unity-design team mailing list archive

[Josh Strawbridge <holyknightjoshua@xxxxxxxxx>]

i think Alan's suggestion was more that we needed an editor instead of
where to click to show the editor.
basically saying we need a more unity specific alacarte and just mentioned
two places that seemed like logical access points.

alacarte does have the basics l but i don't think it's really a good
solution to the user's suggestion at least not without some work done to it.

it doesn't give the option to add the .desktop file to the launcher as was
a part of Alan's suggestion.
it doesn't give the option to add it user specifically or system wide as
Alan's suggestion did.
it can't show/hide or add/remove dash filters as you mentioned.
it can't add/edit quicklists as you mentioned.
it doesn't add things into the filters into the dash even if it's in a menu
that the dash already has.
it creates extra .desktop files in ~/.local/share/applications each time
you move something to a different menu causing duplicates of that item to
show up in the dash.

it is logical that the editor would be in the system settings and it also
seems like a good quick access point would be right clicking on the dash
button since the editor would affect things in the dash and launcher.

a number of us have been missing a decent user friendly not buggy way to
edit our new menus (dash/launcher) since unity hit in 11.04.

On Sun, Feb 19, 2012 at 9:48 AM, Jo-Erlend Schinstad <
joerlend.schinstad@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> On 19. feb. 2012 15:36, Alan Bell wrote:
>
>> One common request is to add arbitary applications to the launcher. This
>> is *hard* right now, you have to manually write a
>>
>
> It's not hard, actually. It's quite easy. Install Alacarte. You can then
> edit your menus to your hearts desire. Adding new items and menus is very
> easy and they will then appear in the dash. However, what Alacarte doesn't
> do, is to add static Quicklists (defined in the .desktop file) and other
> modern stuff. So either Alacarte needs to be modernized or we're going to
> need a replacement sooner or later.
>
> I would personally want it to be added as an entry in system settings.
> You'd then have the main pane mostly as it is now, and then add new panes
> for shell specific features for Unity, Gnome Shell, etc. We do still have
> the old dialog that appeared when right-clicking the desktop and "Create
> new launcher" or something, so that could very easily be reused. I don't
> remember what it's called, though I seem to remember it having something to
> do with Nautilus. However, I would much prefer to have the menu editor in
> system settings rather than accessing dialogs by right-clicking desktop
> widgets. It also makes it more generally useful with regards to other
> shells. It would immediately work for both Gnome Shell, Unity and Gnome
> Panel.
>
> I would have nothing against adding a Quicklist entry to the Ubuntu
> button, though. "Edit launchers" could open the system settings entry for
> menus. I don't think that'd disrupt anything. I think it would be the only
> place on the launcher where it would make sense to add such an option. For
> now, perhaps it could be solved by adding a quicklist entry that launches
> Alacarte. Since it isn't installed by default, I think maybe that quicklist
> entry should be added to Alacarte so that after it's installed, the Ubuntu
> button gets a new quicklist entry. That should be an easy enough job that
> it could be done in Precise.
>
> There are some unresolved issues with simply using Alacarte as is. As I
> mentioned before, it provides no way of adding quicklists. Another thing is
> that if you add another menu to the applications menu, it won't appear as a
> category in the application lens filters. This means that even though it'll
> appear in searches and in recent apps, it will not appear if you browse
> categories in the applications lens. It's really a separate issue, but I
> mention it because that might cause some confusion. This is probably a bug.
> The lens should display the "Others" category (non-categorized). I reported
> that issue here: https://bugs.launchpad.net/**ubuntu/+source/unity-lens-**
> applications/+bug/936296<https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/unity-lens-applications/+bug/936296>
>
> It's a very interesting subject, but I think it's not as easy as where to
> click in order to show the editor. There are lots of smaller issues to take
> into account.
>
> Jo-Erlend Schinstad
>
>
>
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-- 
Josh Strawbridge