814808 - Remove top "preview" strip from v1 camera

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Firefox OS Graveyard :: Gaia::Camera, defect, P2)

Description

[Josh Carpenter [:jcarpenter]]

Per IRC chat with Dale, the top preview strip in Camera was a good idea, but it we haven't been able to get it to the quality level it needs to be for v1. Current implementation is slow and visually awkward, like a glitch that obscures the app's most important element: the camera preview. Dale and I agree that we should remove it for v1. 

* needsinfo to CLee: can you give your blessing to this proposed scope reduction?

Comment 1

[David Flanagan [:djf]]

If this is removed, the only way to review a photo you just took will be to launch the gallery app, which is a heavy-weight operation.  The gallery isn't just going to appear from the bottom of the screen the way the preview did. The camera will shrink, then slide sideways, then the gallery will grow, then it will display the photos it knows about, then it will scan for new photos and find the new photo, and the thumbnails will blink as the new photo is added, and then you'll be able to tap on the photo you just took.

It seems to me that this will be worse than the visually awkward preview strip we've got now. I think we should stop using activities and have the camera just display its own previews rather than launching the gallery.  If Camera borrows the Frame.js and VideoPlayer.js modules from Gallery, this shouldn't be too hard to do. It is kind of new feature work, but I think I could do it in a day or two. (I suspect Dale disagrees with me about this... He doesn't like duplicating this functionality across multiple apps.)

Josh and Chris: if you want me to try to do what I've described here, please get the bug marked blocking and assign it to me, and I'll see what I can do.

Comment 2

[Dale Harvey (:daleharvey)]

As David says, I am generally against duplicating functionality between apps, 600 new lines of code for the camera app is not insignificant (and I dont see what it does to help the preview strip being 'visually janky', the bugs relating to the filmstrip transitioning to the gallery are system bugs that need fixed despite what we decide about the camera.

One thing it would improve is the fact we could preview photos from the film strip even in 'secure mode', but that is a seperate feature.

I am not recommending whether or not we do this either way, but I would like a bit more thought being put into the Media applications and how they work together especially in the context of b2g using activities as the basis for our interaction, a lot of the functionality that has been specified up until now has been a bit of an afterthought and not worked well with the grain of the system.

Comment 3

[Josh Carpenter [:jcarpenter]]

Hi guys,

Based on the description it sounds like we're currently doing a disposition:window transition to the full app when the user taps the icon in the bottom left? And disposition:inline to a specialized Gallery view when the user taps on the preview panel thumbmails?

Comment 4

[David Flanagan [:djf]]

(In reply to Josh Carpenter [:jcarpenter] from comment #3)
> Hi guys,
> 
> Based on the description it sounds like we're currently doing a
> disposition:window transition to the full app when the user taps the icon in
> the bottom left? And disposition:inline to a specialized Gallery view when
> the user taps on the preview panel thumbmails?

Yes, exactly. I never liked that design, though. If the camera displayed its own previews it would be faster and we'd have control over the open preview and close preview animations.

Comment 5

[David Flanagan [:djf]]

After further discussion with Dale, we've decided that we need the previews and we need to do them natively rather than with activities.  So I'm closing this as a won't fix.  

The work to convert camera to native previews will be in bug #812924

Clearing the needinfo request, too.

Comment 6

[Chris Lee [:clee]]

The conclusion sounds good to me.  Thanks.

Comment 7

[Josh Carpenter [:jcarpenter]]

Great, thanks David.