Re: Feature proposal: combined system status menu

[Frederic Crozat <fred crozat net>]

2013/4/22 Allan Day <allanpday gmail com>:
> Hi all,
>
> This is something that me, Jon and Jakub have been thinking about for
> some time, and is now at the stage where we can start to think about
> implementation. I'm proposing it as a feature for 3.10 [1].

It looks like all the pictures from the Research on this topic (
https://live.gnome.org/GnomeShell/Design/Research/StatusIndicators )
are missing (I'm getting a "forbidden" icon for each image)


> The main element of the design is to combine the sound, network,
> bluetooth, power and user menus into a single menu. This will enable
> us to resolve a number of UX issues we've encountered with the
> existing design (badness on touch, difficulties having the user name
> in the top bar, lots of complexity in some menus, like network,
> virtually none in others, like sound...). It will also give us greater
> flexibility, and will allow us to deal with some features - like
> airplane mode - in a more elegant and discoverable manner.
>
> More details are outlined on the wiki [2]. If you do look at the
> designs, please pay particular attention to the example scenarios -
> these give a clearer idea of what the menu will actually look like.
> The designs aren't finalised yet, so comments and ideas are welcome.
>
> It should be said that, as with any design, there are tradeoffs here.
> There are lots of advantages to this approach (see the design page),
> but there are one or two actions that might require an extra click
> with the new design. The primary example of this is switching wifi
> networks: with the new design, this will require that you open the
> system menu, click on the wi-fi entry, and then choose the network you
> want from the control center panel (as opposed to just selecting the
> network from the menu itself).
>
> However, while switching wi-fi networks will require an extra step, I
> actually think that the the experience will be better with the new
> design. The current network menu contains a lot of information that
> isn't related to wi-fi, and isn't exactly straightforward to use - in
> many respects, the new design will be more straightforward to use,
> even if there is an extra click involved. Also, we are planning a new
> wi-fi selection dialog, which should be a big improvement in those
> situations where you are not already connected to a network.

My main concern is the detection of "application needs network" and
how it will properly integrate without
modifying all applications so they interact with NetworkManager to
request "I need network access".

--
Frederic Crozat