ubuntu-phone team mailing list archive

[Matt Richardson <m.richardson.1990@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 26/03/14 09:46, Michael Zanetti wrote:
> On Wednesday 26 March 2014 06:59:47 Martin Pitt wrote:
>> Alberto Mardegan [2014-03-25 22:21 +0200]:
>>> Just brainstorming: what if sliding left from the lower part of the
>>> right edge triggered the "back" action?
>> I had pretty much the same proposal yesterday on IRC: E. g. in the
>> scopes, swiping (anywhere) to the right doesn't currently do anything.
>> That felt like a natural "back" action to me, i. e. move the page that
>> I see to the right so that I get back to the previous one. The
>> intuition is certainly the other way around in Israel or Japan where
>> books are being read from right to left :-), but that could be taken
>> into account (support both or look at locale?)
>>
>> But regardless of how it's done, consistency is the key. I really
>> consider the abolishing of hardware back and menu buttons a bad move
>> (I hope my old Xperia with proper buttons still lasts a while..),
>> which created all these design problems of hoping all developers in
>> the world would consistently create back buttons in the UI, or
>> otherwise create an undiscoverable inconsistency. So from that POV
>> putting it in the current location on the top left title bar is a good
>> decision.
>>
> Hmm, I don't think the hardware button is that much required. I've been using 
> phones without hardware back button for many years now and never really missed 
> it. I do agree with Oli tho, that I miss the back button in a reachable place 
> now.
>
> What I'm not sure about (and thats purely my opinion) is if it was a good idea 
> to give the bottom edge to app developers. As the proposal says, its the most 
> important and easily reachable edge. Imo it should be consistent across the 
> phone experience and be the place where the most important controls for the 
> current context are placed (e.g. the back button). What we'll get now is a 
> random surprise whenever you use the bottom edge.

As a potential solution, what if a short swipe from the bottom showed
the toolbar, with longer swipes being handed over to the developer?

Matt

>
> I personally hoped we'd keep the panel as it was, but lock it to be always 
> visible, and if the OSK is visible, move the panel on top of the OSK, instead 
> of hiding it behind it. I think that would have solved the discoverability 
> issue too without being that disruptive for the overall phone experience.
>
> Note aside: The reason why the Launcher on the phone is inverted, is because 
> it was too hard to reach the home button in the top left corner.
>
> Br,
> Michael
>