GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 757647
Use a grid for the installed view
Last modified: 2017-10-25 17:11:16 UTC
The current installed view uses a list. The majority of each row consists of a description of the application - this isn't useful, since you generally know what apps are when they are installed in your system. Having a big list, where most of it is taken up with non-useful information, isn't very cool. If we cut the descriptions, there's no reason to stick with the list, and a grid could be used instead. This has the added bonus that you can see more apps at once, and get a better overview of what's installed: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/gnome-design-team/gnome-mockups/master/software/version2/installed-grid-view-wire.png The one possible negative side effect is the loss of the remove buttons - you'd either have to right click or use selection mode to remove.
Are you sure right clicking is obvious enough?
(In reply to Richard Hughes from comment #1) > Are you sure right clicking is obvious enough? I think that people are used to that. Also, we could put all the context menu actions into the details page, so that the menu is just a convenience.
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/gnome-design-team/gnome-mockups/master/software/version2/installed-grid-view-wire.png 404 - Not found My idea: You can add a grid view, and if you are hovering a item with the mouse cursor, a "Uninstall" Button appears. (which is for example replacing the app icon)
(In reply to Felix Häcker from comment #3) > https://raw.githubusercontent.com/gnome-design-team/gnome-mockups/master/ > software/version2/installed-grid-view-wire.png > > 404 - Not found We moved the repositories around a bit. That mockup can now be found here: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/gnome-design-team/gnome-mockups/master/software/old/version2/installed-grid-view-wire.png > My idea: > You can add a grid view, and if you are hovering a item with the mouse > cursor, a "Uninstall" Button appears. (which is for example replacing the > app icon) I'd actually forgotten about this proposal. It would be a good thing to have, I think! Coming back to it, I agree with the comments: it would be good to do without the selection mode, and right click probably isn't a good idea (primarily because we don't use it elsewhere in Software).
How about adding the right click menu everywhere in Software? That would be nice! For example "view details" should be available everywhere. The other menu entries should appear or disappear automatically (install/uninstall for example).
An updated mockup: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/gnome-design-team/gnome-mockups-software/master/wireframes/installed-grid.png Single click to remove an app is retained. However, to do this I've removed the folder management functionality. It might be possible to reconcile this, but it will somewhat depend on some design changes we're thinking about for the shell. This mockup has some implications for the designs in bug 780653.
(In reply to Felix Häcker from comment #5) > How about adding the right click menu everywhere in Software? That would be > nice! For example "view details" should be available everywhere. ... I'm not convinced that there are that many actions that are useful or interesting in Software, but feel free to prove me wrong (please use a separate bug for that, though).
(In reply to Allan Day from comment #6) > An updated mockup: > > https://raw.githubusercontent.com/gnome-design-team/gnome-mockups-software/ > master/wireframes/installed-grid.png > > Single click to remove an app is retained. However, to do this I've removed > the folder management functionality. It might be possible to reconcile > this, but it will somewhat depend on some design changes we're thinking > about for the shell. > > This mockup has some implications for the designs in bug 780653. Well, a drag'n drop folder feature in the shell, that idea would be *very* great! (Just drag'n drop the icons into a folder in the shell). But that's a other topic :P How about a toggle button in the headerbar, to switch between the grid and list view. (something like the libgd mainview in documents or books) (In reply to Allan Day from comment #7) > (In reply to Felix Häcker from comment #5) > > How about adding the right click menu everywhere in Software? That would be > > nice! For example "view details" should be available everywhere. ... > > I'm not convinced that there are that many actions that are useful or > interesting in Software, but feel free to prove me wrong (please use a > separate bug for that, though). Yeah you're right...!
Coming back to this, I'm not sure it is as desirable as I originally thought. In some respects it would certainly be an improvement - the view is much more focused with the grid, after all. However, there are some issues: * The application tiles are likely to evolve to be richer and include more information, which would reduce the effectiveness of this change, and I don't think have multiple implementations of the tiles is a great idea. * It would probably be a lot of work to switch from a list to a grid, and I think we have higher priorities. * If we use a list, we can keep progress information consistent with other places in Software (such as the top of details pages and the updates list). I think we can improve the existing list instead - see bug 789487.