unity-design team mailing list archive

[Jonathan French <me@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

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