ubuntu-phone team mailing list archive

[Sam Bull <sam.hacking@xxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, 2013-06-12 at 14:41 +0100, Lou Greenwood wrote:
> If it's appropriate for settings, email etc, why not for all? Doesn't 
> that just add even more confusion?

Because these are the exceptions to the rule, the only ones that need
frequent access to controls. When viewing email, it is common to look at
an email for no more than a few seconds, and then act on it (back,
trash, or reply), and so should be readily available.

I'm thinking a breadcrumb widget, which would be a very similar design
to the current headers, but visually oriented toward showing the stack,
would suit system settings better and would then eliminate the back
button in that situation as well. In which case, viewing email is the
only exception to the rule I can think of.

It's not confusing to show the controls by default, as they are the same
controls you're used to and can be hidden with a swipe as per normal.

> My point is that it seems that these are the very screens that require 
> the most user interaction with the content, and it will be via the 
> toolbar, either a navigation away via 'back' or interaction with the 
> screen contents via the other buttons.

Only in those one or two situations. Every app previously mentioned
(except phone) has controls, even if they don't have a back button. For
example, the contacts page has an add contacts button in the controls.
	This is not something you're likely to do every time you look at your
contacts (or even every 5th time), and so it should be hidden out of the
way, giving you more space to view your contacts, but kept reliably
where you expect on the occasion you do want to use it.

> I think the answer to my questions lies in taking the OS for a test 
> drive. It's a shame that I can't install on iPhone 5! ;)

If you can get your hands on a phone to try it out, it's definitely
worth the time.

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