unity-design team mailing list archive

[Jonathan Meek <shrouded.cloud@xxxxxxxxx>]

An excellent overview of the perceived issues. Basically: the launcher
items are fancy bookmarks which my browser already has. These are supposed
to be Web *apps* not web *bookmarks*.

It is primarily the launcher behavior, yes. But you can't ignore that these
apps open like any other webpage (making them just another site that I can
happen to control elsewhere), and that by not being chromeless, they will
never really be a first-class citizen to Ubuntu, but a first-class citizen
to Firefox.

WRT coding, I'm not too good at it myself.

Again, don't get me wrong, I love the work being done, but the UX needs
improvement. (As well Reddit always makes my messaging menu light up. As
soon as I figure out why, will report a bug.)


On Thu, Jan 10, 2013 at 11:10 AM, Yann Brelière <yannbreliere@xxxxxxxxx>wrote:

>
> On Thu, Jan 10, 2013 at 4:38 PM, Alex Launi <alex.launi@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>wrote:
>
>>
>> On Jan 10, 2013, at 10:26 AM, Yann Brelière <yannbreliere@xxxxxxxxx>
>> wrote:
>>
>> Like Jonathan said, I think Jeremy Bicha's suggestions were good: I like
>> the idea of having additional integration for my mails, music, etc. But I
>> don't want to clutter my launcher just because I have a tab open.
>>
>>
>> Why not? What about the icon at the bottom of your launcher bothers you?
>> Do you think that your opinion is a reflection of the general case? I'm
>> curious, because never has a launcher icon caused me a second thought.
>>
>>
> I think there are several things.
> * The fact that they don't behave like other launcher icons (discussed
> bellow) : they can't be pinned/unpinned, when clicked, they open something
> from another launcher item, so they don't have the little 'pip' on the
> right to tell me it's launched...
> It's the same problem as the trash and usb drive icons that launch a new
> window from the "home folder" launcher item instead of launching an
> independent window, so they don't appear like running.
> See also these bugs about bad launcher behavior for these:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/unity/+bug/753938,
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/unity/+bug/713423,
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/unity/+bug/692444.
> * Maybe also the fact that I don't feel like I'm using an app if I visit a
> page versus opening it from the dash (see bellow also).
> * And I like organizing my launcher, so an icon that appears down there
> catches my attention for no reason. I don't know if it's a reflection of
> the general case, but Jeremy, mpt and Jonathan seem to agree that these
> launcher items are perceived as clutter.
>
>
>> Designers (hopefully) reading this thread, what has testing revealed
>> here? Are people generally territorial over their launchers?
>>
>>
>> Visiting a page shouldn't open a launcher item, but opening it from the
>> launcher explicitly could launch an independent chrome-less browser window.
>> There might be other suggestions for integration with the launcher, but
>> currently, it's painful.
>>
>>
>> How do you propose getting that icon on the launcher in the first place
>> if it doesn't appear when you open a tab? There seems to be a bit of a
>> chicken-egg problem here, or could you elaborate on how you see this
>> behavior working.
>>
>>
> I feel that installing a webapp should be like installing an app (except
> that I can install it from my browser). Once installed, I should be able to
> launch it from the dash, which would open a new window, so the launcher
> item actually represents a real window, not a sub-part of another launcher
> item. Clicking the launcher item (if it's pinned or already open) would
> launch the window (or open it if it's not already), not switch to a tab of
> an unrelated launcher item (my browser).
> So they would be really independent. I can benefit from integration
> (notifications, soundmenu, etc) by just visiting the tab, but if I want it
> in my launcher, it should be an independent action that opens an
> independent app.
>
>
>>
>> If I could add/remove a launcher for GMail (currently, removing the
>> launcher icon closes the tab, it's very frustrating), it would be great.
>> But now, it's all or nothing. I can't have GMail's dektop notifications
>> without having the launcher icon always visible. I can't get notifications
>> and soundmenu integration for Grooveshark without having an icon popping in
>> the launcher each time I open it.
>>
>>
>> This is a good bug, thank you.
>>
>>
>> I pin my GMail, G+, calendar, etc as app tabs in Firefox because it
>> allows me to keep them open and always visible without taking too much
>> space in the tabs strip. So even though I would love better desktop
>> integration for these, I don't use it, as it has the opposite effect:
>> taking a lot of space somewhere else.
>>
>> > having items bob in and out of the Launcher just because you're
>> currently on a particular Web site is asinine.
>>
>> About the main topic of the sound menu, I agree with everything mpt said:
>> if a youtube tab is open (either by mistake or because I'm watching one),
>> it should be controllable and visible in the soundmenu.
>>
>>
>> Yann
>>
>>
>> My conclusions of your criticisms are essentially that the launcher
>> behavior is where most of your complaints wrt webapps are from. you want
>> the other integration points, but you feel a territorialism over launcher
>> real estate. You feel as though maybe we're invoking imminent domain on
>> you. This seems like an easy fix. Do you code?
>>
>>
> Yes, but I'm a web developer, and I code in Perl and I know a bit of
> python. If it's C or C++, it's out of my area... And I would have to learn
> bzr and anything else needed.
>
>
> Thanks,
>
> Yann Brelière
>
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Jan 10, 2013 at 4:03 PM, Alex Launi <alex.launi@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>wrote:
>>
>>> Well do you have any good suggestions for how to fix the issues you've
>>> encountered? Or any good design suggestions to make it a bit less of a
>>> mess? What about with regard to the topic of this thread, any interesting
>>> ideas for fitting into the sound menu more scalably?
>>>
>>> Alex
>>>
>>> On Jan 9, 2013, at 3:19 PM, Jonathan Meek <shrouded.cloud@xxxxxxxxx>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>> A bit late, but I would like to add my own thoughts to this: I
>>> absolutely agree with Mr. Bicha about web-apps in 12.10 (having finally
>>> downloaded it to test the new toolkit). They are a bit of a mess. And I, as
>>> a seasoned user, find their launcher behavior almost indecipherable given
>>> the context. Am I just visiting a fancy browser window or am I actually
>>> using something that is supposed to be its own thing? And getting them to
>>> install was a hassle and no feedback for when it didn't work... Tried to
>>> install GMail three times before it worked with no feedback as to why it
>>> failed the previous times. And plus one to the completely chromeless
>>> argument.
>>>
>>> Pandora just suddenly showed in my sound menu unexpectedly as well. I
>>> guess I'm mostly trying to say what Jeremy said: a good start but far from
>>> perfect.
>>>
>>>
>>> On Thu, Dec 13, 2012 at 10:43 AM, Jeremy Bicha <jbicha@xxxxxxxxxx>wrote:
>>>
>>>> On 13 December 2012 09:57, Alex Launi <alex.launi@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>>> > Like any software, webapps will always be incomplete. The
>>>> implementation
>>>> > of the integration was not poor (at least I don't like to think so),
>>>> but
>>>> > there were features that got de-scoped for 12.10. Chromeless browsing
>>>> in
>>>> > Firefox was one item. There is a chromeless mode for Chromium, it
>>>> exists
>>>> > in 12.10. Chromeless mode does not, however, prevent you from having
>>>> > multiple tabs. You could have 10 instances of Facebook, or YouTube in
>>>> > one of these chromeless browser windows. Chromeless mode is accessed
>>>> > when you have a launcher icon and launch a new instance of a webapp
>>>> from
>>>> > it. Integration should always work from the browser though, how else
>>>> > would you find that a webapp exists?
>>>>
>>>> I think that Firefox or Chromium should prompt for installing webapps
>>>> like it does.
>>>>
>>>> Without chromeless mode, I (as a user) see webapps as being just fancy
>>>> bookmarks that may also have notification or indicator support. I
>>>> think chromeless mode *should* prevent you from opening multiple tabs
>>>> because a standalone webapp is not a full-featured web browser (that's
>>>> just the backend, an implementation detail). Links to external domains
>>>> (not white-listed in the particular webapp config) should open in your
>>>> regular web browser because a webapp should act like a native app as
>>>> much as possible.
>>>>
>>>> For me, proper chromeless mode is an essential part of webapps so
>>>> that's why I was disappointed with 12.10's implementation (I don't
>>>> mean to hurt the feelings of those who spent months working on the
>>>> feature; I expected that that feature would instead land in 13.04).
>>>>
>>>> Jeremy
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~unity-design
>>>> Post to     : unity-design@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>>> Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~unity-design
>>>> More help   : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
>>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~unity-design
>>> Post to     : unity-design@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>> Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~unity-design
>>> More help   : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~unity-design
>>> Post to     : unity-design@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>> Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~unity-design
>>> More help   : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>