unity-design team mailing list archive

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad <joerlend.schinstad@xxxxxxxxx>]

This question pops up from time to time. Some people would like to 
reorganize their indicators on the panel. I don't know exactly how that 
order is determined. (I would like to, so please tell). In this case, 
the specific question on AskUbuntu was how to move the weather indicator 
closer to the datetime indicator. The question can be found here: 
http://askubuntu.com/questions/108591/reorganize-indicators-in-unity

I think that's a valid use-case, but there are things to consider. There 
are at least two different groups of indicators; the app-indicators and 
the system indicators.  If it should be possible to reorganize the 
indicators at all, should it be possible to move app-indicators among 
the system indicators? If app-indicators should be reorganizable, but 
the system indicators not, then should the difference be highlighted in 
some way?

There is something to be said for consistency and I think it's specially 
important for system indicators. For app-indicators, however, I have 
experienced the wish to move some of them. For a while, I used the 
system monitor indicator, for instance. Since it uses graphics with 
colors (which does make sense for that indicator), I would want to have 
it at the very left end of the indicator area so not to break them up 
visually.

I think we can agree that we need a good tool for the Launcher. (Editing 
static quicklists, creating new entries, etc) Would it make sense if 
that tool would also allow organizing indicators, choose which to load 
at startup, when they should be visible, etc? At least for a short 
while, you could choose that for bluetooth and audio, and I think for 
power, in the system settings under different panels. Transmission and 
other applications will have that in their respective preferences. It 
would be a good thing if these things were collected in one place, I 
think. Perhaps adding Launcher and Indicators to the System Settings > 
Appearance panel?


Thoughts?

--
Jo-Erlend Schinstad