Launchpad Entry: ubiquity-slideshow
Created: 2008/12/24
Contributors: EvanDandrea
Packages affected: ubiquity, ubiquity-ubuntu-artwork
Summary
A slide show will be added to the installation progress page, which replaces the progress window found in previous releases.
Release Note
The installer now presents a slide show of important Ubuntu themes while it is setting up the new system.
Rationale
Installing is a time consuming and boring event. We have an opportunity to catch the user's attention and give them a brief overview of some themes of the system they're about to use for the first time.
Use Cases
- Evan uses a slow computer to install Ubuntu on for the first time. Because the installation process is consuming much of the system's resources, he is unable to use other applications while the install is running. He is curious to know what Ubuntu can offer him once the install has completed.
Assumptions
The marketing / creative team can prepare slides before FeatureFreeze.
- The artwork and documentation teams are able to assist the above team in that effort.
Design
- Each slide will cover broad topics such as installing programs, getting help, filing bug reports, accessibility support, and participating in the community.
- The text of each slide will be no longer than three sentences, to accommodate long translations.
- Each slide will display for a predetermined number of seconds, with the slideshow repeating if the install is not complete after all slides have been exhausted.
Implementation
- The individual slides will be created in HTML using the framework provided by the ubiquity-slideshow project.
Translations will be provided using html2po.
- The slides will be rendered using python-webkit. This will require python-webkit being promoted to main, but at least gwibber's promotion to main for karmic will suck in this dependency.
We'll have to work around Webkit bug #17154
- The slideshow will be disabled if webkit is not present, or if the system has insufficient memory available.
- The slides will be provided by ubiquity-slideshow-{ubuntu,kubuntu,...} so that they may be replaced by derivatives.
UI Changes
The progress dialog will be removed and a new progress page will be created. This will have the side benefit of removing the brief, but confusing delay when the main installation window disappears and the progress window appears.
Test/Demo Plan
- The slideshow will be tested on machines with varied capabilities, to ensure that the slide show does not have a negative impact on installing on older hardware.
- We should also test to make sure that it displays on resolutions as low as 1024x576, the de facto standard resolution for netbooks.
BoF agenda and discussion
ability to turn off or modify artwork for derivatives
- Talk with Mario and Cody to find out what they want to do.
Evan to talk with the artwork and documentation team mailing lists to find people to work on this
- Rich Johnson (nixternal) to lead the documentation portion of the process
Evan to send Ken the mockup as a starting point
Go with animated images as Qt definitely supports it via WebKit and Ubuntu might pick up WebKit on the desktop CD this release. We can always fall back to grabbing the first frame.
-Animations could be really useful for pointing out where things are in the main menu, for example
No more than 3 sentences per page.
Broad topics such as installing programs, getting help, filing bug reports, and participating in the community.
-Be sure to mention accessibility!
Using pango in gtk to place the text in a defined box.