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[Wayan Vota]

So OLPC is updating the XO laptop's Sugar Interface.  Soon it may look like this:



Now, back in the day, Alexandre Van de Sande gave his impression of Aquatic Sugar: The Children's Interface, Translated for Adults:



Granted, Alexandre designed for a different audience than OLPC, but which do you like better?

[LesleyT]

hrmm.....

Nifty, but I'm sort of attached to my sugar as it is at the moment. 
Especially since I turned off the hot corners on the frames.  I do like the first one though. 

The second one looks a little a mac interface and I'm afraid it would sacrifce too much memory for the prettiness.

[brisalta]

Alexandre Van de Sande's design is so ugly it defies all sense of good taste and good design.

Wayan for a first release what you are calling classic Sugar is nice and very easy to use. Also it makes very good use of object attribute relationships.

I have been following the thread on the evolution of sugar on one of the official lists.  The proposed new Sugar designs are at http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Designs and I like the direction they seem to be heading.  Supposedly these changes will be showing up in the joyride builds.

[tdang]

I guess I'd vote for classic, but the others aren't completely known quantities (as thoroughly as they're described, it's hard to really "know" them without trying them out).

One thing which I like about classic, and is also in the Aqua, is totally hypothetical, which is the memory-use aspect of the circle. That would be awfully nice. On the other hand, I don't know what it would take. I've never seen such a thing on another computer.

The circle-of-icons in the updated interface rubs me wrong aesthetically--seems noisy. It also seems like it would be less amenable to sub-menus of activities than the current activity bar, while also making such a menu more necessary because of limited space.

The extra stuff in the bottom-right corner seems overkill. The current view has battery & connection, which is useful. I do like the idea of having software sound controls handy. That's often useful because it's hard to know whether somethings quiet because your volume's low or it's just quiet. Camera, microphone and mesh seem like overkill.

The aqua-ish interface is very pretty. I'm not sure if on the whole I'd prefer it to the current view. One negative about it is that I wouldn't expect it to behave well in monochrome mode.

Some of the stuff the Design pages show for neighborhood and journal does look good.

Yeah, anyway, I think I prefer what we've got.

-Timothy

[Directive0]

I've been using the newest joyrides, and I really prefer it to 656 and 703. I have to say that in terms of the UI it's a lot more polished and usable then the stable builds.  Its not perfect, theres actually a lot of stuff I'd change.  On the whole I like the direction they're going in.

Having a user chosen circle of apps on the home screen is a nice way to deal with the reordering problem I had.  The frame is now much more important when dealing with a lot of activities at the same time.  I like the way battery is now checkable from any activity.

I think the point about a flashy aqua interface not being monochrome friendly is bang-on. 

[avsa]

First, let me be clear: I do not dislike the Sugar GUI idea, and I never intended to design the "acqua sugar" as a proposal, but just as a gimmick to explain sugar to the mac suckers in the audience (like me). I think to put glow, shadow, transparency and so much color on the XO would be a unncesessary memory crime. I love the idea of a mostly black and white plain interface (although I do not like the font selection or the icons thmeselves).

Now, the changes on sugar are not on the Graphical user interfacem but more on the architecture of the interface. It's  a slight difference between what it looks like (gui) and where stuff is (information architecture).

I am not sure I prefer the new frame, because the bottom side seems extremely left out with all that icon junk. Do we need so many status indicators? But then, I never used a XO so I cannot really opinate.

[davewa]

I think I prefer the new sugar.  Assuming it WORKS, of course -- there's been far too much "paper design" in this project already.  So now the question becomes WHEN DO WE GET IT (Update.1, maybe?) and will we have the option of retaining "classic" or will we be forced to upgrade to "new" if we want the other fixes?

[humptybump]

I removed SUGAR very early on but with the latest "direction" of the interface, I will take another look. My goal is to have only a few tools on my XO since I will not use it as a general purpose computer. I want a good browser, email, and PDF reader. I think the new interface makes it easier for users like me to get what they want and get to it quickly. I suspect I would find I add additional activities over time.

[SpaceCadet]

I think it would be a shame to lose the "resource ring".  As a former home-schooling mom, I know that children as young as 5 could comprehend a pie visual to mean "this is all the pieces there are, you can't get more without letting one go". Without it, there would be a lot more "why can't I have this one, too?" questions.

Maybe at some point there could be an optional, more adult-ish, gui option, but for the kids I don't think either of these are an improvement.

[samphilomath]

As long as the Aquatic sugar UI works without freezing and memory problem
it would be more particle. Plus, they should remember to add the clock.

I'll pick the Aquatic Sugar UI. Just because the OLPC was design for third world  country doesn't mean its not suppose to look good.

[lgarcia]

I would be happy with the update.

I like the drag'n'drop into the frame capability of the update  - #15 & 16 in the update URL link.

I really like  #17  - copying files from the journal or an activity directly into external storage will solve most user problems for me.

[goney3]

To quote a wiki discussion:
"A Sugar TODO List, of Sorts"

My hope is to mold this list a bit, tossing in crucial elements I
might have missed, identifying those that are entirely unrealistic,
and prioritizing the rest to give us an attack vector for what I hope
will be the first truly solid release of Sugar sometime within the
next 6 - 8 months or so.

[fyoder]

In the jungle, the mighty jungle,
Sugar sleeps tonight.
In the jungle, the mighty jungle,
Sugar sleeps tonight.

Ubuntu, Ubuntu,
Ubuntu, Ubuntu,
Ubuntu, Ubuntu,
Ubuntu, oh you bet.

Hush, my darling, don't fear, my darling,
Ubuntu's real OS.
Hush my darling, don't fear, my darling,
Ubuntu is the best.

Ubuntu, Ubuntu,
Ubuntu, Ubuntu,
Ubuntu, Ubuntu,
Ubuntu, Ubuntu.
Ubuntu, Ubuntu,
Ubuntu, Ubuntu,
Ubuntu, Ubuntu,
yah!

What can I say, I really like Ubuntu, though should say that's for my use.  I think the whole Sugar, mesh shared activity thing is a great idea for kids in a classroom, but I'm not a kid in a classroom.

[Directive0]

I think the whole Sugar, mesh shared activity thing is a great idea for kids in a classroom, but I'm not a kid in a classroom.

which was kind of who the OLPC was/is designed for

[tdang]

First, let me be clear: I do not dislike the Sugar GUI idea, and I never intended to design the "acqua sugar" as a proposal, but just as a gimmick to explain sugar to the mac suckers in the audience (like me).

Understood. My criticism (not good for monochrome) wasn't of your presentation of aquatic sugar, but of the hypothetical copying of it for real. I liked your presentation.

I do keep wanting to make my desktop/home view prettier, but I think that the fun part of that is the DIY.