[kepler-dev] Icons in the *DataSource actors

[Laura L. Downey]

Before I make a recommendation I'd like to understand what "states" these
icons have to display?

And it does seem a bit unusual to me to have processes doing something when
the user hasn't instructed the workflow to execute.  But I'm not familiar
with these specific actors or the specific workflow you are referencing.

Is it some kind of polling thing?

On a general note, I pretty much agree with Matthew's suggestion of having
the icons fit in with the general scheme then doing something else to
indicate state changes (highlighting, superimposing, putting some symbol
above or below that indicates state change etc.)  There are a variety of
ways we might do this.

Laura L. Downey
Senior Usability Engineer
LTER Network Office
Department of Biology, MSC03 2020
1 University of New Mexico
Albuquerque, NM  87131-0001
505.277.3157 phone
505.277-2541 fax
ldowney at lternet.edu
 

-----Original Message-----
From: kepler-dev-bounces at ecoinformatics.org
[mailto:kepler-dev-bounces at ecoinformatics.org] On Behalf Of Matthew Brooke
Sent: Monday, January 09, 2006 2:16 PM
To: Kevin Ruland; kepler-dev at ecoinformatics.org
Subject: Re: [kepler-dev] Icons in the *DataSource actors


Kevin -

I'd noticed (and ignored ;-) the eml200datasource actor; I agree with 
you that it's not visually compatible with the new icon scheme, and had 
meant to discuss it with Laura.

I'm wondering if a better way to do this would be to use an assigned 
icon that doesn't change, but then the actor superimpose something on 
top of it that gives the user some feedback on status/progress (instead 
of switching out the entire icon or changing its color).

This way, the background icon would always "fit" with the color scheme, 
and if the icons change in future, we probably won't need to change 
anything specifically for these actors, since they are superimposing 
their "status message" on top of the icon.

Laura - do you have any comments?

m



Kevin Ruland wrote:
> Matthew, et al
> 
> Both Eml200DataSource and DarwinCoreDataSource actors have hard coded 
> icons.  They are not exactly using the same code but it looks like one 
> was cribbed from the other.  They set the folder shape, then make calls 
> to control color/text changes to indicate state.
> 
> Since the icon system is/has gone through a major overhaul, I would like 
> to discuss how we can get compatible icons for these actors.  I think it 
> is still good for them to be able to control some indication of state 
> since they do perform background tasks even when the workflow is not 
> running.
> 
> BTW - by "compatible" I mean in the visual sense.  These icons are very 
> boxy and the colors are much too vibrant -- they would look horrible 
> with the new icons.
> 
> Kevin
> 
> 

-- 

---------------------------------------------
Matthew Brooke, Ph.D.
Marine Sciences Research Building, Room #3407
University of California
Santa Barbara, CA  93106-6150
ph: (805) 893-7108   fx: 805-893-8062
brooke at nceas.ucsb.edu
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