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Re: [Ayatana] Idea for improving visibility of running applications
"What you suggested is a far reaching, non-default behavior "option"
and I still fail to see the point of it."
That is because you still haven't read the discussion...
"I'm not sure that would work very well: the default launcher would end
up this ugly grey strip since no programs are run when you first log
on. As an user-selected option it might be ok though."
In the very beginning of this discussion we made it clear that what you just said isn't the suggested behaviour. The view the user sees when he logs on is supposed to be a full coloured icon strip since no applications are running. When he starts an application it will still be a full coloured strip until he temporarily hovers the launcher, that's when the inactive launchers fade to grey and only the active applications are saturated and with an illuminated background. When the user moves the cursor over an inactive application that selected icon will be saturated again but without the background glow to distinguish it from both the running applications and the ones inactive. Please say that you finally can picture this and we can go on without you ranting on something we haven't even said?
"So you want a better indicator that works with those Faenza icons,
nothing more?"
The Faenza icons is a situation I've used as example for when it's hard to distinguish which applications are running. It's not just for the Faenza icons, this applies to all squared icon sets and other icon sets which fills up the available space in the icon.
"What's wrong with adding a new simple glow effect option
in CCSM?"
Because the background's are already quite illuminated and glows. You have to put things into perspective when picturing a solution. With even more glow it will just be adding more glow to the glow. With all the color and indicators such as counters and progress bars the whole launcher gets cluttered and more color just adds to the clutter. This way we can still let applications use their counters and progress bars without it cluttering up our view together with super glow and colours when we want to easily select an application.
"Your feature request goes beyond a simple option, it introduces a
completely new launcher behavior (it now can change on mouse hover),
and as I outlined already, it doesn't work too well."
Why would that be a major problem? It opens when we hover different areas such as the "Ubuntu"-button or the left side of the screen. Changing appearance of an UI-element when hovered is one of the most basic ways in UI-design to tell the user that the current element can be interacted with. If you look at it almost every element you can interact with in Ubuntu changes appearance on hovering with the cursor. So why exactly would this be a problem with the launcher?
"... I really don't think this mailing list is the place to discuss options
for fringe scenarios."
Let me just point out that everyone who has responded to this idea has been very positive except for you.
2011/5/4 Ed Lin
<edlin280@xxxxxxxxx>
On Tue, May 3, 2011 at 8:52 PM, Niklas Rosenqvist
> Seriously aren't you understanding what we've been talking about? Most of us
> agree on that the current implementation is working fine for the default
> Ubuntu installation but Ubuntu is very open when it comes to configuration
> and it is one of it's strength's. That's why users can easily change icon
> sets and for some icon sets the default way of showing running applications
> isn't clear enough and that is why we want an option to turn on the fading
> of inactive icons when the launcher is hovered to easily see what's running.
> Since so many users are customizing the Ubuntu desktop I think it's vital to
> have the Launcher versatile so that it works for as many people as possible.
> Please refer to the mockup I linked to earlier and take a look on how it
> looks with the Faenza icon pack.
So you want a better indicator that works with those Faenza icons,
nothing more? What's wrong with adding a new simple glow effect option
in CCSM?
Your feature request goes beyond a simple option, it introduces a
completely new launcher behavior (it now can change on mouse hover),
and as I outlined already, it doesn't work too well.
About options in general:
On 02/05/11 23:57, Evan Huus wrote:
> I'm not sure that would work very well: the default launcher would end
> up this ugly grey strip since no programs are run when you first log
> on. As an user-selected option it might be ok though.
This really sums it up best. I cringe when I read this and it's
symptomatic for a lot of things.
At least it says "might".
It's not OK to make an option that while it solves one particular
problem introduces more new problems. Such option is completely
pointless. If you want such particular feature you could write a CCSM
plugin, patch the launcher or use/write an alternative dock but I
really don't think this mailing list is the place to discuss options
for fringe scenarios. Coming up with a visual indicator that works
better for different icon sets or even a better default launcher is.
What you suggested is a far reaching, non-default behavior "option"
and I still fail to see the point of it.