Subsurface-mobile for Android -845

[Rick Walsh]

On 14 February 2016 at 09:54, Thomas Pfeiffer <thomas.pfeiffer at kde.org>
wrote:

> On Samstag, 13. Februar 2016 09:57:21 CET Dirk Hohndel wrote:
> > > Hi!  I think it looks pretty decent now.  I like that there is less
> > > clutter.
> > Yay!
>
> Yay++
>
> I just tested 849.  I think the use of the action button is very good.  It
doesn't waste space, it's transparent enough not to be invasive, it's easy
to reach, and most importantly, the icons give good clues what the button
does (unlike the original action button, which was powerful, efficient use
of space, but confusing to many the first time they saw it).  I also like
that I can still/again swipe the central action button instead of using the
arrows - as I said before, when holding my phone in my not-dainty left
hand, reaching the very left bottom of the screen with my thumb can be
awkward.


> > > Just a couple of things: The title bar is too cramped now.  Other apps
> use
> > > that to display info on the current context.  We could display "Dive
> list"
> > > or "Dive #643" or "Edit dive #242" or "About" there in the future.
> >
> > That's a good idea... but I think I like the idea of it simply fading
> away
> > even better.
>
> +1 for fading away.
>

I agree with both points.  Screen real estate is scarce, so if/when the
title bar is shown, I think it should be more informative than
Subsurface-mobile (I know what app I'm using).

Going through the various apps on my phone, many have "title" bars showing
what page is active on the app (e.g. "Inbox" in gmail), or toolbars, some
including the app logo (e.g. Twitter), but very few have a title bar with
the app name displayed.  A few have a search bar that mentions the app name
(e.g. "Search Google Maps").

In my opinion, the ideal title bar would have the Subsurface-mobile logo at
left (like now, but moved down a tiny bit - right now its vertical
alignment is hard against the top of the screen), with the page name next
to it (e.g. Dive #643 as suggested by Henrik).  And ideally it would fade
away when you scroll down the page, and probably reappear when you scroll
back up to the top.


> > > And since we're going for the action button design, how about making it
> > > more like the action buttons in other apps, i.e. larger and more to the
> > > right?
> >
> > Thomas answered the "more to the right" question. But there's another
> > reason. Right now, when you use your device in landscape mode you get the
> > action button right on the center divider which is perfect, IMHO.
> >
> > > And one more (less related) thing:  If I edit a dive and press the back
> > > button (instead of save), I should get a request: "Discard edits? [Yes
> /
> > > Save edits / Cancel]
> >
> > I hate those dialogs on some level, but I guess you are right.
>
> > Thomas, what's the HID approved way of doing something like that?
>
> We originally had the idea that for "swipe to go back/forward" or "column-
> based navigation", one could simply swipe forward again to get back to the
> already entered/changed data if one has accidentally swiped back without
> saving (before navigating somewhere else). That's not as easily possible
> when
> using the back button, of course.
>
> Google's apps for Android (those which do not auto-save) do use such a
> dialog.
> They all use a Discard/Cancel approach (though with completely different
> wording and even inconsistent button position between the apps, which is
> really bad design).
> We haven't written about it in the HIG yet (we'll still add one guideline
> for
> that), but here's what I'd suggest:
> "Discard your changes?" [Discard] [Keep Editing]". This makes saving take
> one
> more step, but we want to train users to just hit "Save" anyway, and it
> makes
> the decision in the dialog easier.
> There is already a component for a slide-in dialog available (don't know
> its
> name, though, tbh. If you can't find it, ask Marco).
>
> I find confirmation dialogs clumsy and don't like them if they can be
avoided, especially on a mobile app.  If we were talking about
writing/editing a thesis, I'd be more inclined towards a confirmation
dialog, but if the the user accidentally close the dive edit page without
saving, and lost their logging notes, they should be able to cope.

I'd rather have the action button action be 'save changes and close', and
the Android back button would be 'discard changes and close'.  If that's
too out the for new users, there could also be a discard button next to the
current save (and close) ordinary button at the bottom of the page.

Similarly, I think we should use the action button on the cloud
credentials.  The action button action would be "save", and the back button
would be "discard" (and return to dive list).  This could replace the
existing ordinary buttons.


Another thing - In the dive list, there's a blank row above the trip
separator line.  I'm not sure if that's deliberate, but it looks like a
waste of space to me.

Cheers,

Rick
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