unity-design team mailing list archive

[Jonathan Meek <shrouded.cloud@xxxxxxxxx>]

Given the new behaviour of Unity-greeter, it's somewhat astounding that the
transition from log-in to desktop was not addressed. We still have a very
stuttery implementation currently.

Now, going back, I believe Sam Spilsbury posted on his blog about the idea
of a mini compositor to alleviate that. (And, for all I know, this may be
"fixed" by Wayland.) But I want to propose that we create a consistent
animation for Unity to appear after login and disappear at
shutdown/lockscreen. Right now, things just appear, period. Wallpaper, full
stop. Top bar with "Ubuntu Desktop", fullstop. Indicators, full stop. Etc.

Instead of this, why don't we use a small animation to symbolically show
that the user in the login box is taking over*, pass to a mini-compositor
to make sure their background stays on the screen, hand it all over to
compiz and keep the wall up. Now, from there, make it so that Unity doesn't
show up until it's all ready/loaded and have the top bar slide down from
the top of the screen and once that is complete, THEN slide in the launcher
from the left and lock it in place.

Just an idea that needs some refinement still, have at it!

*My current idea for it doesn't work as well for login as it does locking
the screen, so I'll just detail the lock screen animation: Using the
current behavior of the screen fading before locking, we have the whole
screen fading to a black, as this is happening, the launcher slides out to
the left, the top bar fades to it's lightDM transparency, the screen over
all continues to fade until its overlay fade matches the Unity-greeter
login box. From there the overlay would condense and resize to the login
box itself. Then it would fade out properly or something.

Sorry I don't have an animation, came up with the idea and wanted to share,
hopefully what I've said it clear enough that you can picture it.