unity-design team mailing list archive

["frederik.nnaji@xxxxxxxxx" <frederik.nnaji@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Mark,

On Tue, Nov 9, 2010 at 20:21, Mark Shuttleworth <mark@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>  On 09/11/10 01:36, frederik.nnaji@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
>
> On Wed, Jun 16, 2010 at 15:54, Mark Shuttleworth <mark@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>>
>>  Because of the potential issues horizontal navigation introduces in
>> indicator menus, we have tried to take great care to specify the exact
>> behaviour whenever horizontal nav within a menu is a possibility. Please
>> do report cases that don't work, or which are not precisely and
>> completely spec'd.
>
>
>  I'd like to know if you have a spec or guideline for how to use
> horizontal menu elements.
> The Sound Menu wiki didn't specify anything about horizontal menu elements,
> the only reference is this mail of yours..
>
>  What i know so far about how to design with horizontal elements:
> * use only where necessary
> * try to design for easy pointer-aiming ( as few horizontal elements as
> possible)
>  * look out for cases of mutual exclusion to help reduce the number of
> simultaneously displayed items
> * use for frequently accessed controls that must be close to each other
> * use for  controls that have a special semantic proximity (e.g. backward,
> pause/play, forward)
>
>  looking through the Indicator Menus, i found 2 places where horizontal
> elements were being used so far, both in the Sound Menu:
> a) the volume bar with the Mute button (loudspeaker with no waves), Fader,
> Full Volume Button (loudspeaker with three waves).
> b) playback controls
>
>  what can we deduct from this?
>
>  First of all, that we have two Mute buttons in the Sound Menu...
> Second: It *is* possible to design a comfortable menu interaction
> experience with horizontal elements.
>
>
> I don't think we have a comprehensive horizontal-nav guideline, yet. I do
> think we have a policy that cases where horizontal behaviour is introduced
> need to be carefully thought through and documented -
>

The Sound Menu spec is exemplary, thanks for that!


> I thought for example that the Sound Menu specified the following behaviour
> for the playback controls: moving down or up to the playback controls should
> place the visible focus on the play button, where space would pause/play,
> and left/right would trigger previous/next returning the focus immediately
> to the play button.
>

It might be specced, but it's not implemented. I didn't find a bug for that
yet, so here's a new one:
"no visible focus on horizontal controls"
https://bugs.launchpad.net/indicator-sound/+bug/673185

the keyboard controls don't work for me, yet, i guess that's still in the
making, is it?