Re: [Ayatana] Improving Launcher behavior

[Conscious User <conscioususer@xxxxxxx>]

The original Unity had top and bottom folding, and used an
"intelli-folding" that essentially solved all the current
problems: the last clicked icon was always kept in the same
place, and top or bottom folding would be used depending on
the situation. Think CoverFlow.

I quite liked it, to be honest. It was like a fancy way of
scrolling that almost didn't require *actual* scrolling.

http://design.canonical.com/2010/06/introduction-to-unity-launcher/

I have no idea why the top folding was dropped. It introduced
all the current problems without real benefits, it seems...
I already asked about this but got no response:

https://lists.launchpad.net/ayatana/msg04927.html


> Hi, I have a suggestion regarding the behavior of the Unity Launcher.
> I think the problem with the current design is that when you have
> enough icons so they fold, when you mouse over the launcher you need
> to scroll to get to the bottom icon.
> I caught myself scrolling with my mouse a lot since the launcher is
> hidden most of the time by default (dodging windows) and I also can't
> mouse over and expand it from bottom.

> My suggestion to solve this problem is to unfold the icons on the
> launcher in relation to the position of the mouse pointer.
> That way icons would never leave the bottom or the top of the screen,
> so no scrolling would be required.
> Moving the mouse toward the bottom of the launcher, where there are
> folded icons would cause them to unfold and at the same time the top
> icons would fold one by one, so the icons don't move too much around.
> Also, moving the mouse to the top of the launcher would always get you
> to the first icon and moving to the bottom would get you to the last
> icon.

> What do you think? Is this something worth doing and are there other
> problems with this approach that I haven't considered?