Orion/UX Issues/R0.5

This page summarizes a UX discussion about the state of Orion R0.5M1. We hope to evolve this into priorities/plan for UX work in 0.5M2.

The landing/login experience

logged in user landing page is something like a navigator, but ways to populate with content
- bug 345622 (Susan/Ken)
- revisit the top pane concept

the Orion Hub pages should be able to be branded with the eclipse.org/Orion branding, vs. orion.eclipse.org is our existing "minimal branding"
bug 369427 (WHO?)

Navigator History is useless as is
- we instead need to remember the state you were in...what tabs open, where you were in the editor, etc.
- {bug|373290}} (WHO?)
Simon likes the banner but misses having settings available in a link
- We should have the user profile as a page in the Settings page, then the user link could go there
- bug 376776 (Anton?)

settings is different than outliner is different than nav left hand pane
consistent navigation experience is important
styling issues as well, for example, categories are easier to hit with finger, why isn't editor outliner that way, for example?
get rid of the word categories
Need to work together to bring this together bug 368848 (Susan, Anton, Szymon, Libing)

We are all over the map
In pages like search results where there is no "selection", the cursor emphasis looks like selection
search results uses left/right arrow that indicates hover activation, tooltip dialog arrow is in the wrong spot. Compare the look and feel of the hover to the one in git log for commits
Selection should go the full width, clicking on a bar should select it, clicking on its link navigates (in outliner, settings, nav, search results, etc.)
should use extended selection model instead of checkboxes (ctrl/shift click model) with space bar toggling
add a dotted line link emphasis for cursored item since hitting enter will go there (can keep it also blue for now)
get rid of checkboxes
{bug|359730} (Susan, Libing, Anton)

appearance of actions in rows vs. at a toolbar. Why aren't we just using a good selection model and making things appear in the toolbar? The web is heading this way vs. all these inline actions.
- bug 359730 (Susan)
- bug 367458 (Susan)

selection inconsistencies, etc. aside...look and feel needs improvement
left hand pane is ugly (settings sidebar is prettier, easier to hit)
top level left hand pane should just be for replacing navigator content (Susan)
- revisit https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/attachment.cgi?id=205865
- if something appears on the left hand side in navigator, it should replace your nav contents, not take you to another page, so for files, a favorite would go there in the nav and make it the cursored emphasis.
- Take the "add random links" out of favorites (use browser bookmarks)
- get rid of saved searches (maybe search page shows this)
terminology of favorites (shortcuts, etc.)
should take a pass at aesthetics. Some of this can be done with sidebar styling, selection styling, etc. {bug|376360} (Anton, Susan, Linda) ?
Navigator is the landing page with an empty workspace providing some getting started stuff

It is weird that breadcrumbs are both links to navigator and things that scope pages (search results, git log)
- Do we need another breadcrumby thing that scopes?
- Or do we need another emphasis? it says (scoped by Xxx) in the breadcrumb
- maybe the separators help show what's going on (they change?)
- applying today's rules...use dotted line link emphasis on breadcrumbs that repopulate page content, use full line if you leave the page (not ideal)
This requires another conversation (Susan, McQ)

need to do more "try this site and give feedback on a running UI" vs. "release to master and get feedback someday"
build time in for this process
if we are doing a UX push for 0.5M2 we may be eliminating most new UI feature work