← Back to team overview

unity-design team mailing list archive

Re: Global Menu mockups for Unity

 

Couldn't you solve the draggable area problem by allowing users to move the window by dragging from anywhere on the title bar, including a menu item. Menus could show on release to prevent them from showing when a user drags the window.

Matt

On 07/12/11 17:07, Dylan McCall wrote:
On Wed, Dec 7, 2011 at 8:17 AM, Farran Lee<fuzzle6@xxxxxxxxx>  wrote:
Hi guys,

I've not been involved in a mailing list for several years now, so I
apologise in advance if I do things wrong!
Also sorry if this is the wrong place to post this - I put them on a bug
report list a while ago, and somebody suggested that I submit them to you
guys.

Basically, I made some mockups a while ago (April) for Unity's Global Menu,
which everyone seems to be having trouble with.
They're quite hard to explain properly, so it's probably easier for you to
just look at them. I've tried to explain what's going on in the description
of each image.
They're obviously not perfect - I've just pulled a bunch of ideas together
and tried to make a usable concept.
I am now aware that other people have made similar mockups to mine, but at
the time I hadn't seen any of them.

Here's the link: http://anaershadowynomaly.deviantart.com/gallery/29691776

Please comment and criticize these as much as necessary, then I can try to
improve the design.
I'm more than happy to make more mockups to incorporate new or different
ideas.

Hope that all made sense :D
I do like that you're pondering how to make menu bars scale below
their preferred size. That is something missing from GTK+, and it does
cause funny behaviour sometimes. Does anyone know if they would be
interested in such behaviour upstream, or was it a conscious decision
to have menu bars so strictly sized?

In your mockup, window titles have a direct impact on menu usability,
which is a relationship that doesn't exist with other desktop
environments. In addition, window titles have a direct impact on one's
ability to drag a window. From the looks of it, the title becomes the
one draggable area on a window title bar, and since people are
encouraged to make titles shorter…

I'm concerned about both of those relationships, especially together.
I don't think we have the power to convince every app developer out
there that short window titles are actually a good idea, and I don't
think end users will appreciate the limited draggable area —
especially with the GIMP example.

Dylan

_______________________________________________
Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~ayatana
Post to     : ayatana@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~ayatana
More help   : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp





Follow ups

References