unity-design team mailing list archive

[David <david.reichling@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Holy shit gmail removed somehow when i make a new line.
Resending my mail:
Hi,
i didn't explained my idea good enough and you and probably others
have understand me wrong.
so i try to explain with different words.
the basic idea is that when you turn the computer on it shows the
minimum of indicators thats
possible.
http://unity.exemo.net/panel_beginning.png
you can expand them by clicking on the arrow:
http://unity.exemo.net/panel_expanded.png

when an "event" happens 4 different things can happen:
a: show only a notification
b: show a notification and show an indicator
   (if the indicator is already visible add an entry to the menu)
c: show a notification and hide an indicator
d: remove an entry from an indicator menu
   (if its the last entry the indicator will be hidden)

The nofifications are like now and will fade in and after a few sec. fade out.
The indicators will be show at an event and remain visible until later
when another event hides it again

Examples:
Event: Files will be uploaded to ubuntu one
  What happens:
    a:    -show notification: x files will be uploaded ...

Event: You get a new mail
  What happens:
    b:   - show notification: You got a new mail ...
          - show message indicator
          - http://unity.exemo.net/new_mail.png

Event: You remove the cable from your laptop
  What happens ->
    b:    - show notification: You have x hours left ...
           - show batteryindicator
           - http://unity.exemo.net/mail_and_battery.png

Event: You focus the chat window
  What happens:
    d    - remove the previously added "chat-notification-entry" from
the message menu

Event: You connect the cable to your laptop
  What happens -> c:
    - show notification: Battery will be full in ...
    - hide battery indicator
    - http://unity.exemo.net/panel_expanded.png

> Why? What problem would it be solving?
That's a good question (as always ;-))There has been already a lot of
work done in the top right corner and i don't see any real problems
with what we currently have. The only thing is that i have currently 8
indicators that are always visible. Other users might have more or
less. I just think that it would look better when you have a maximised
application and you have less indicators visible.
(the minimum possible)
I think for the same reason that the window buttons are not
visible when not needet.

> If the messaging menu was hidden by default, what use would it be?
I didn't mean to use the messaging menu like we have it today.
More something like a list of the latest notifications that you got
Looking something like this: http://ubuntuone.com/3pQaNx9TdpPXEZHMIjPgdP
except not the tabs at the bottom

> How do you classify devices under "notification indicators"? What
> would this notify you of?
(using the word notifications was not really a good idea from me.)
We could show for example an entry for every device where it makes
sense. Every entry could contain a menu with actions
For example
- UsbStick
   - Documents (17) // open gnome-documents
   - Videos (3) // open gnome videos
   - see all files // open nautilus
- Video DVD
   - Watch Movie // open totem
   - Import or Rip Movie // open ...
etc
This could remove the need to open a window in situations like this:

"If a new printer is plugged in and recognized automatically while
neither a Print dialog nor System Settings (any panel) is open, System
Settings should open to the Printers panel, the list of printers
should scroll to show the new printer, and it should be selected in
the list. (This is analogous to a USB storage device window opening
when it is connected.)"

But i have to say that i have not really thought a lot about how the
specific indicators could look like. I just wanted to give a few
examples.

> People didn't see the updates notification area item even when it was
> shown by default. What use would it be if it was hidden? :-)
The reason why some people don't see it is in my opinion because we
have indicators where some people don't care about.
Lets say we have a user who uses his computer only to look his mails
(in gmail) and
to browse the internet. His first time where he uses ubuntu he look
around and finds out how to connect to the internet, ... (or a friend
shows him)
But after that the internet connect automatically etc and he
just look at the top-right to look at the clock and maybe adjust the
volume when he is in youtube.
He simply doesn't care about what else is there.

When i look how it works for example in android:
At the top left you have the name of your carrier and nothing else
When you got 1 or more
notifications the carrier will be replaced with 1 or more icons.
You now have icons where before where only text. You see that immediatly
and choose based on the icons if you want to check the
notification now, later or just clear it.
If i am right about this people will notice the update-indicator.
Because if only the things that are important for
them are visible and they see an unknown icon they will check if its
maybe important too? (at least i think so)

> Also, a menu item wouldn't show enough information for you to be able
> to decide whether you want to update a particular application.
That's right. As is said earlier i just wanted to give a few examples and
maybe it doesn't make sense to show an update-indicator.

> Why? What would be the use of collecting progress of different tasks
> into a menu?
AFAIK there are basicly 2 forms of progress in applications.
a: You have for example firefox, torrents, ... where you can still use the
application while tasks (download) is running in the background.
b: On the other side we have applications that you can no longer use when a
task is running. The only reason not to hide the application is to look
at how many % the task is or to see more details about whats happening
while a task is running. For example update-manager, synaptic, ...
I think for "a" it is good because you can see how far for example
your download is without having to switch to firefox.
For "b" developers could offer a feature to hide the application and by
clicking on the entry in the progress-indicator or when the task is
finished show the application again.

> (As a comparison, should we also collect errors from different tasks
> into a single menu? Why or why not? How about selected text from
> different tasks? Or the most recently opened file from different tasks?)

I don't know, but we would need to define whats kind of things should be shown.

> The Dash is hidden by default, and the launcher is usually hidden. Do
> you think it is reasonable to hide the clock most of the time?
I don't know. That's why i asked that question at the bottom.
For me it would be ok to move the mouse to the left to see the clock.
But i have absolutely no idea how others think about that. It would be like in
windows when you have your taskbar set to autohide. Except that windows
doesn't hide it per default and we do.

> Your arrangement would hide it even when it is discharging.
as i said in the example at the top it would show the indicator when
discharging and hide it again when charging.

> Does that mean it should be shown by default?
I don't think. But i mentioned it here because someone has maybe a
nice idea for that.We could show it as soon as you start an
application that can play music.(If there is at least on application
in Sound-Settings -> Applications)

> How does this relate to indicator menus?
Not at all.I write this because if like in my idea we want to have the
minimum possible amount
of indicators with a feature like that all indicators that are only
there to hide an application could be removed

> Hmm, that seems a little bit backwards. Usually when music starts
> playing, it's because you told it to play, so you don't need a
> notification in that case.
Here too what i wanted to say is that the sound-indicator should fade
in. But no notification bubble should be shown.
(While listening to music you might want to adjust the volume)

> On the other hand, the sound menu currently
> lets you quickly start music playing in the first place -- and it
> wouldn't be nearly so quick if it was hidden by default.
That's one of the reasons why i said for some people it could become
annoying. Don't know what to do about this.
Maybe people who listen a lot of music could put their musicplayer in
the launcher and start
playing music from the quicklist?

> I haven't yet seen an application where this is a problem. Do you know
> of one?
No. but when i see how many indicators Roland has there are maybe
applications with problems.

> That in particular is an interesting idea. But if you used the menu to
> connect to one wi-fi network, but then realized you should have
> connected to another one instead (that happened to me last week), the
> menu wouldn't be there any more.
That's why you can always expand system indicators by clicking on the arrow.
They are just hidden but not gone.

> It would be rather strange that a Me menu (that Ubuntu doesn't even
> have any more!) would be visible by default, but a clock would not.
With me menu it didn't mean to use it 100% like we had it.
That's why i added like gnome-shell.
What if we would remove the "me menu" and show the clock instead?
A problem that i see with that approach is that people will not expect a
menuentry to shut down their pc when clicking at the clock.
But maybe we could put shutdown at the dashs' first page?
Nice day
David Reichling