ubuntu-phone team mailing list archive

[Matthew Paul Thomas <mpt@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

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Michael Zanetti wrote on 12/01/16 11:19:
> ...
> 
> IMO the app should not switch anything (with some *very* rare 
> exceptions I guess). It gets a surface assigned where it can render
> to, and it will get input from different devices. Those input
> devices are not mutually exclusive. A tablet won't lose its touch
> capabilities just because a Bluetooth mouse is connected. If you
> make all ui elements tiny just because a mouse is connected, you
> break the users touch screen. The user should able to choose if 
> he'd rather tap on something or use the mouse to click on it, not 
> the developer. The app's ui should work just fine any of them at 
> any point in time.
> 
> ...

A good counterexample to this theory is the very app you used to post
it: Thunderbird.

Thunderbird has a folder list pane and a message list pane. The rows
in these lists are too thin to be easily touchable. But if they were
thick enough for easy touching, there would be many fewer rows on
screen at once.

This would have consequences. You'd have to scroll more often when
finding messages. Or if you heightened the message list pane to
compensate, you'd have to scroll more often when reading messages.
You'd have to wait more often while the folder list auto-scrolled when
dragging messages to a folder. And you'd take longer to notice when
someone else had already replied to the mailing list message you were
about to reply to. You would be, in short, less efficient.

And this is not a "rare exception". Similar applies to any app based
on lists or grids: spreadsheets, newsreaders, jukeboxes, podcatchers,
database browsers. The more touch-optimized it is, the less efficient
it is for editing, reading, and analyzing.

You can't just make some on-screen elements bigger for touchability
and assume that there will be no tradeoff. Other elements will get
smaller, and that has a cost. If someone has no touchscreen, or has
one but doesn't want to use it, it's a cost with no benefit.

- -- 
mpt
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