unity-design team mailing list archive

[Niklas Rosenqvist <niklas.s.rosenqvist@xxxxxxxxx>]

"What you suggested is a far reaching, non-default behavior "option"
 and I still fail to see the point of it."

That is because you still haven't read the discussion...

"I'm not sure that would work very well: the default launcher would end
up this ugly grey strip since no programs are run when you first log
on. As an user-selected option it might be ok though."

In the very beginning of this discussion we made it clear that what you just
said isn't the suggested behaviour. The view the user sees when he logs on
is supposed to be a full coloured icon strip since no applications are
running. When he starts an application it will still be a full coloured
strip until he temporarily hovers the launcher, that's when the inactive
launchers fade to grey and only the active applications are saturated and
with an illuminated background. When the user moves the cursor over an
inactive application that selected icon will be saturated again but without
the background glow to distinguish it from both the running applications and
the ones inactive. Please say that you finally can picture this and we can
go on without you ranting on something we haven't even said?

"So you want a better indicator that works with those Faenza icons,
 nothing more?"

The Faenza icons is a situation I've used as example for when it's hard to
distinguish which applications are running. It's not just for the Faenza
icons, this applies to all squared icon sets and other icon sets which fills
up the available space in the icon.

"What's wrong with adding a new simple glow effect option
 in CCSM?"

Because the background's are already quite illuminated and glows. You have
to put things into perspective when picturing a solution. With even more
glow it will just be adding more glow to the glow. With all the color and
indicators such as counters and progress bars the whole launcher gets
cluttered and more color just adds to the clutter. This way we can still let
applications use their counters and progress bars without it cluttering up
our view together with super glow and colours when we want to easily select
an application.

"Your feature request goes beyond a simple option, it introduces a
completely new launcher behavior (it now can change on mouse hover),
 and as I outlined already, it doesn't work too well."

Why would that be a major problem? It opens when we hover different areas
such as the "Ubuntu"-button or the left side of the screen. Changing
appearance of an UI-element when hovered is one of the most basic ways in
UI-design to tell the user that the current element can be interacted with.
If you look at it almost every element you can interact with in Ubuntu
changes appearance on hovering with the cursor. So why exactly would this be
a problem with the launcher?

"... I really don't think this mailing list is the place to discuss options
 for fringe scenarios."

Let me just point out that everyone who has responded to this idea has been
very positive except for you.

2011/5/4 Ed Lin <edlin280@xxxxxxxxx>

> On Tue, May 3, 2011 at 8:52 PM, Niklas Rosenqvist
> <niklas.s.rosenqvist@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > Seriously aren't you understanding what we've been talking about? Most of
> us
> > agree on that the current implementation is working fine for the default
> > Ubuntu installation but Ubuntu is very open when it comes to
> configuration
> > and it is one of it's strength's. That's why users can easily change icon
> > sets and for some icon sets the default way of showing running
> applications
> > isn't clear enough and that is why we want an option to turn on the
> fading
> > of inactive icons when the launcher is hovered to easily see what's
> running.
> > Since so many users are customizing the Ubuntu desktop I think it's vital
> to
> > have the Launcher versatile so that it works for as many people as
> possible.
> > Please refer to the mockup I linked to earlier and take a look on how it
> > looks with the Faenza icon pack.
>
> So you want a better indicator that works with those Faenza  icons,
> nothing more? What's wrong with adding a new simple glow effect option
> in CCSM?
>
> Your feature request goes beyond a simple option, it introduces a
> completely new launcher behavior (it now can change on mouse hover),
> and as I outlined already, it doesn't work too well.
>
> About options in general:
> On 02/05/11 23:57, Evan Huus wrote:
> > I'm not sure that would work very well: the default launcher would end
> > up this ugly grey strip since no programs are run when you first log
> > on. As an user-selected option it might be ok though.
>
> This really sums it up best. I cringe when I read this and it's
> symptomatic for a lot of things.
> At least it says "might".
>
> It's not OK to make an option that while it solves one particular
> problem introduces more new problems. Such option is completely
> pointless. If you want such particular feature you could write a CCSM
> plugin, patch the launcher or use/write an alternative dock but I
> really don't think this mailing list is the place to discuss options
> for fringe scenarios. Coming up with a visual indicator that works
> better for different icon sets or even a better default launcher is.
> What you suggested is a far reaching, non-default behavior "option"
> and I still fail to see the point of it.
>
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