Development:Summer of Code 2007:Tabspose:Scoping Meeting

[11:59am] You were promoted to operator by chanserv.
[11:59am] You changed the topic to "http://wiki.caminobrowser.org/Development:Summer_of_Code_2007:Proposal".
[12:02pm] smorgan joined the chat room.
[12:03pm] smorgan: I think pink just stepped out, not realizing that we'd me moving to -mtg
[12:03pm] kreeger joined the chat room.
[12:03pm] froodian: mmm
[12:03pm] froodian: well, if jeff isn't here, it might be a moot point 
[12:03pm] jeff: I'm here
[12:03pm] froodian:
[12:03pm] smorgan: It's not a big deal if he's out for now
[12:04pm] jeff was promoted to operator by froodian.
[12:04pm] kreeger was promoted to operator by froodian.
[12:04pm] smorgan was promoted to operator by froodian.
[12:04pm] ss was promoted to operator by froodian.
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[12:04pm] mento was promoted to operator by chanserv.
[12:04pm] froodian: ostracizes IRCMonkey39156 (ss2?)
[12:04pm] ardissone|away: mhm
[12:04pm] You are now known as ardissone|food.
[12:05pm] froodian: well, let's start talking.  first step is for everyone to familiarize themselves with the /topic proposal, if they haven't already
[12:07pm] froodian: so, we know we want a visually pleasing way to make tabs more accessible.  let's drill down a bit.  jeff, did you have specific thoughts about possible ways you wanted to do this?
[12:08pm] jeff: froodian: on how it would look?
[12:09pm] kreeger: something kinda-to-the-tune of IE 7
[12:09pm] kreeger: ?
[12:09pm] froodian: doesn't use windows (yet)
[12:09pm] jeff: yea, more like that rather than shiira
[12:09pm] ardissone|food: illustration?
[12:09pm] froodian: so some description of IE 7's behavior might be useful
[12:10pm] kreeger: googles
[12:10pm] jeff: so Shiira's is like exposé in taking up the whole window
[12:10pm] kreeger: http://elliottback.com/wp/wp-content/ie-7-quick-tabs.jpg
[12:10pm] jeff: whereas IE7 just puts them in the browserview
[12:10pm] ardissone|food: that would fail more quickly with more tabs
[12:11pm] ardissone|food: i mean, i know it'll never be usable for me
[12:11pm] froodian: what happens in ie7 when there are too many?
[12:12pm] ardissone|food: but making it usable for the former me (30 tabs) seems like a reasonable goal
[12:12pm] jeff: boots up parallels
[12:12pm] kreeger: you could set max row/cols
[12:12pm] kreeger: then have a scroller
[12:13pm] froodian: also, how do you even trigger this in shiira?
[12:13pm] froodian: i'm looking...
[12:13pm] froodian: but i can't find
[12:13pm] froodian: (that'd be something we'd need to think about too)
[12:13pm] jeff: there is a button in Shiira 2
[12:13pm] jeff: on the bottom I believe
[12:13pm] froodian: but it existed in shiira 1.x too, right?
[12:13pm] froodian: i can't download a new build
[12:14pm] smorgan: Backing up for a minute... before we start talking about details of implementation, can we establish what this meeting is for, and what we want out of it?
[12:15pm] smorgan: I don't think we are going to design all of the details of the entire concept today, so I'd like to make sure we know what we do think we can/should accomplish, so we can make sure we do that
[12:15pm] froodian: sure
[12:16pm] froodian: the proposal for is for "Tabosé."  I think by the end of the meeting, we should at least have a dictionary definition for what that means
[12:16pm] froodian: 'cause I'm not sure we really do
[12:16pm] smorgan: Agreed
[12:18pm] smorgan: And from there, we should get agreement on the general look (full-screen vs in-window)
[12:19pm] ardissone|food: and relative numbers of tabs we'll agree to handle reasonably?
[12:20pm] smorgan: To the extent that it's a structural decision, that sounds fair
[12:22pm] jeff: so what are we going to define as Tabposé?
[12:22pm] ardissone|food: displaying a single window's tabs in a way that allows a user to recognize and choose one he wants to read?
[12:23pm] smorgan: Yeah, I was going to say a visual overview of all the tabs in a window
[12:23pm] jeff: sounds good
[12:23pm] smorgan: Beyond that, the name implies an all-at-once view (as opposed to, say, "TabFlow")
[12:25pm] smorgan: Which I think implies a certain acceptance that a very large numbers of tabs won't necessarily be handled as nicely
[12:25pm] smorgan: (to segue into ardissone|food's item)
[12:27pm] jeff: yea, I think that all the tabs should be visible when invoked and not having the user to scroll through them
[12:27pm] jeff: to an extent tho, because if you have say 30 tabs, you'll have very tiny preview to look at
[12:28pm] jeff: and there is the performance issue
[12:28pm] smorgan: ?
[12:28pm] smorgan: You mean just the overhead of thumbnailing each page?
[12:28pm] jeff: yea
[12:28pm] ardissone|food:  (depending on the screen size and/or window size)
[12:29pm] smorgan: My guess is that we won't have much trouble with thumbnailing
[12:29pm] jeff: no I think Quartz can handle that nicely
[12:30pm] smorgan: jeff: can you talk a bit about why you are leaning toward in-window vs full-screen?
[12:30pm] smorgan: Since that does affect thumbnail size, potentially significantly
[12:31pm] jeff: well I think that the user has enough coming at them with expose and dashboard and soon spaces
[12:32pm] ardissone|food: but people won't be trying to invoke these all at once
[12:32pm] ardissone|food: ?
[12:32pm] jeff: having it within the window itself keeps it more true to the Exposé part, just being in browser
[12:32pm] jeff: ardissone|food: well yea
[12:33pm] jeff: but having it full screen seems to make it more like a Command-Tab thing
[12:34pm] jeff: I guess I was just put off by Shiira's implementation
[12:35pm] froodian: to which i again ask
[12:35pm] froodian: can anybody tell me how to invoke tab exposé in shiira 1.x?
[12:35pm] pinkerton joined the chat room.
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[12:35pm] pinkerton: sorry foolks
[12:35pm] smorgan: np
[12:35pm] smorgan: You are here in time for the "full screen" or "in window" discussion
[12:36pm] pinkerton: in window, sez i
[12:36pm] jeff:
[12:36pm] smorgan: Well I guess that's a short discussion then 
[12:36pm] froodian: the answer to my question is f1, or the "show all tabs" menu item
[12:37pm] kreeger: since we are talking high level, can I throw this out... (sorry I might have to run in a few)
[12:38pm] kreeger: is this aimed at trunk? if so, and animation is planned, then we miss out on the NSAnimation API's
[12:38pm] kreeger: until we drop 10.3 support
[12:38pm] smorgan: I think this is aimed at 1.6
[12:38pm] kreeger: ok
[12:38pm] smorgan: But I could well be wrong there
[12:39pm] smorgan: But since 1.6 is mostly about tabbed browsing improvements, and the schedule is about right, I think it would be nice to at least try for that
[12:39pm] kreeger: I've been privately whipping up a animation class that pretty much does what the NSAnimation class does for < 10.4 support
[12:39pm] pinkerton: kewl
[12:40pm] ardissone|food: i think it was 2.0 just based on the timetable
[12:40pm] ardissone|food: but that depends on us getting 1.6 done quickly 
[12:40pm] jeff: when is 1.6 "suppose" to come out?
[12:40pm] ardissone|food: when it's done, but "this fall"
[12:41pm] jeff: wait so is 1.6 aimed at 10.4+? or is that 2.0?
[12:42pm] smorgan: I think it's likely that 2.0 will likely be 10.4+
[12:42pm] ardissone|food: 2.0, but we haven't officially made that decision yet
[12:42pm] smorgan: ardissone|food: I don't think we are going to be making it
[12:43pm] ardissone|food: ?
[12:43pm] peeja joined the chat room.
[12:43pm] peeja was promoted to operator by froodian.
[12:43pm] kreeger: gots to run
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[12:43pm] smorgan: Given conversions with Josh, but that's really a topic for another day
[12:44pm] smorgan: Anyway, 1.6 will definitely continue to support 10.3
[12:44pm] jeff: ok
[12:45pm] smorgan: Since animation is not really central to the functionality, my preference would be to shoot for 1.03 compat and if the stars align inclusion in 1.6
[12:45pm] smorgan: er, 10.3
[12:46pm] ardissone|food: (plus, we want aninmation for scrolling tabs, so we might have some ani classes available)
[12:46pm] jeff: ok, sounds reasonable
[12:46pm] ss was promoted to operator by chanserv.
[12:47pm] smorgan: Does anyone have a strong opinion that we should do full-screen, just to make sure we are getting all the input?
[12:48pm] ardissone|food: it seems more mac-like to me 
[12:48pm] froodian: it = ?
[12:48pm] ardissone|food: and can handle more tabs better 
[12:48pm] ardissone|food: it = fill-screen
[12:48pm] pinkerton: fullscreen seems invasive and machine-modal
[12:48pm] pinkerton: but i'm just guessing
[12:48pm] froodian: to me, it seems like we're trying to own the...
[12:48pm] ardissone|food: but not having played with either, it's hard for me to tell
[12:49pm] froodian: yeah, what pink said, but less eloquent 
[12:49pm] ss: What about "full screen, but the menubar
[12:49pm] smorgan: Yeah, I see the more-tabs argument, but all other things that do that either have a full-screen mode that you have to be in, or are system-wide (spaces, expose, dashboard)
[12:49pm] peeja: except app-window expose
[12:50pm] smorgan: (Clearly the solution for ardissone|food is for us to implement a full-screen mode, then he can use that before tabspose  )
[12:51pm] ardissone|food: that's the expose mode i can never remember the shortcut for
[12:52pm] ardissone|food: which does exactly like ss suggests
[12:52pm] ardissone|food: anyway
[12:54pm] smorgan: So can we all be happy with in-window, no scrolling, as a basic design concept? (sorry ardissone|food)
[12:55pm] jeff: I like that
[12:55pm] ardissone|food: yes
[12:56pm] pinkerton: yeah, let's go with that as a strawman and if it really doesn't work after we play with it, we can make changes
[12:56pm] smorgan: Are there any other major decisions people want to talk about now, since I think that covers everything we said at the beginning?
[12:56pm] ss: When you say "doesn't work after we play with it" do you mean after mockups?
[12:57pm] ss: Or after code?
[12:57pm] ss: I'd like to see some mockups for how this will look with various size windows and such.
[12:57pm] jeff: I can work on some mockups
[12:58pm] ardissone|food: and numbers of tabs  
[12:58pm] ss: Yeah
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[12:58pm] jeff: I'd think we'd want the thumbnails to be in a grid and not just scattered about. Correct?
[12:59pm] smorgan: yeah, we don't have expose's problem of tiling irregular shapes
[12:59pm] pinkerton: grid is easier, but scattered might look a little cooler
[12:59pm] pinkerton: like how picassa on win can sorta overlap and scatter pictures so you can see more at a time
[12:59pm] pinkerton: s/picassa/picasa
[1:00pm] pinkerton: unless im thinking about something aol demo'd a few years ago
[1:00pm] smorgan: I think we should plan on grid, and we can add neon underlighting if it's not cool enough for pink 
[1:01pm] pinkerton:
[1:01pm] pinkerton: yes, grid is a good first cut to shoot for
[1:01pm] ardissone|food: and tailfins and guitars
[1:01pm] pinkerton: we can make it pretty later
[1:01pm] pinkerton: or more dense in presentation
[1:01pm] pinkerton: brb
[1:03pm] jeff: so what else needs attention?
[1:03pm] jeff: is there anything in my proposal that people have Q's about?
[1:05pm] froodian: i think that covers the goals of the meeting as we set them
[1:06pm] jeff: so we have:
[1:07pm] jeff: Tabposé:  a visual overview of all the tabs in a window
[1:07pm] jeff: In-window and not full screen
[1:07pm] ardissone|food: (for clarity, we might want to make that s/a/current/  )
[1:07pm] jeff: possibly have a number of  open tabs we support
[1:08pm] jeff: yes *currently*
[1:08pm] smorgan: as measured in fractional ardissone|foods
[1:08pm] ardissone|food: heh
[1:08pm] ardissone|food: the "last digit of my pinky" impl
[1:09pm] smorgan: But we can likely just use the expose approach of leaving it up to the user to find their own pain point
[1:10pm] ardissone|food: just don't beachball if i happen to hit the button/keystroke 
[1:12pm] jeff: so, I'll work on some mockups today
[1:12pm] ardissone|food: sounds good
[1:13pm] ardissone|food: anyone have anything else?
[1:13pm] ardissone|food: any other contrary folks lurking? 
[1:13pm] pinkerton: i don't like goats
[1:13pm] pinkerton: no wait, i do
[1:14pm] smorgan: I'm telling your donkey
[1:14pm] froodian: i'm for goats
[1:14pm] jeff: so I can keep goats on the feature list?
[1:14pm] pinkerton: yes
[1:14pm] jeff:
[1:18pm] ardissone|food: that's all, folks