unity-design team mailing list archive

[Jonathan Meek <shrouded.cloud@xxxxxxxxx>]

I recently say the post on OMG!Ubuntu! about the possibility of dark
toolbars being included for Oneiric and this sparked an interesting debate
among someone I know who I asked to draft his thoughts on the issue for post
to the Ayatana list for discussion. Here it is:


PROBLEM:
The management of maximised windows in Unity is principally flawed and could
potentially cause confusion.
This problem arises due to the location of the toolbars of maximised
windows, and the global menu in the Unity panel.
Consider the screenshot at
http://cdn.omgubuntu.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/2011-07-19-150134_1366x768_scrot-1.png.
In the screenshot, you can see that because of the dark theming of the
toolbar of the image preview window, it appears to be a part of the panel
and the global menu.
The screenshot demonstrates a situation in which this is undesirable. It may
appear to the user that the toolbar for the image preview application is a
part of the global menu for the settings application. A similar problem may
arise in the event that a user has, for instance, two documents open in a
word processor, and one maximised behind another unmaximised window. In this
case, it may appear that the toolbar of the window behind operates on the
window in front. This could cause confusion and annoyance.
SOLUTIONS:
There are a number of potential solutions, including theming inactive
windows differently and displaying the title bar of full screen windows.
In my opinion, the best solution I have observed is the solution in use on
Mac OS X Lion. Lion creates a dynamic workspace for each maximised  window,
in effect treating maximised (or full-screen) applications as additional
workspaces. This means that it is impossible to end up with a situation
where an unmaximised window is in front of a maximised window.

>From Jonathan Rothwell <jonathan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>