arsivanka: this is a video of the gwibber prototype: http://segphault.cixar.com/img/screenshots/applications/utilities/gwibber/v2.0-1.ogg it provides a clearer picture of how it works20:21
ivankanew design is looking very good20:21
seg|arsthanks. :-)20:21
seg|arsthere are some complex UI problems that I haven't come up with a good way to solve, like how to let the user "close" transient streams20:22
ivankaI'll check the video20:22
ivankaFrom the usability sessions I have some 'first use' feedback20:25
seg|arsexcellent20:25
ivankaSo - we were testing with people who had barely heard of linux, nevermind Ubuntu or Gwibber (just to set context)20:26
ivankaI think your 'account tree' might be a great way to get people to understand what Gwibber does20:27
ivankaespecially if they can add the accounts through the tree...20:28
seg|arsat the present time, the tree is populated based on what accounts the user has configured20:28
seg|arsI wasn't going to have the tree show at all until the user set up their accounts20:28
ivankaI suspected as much :-)20:29
ivankahear my rationale20:29
ivankapeople open Gwibber 'microblogging' - is that like twitter and stuff?20:29
ivankathey go to the Gwibber menu which neither explains nor gets them started20:31
ivankaIn the Accounts menu they have to scroll down before they appreciate the full range of available accounts20:32
ivankabefore I saw your mockup I was toying with how to bring all those logos higher up in the nav20:32
ivankathe tree might not be the answer but it might be a quick and easy way to provide that 'at a glance - what does this do' functionality20:33
seg|arsah I see what you are getting at20:33
* ivanka keeps getting interrupted by her little sister20:34
seg|arsfor the first run experience, what I was thinking about doing is having the tree not show and then having the icons in the main content area20:34
seg|arsso there would be a short introductory message and then big icons that the use can click to set up their account for several of the services20:35
ivankawould the user be able to interact with them in any way?20:35
ivanka:)20:35
ivankalovely20:35
seg|arsand I figure that it should only show like four or six of the most popular services that gwibber supports, not all of them20:35
seg|arsbecause I've been hearing that some users get intimidated by the large number of services in the account creation menu20:36
ivankathat sounds right and familiar to me20:36
seg|arsand there could be a link that says "more services" or something that they could click to get the full list20:38
seg|arsthe main content area in gwibber is a webkit renderer, so that provides a lot of flexibility for presentation20:38
seg|arsit's possible to do anything that can be done with a web page20:38
ivankaah - very good 20:38
tedgIt seems like that should be the default configuration dialog though. It seems like people would expect to be able to get back to the same configuration.20:38
Nafallohmm20:39
tedgIf it's a good idea, it's a good idea for every run, not just the first :)20:39
seg|arsyeah, that's a good point. Maybe it could be like a "home screen" or something20:39
ivankaI was about to say that we have to be careful how we connect this lovely first run to the Account menu20:39
Nafallohow about putting the most common ones greyed out in the tree?20:39
Nafalloand when you click them in can open a add account dialog with that service preselected.20:40
ivankaNafallo, I was thinking that before I heard about the new and improved first run - both have merit20:41
ivankaI like the idea of a "home screen"20:41
seg|arsI think that the home screen could potentially be a complete replacement for the account management dialog20:41
ivankayes20:41
Nafallohome screen? I didn't lurk long enough to hear about that :-)20:41
ivankain testing we often see people anchor their behaviour to one "home screen" type thing20:42
ivankaIt would be a much nice way of doing things20:42
ivankaand encourage the interaction with the content area20:42
seg|arsone aesthetic issue is that we don't have high quality and visually consistent icons for all of the services20:43
ivankaseg|ars, I am sure we can fix that20:43
seg|arsawesome20:43
* tedg will make icons that will make all of the services' artists rush to replace them.20:43
seg|arshaha20:44
ivankahaha20:44
Nafallolol20:45
* Nafallo adds the trunk PPA and tries it for the first time.20:46
ivankaseg|ars, on a slightly different note20:46
Nafallofacebook doesn't co-op with me wanting to try it :-(20:46
ivankaHave you done anything with the 'sending' text box thingy (technical term)20:47
seg|arsNafallo: facebook made some changes that broke the version in the jaunty repository. I haven't had a chance to backport the new facebook stuff yet20:47
seg|arsivanka: a gwibber contributor made a new sending textbox that is resizable and has a few other improvements20:48
Nafalloseg|ars: that explains it. 404 and 503 all over the place :-)20:48
seg|arsivanka: the new input textbox is resizable and it will let you exceed the max character count but will turn red when you do20:48
seg|arsI'm working on configuring it so there can be a different max character count for each service20:49
ivankaseg|ars, cool - does it have feedback for 'I am sending this message, all is well'20:49
seg|arsnot yet20:49
seg|arsdo you have some ideas for that?20:49
ivankaI have some ideas for what wouldn't work 20:49
ivankait can be useful to get them out of the way, I find20:50
seg|arsyeah20:50
seg|arsthe other issue that needs to be addressed is that it needs to be clearer which services the outgoing messages are going to20:50
ivankaSomething as simple as hiding the text20:51
ivankayes20:51
seg|arshave you ever tried right-clicking the input textbox?20:52
seg|arsthere are checkbox items on the context menu for toggling which services it sends to20:52
seg|arsthat feature generally lacks discoverability. A lot of users don't know that it exists20:52
seg|arsone approach that we have considered in the past is having a toolbar with toggle buttons for each service20:53
ivankawe have been thinking about this a bit too - in a different context20:53
ivankado you think toggle buttons with the logo below the text box would work?20:54
ivankaType in your message20:54
ivankahit the twitter button20:54
ivankathen the Facebook button20:54
seg|arsyeah20:54
ivankaor the 'all' button20:54
seg|arsanother approach that I'm considering right now is that when you have an account selected and you are looking at a filtered stream in the tree, it will send messages to only that account20:54
GreySimWhat about user-configurable groups with a dropdown to pick "All", just a single services, or a configured group? "Status Updates" ...or...I can't figure out other possible groups, but I'm just trying to throw out ideas.20:55
seg|arsso I think that I'd do it that way when the user has selected one of those streams, and then have the toolbar at the bottom when the user is viewing the "all messages" stream20:55
seg|arsGreySim: I like the idea of groups, but I think it creates too much complexity20:55
seg|arsGreySim: like the way that pidgin handles custom statuses, it's just too confusing to end users20:55
ivankaRemember that more people don't customise than do20:56
ivankaseg|ars, I think the filtered tree stream should also work20:57
seg|arsyeah20:58
seg|arsI'm trying hard to make sure that the tree is completely optional and that the UI isn't too dependent on it20:58
seg|arsbecause I think that some users might object to how much extra screen space it uses20:58
ivankayou make a valid point20:59
ivankaseg|ars, phone is ringing - please excuse me21:00
lamalextedg: ping21:16
tedglamalex: Hello.21:16
lamalextedg: how did you guys get around the indicator applet taking up space when no apps were running?21:17
tedglamalex: Secrets :)21:18
tedglamalex: Basically by lots of gtkrc magic.  If you look at indicator-applet you can see a large amount of GTK style strings being loaded.21:18
tedglamalex: Basically those take away all the buffering and backgrounding that normally is associated with GtkMenu and GtkMenuItem.21:19
lamalexah21:19
tedglamalex: If you want to do that, I'd just steal that code.21:19
lamalexsucks that gtk makes you do all of that21:19
lamalexyah, i think im going to ;)21:19
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* Nafallo ponders why indicator-applet refuse to work on his system22:04
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