Re: [Ayatana] monochrome applets vs user experience

[Conscious User <conscioususer@xxxxxxx>]

> bluetooth should indicate its activity in BT tray icon, since
> bluetooth enabled devices usually consume extra power if it's on. also
> does bluetooth make a machine discoverable within a radius of
> sometimes up to 20m. we want to be aware of this. blue as informative
> color would be clearly the color of choice here, if that is not
> already obvious enough by the name and branded color of the protocol's
> icon. a disabled bluetooth may well share the default color of the
> other applets / indicators.

The problem is, once the person knows and accepts the fact that the
bluetooth is on and discoverable, color becomes a nuisance and a
distraction. The power consumption and discoverability problems
exist, but I don't think they make the "bluetooth on" case the
"attention worthy" one. Specially for bluetooth mouse users like me.
> *nm applet doesn't indicate presence or status of 2nd wifi adapter in
> icon

> NM applet:
> i connected a WLAN dongle in addition to the integrated WiFi adapter
> on my netbook. successfully created a new Wireless Network and went
> online with it. everything worked, only that the "indicator", in this
> case applet would be correct, didn't indicate anything about me having
> 2 Wifi's active on my box. there was no visual way of understanding
> which adapter is represented by the icon. only on mouse hover

In my opinion, the importance of having a second wifi adapter is the
same of having an ethernet in addition the wifi adapter. It is a
fact I am rarely interested in enough to have it showing in the
panel all the time. Much more important is the general fact if
whether I'm connected, doesn't matter to what, or not. If "I haz
the internetz" or not.

> *message indicator changes size and design upon new incoming

I agree. Although the metaphor itself is fine (opened envelope for
messages read, closed envelope for messages unread), the color
change was good enough. And the opened icon is too large compared
to the others.

> volume indicator:
> as Luke already envisioned in the thread linked above, red could be
> used to signal an active recording process. i use voice memos a lot,
> once i accidentally left it running for quite a long time, no
> indication of that in the tray. that's a great idea luke presented,
> which should receive attention now that everybody is concerned with
> indicators..

That would be nice. However, again I should raise the "don't make
it annoying" alert here. There's a difference between "recording"
and "using the microphone". If someone implemented an alert based
on microphone usage, VoiP usage would unnecessarily call attention.

> Compose New Message and Contacts totally break the consistency and
> formatting of this indicator's drop-down ("menu").
> they neither have informative icons before them like the other items
> in this view do, nor are they indented or hidden under their parent
> item: Mail.

Frankly, I agree. Those usefulness of those additions is minimal
and not only they break consistency but they are a step in trying
to make the messaging menu into a jack of all trades, which is
a scary symptom of "tray icon syndrome" Ayatana is fighting so
much against.

> this is a bit annoying to me, and in the beginning it had me quite
> confused: it was not even quite clear, what type of message
> (IM/Broadcast/email) i was going to compose.

This one I disagree with, the separators make that very clear
to me.

> a "compose message" dialog would be expected here, that allows me to
> decide whether i want to broadcast, chat or mail someone.

I'm in favor of removing it completely. The messaging menu
should be a very polished way of receiving messages only.

> The little triangles that appear when a client (Mail, IM, Broadcast)
> is active could serve to collapse client-related messages as they
> appear. using colors, they could indicate the presence of updated
> information or new incoming messages, while collapsed.

Disagree. The messages are not supposed to stay there and
the messaging menu is designed to show a limited number
of messages per app (which I agree with), so the usefulness
of this collapsing would be minimal and sounds like doing
something just for the sake of being able to.

> while i don't know if libindicator can handle any of that, i know that
> it would help give these triangles sense, and order the "menu" much
> better. otherwise we should perhaps use dots just like in the
> availability settings from the MeMenu, for better consistency.

It would be a wrong consistency, as the dots in the MeMenu
are semantically a different thing.