Android alpha -832 with experimental mobile components change

[Dirk Hohndel]

On Fri, Feb 12, 2016 at 10:38:28AM +0100, Jan Mulder wrote:
> On 11-02-16 20:34, Dirk Hohndel wrote:
> >Since many of us were not in love with the ActionButton and the way it was used to interact with the application, Marco kindly made an experimental version of the mobile components to be able to test a different idea with our users. Those of you who have played with the Android app, I'd appreciate if you could spend a few moments playing with the -832 build.
> >
> >In this version you no longer drag the ActionButton to open the drawers, instead there are buttons in the corners to do this (and of course edge swipe works as well). Right now both buttons always show and the buttons are completely opaque (both of which I think should change), but the fundamental question is this: ignoring the Material Design defaults, simply from an interaction point of view, is this better / same / worse than dragging the ActionButton? Remember, the logic for having these controls on the bottom of the screen is that there they are significantly easier to reach there than tapping at the standard menu buttons in the top corners of the screen.
> >
> >I copied Marco and Thomas (who leads the HID team for Plasma Mobile) on this email, please copy them in your responses as I don't believe they are on this mailing list.
> 
> To answer the fundamental question. I like the central ActionButton with the
> 2 handles better than the new separated arrow handles in the corners and a
> central ActionButton without handles. For me, it feels crowded with 3
> controls (and the old style felt like 1 multi purpose control to me; less
> crowded). I also do not really like the new arrow handles being in the very
> corner of the screen, not the easiest place to touch the screen, and not the
> area where most people focus on a relatively small mobile screen.
> 
> Obviously, things like auto hiding and less opaque arrow handles might
> resolve my remark about "too full with controls", but that is not the issue
> here. For me, the current interface of the app feels "unbalanced" as in old
> style hamburger menu, edit pencil etc. combined with a ActionButton that can
> be used for the exact same user operations. I think that it is better to
> chose for 1 style.

There are obviously diverging (and strongly felt) opinions on this one.

We added the "hamburger" menu button (and other action buttons) back to
the top bar because a number of users felt strongly that that's what they
wanted. This even got one of our recently not as active developers back
into working on Subsurface, spending the effort to get the toolchain for
Android to work, all so that he could add those Android typical items back
to the top bar.

Frankly, I'm torn. On the one hand I strongly believe in the principle of
least surprise and I know that the casual Android user will expect the
hamburger menu and the action icons in the top bar - that's where all the
other Android apps have them.

On the other hand I'm really impressed with what the Plasma HID team is
doing and could see a solution with just the Action Button being rather
elegant and powerful.

My current thinking is that having the additional items in the top bar
doesn't really cause any harm. They don't waste screen real estate (since
we aren't going to drop the top bar completely - ok, maybe we could make
it thinner, but that's not a huge difference), they are easy and obvious
to even a casual user.

The question is more complicated with the handles on the bottom - and
that's why we are doing these alpha binaries so people can try them and
tell us what they think. I'll make a new binary with the transparent
handles soon so we can collect more feedback.

/D