Re: Features !

[Martyn Russell <martyn lanedo com>]

On 06/10/11 09:34, Joaquim Rocha wrote:
> On Thu, 2011-10-06 at 08:37 +0100, Martyn Russell wrote:
> > [...]
> >
> > I love the shell generally though, this is really just where I think we
> > could improve things.
>
> Hi,

Hi,

> I second Martyn's proposals and I'd like to name a few things that at
> least in my case, could be improved.
>
> The worst part of the shell for me is the bottom tray area (sorry if
> this is not the official name for it).
> Besides being visually ugly (with the gradient background) IMHO, the
> windows' names expanding when the mouse is over the icons is
> disconcerting for me. I have to be extra accurate with the trackball in
> order not to miss the exact icon or it will expand the another one,
> etc... This is especially terrible when I have 10 telepathy buddy icons
> and have to go expanding them all when I try to find a specific buddy
> this way. (Of course I can just open the contacts list but anyway, the
> use case I'm talking about is also valid IMHO)
>
> I think that a good way to fix this is to remove the expanding thing and
> to show the name on top of the icons on mouse-over (as tooltips).
> Something like when rests the mouse on top of an opened app's icon in
> the opened apps list on the left.

Or, similarly to how mac did it? does it? using a jumping icon or 
changing the colour or some notification which is subtle. With an icon 
appearing in the top (like the battery icon) which allows you to use 
your contacts (favourite or recently communicated with and have access 
to the contacts app/dialog), that would be a nice way to avoid needing 
the roster entirely generally. You could see notifications grouped 
there. I was struggling with concepts for this when I worked on Gossip 
back in the days before Empathy. It's not an easy UX to come up with.

You could apply this to the network manager applet/icon too to avoid 
this constant bombardment of connection state changes on devices like 
laptops.

Of course, this completely conflicts with the current approach and being 
able to reply to messages without opening any window.

For me the issue is more about *not seeing* messages waiting for me and 
internally people in Lanedo who have been using gnome-shell < 3.2 only 
respond to messages if spoken to directly (i.e. chatrooms messages were 
missed). This is likely fixed now I suspect. Either way, I never use the 
bottom notification bar and don't think to check it for new events at all.

> Another thing I think could be given some thought is the notifications.
> I understand how convenient it is to show them on the bottom of the
> screen (it's a "clean" side and helps integrating the chat). The problem
> is that I am often writing on the bottom of the screen (on a terminal or
> chatting with a friend) and a notification comes up, blocking my text.
> This is especially annoying when that notification is a chat window and
> it gets focused, receiving the text I was writing before...
> I don't know a good way to fix it but perhaps it could be given some
> thought by the designers.

I agree.

> Still on the bottom area, I wish that when my status is available,
> notifications would stick in a visible area. It often happens that I'm
> far from the keyboard for 5 minutes, meanwhile a notification came (say
> someone is trying to chat with me) but timed out and is now hidden in
> the tray area. I end up answering those notifications much later when I
> happen to notice them. Maybe this could be configured so when the status
> is "available" and a notification comes, the tray area would be visible
> constantly until one focus another area.

Yea, precisely the case I see too.

> I think it'd be also useful if the opened windows' previews (when
> accessing activities) showed their icons, for example on a corner of the
> previews or the the left of their name.
>
>
> Finally, I think that the inclusion of a "close all" option in the apps
> menu (when right-clicking on the left area's icons) would be useful.

I suspect you might want to do this per workspace than all at the same 
time. I only close all when rebooting.

But I also use the extension to place certain apps on particular 
workspaces because I am used to my work flow being related to the 
workspace I am on.

--
Regards,
Martyn

Founder and CEO of Lanedo GmbH.