unity-design team mailing list archive

[shane lee <shaneymail@xxxxxxxxx>]

@ John
I REALLY wish there were more replies on the mailing lists like this that
actually gives proper reasons for why certain actions are taken.

Your posting actually alleviates many of my concerns with the LIM but I am
still concerned about the fiddliness of using vertical menus and how easy
it is to slip off the menus altogether but I'm not sure of a fix to that
other than being more careful.

Though when all is said and done I think I prefer to stick with the global
menu so I'm hoping any intruduction of LIM does not lead to global menu
being ripped out altogether?

On 14 March 2012 10:27, John Lea <john.lea@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>  Hi All,
>
> Thx for the feedback, but might it not be a bit premature to start
> critiquing functionality before you have tried using it?  I am reasonably
> confident that nobody who has replied to this thread has yet used LIM
> because a) not all the code for it has been finished  b) the first post
> makes a bunch on incorrect assumptions about how LIM works, and none of the
> replies have pointed this out!  Anyhow, in the interests of not letting
> this get in the way of a good discussion... ;-)
>
> So here is a quick light hearted locally integrated menus Q&A to hopefully
> clear up any misconceptions:
>
> Q. What are locally integrated menus?
>
> A.  Menus within the context of each individual window.
>
> Q.  How are these menus displayed?
>
> A.  There are two options, either traditional menus at the top of each
> window, or menus integrated into the window title bar.
>
> Q.  What do you mean by menus integrated into the window title bar?
>
> A.  Click on the Window Title in the window title bar and the root level
> menu is revealed as a... menu!
>
> Q.  Some apps don't have menus.  How do I know that when I click the
> Window Title a menu will be revealed?
>
> A.  Apps that have menus will have a small, subtle icon to the left of the
> window indicating that a menu is available.  A similar design pattern is
> already used in applications on other platforms.
>
> Q.  ahhh, fewwww, for a moment I thought I would have to click or move my
> mouse  over that itsy bitsy tini wini small icon every time I needed to
> reveal a menu.  I was already having nightmares about it!
>
> A.  No need to worry, we wouldn't make you target such a small area every
> time you needed a menu ;-)
>
> Q.  How about the idea of displaying the menu in the window title bar
> horizontally?
>
> A.  This was our initial idea.  However with this design you run into a
> bunch problems with both dragging the window and with small windows.  We
> went through all the possibilities of how we could solve these problems
> with things like having a reserved space on the right hand side of the
> window title bar for dragging, etc..., but this still impacted window
> management and was a very hackish, dirty solution.  And there was still the
> problem of small windows.
>
> Q.  I don't want to click to reveal menu!  I have RSI, and every click
> hurts so I try to keep clicks to a minimum.
>
> A.  Then used the 'traditional menu' option.  You loose screen real
> estate, and you have to look at menus all the time, but that additional
> click is avoided.
>
> Q.  But why can't you just reveal the menu on mouseover?  Surly this is a
> better solution?
>
> A.  Again this was part of the initial idea, along with menus integrated
> into the window title bar itself horizontally.  However this also affected
> window dragging, and we set ourselves a design baseline of not regressing
> window drag behavior in any way.  In addition, the dev team pointed out
> that having menu reveal on mouseover would not work well with X, would
> require changes to IndicatorAppMenu, and would more than double the
> required development time.  So usability regressions for window dragging +
> the thought of doubling the required development budget conspired to kill
> this idea.
>
> Q. Tell me more about how the menu is revealed, won't clicking on the
> Window Title to reveal the menu also get in the way of dragging windows?
>
> A. The menu is only revealed on the *release* of a normal click.  A 'hold'
> won't display the menu when it is released, and large pointer movement
> between the 'press' and 'release' of the click will similarly stop the menu
> from being displayed.  However small amounts of mouse movement are
> tolerated, as there is almost always a small amount of unintentional mouse
> movement, even in the low millisecond time range between the 'press' and
> 'release' of the click.  The result of this behavior is that you can drag
> the window by clicking on any point in the window title bar without
> worrying about accidentally revealing the menu.  However if you want to
> reveal the menu all you have to do is click!
>
> Q.  Sounds great!  When can I start using it?
>
> A.  Thanks for your enthusiasm, but there is still some way to go before
> it is ready to use.  The design is still under consideration, and we
> haven't yet completed user testing which may well drive further changes.
> Also while this is an important feature, 12.04 is a LTS, and for a LTS the
> primary concern is stability.  This feature did not hit our quality
> standards by the required deadline, and as much as I love this feature it
> is more important that we don't do anything that might jeopardize making
> 12.04 a rock solid release.
>
> Q. That's all well and good, but you haven't answered my question about
> when I can start using it.
>
> A. We are looking at options for bringing LIM into 12.04 post-release, but
> I can't promise anything yet, and it may well be that LIM becomes a 12.10
> feature.
>
>
> I hope that answers some of your questions ;-)  I look forward to a more
> in-depth discussion and good constructive bug reports as soon as this
> feature is ready and made available for testing.
>
> thanks,
> John
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On 14/03/12 04:48, Omar B. wrote:
>
>  I have to agree that LIM is not the best solution and could have some
> issues.
>
> From all the feedback in bug 682788, was able to conclude that a better
> solution would be something combined from these 2 urls:
>
> http://musl1m.deviantart.com/art/Windicators-well-sort-of-203350326
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/unity/+bug/682788/comments/106
>
> That would probably satisfy most users.
>
>  ------------------------------
> Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2012 00:30:10 +0000
> From: shaneymail@xxxxxxxxx
> To: f_padia@xxxxxxxxxxx
> CC: unity-design@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Re: [Unity-design] (no subject)
>
> I agree about LIM.  I used a similar system on KDE (oxygen-appmenu) and at
> first I liked it a lot but over time it becomes a huge annoyance.
> It feels inconvenient when you are just trying to get to a particular menu
> item quickly (which is where the HUD could prove invaluable) and it can be
> frustrating when you open a submenu and the mouse goes slightly in the
> wrong place and in trying to correct you end up losing the menu and have to
> start again.
> As far as I'm concerned, LIM is NOT the way to go unless it is optional
> and not default.
>
> As far as your idea goes for integrating into the titlebar:
> This is something I have also suggested in various places and seems the
> perfect solution.
> The menu is out of sight when not needed but just as easy to access as
> traditional (boring) window menus.
> The best bit is, it's consitent with the global menu so users who choose
> to have the menu on the menubar or integrated into individual windows would
> still be instantly familiar with the behavior (windo title replaced by menu
> on mouse-over).
>
> My only concern about your specific idea is the menu icon may be too small
> a target for many users.
> Discovery probably wouldn't be a problem since users would likely
> mouse-over the menu icon just to see what it is but more experienced users
> would want to move their mouse where the expect the menu entry to be, not
> move to the menu icon then move across to the menu entry.
>
> I think for such an idea to fully work, one would need to be able to place
> the mouse in any part of the title bar.
>
>
>
> On 14 March 2012 00:11, Faheem Padia <f_padia@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>  Sorry to re-post but I've been advised that emailing all contacts the
> way I had first time wasn't the best way of starting a discussion so this
> should correct that...
>
> Hello to all,
>
> I have just joined the list because I had a design idea for the
> implementation of the locally integrated menus that are supposed to be
> introduced at some point. I originally put the idea on brainstorm but it
> was marked as 'not an idea' on the basis that unity design is actively
> discussed in other places. I guessed this was on such place where my
> idea might be more appropriately voiced but if I am wrong please let me
> know. Anyway on to the idea...
>
> Basically from the opinions of other Ubuntu users I have read (mostly on
> OMGUbuntu) I understand that LIM is not particularly popular in its
> current form. The 2 main criticisms I have come across commonly are that
> 1. having a vertical menu is not convenient and requires re-learning the
> arrangement of menu items unnecessarily and
> 2. implementing LIM would mean an additional click is required to
> actually see the menu which is counter-productive
>
> so my idea so solve both of these would be to have an animated reveal of
> the menu horizontally in the window title bar when the mouse hovers over
> the menu icon. This would keep the menu as close to how it is currently
> but also introduce the LIM concept of having the menu attached to the
> title bar of an application. This solution also doesnt introduce any new
> problems of dragging windows (that I have come across from other ideas)
> since the menu only reveals when the mouse passes over the menu icon and
> not over the title bar in general.
>
> I'm sure a number of ideas for this have been explored and I apologise
> if this particualr idea has also been discussed but it would be
> interesting to hear other peoples opinions nonetheless.
>
> Thanks
>
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>
> --
> John Lea | Ubuntu Desktop User Experience Lead
> Canonical  www.canonical.com | Ubuntu  www.ubuntu.com
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