Resolve confusion about stick to track buttons

[samreid]

@patricialoeblein said:

2.The icons for "Stick to track" and "not" are great looking, but they align so closely with "None" and "Lots" of the Friction slider and the word "Friction" is very close to them. I wonder if there will be some confusion as teachers write directions about what to call these features and I have concerns that some less physics-trained teachers will not even know. Also, I think students will think that changing the slider should make the Skater stick to the track more; perhaps it's helpful that the icons vertical placement may discourage this thinking ( the stick to track is above the "none"), but I am not sure this will be enough. I do not have a great idea, but perhaps the icons could be in their own control panel?

[ariel-phet]

@samreid please try the "stick to track" icons in a separate floating control below the main control panel, but above the scene selections. If you want you and I can iterate with me doing pulls instead of another release candidate just for this change.

[samreid]

Sure, I'll give it a try.

[patricialoeblein]

I had another thought about placement - I was thinking it could go near the eraser and the track pieces, but then I realized those are only on the Playground scene. I thought I would share my idea hoping it might help think of other options.

[samreid]

Implemented above and will be ready for review in the next dev version.

[samreid]

Fixed in http://www.colorado.edu/physics/phet/dev/html/energy-skate-park-basics/1.0.0-rc.3/energy-skate-park-basics_en.html and reassigned to @patricialoeblein for testing.

[patricialoeblein]

Has the placement been discussed in a meeting? I do wonder if they should go below the 3 track options on the Friction scene since the buttons are only active on the Double hump track. Should Kathy be asked to review?

[samreid]

We discussed this previously, and wanted the track selection buttons to remain at the bottom for consistency between the 1st and 2nd screens, and so that the sticky control panel appears directly below the main panels in screens 2 & 3. We also discussed it some here: https://github.com/phetsims/energy-skate-park-basics/issues/120

[patricialoeblein]

I am beginning to think that it would be more important to have Mass on the Friction Scene and move the Stick/unStick feature to the Playground only. Then teachers can use the Friction scene to address the standard that mass effects the amount of thermal energy in both important ways 1. mass is related to friction force which causes thermal energy and 2. PE can be converted to Thermal energy by just dropping the Skater from the sky. I put this comment the mass issue ticket 148, 147, and 146 also because I do not know where it should go.

[samreid]

In the above commit, I made this change:

Show mass slider on all screens, and only show attach/detach radio buttons on the playground screen

I published it here for review, let me know what you think: http://www.colorado.edu/physics/phet/dev/html/energy-skate-park-basics/1.0.0-rc.4/energy-skate-park-basics_en.html

[samreid]

We reviewed this at last Thursday's meeting, and it seem good to go. Closing.