unity-design team mailing list archive

[Dylan McCall <dylanmccall@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, Jun 15, 2010 at 9:52 PM, Conscious User <conscioususer@xxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> In application menus, the behavior is the same for left-clicking and
> right-clicking: both open the same menu. For indicator applets, the
> right click invokes the menu with the applet options, like locking,
> moving and removing.
>
> This is misleading a lot of users in the forums, who are removing the
> entire indicator applet in the attempt to remove a specific indicator.
> This inconsistency can also be observed in the Gnome panel menu bar,
> which is also a menu.
>
> What can be done to fix this? Fixing the right click in indicator
> applets sounds tempting, but then from where the options of locking,
> moving and removing would be invoked from?
>

Hi!

I had filed a bug report on this issue:
https://bugs.edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/indicator-applet/+bug/519553
I, too, have seen the negative effects of it at this point. It hasn't
been as pronounced as my original doomsday prediction, but it is
troubling.

To be honest I'm not totally happy with Ted's decision on that bug
report, so now is definitely a good time to initiate some more
chattering. For Maverick, there is time to fix the problem, and I am
sure people here can come up with lots of options.

Two come to mind for me:

We seem to be stuck with Gnome Panel and its quirks for a while yet.
So, as a first solution that would magically fix everything (except
Bonobo, and the part where applets are positioned with absolute screen
coordinates), I think it would be pretty nice if that thing's horrific
approach for placing panel applets was revised. I filed an enhancement
on just that upstream:
https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=616244
(Strangely it does not seem to be a duplicate).
It's fairly simple on paper: instead of always being in a mode where
applets can be moved, give the entire panel a toggleable Edit mode.
Edit mode could just show handles and the relevant Move / Remove menu
items for each applet.
The stuff for locking applets to the panel would be completely
eradicated in the process. If someone is in edit mode, he probably
wants to move whatever panel applets he tells to move. If he isn't, he
doesn't want them to move anywhere for any reason.
A fancier implementation could capture mouse events over each applet
in Edit mode, so a left click anywhere on an applet would then drag
it, for example.

The notification area _is_ being phased out. Unfortunately it's still
there on Maverick desktop…
For another solution, maybe the indicator applet could also provide
the notification area for this release. It may be possible to embed
that exact applet using Bonobo, rather than complicate the very
elegant code base. Of course the indicator applet wouldn't need to
draw a handle for that notification area, since it's a fixed part of
the indicator applet itself. Then the notification area would normally
be completely invisible, appearing only when it's in action.

Now the indicator applet would be able to draw a handle of its own
without feeling self-conscious, and finally do away with that cursed
right click menu!


Thanks,
Dylan