unity-design team mailing list archive

["frederik.nnaji@xxxxxxxxx" <frederik.nnaji@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Appi,

On Sat, Oct 2, 2010 at 00:55, Apoorva Sharma <appi2012@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Right now, the Messaging Menu and MeMenu are kind of connected, in that the
> functionality of the MeMenu changes by clicks in the Messaging Menu. For
> example, to get a text box for a broadcast account in the MeMenu, the user
> has to go to the Messaging Menu to start Gwibber. Furthermore, to actually
> use the inactive status buttons in the MeMenu, the user has to start chat
> from the messaging menu, To me, this split functionality causes some
> problems. Especially since the two menus are separated by a large
> date-time-weather applet, how is a user supposed to know how to use the
> MeMenu, since all its functions need to be activated from the messaging
> menu?
>
> One solution could be merging the two menus, but that could create too
> large a menu. A better solution could be to have the textbox and buttons
> appear when the user sets up the two accounts for the first time, and to
> keep them active. Thus, if the user selects something other than offline as
> their status, the chat service should automatically start running in the
> background. Also, if someone types in the textbox, an Gwibber isn't running
> in the background, it should start by itself. This has the advantage of
> allowing the functionalities of the MeMenu to be easily discovered and used,
> while still keeping a separation between the "new message" indicator, and
> the "my status" menu.
>

https://bugs.launchpad.net/indicator-me/+bug/452067

This is the bug currently associated with the problem you found..
A lot of discussion has taken place, the main part of the problem is in the
Preferred Applications¹ dialog:
There is no way of choosing e.g. pidgin or skype as main app for IM in
Ubuntu.

An example: Martha calls Jane via VoIP
Martha demonstrates Ubuntu to her friend Jane. Since Jane is used to making
free international videocalls with Skype, Martha decides to show Jane, how
Skype can also work like that in Ubuntu.
She sets her "Preferred Application for VoIP" to Skype, then she opens the
contact list and calls Jane.

Eventually, things will be consistent and simple, thereby easy and easily
learnable. Right now there's a little dissipation and the interface is
disfunctional.
Preferred Applications¹ needs to be reworked, so much i know. It is a
central pillar in the UI, since this dialog represents the type of
personalization we want to allow users to undertake manually.


¹ http://library.gnome.org/users/user-guide/2.27/prefs-preferredapps.html.en