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Syndie Desktop design notes

This page is a work in progress describing the design of the Syndie Desktop GUI. Any input is very much appreciated.

As a whole, the Desktop GUI offers a small number of contexts for doing various tasks - there's a screen for reading, another for posting, another for selecting what to read, and another for selecting what forums/blogs to participate in. The aim is to fill each screen with everything the user needs to perform a particular task, but keep out everything they don't need, thereby reducing the conceptual overhead of each task and providing optimized widgets.

Following the lead of Fitts' law and OLPC's "Sugar" interface, the edges and corners of the screen have increased importance as compared to standard GUIs. Ease of use is paramount, as is the ability for experts to quickly do what they want - as such, the GUI aims to be controllable entirely through the keyboard. Of course, accessibility is also an important part of that - alternative input and output technologies should not be precluded (and should instead be supported as best possible), and the display rendering should be customizable according to the user's needs.

GUI performance is also a key focus of the Desktop GUI, both on modern machines and on the sort of machines found in out of the way net cafes.

Screen template

A a whole, the user's display is broken up into a 9 blocks - the large center panel, four edges, and four corners. The center panel displays the current "screen", and the four edges may be overridden for that screen (if a screen is not overriding an edge, it uses the "default edge"). The four corners are always visible and always have the same meaning, regardless of what screen is being displayed.

Edges

All four edges have a theme

The default west edge

The west edge has special functionality - displaying quick link icon to access the user's watched forums and selected references as well as drag&drop targets to watch forums or add references to resources. Few if any screens should override the default west edge.

Corners

As mentioned, the four corners have pegged functionality:

These "overlay menus" are modal dialogs that display on top of the current screen, though do not take up the entire space. When dismissed (either with a control inside the menu or by hitting the controlling corner again), the current screen becomes the focus again. The intention of these displays are to serve as topical menus for certain functionality.

"control menu"

Launched by the northwest corner, the control menu has a variety of basic control functions:

"task menu"

Launched by the northeast corner, the task menu is basically one control with a variety of options:

"status menu"

Launched by the southwest corner, the status menu monitors the Syndie's archive and syndication status:

The corner responsible for the status menu should also adjust its display based on the status (online/offline, syndication progress, etc), when possible

"help menu"

Launched by the southeast corner, the help menu should offer both context(screen)-sensitive and overall help information.


Startup screen

Description

The startup screen is shown immediately when the Syndie desktop launches, and includes progress information about the startup process. In fact, while the startup screen is being displayed, it is launching and monitoring the various tasks to get the Syndie desktop into working order.

north edge

No custom north edge is provided

east edge

No custom east edge is provided

south edge

No custom south edge is provided

west edge

No custom west edge is provided


Forum selection screen

Description

The forum selection screen is triggered when the default west edge is chosen - it manages the watched forums and bookmarks. One of the important functions is to assign icons to bookmarked folders/elements so they can show up on the default west edge as links (it uses the scaled down avatars of the watched forums for the same)

north edge

No custom north edge is provided

east edge

A big "view selected" button.

south edge

A series of controls for the watched list and bookmark tree:

west edge

No custom west edge is provided


Message selection screen

Description

The "message selection screen" is a fancy term for that hierarchical message view. It can show messages in just one forum, organized as threads or flat. It can show messages for multiple forums as well, either split up by forum or interspersed with each other. The messages can be filtered to match only certain criteria. If desired, the screen can show a small preview of individual messages (perhaps the first 30 words?) in a small tooltip-like display.

north edge

If only a single forum is being shown, the north edge contains information about that forum - its avatar, name, description, and any advertised references (FAQs/policies/etc). If multiple forums are being shown, it tries to show as much information as it can, but under certain circumstances may merely render the general filtering criteria being used to select messages.

east edge

The east edge has a variety of controls:

south edge

The south edge has a large number of controls, fitting into two categories - filtering controls, and action controls. The edge has a means to switch between these two - either showing the action controls or the filtering controls.

filtering controls

action controls

west edge

No custom west edge is provided


Message view screen

Description

The screen itself is responsible for rendering the message - its pages, attachments, references, and context within a thread.

north edge

The north edge provides metadata for the message, the author, and the forum:

east edge

The east edge provides a plethora of controls:

south edge

The south edge has a selection of controls:

west edge

No custom west edge is provided


Edit message screen

Description

This screen serves as Syndie's integrated editor for posting messages.

north edge

The north edge both displays and controls important attributes of the message

east edge

The east edge has four controls - save for later, preview, post, and cancel message. When the "preview" option is selected, the message editor body renders the page, the "post" option is enabled, and the "preview" option is replaced with "edit". Selecting "edit" reverses that process, and selecting "post" (when enabled) posts the message.

south edge

The south edge provides access to the various editor tasks:

west edge

No custom west edge is provided