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Re: [Ayatana] (In)sensitive menu itens for displaying information



Let me make a suggestion on how to fix this usability problem. Simply
use font colors. There was already talk in Unity discussions of using
blue (or green?) for informational elements so I think that would fit
nicely. Long term it would probably best to allow theme developers to
define their own color for such elements so that they can fit them
better in their themes if it isn't possible now. We need at spec so
theme devs know how many colors will be needed for various elements
(as is now in Ubuntu; red , green and in the future green).

On Fri, Oct 8, 2010 at 1:30 PM, Conscious User <conscioususer@xxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> This has been discussed before but I don't remember what
> came out of it and could find the thread via Google.
>
> Seeing how indicator-datetime shows the full date and
> seeing how new independent projects like this
>
> http://blog.rtg.in.ua/2010/10/have-you-seen-my-weather-applet.html
>
> specifically this screenshot:
>
> http://ubuntuone.com/p/J4U/
>
> handle information display, I can't help but thinking how
> using insensitive menu items for displaying information
> looks and feels wrong. Even *sensitive* menu items used
> for this purpose feel wrong. Look at the power indicator:
> what does the user expect to happen when clicking on the
> battery status item? I don't think it's obvious. Also,
> look at the sound indicator: when Rhythmbox is playing,
> it has two clickable entries, one with the Rhythmbox name
> and other with the track info. Both have the same effect,
> and the second looks like it's clickable just for the
> sake of being clickable.
>
> Indicators need a way to display information that do not
> look clickable at all.
>
> Before someone mentions it, I don't think tooltips are
> the solution... I never liked the idea of using tooltips
> for functionality this causes discoverability problems
> and can also cause problems when a developer wants to
> use tooltips for their main purpose (help and
> accessibility)
>
> (and of course this discussion is currently moot as
> indicators do not support tooltips at all)
>
>
>
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