Desktop Plug: drag-n-drop to remove Wallpapers

[Danielle Foré]

What would be really sick is to Drag a wallpaper outside the window and have it poof away like dragging launchers off plank.

[Avi Romanoff (aroman)]

Hmm. I dunno about this one. I would assume that dragging would drag a copy of the wallpaper to the target location.

[Danielle Foré (danrabbit)]

That's a completely fair observation, but what if the target location is the desktop?

[Avi Romanoff (aroman)]

Then the DnD mechanism would be inconsistent, I think. I think it's either one or the other.

[cldx (cldx3000)]

I would expect the dragged Image to be used as the Wallpaper.

I think if the Image would poof away some People might wonder what actually happened to the Image, did it just get removed from the List? Was the File deleted?

Maybe, if you wanna stick to the poofing Part, it could be visually made discoverable by superimposing a Trashbin Icon on the Image while you drag it over the Desktop and add a Label a la "Drop to Delete".

[Danielle Foré (danrabbit)]

I really like cldx's idea. that's sweet.

I'm just thinking this would be a way to keep the interface simple and allow for wallpaper deletion without adding UI clutter. Drag in to add, drag out to remove.

And actually thinking about it, if you go open up the wallpaper plug in order to move a picture from one app to another, you're doing it wrong.

[Avi Romanoff (aroman)]

I don't really understand cldx's mockup at all I'm afraid. When dragging, does your cursor hold a thumbnail of the image, and dropping it onto the desktop sets it as the wallpaper? How does the trashcan appear, and how does one interact with it?

[Danielle Foré (danrabbit)]

I think it's pretty straight forward :P

Yes, when dragging you see the thing you're dragging just like in Docky or in Nautilus or anywhere else you drag something.

Dropping onto the desktop does not set the wallpaper, it removes the wallpaper from the plug as denoted by the trashcan icon.

You don't interact with the can, it's an indicator. Once that thumbnail leaves the window, the trashcan icon appears to let you know that if you drop it outside the window it's going to be deleted.

[cldx (cldx3000)]

I understand why Avi got confused, cause first I state that I expect the Wallpaper to be set to the Desktop and all of a sudden I'm interacting in some not-so-familiar way.

So I assumed you want to keep the "Drag out == Remove" behavior right?
That's what the Mockup is for.

As soon as you drag over the Desktop Struts the dragged Image should receive this "This will happen to your File" visual indication.

I'm gonna try some other variants on how that might present itself visually and post them here later on. There are probably better ways to present the impending Action to the User. I wanna make Avi go "Ahhh".

http://twitter.com/cldx3000

On 01.04.2011, at 06:04, Daniel Fore <email address hidden> wrote:

> I think it's pretty straight forward :P
>
> Yes, when dragging you see the thing you're dragging just like in Docky
> or in Nautilus or anywhere else you drag something.
>
> Dropping onto the desktop does not set the wallpaper, it removes the
> wallpaper from the plug as denoted by the trashcan icon.
>
> You don't interact with the can, it's an indicator. Once that thumbnail
> leaves the window, the trashcan icon appears to let you know that if you
> drop it outside the window it's going to be deleted.
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to
> Switchboard.
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/745289
>
> Title:
> wallpaper- dnd to remove wallpapers
>
> Status in Switchboard Settings Center:
> Incomplete
>
> Bug description:
> What would be really sick is to Drag a wallpaper outside the window
> and have it poof away like dragging launchers off plank.

[cldx (cldx3000)]

I thought about this Action a little more and made 2 ways it could work.

Number 1 is kinda similar to the first Mockup but hopefully a bit nicer.

[cldx (cldx3000)]

In Number 2 i figured "Hey, theres a Plank! And theres a Trashbin. And this came out...

Drag over Desktop = "Excite" Trashbin

I left out the Label, do you think something like this would work out?

[Danielle Foré (danrabbit)]

I don't think we're planning to show the trash on the dock, but that is an interesting idea :)

I'm wondering if the icon should appear on the top right instead of the bottom left. If we have fingers dragging I would tend to assume more people would grab the lower corners than the top ones (thus obstructing the can image). But definitely much clearer with the larger icon that is sticking outside the thumbnail.

[Avi Romanoff (aroman)]

Ohhh! Totally get it now. I appreciate your patience in explaining it to me :)

As much as I think the most recent mockup looks AWESOME, Dan is right; we don't plan on having the trash in the dock.
I do however really like the second mockup, well done.

[cldx (cldx3000)]

Actually it could also work without the Trash in Plank, upon DragOut Plank could "intelligently" show the Trashbin as in the Mockup, if you cancel the Drag the Trashbin will disappear again, isn't that something Constructor could do ?

[Jaap Broekhuizen (jaapz-b)]

I don't think dragging the wallpaper out of the window is a very logical way of getting rid of a wallpaper. At first it is just not a very discoverable functionality, unless you put a text in the wallpaper dialog along the lines of "Drag the wallpaper outside the window to remove it", which kind of goes against the idea of elementary's simplicity and user-friendliness? I guess...

Secondly I think users might think dragging a wallpaper onto the wallpaper will set it as a wallpaper. It is just not obvious enough that this will remove the wallpaper.

I think we should not go to fancy on this one, and just add a little x in the top left of the wallpaper when you hover it, and when you click it, it gets removed. This is the same behaviour we have on exposed windows, so it's consistens. What do you guys think of that?

Also, is removing wallpapers important enough for beta2?