unity-design team mailing list archive

[Matthew Paul Thomas <mpt@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

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Conscious User wrote on 20/04/10 14:21:
> 
>> All that said, I'm skeptical about the obviousness of any unified
>> graphical interface for different types of file transfer. And if there
>> was one, I very much doubt it would take the form of a menu. For
>> example, I'd want to be able to drag and drop tasks to reprioritize
>> them; it's possible to do that in a menu (as the Windows 98 start
>> menu, Netscape 4, and Internet Explorer have shown), but doing it in a
>> window is more forgiving of misclicks, especially when earlier tasks
>> are busily vanishing.
> 
> That and, in my opinion, reprioritizing is a kind of "advanced" action
> that does not really belong to the simplicity of an indicator.

That could mean one of three things.
1.  Reprioritizing shouldn't be possible at all.
2.  There should be two lists of file transfers: a menu that doesn't
    allow reprioritizing, and a separate interface (probably a window)
    that does.
3.  There shouldn't be a menu interface at all.

> I think it would be fine enough if the "download indicator" was a menu
> with one item per download. This item would have a percentage, a label
> and an icon indicating the source application. Clicking on each item
> opens such application. A last, "preferences" item, would open a window
> for things such as reprioritizing.

So you're going for #2. ("Preferences" is a weird name for something
that lists downloads, but that's a side point.)

A specific example may be useful here. Ubuntu Software Center's "In
Progress" section shows a progress bar for each thing that's installing.
The progress bar half-fills for the download, and then finishes filling
during the installation.

What would be the usefulness of showing the download portion of these
tasks in a menu?

And if package downloads in particular shouldn't be shown in the menu
(Update Manager is another example of this), what would be the dividing
line between downloads that should be in the menu and downloads that
shouldn't?

- -- 
Matthew Paul Thomas
http://mpt.net.nz/
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