unity-design team mailing list archive

["pjssilva@xxxxxxxxx" <pjssilva@xxxxxxxxx>]

Matt basically covered everything I consider important in a first
multiseat setup. I would only make the configuration of the active
seat, the one that has permissions to control the system, controlling
pluggable hardware and hot mountable media, simpler.

Instead of allowing more than one seat and different levels of
configuration, I would just set the system in such a way that the
first seat is active (and all other inactive) and there would be a
special key combination to allow another seat to steal the active
status, so that always there would be only one active seat.

I am not sure how the hot pluggable hardware and media should appear
in all the seats (should them appear only in the launcher of the
active seat or in all launchers). But this is not setup any more.

best,

Paulo

2012/5/22 Matt Richardson <m.richardson.1990@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>:
> As a starting point for wizard set up:
>
> 1) When you first start the wizard it appears on both screens and introduces
> what multiseat is (many people may not know)
> 2) Clicking next shows two different messages on each screen. On the primary
> screen the wizard says "We will set up this seat first", whilst on the
> second screen it says "We will set up the other seat first". On the first
> screen the "Next" button is enabled, the second screen has no "Next" button.
> 3) You now run through the wizard on the first screen. Peripheral set up is
> done by asking for input from any devices that want to be linked with this
> screen. i.e. "Now it's time to add your devices to this seat. To add a
> device, simply activate it. e.g. If you want to add a keyboard, type
> something. If you want to add a mouse, move it a little." ***Note: How to
> detect non-input devices***
> 4) After adding each device the user is presented the option of adding
> another or continuing to the next stage.
> 5) If multiple sound cards are found (or a sound card with multiple outputs
> is detected) the wizard now goes through the sound set up. Firstly it says
> "Would you like to select a different set of speakers for each seat, or
> would you like all seats to use the same set?" Selecting either one takes
> the user to the next step. If only a single output is detected the question
> changes to "Would you like to use the speakers for all of the seats, or for
> just a single seat?". For both questions a smaller size note is placed at
> the end saying: "For more advanced options, select 'Advanced'". This will
> load the advanced settings part (see later) but where the close button takes
> the user back to this screen.
> 6) Wizard says: "When you're ready, click 'Start' and I will now play a
> series of tones. When the tone is coming from the speakers that you want to
> use for this seat, click 'Stop'." If the user selected 'Use a single set of
> speakers for all seats' at the last screen, the words "for this seat" are
> omitted from this explanation, such that it reads "coming from the speakers
> that you want to use, click 'Stop'."
> 7) The first screen now says "That's it! We will set up the second seat
> now". At this point the wizard on the second screen has changed to say
> "Excellent! We will set up this seat now."
> 8) The wizard is repeated for the second screen, at the end of which the
> wizard on both screens says "Excellent! You can now start using multiseat!
> To change more options, click the 'Advanced' button, or click the 'Finish'
> button to close this wizard. If you ever want to change the settings, or
> disable multiseat, just run this wizard again."
>
> When running the wizard on a machine with an existing, multiseat
> configuration the first screen (with the information about multiseat) asks
> the user to select one of three options:
> 1) Run the Initial Setup again
> 2) Enable/Disable multiseat
> 3) Change advanced settings
>
> Each seat would have a tab for it's own advanced settings. There are only
> three settings I can think of at the moment for advanced settings:
> 1) This seat has control of new devices? [Yes (default), No]
> 2) Automatically replace devices for this seat? [Yes (default), No]
> 3) Which speakers would you like to use for this seat? [None, Desktop
> Speakers, Device 2, etc.]
>
> Each of these would have an explanation at the side of the screen, not only
> for each setting, but for each potential value as well.
> The first is fairly self-explanatory. By default, any new devices which are
> plugged in will be given to all seats, with the user able to manually turn
> off control of new devices for each seat.
> The second refers to a feature whereby, if 'Replace devices' is set to
> 'Yes', if a device which was previously set up for a seat cannot be
> detected, and a new, similar device is detected, it is automatically given
> to the seat which 'lost' its device. e.g. When I set up my multiseat
> configuration, I had a logitech mouse set to be the mouse for seat 2. I
> unplug that device and plug in a belkin trackball. The multiseat
> configuration detects that a new pointer device has been connected, and
> gives it to seat 2, as this lost it's pointer device.
> The third again is fairly self explanatory, although choosing a new option
> should play a tone through that set of speakers, to confirm that this is
> correct.
>
> Note that whilst this description is for a 2 seat configuration, it could
> work just as easily with 3 or more seats.
> The only thing I can't think of at the moment is how to detect non-input
> devices (external hard drives, etc) and more importantly, how to convey any
> such method to the user in a clear instruction. Obviously there's probably a
> lot of other things I haven't thought of, but i thought this might provide a
> starting point.
>
> Matt
>
>
> On 22/05/12 00:03, pjssilva@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
>>>
>>> In other words, even if the design requirements can be discussed
>>> before the low-level stuff, it's outside the scope of this list.
>>>
>> I am not completely sure about this statement. Surely there is a great
>> part of the setup that is too low level to be considered here. But it
>> would be nice to come out with a specification of how the user should
>> perceive the possibility of using multi-seat in the graphics shell
>> (that is unity). There is some similarities with the support for
>> multiple monitors in Unity, I believe.
>>
>> Some questions that come to my mind:
>>
>> 1) How should Unity behave if it sense two (or more) graphics cards
>> with monitor attached? Should it treat them as a multi-monitor or a
>> multi-seat system?
>>
>> 2) How should a wizard do configure multi-seat should look and feel?
>>
>> 3) How to transfer the permissions to mount new USB or other
>> hot-plugged devices?
>>
>> Answers to those questions seem, IMHO, associated to this list.
>>
>> Anyhow, any discussion should be preceded by the discussion if it is
>> desirable to treat multi-seat as a major feature in the Ubuntu system
>> or not.
>>
>> best,
>>
>> Paulo
>>
>
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-- 
Paulo José da Silva e Silva
Professor Associado, Dep. de Ciência da Computação
(Associate Professor, Computer Science Dept.)
Universidade de São Paulo - Brazil

e-mail: pjssilva@xxxxxxxxxx         Web: http://www.ime.usp.br/~pjssilva