unity-design team mailing list archive

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

On Fri, Jan 7, 2011 at 10:46, Matthew Paul Thomas <mpt@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> frederik.nnaji@xxxxxxxxx wrote on 28/12/10 20:40:
> >
> > MPT, here's shot at it, i took my time to do it in Inkscape now ;)
> >
> > it portrays a new Me/Messaging Menu layout.
>
> That's intriguing. I don't understand what the gap is for, though, or
> how the bottom items work. Are they expanding sections?
>

yes, i thought so at first, but then i changed the design again, because
that was too much FX for one little menu imo.
Now i think Mail should have 1 single inbox item for all folders. Perhaps 1
Item per email account.
The bottom items should basically take you to the next more detailed view,
be it a preview or the respective app itself.
So yeah, in this version of the design they were meant as expanding
sections, just like the AppIndicator part on the "Wingpanel" up top.


> So that people can easily tell where where one menu stops and the next
> begins, all menu titles need to be one icon and/or (preferably or) one
> piece of text. Three icons plus text is way too much.
>

yessurrr, i coming to notice that gradually, cleaning that up now..


>  > state:
> > * DoNotDisturb is off
> > * About Me needs a good place to go
>
> I think Gnome 3 is (finally!) abandoning About Me anyway.
>

i liked how you simplified About Me[1].
Perhaps this could be some kind of "card" that i can flip around, in order
to add or manage my service accounts!?
..for popular social networking services, email, IM etc..

( * service)    dropdown:[Google|Yahoo!|Jabber|Facebook|Skype|...]


 > * no new IM conversations ('cause i'm not sure how to populate that
> > view best)
> > * no status text field for now..
>
> A design for something like this needs to still look okay when including
> all possible elements. You can decide to abolish particular elements,
> but it needs to be deliberate. :-)
>

fixing that now, thanks!


>  > * real name in panel, consistent with GDM greeter
>
> That should still be optional (because some people have wide names), so
> if we don't have About Me, we'd need to figure out somewhere else to put
> the option.
>

As stated above, i like your redesign of About Me very much, i think that is
where things should go.
About Me should be a place for everything about me, my facebook, my google,
my this and my that, all in one compact overview.


>  > tbh, i still don't see the significance of having available, invisible
> > and offline in the menu, nevertheless here it is, by the spec.
>
> They're three distinct states in most IM clients. But that's probably
> better discussed in the "do not disturb" thread.
>

The Me Menu is not an IM client, it is a system status menu, that's why i
see it a bit differently at the moment, until i understand the design
intentions better..

 > In our effort to reduce the number of "icons" in the UI, i also omitted
> > the dot that would identify which Presence state is currently enabled.
> > I think that should be obvious, since it is shown in the panel already,
> > and there are more icon-free ways of highlighting stuff as "active",
> > Perhaps the text "busy" should be bold-faced?
> >...
>
> Whether the status is in the title depends on how you fix the title (to
> not have three icons any more).


i fixed that. Now i'm not sure the bubble is good enough a symbol for the
menu..
It is not generic since it refers to "speech" somehow, but that can also be
an advantage..


> But regardless, simplifying this menu by
> presenting a one-of-several state (IM status) in a custom way would make
> Ubuntu's *overall* interface more complex. People would need to learn
> two ways that Ubuntu presented one-of-several states, rather than one.
>

Do you mean using a custom icon would make things confusing?
I didn't quite understand this last paragraph, though i smell some valuable
insight..


[1] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MeMenu#Changes%20to%20About%20Me