unity-design team mailing list archive

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad <joerlend.schinstad@xxxxxxxxx>]

Again.. Sorry :)

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: 	Customizable launcher tooltips
Date: 	Fri, 05 Aug 2011 20:13:59 +0200
From: 	Jo-Erlend Schinstad <joerlend.schinstad@xxxxxxxxx>
To: 	ayatana@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx



I've noticed that sometimes, depending on what
you're doing, it may be difficult to notice and read
what the tooltip says when you hover a launcher
tile. I realized that it would be easier to see if the
"bubble" were larger. But what to put in it?

Then, seeing how popular it's been to customize
the launcher quicklists, it occurred to me that it
might be just as useful and friendly to make those
tooltips customizable. For instance, the Firefox
launcher would display the progress of x downloads.
That would reduce the necessity of having the
download dialog appear all the time. Perhaps it
could be made to not appear for every single
download, but instead be added as an entry to the
Firefox quicklist? Or it might show a list of the pages
that's been updated since the last time Firefox had
focus, such as new mail in Gmail. These should be
options that users can easily choose between.

So, if you wanted to see the progress of your
downloads, then you would hover the Firefox icon.
If you wanted to cancel one of the downloads,
which is far less common, then you'd right-click
the icon and choose "Display downloads dialog".
That download dialog annoys me because it
requires actions on my part just to see what's going
on. The usability issue in that regard is similar to
those mind-wrecking notifications in Windows.

Other ideas:
    *  For the Ubuntu One client, the expanded
        tooltip would display what is being
        synchronized.
    *  For Nautilus, it would show open tabs,
        windows or "file operations" progress like the
        dismissable dialog we currently have, only
        more transient.
    *  Liferea would display the most recent updates.
    *  Totem would display details for the media file
        that's currently being played.
    *  Thunderbird would display the most recent
        emails.
    *  Xchat-gnome would display the most recent
        highlights, channels, notices or private
        messages.
    *  Gedit would display unsaved files.
    *  Gnome-terminal would display running jobs.

In summary, the main idea is to make the tooltips
larger in order to make the title of the application
more visible. But in the process, it's possible to
create a new way of gaining oversight without the
necessity of switching contexts.

Any thoughts?

Jo-Erlend Schinstad