unity-design team mailing list archive

[Tyler Brainerd <tylerbrainerd@xxxxxxxxx>]

Looking at the mockups for the new SoundMenu
design<https://wiki.ubuntu.com/SoundMenu>,
which looks great, my one concern is for consistency. Right now, with all
the new applets, we have a myriad of inconsistent behavior, and this will
only worsen as we make things more complicated. For instance, in the mockups
and in current use, we have toggles that, in some cases, add a left hand
margin check mark, such as with the play button in rhythmbox applet, and in
others, it changes the text, like in the current sound applet. I say get rid
of the check mark, and make it change between play/pause, but looking at the
mockups, this will only get worse. Can we please discuss specific ruling
functions in these applets so we don't have a full on widget on the panel?
Currently, we only have Vertical layered controls. Each vertical row
contains one function, and ought to be indicated in consistent ways (i.e.,
the triangles for running programs, the dots for status, the check for
play/pause, sometimes the icon changes...) and I think its going to mess up
that consistency with adding horizontal functions as well. part of the
reason these applets are great is the ability to use pretty fast keyboard
shortcuts to control things, and being the literally every single one so far
has only vertical, lets not add the horizontal (i'm referring specifically
to the next and previous buttons on either side of the play button).

After the rows, we really need to get the indications cleaned up. Lets make
some firm decisions about what means 'This program is open!' what means
'this feature is on/off' and what doesn't, in all the menus. The mockups
show no check marks, thats good. Get rid of all of them, unless actual
indicating is needed (like the status selector).