Re: Features !

["Jasper St. Pierre" <jstpierre mecheye net>]

On Thu, Oct 6, 2011 at 4:34 AM, Joaquim Rocha <jrocha igalia com> 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,
>
> 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).

The message tray.

> 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.

I had a patch a for this a while ago. I've refiled it as bug
https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=661077

> 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.
>
>
> 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.
>
>
> 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.

The designers are working on this one. Hylke came up with:

  https://github.com/gnome-design-team/gnome-mockups/raw/master/shell/tints.png

A first attempt at a patch is in
https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=661042

> 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've never heard that before, but yeah, that may be useful. File a bug please?

> Thanks,
>
> --
> Joaquim Rocha
>
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-- 
  Jasper