unity-design team mailing list archive

[Conscious User <conscioususer@xxxxxxxxx>]

> If you think in terms of click areas only, the launcher is a series of
> hot boxes you can click on. By having the launcher re-fold constantly,
> those boxes always return to the same position, which allows for users
> to have a higher degree of confidence about what they are about to mouse
> into, even with a hidden launcher.

I agree that predictability is important, but I think the current
implementation prioritizes *overall* predictability (a.k.a. launcher
*always* returns to *the same fixed position*), when it should be
prioritizing *recent* predictability (a.k.a. launcher stays as much
as possible in the position it was the *last time the mouse was
over it*), which top folding would allow.

> Further if you are looking for
> something at the bottom of the launcher, having the mouse enter the
> launcher at any position will cause it to unfold at that position as
> well (so the item it enters over stays under the mouse).

And because of that, an extra movement of the mouse is required if
you miss the target, something that gets more and more likely to
happen as the number of icons increase, and can get quite annoying
if the use is frequently clicking on icons at the bottom.

And since bottom means recently opened in the Unity launcher, the
bottom part tends to concentrate the windows involved in the
current workflow, so this situation does not seem rare.