unity-design team mailing list archive

[Christian Mackintosh <christian.mackintosh@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Sat, Apr 16, 2011 at 8:07 PM, Ian Santopietro <isantop@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> > Integrate the menu in the titlebar and have it smoothly fade in when the
> mouse moves near to it.
>
> What if I want to move a window? On a multitouch device I can use
> three-finger drag or the MT Grab Handles, but on an old fashioned mouse and
> keyboard, I can't do it at all since the title bar is now  not used for
> dragging the windows around. And it doesn't solve many of the problems
> associated with menus right now; What happens when menus are too long for
> windows is a big one. Problems like these are what the global menu are
> really trying to solve, not saving vertical screen space. We have the
> titlebar integration for that one.
>

Well for moving the window I think we would have three options:

1. Alt+click which already allows you to move the window from any part, not
just the titlebar;
2. Make right-clicking on the titlebar move the window;
3. Allow any free space in the titlebar to be used for dragging.

Personally I always alt-click to move windows as I think it's far niftier. I
don't think there's any reason we should necessarily avoid being different
from the traditional or Windows-style behaviour, Unity is already a pretty
big leap, but it may be the case that new users wouldn't know to alt-click
to move a window. This, of course, just means we have to have some way of
telling them, which probably just means putting it in the desktop guide,
which already has a pretty comprehensive beginner's guide to Unity (side
note: why is the desktop guide full of pictures of Gnome Shell?).

This of course, is the problem we face with almost all aspects of the Linux
desktop that are different from Windows, for instance who doesn't know a
beginner user who didn't know about package management and tried to download
a windows exe (or worse, a source tarball) and decided that it was
impossible, or at least prohibitively difficult, to install software on
Linux?



> > I think someone had suggested that when the application first starts, the
> window title is displayed for a few seconds before fading to the menu. If a
> window is idle for a while the title fades in.
>
> I think that may have been me (if not, I apologize), and it was slightly
> different. But this is a good solution to use with the global menu and the
> clutter issue. I initially suggested showing the menu for a second or two
> before switching to the title completely, but the one you described would
> work too. My only concern is that the title would occasionally be flashing
> in and out and alternating with the menus. This could be a distraction. I
> recommend simply displaying the title for a few seconds when the window
> opens, then fading to the menu and staying there permanently.
>

We could do that. The reason I suggested fading an inacative window back to
the title (and it would only make sense for menu-in-titlebar) is that users
might forget which programs were running (or which was which) and that would
provide an easy reference when the window wasn't in use.

I take your point about it being distracting, but I think that if it did
fade smoothly this would greatly lesson the distraction (in fact, I would
hope that users wouldn't really notice it, though without seeing it in
action that's hard to judge).

Thanks,

Christian


>
> On Sat, Apr 16, 2011 at 04:36, Christian Mackintosh <
> christian.mackintosh@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>> The points you described are valid, but with the increasing of screen
>>> sizes and the use of laptops, it's very annoying to move the mouse all the
>>> way over to the panel using the touchpad. On the other hand, users are
>>> already accustomed to have the menu bars in the window, so I don't see any
>>> valid reason to move the menu bar of all the applications to the panel.
>>> Having many small windows opened at a given moment will only increase the
>>> frustration - go to panel do something, again drag mouse to next window,
>>> drag it back up, do something, and it goes on and on...
>>>
>>
>> I could not agree more!
>>
>>
>>>
>>> In any case, I am in agreement with your solutions, and the only think I
>>> want to add is to change the complete hidden nature of the current menu
>>> bars. Users new to Unity would be totally clueless as to where the menu bar
>>> is, regardless of it's position on the panel or title bar. If the menus are
>>> slightly faded out and fades in on mouse over would look good on top of
>>> being functional.
>>>
>>
>> This is a real problem. I think fading in (like a reverse notification
>> bubble, as some have suggested) would really help things, but even if the
>> menus remain hidden I think users are far more likely to find them if
>> they're integrated in the window titlebar rather than the panel, because if
>> they're looking for a menu they're going to be mousing around the window
>> they're in, not the top of the screen.
>>
>> Nonetheless, wherever the menus end up, currently we *are* just relying on
>> users to accidentally stumble upon the menus, which seems utterly bizarre to
>> me. I know this has been discussed on the mailing list before, but something
>> really needs to be done about it.
>>
>> Personally I would take your suggestion, Toki. Integrate the menu in the
>> titlebar and have it smoothly fade in when the mouse moves near to it.
>> Failing that (I understand that it's difficult to implement fading on
>> proximity) I think someone had suggested that when the application first
>> starts, the window title is displayed for a few seconds before fading to the
>> menu. If a window is idle for a while the title fades in. IMHO this would
>> also be a neat solution.
>>
>> Christian
>>
>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On 16 April 2011 14:12, Christian Mackintosh <
>>> christian.mackintosh@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Toki,
>>>>
>>>> What Greg was saying, I think, was that throwing the mouse up to the top
>>>> edge of the screen is a very easy thing to do, in that you don't have to aim
>>>> for any target. The way menu bars normally are, and the way both he and I,
>>>> amongst others, have proposed, means that you are aiming for a smaller
>>>> target in the middle of the screen, which may be slightly slower. However, I
>>>> don't actually think that that is really a valid concern because currently
>>>> when I try to use the global menu it often works like this:
>>>>
>>>> 1) Throw mouse to top of screen
>>>> 2) Notice that this is the wrong menu (if I'm lucky! A few times I've
>>>> started searching in vain through a menu, only to realise after a few
>>>> seconds that it's not the one I want)
>>>> 3) Move mouse to application, click to focus
>>>> 4) Move mouse back to top of screen
>>>> 5) Use menu
>>>>
>>>> Whereas if the menubars were integrated into the restored window's
>>>> titlebar, the process would be thus:
>>>>
>>>> 1) Move mouse to application
>>>> 2) Use menu, even if the window wasn't focused.
>>>>
>>>> Furthermore, as I said earlier, at the very least it won't be any slower
>>>> than the previous behaviour of having separate menu bars.
>>>>
>>>> Christian
>>>>
>>>> P.S. I think(?) you forgot to CC this message to ayatana, so it just
>>>> went to me.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Sat, Apr 16, 2011 at 1:46 PM, Toki Tahmid <oxwivi@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> I think the masses has already the sense to find the titlebar in the
>>>>> window they're interacting in, so that doesn't count...
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On 16 April 2011 13:37, Christian Mackintosh <
>>>>> christian.mackintosh@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Greg,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> You are absolutely right IMHO. Nothing more to add, just lending my
>>>>>> support!
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Sat, Apr 16, 2011 at 1:29 PM, Greg K Nicholson <greg@xxxxxxxxx>wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> > However, Greg, is the downside you are describing for the current
>>>>>>> layout
>>>>>>> > with menu bar indiscriminately in title bar or the layout you're
>>>>>>> describing?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> The disadvantage I described was for the layout I described.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Having the menu always in the panel makes it quicker to acquire and
>>>>>>> click, which is good, but it appears connected to the wrong window.
>>>>>>> In
>>>>>>> my view, having the menu appear to be connected to the right window
>>>>>>> is
>>>>>>> more important than speed.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Put another way, the problem with the current layout is this: even
>>>>>>> though the menu is in a consistent place all the time, it doesn't
>>>>>>> *feel* consistent, and that's confusing.
>>>>>>> --
>>>>>>> ☮♥☯
>>>>>>> Greg K Nicholson
>>>>>>> http://gkn.me.uk
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>>>> Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~ayatana
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>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
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>>> Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~ayatana
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>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
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>>
>>
>
>
> --
> Ian Santopietro
>
> "Eala Earendel enlga beorohtast
>  Ofer middangeard monnum sended"
>
> Pa gur yv y porthaur?
>
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