unity-design team mailing list archive

[Frederik Nnaji <frederik.nnaji@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Fri, Jun 25, 2010 at 13:45, Matthew Paul Thomas <mpt@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>wrote:

> > On Wed, Jun 16, 2010 at 17:04, Matthew Paul Thomas <mpt@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> > <mailto:mpt@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
> >>
> >> To avoid that kind of confusion, a progress window -- a window that
> >> embodies a task the computer is completing, and closes itself when
> >> done - -- should not have a close button in its title bar at all.
> >
> > thank you. ditch the title bar, like Policykit does, is my suggestion.
>
> gksu does. PolicyKit, fortunately, does not.
>

oops :P



> A progress window should still be minimizable.
>

does a window really need a title bar in order to be minimizable?
That's what i'm trying to point at..

apart from that, i believe progress windows should be hide-able.
You and somebody else reasoned about a progress indicator, which would show
the states of download and disk-write processes, daniel planas made mockups
to it also IIRC..

i see no point in minimizing a window. other than to send it to Window List,
which will hopefully be deprecated with the introduction of more symbolic
window buttons such as in the window picker, dockbarX or Ubuntu Unity to the
Desktop.
Having a Window List applet is beginning to feel reatarded to me, i would
want Ubuntu to know my display and its resolution, and to adapt its UI to
that automatically.

this would mean that it should automatically display window picker applet
instead of window list on a netbook, for example.


> >> The failure to systematically distinguish progress windows, dialogs,
> >> and other window types is a long-standing design flaw in Gnome.
> >
> > Yah,.. Many of these problems will automatically vanish with the advent
> > of CSD
> >...
>
> I don't see how CSD would improve that situation at all. Can you be more
> specific?
>

That was greatly meant as kudos for walking down that stoney path
confidently ;)
You guys deserve a lot of respect for the excellent work you are doing!

CSD is a courageos step, i'm sure it will inspire many software designers to
go fullscreen and to use transparent OSDs and alpha-enabled overlay widgets
in the horizontal center of the screen for operation, kind of VLC-like.
Placing a button near the edge of a window, as somebody said in another
thread weeks ago, is not necessarily a sign of good design.

Normally, a dialog or UI should have its main interaction happening in the
middle of the screen, preferrably right under my fingers. If that is not the
case for most of what i'm doing, i guess either i'm using the wrong OS, or
the OS i'm using is not (yet) designed for usability.