Mark,
Interesting idea and I'll reserve final judgement till I see it in action, or some clearer definitions of what would go into the windicator space. I have a few thinking points, however:
- Would having the windicators in the window border reduce the grab space for moving windows around?
- Would removing the status bar get rid of the grab handle for resizing windows?
- How are you going to have this work with upstream Gnome? Will application developers have to create two versions of their application, one for Ubuntu and the other for all other distros that use Gnome?
- What will happen with Gnome Shell?
- A lot of functionality that you've given as examples is present *in* the applications already. For example, the volume control. Most applications that create sound (except browsers) already have a volume control (Rhythmbox, VLC, Totem, Banshee). If we have this existing control + the windicator control + the panel volume icon, we'd end up with three potential ways for a user to simply change their volume.
I understand the need to improve consistency across the board, but duplicating functionality that's already common knowledge and fairly obvious isn't the best way to go about it. It would make more sense to be able to control the volume of multiple apps from the panel volume icon. I think we should be centralizing more, not breaking things up. Gnome is filled with icons already, I don't think adding more is a solution.
- Also, why did you move the buttons to the left in an LTS, when there is nothing to replace them? Would it not have been better to wait until you had something to replace the space on the right, before moving the buttons?
If you didn't have this idea a few weeks ago, then perhaps it would have been wiser to wait a bit to move the buttons so you could actually give some reasoning. I'm sure if you did this, the backlash from the community wouldn't have been nearly so great.
As someone commented on the OMG! Ubuntu! article about this: "Almost as sane as a car manufacturer who decides to move the gas pedal to the left and install an additional pedal on the right for tuning the radio."
See you in Brussels next week :)
Benjamin
On Tue, May 4, 2010 at 7:16 AM, David Hamm
<davidthamm@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
feel free to make up your mind. - my brain is in quantum flux.
rules, like having icons for everything, ex. nautilus
usability, like only having a home button on an iphone.
Sorry for destroying the thread! :D I will try to proceed more quietly.
btw. can't wait for ff4, it couldn't come soon enough.
--
Benjamin Humphrey
Ubuntu Manual Team Lead
Dunedin, New Zealand
http://www.ubuntu-manual.orgwww.interesting.co.nz