Opened 15 years ago

Closed 11 years ago

Last modified 11 years ago

#1007 closed enhancement (obsolete)

Mesh icon to indicate network number

Reported by: Yamaplos Owned by: gdesmott
Priority: Unspecified by Maintainer Milestone:
Component: telepathy Version: Unspecified
Severity: Unspecified Keywords:
Cc: Distribution/OS: Unspecified
Bug Status: Needinfo

Description

Currently the mesh icons have a minimalist look, all networks look the same, and cannot be recognized unless you spend some time hovering over each.

To select a specific mesh network, it would help if each icon represented a number, i.e., 1, 6 , 11

Please reclassify this ticket as to priority, component, etc.
It's a nuisance, hopefully easy to effect a noticeable improvement in usability of selecting a mesh channel.

Change History (12)

comment:1 Changed 15 years ago by garycmartin

Using the neighbourhood search field is very good if you know part of the AP name, for 0.86 there's also going to be work on buddy tagging. I'm sure that mechanism could, if there enough interest, be used to auto enter tags for AP channel numbers. Putting numbers on each AP would be visually overwhelming, would make the neighbourhood view look like the weekly lottery draw :-)

comment:2 follow-up: Changed 15 years ago by Yamaplos

Gary, you got it 100%! As you rightly point out, the current design is not prioritized for usability but for looks.
IMHO, ease of use makes Sugar better, even if it looked lottery-ish, or "overwhelming", an assertion with which I respectfully disagree. Let's, please, focus in that this tool is supposed to be used by people who are new to technology, many barely literate, and maybe ugly is good if it makes it even the slightest way easier!

comment:3 in reply to: ↑ 2 ; follow-up: Changed 15 years ago by garycmartin

Replying to Yamaplos:

IMHO, ease of use makes Sugar better, even if it looked lottery-ish, or "overwhelming", an assertion with which I respectfully disagree. Let's, please, focus in that this tool is supposed to be used by people who are new to technology, many barely literate, and maybe ugly is good if it makes it even the slightest way easier!

Hmmm. Then I guess my question is; why would anyone care about AP channel numbers, especially someone new to technology? For an admin setting up a network, I agree it could be useful to see what the tech set-up of the wireless spectrum around you is like, but that seems over kill for a 6-12yr old connecting to an AP.

What was your usage case that triggered this ticket?

comment:4 follow-up: Changed 15 years ago by SeanDaly

I understood Yamaplos to mean mesh networks, not all APs. On an XO, when away from my usual AP in the company of other XOs (but possibly showing other APs in Neighborhood View), all I care about is the mesh connection; I can identify the three icons, but I need to hunt and hover just to find their numbers and/or to see which one I am connected to if connected already.

Would it be difficult to show the mesh channel number in the circle, then change its color upon connection? I could then tell the friends arriving later what channel I am on so they could click directly for a connection instead of waiting for the polling script. The numbers would also help distinguish better the mesh circles from the AP circles.

Alternatively, perhaps colors instead of numbers, keeping the concentric circles? Red for no connection, yellow for trying, green for connected? In that case the active mesh network is easily identifiable

thanks

Sean

comment:5 in reply to: ↑ 4 Changed 15 years ago by garycmartin

Replying to SeanDaly:

I understood Yamaplos to mean mesh networks, not all APs. On an XO, when away from my usual AP in the company of other XOs (but possibly showing other APs in Neighborhood View), all I care about is the mesh connection; I can identify the three icons, but I need to hunt and hover just to find their numbers and/or to see which one I am connected to if connected already.

Ahhh! Sorry all, my brain must have lost a neuron or few. OLPC mesh 1, 6, 11 :-)

My understanding is that 0.82 was the last version of Sugar to create mesh networks? I think the only reason you end up seeing the 3 round AP like icons titled olpc-mesh in a 0.84 release is because there is some 0.82 machine polluting the airwaves somewhere in your vicinity. 0.82 at boot tries to chat to olpc-mesh on 1, 6, 11, listening for a school server response. 0.84 machines seem to show this chatter like an AP (and there's quite a long time-out for removing an AP so it only needs to be tickled every 10min or so to hang about). If you have a room full of XOs running 0.84, I don't think you'd see any of those 3 icons.

FWIW: The last UI related mesh plan I remember seeing (just prior to OLPC/SugarLabs) was that the mesh icons were proposed to be removed from the neighbourhood view all together, as they are actually a property of the laptop device, not some external network entity. The functionality was to be replaced with a mesh device icon in the bottom frame where you would just pick 1, 6, 11 from its palette to connect to. Not sure I completely agree with that proposed change (seems to add UI complexity for little gain):

http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Image:Frame-09.jpeg

FWIW2: Tomeu has a demo implementation for a frame device that creates a local-link network. This covers most of the use cases we have today (and allows 3 kids under a tree to collaborate). The only benefit to mesh seems to be packet forwarding (each node does not need to see all other nodes), but OLPC disabled the packet forwarding mesh feature pretty quick, as it starts to saturate the wireless spectrum as soon as you have 10-20 or so laptops within range – no good for a class/school...

comment:6 Changed 15 years ago by SeanDaly

Absolutely right, I'm referring to v0.82 XOs - waiting for Sebastian's special XO-1 Strawberry flavor :-)

comment:7 Changed 15 years ago by Yamaplos

ugh! me noob. I don't get half what y'all say, but that's OK as the risk of playing with the big boys.

Yes, 1, 6, 11, and the user case is when the 3rd grade teacher tells her class will run on 6, because the 4th grade next door is running on 11. And please, no concentric circles, but good old fashioned numerals, different colors for state if y'all want.

Now, if I get you right, mesh is going the way of the crank?
"My understanding is that 0.82 was the last version of Sugar to create mesh networks?"

uh, I never really cared for the silly, silly way the mesh was presented as the greatest thing OLPC was all about, but now that I am starting to get used to it, I sort of like it, and while some honest report on its limits would be a good thing (not "The teacher will be able to collaborate with all the children in a class using the mesh", as it is being sold), killing it outright would be a sad thing. Yes, up to 3 kids several activities seem to work fine.

As to using the frame, it has been reported that some SoaS users do not have a key to bring up the frame in their non-XO units.

Anyway, IMHO the graphical view of the APs and mesh is a bit of an overkill, cute, but not really informative of what is going on, you just have to wait, Apple style, until the icon tells you you are in, but don't know what is going on during the handshaking process, and if you are not in, for a noob who knows it you go and erase network data before restarting... But that's another issue, beyond just getting it easy to know which mesh channel you are in

comment:8 Changed 15 years ago by tomeu

  • Bug Status changed from New to Needinfo

we need a proposal design on which people generally agree

comment:9 Changed 15 years ago by tomeu

  • Milestone changed from Unspecified by Release Team to 0.88

Looks like this one won't make 0.88 :(

comment:10 in reply to: ↑ 3 Changed 14 years ago by yamaplos

  • Component changed from sugar to telepathy
  • Owner changed from tomeu to gdesmott

What was your usage case that triggered this ticket?

Telling kids "go to Mesh 6", and having 2/3 of them get it wrong the first attempt and then half of those again their second try, and average of one failure for every success attempt.

Anything that can save time and work in the classroom helps to avoid Sugar use be a frustration :-p

comment:11 Changed 11 years ago by dnarvaez

  • Resolution set to obsolete
  • Status changed from new to closed

comment:12 Changed 11 years ago by dnarvaez

  • Milestone 0.88 deleted

Milestone 0.88 deleted

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