← Back to team overview

unity-design team mailing list archive

Re: Minimize on launcher icon click

 

Hi all,

On 30/04/12 19:26, Jo-Erlend Schinstad wrote:
The design spec says if that an application supports multiple windows,
but there's only one open, then clicking the launcher entry should
display a spread with the already existing window, and an equal square
which represents a new window. Clicking it will create that window.

I don't know what should happen if the application both has only one
window and doesn't support others. But suddenly minimizing windows in
that situation would be non-didactic since you're likely to want to open
a new window or access the spread. The same button must not be used to
both view and hide in different situations.

Ah, I hadn't seen that part of the spec. Interesting. I still think that in a lot of cases the button will be doing nothing, since this will presumably only work in apps with support specifically added for it.

On 30/04/12 20:18, Nekhelesh wrote:
1. Ubuntu 12.10 and onwards will have the new Unity spread behaviour where when you click on the application icon, it either launches the application if it is not open. If the application is already open, then it will initiate the new Unity spread which was described in detail by John Lea.
I know about the new Spread behaviour, as I mentioned this patch doesn't interfere with that.

On 30/04/12 22:27, Connor Carney wrote:
Click-to-minimize breaks the fundamental concept of the unity launcher: clicking on an application indicates that you want to use it. Hiding the application when you want to use it is exactly the wrong behaviour.
I'm not sure it's better to favour purity over pragmatic usability...


For those who were wondering what the use case is --- two examples where I often use it:

1. Bringing up an IM or other small window, typing in it and then being able to minimize it again without moving the mouse.

2. Bringing up a large window, like a browser, over a set of carefully arranged windows (<3 Compiz Grid plugin) and then minimizing it again in one click to expose the windows underneath without having to touch every one.


I can see how this might be more of a kludgy overload on the icon click with the Spread behaviour that activates even with only one window, but if some applications don't allow multiple windows I still think there'll be lots of cases where the button click does nothing. (There might even be cases, like with a browser, where it does support multiple windows but that's not usually what you want. But that's beside the point.)

The key thing here I think is the case where the button does nothing at all, not even any indication that your click was received. If we don't get the minimize, can we at least somehow pulse the active window or something to draw attention to it? Personally I'd prefer using it to do something useful and minimize the window, but I think giving some indication it knows you've clicked is a minimum.

Regardless of what the click does, could we include the minimize right click option? That way the use cases still work, if with two clicks rather than one, and it also adds a "minimize all windows of an app" feature that Unity currently lacks.

Thanks for all your responses.
Jonathan French



Follow ups

References