Re: Feature proposal: combined system status menu

[Allan Day <allanpday gmail com>]

Federico Mena Quintero <federico gnome org> wrote:
> On Mon, 2013-04-22 at 14:36 +0100, Allan Day wrote:
>
> > The main element of the design is to combine the sound, network,
> > bluetooth, power and user menus into a single menu.
>
> The update proposal [1] lists the following items as problems, but it
> doesn't say *why* they are problems.  I'll comment:
>
> * Privacy issues with having the user's name in the top bar
>
> Why is this a privacy concern?  If you already have someone looking over
> your shoulder, they can see a lot more than your username... including
> you typing passwords.

We've had direct user feedback when doing testing that this is an
issue. People don't like their name being on display, particularly in
public places.

> * Unsuitability of 16x16px icons on touch screens
>
> "So make them larger" :)

And make the bar taller in the process? I don't think that people
would thank us for that.

> Seriously, this is not just for touch screens.  Those need big targets.

The target is the height of the bar.

> But on non-touch screens, some people like my mom (whose eyesight is not
> so great these days) could also benefit from bigger icons, or at least
> *more contrasty* icons.

Dude, they couldn't have any more contrast.

> The other day she called me as she couldn't
> figure out how to increase the volume.  It turns out that audio was
> muted, and what gnome-shell shows in that case is a dark gray audio icon
> with a tiny little "X" on its corner.
>
> The dark gray icon (around 25% gray) has very little contrast with
> respect to its surrounding black bar (0% gray).  The apparent contrast
> is even less since often what you have directy below the icon is the
> very-lightly-colored titlebar of a window (... with a white content
> area), so the dark gray audio icon is hard to see.

Seems like an obvious bug with the volume icon - did you file a report?

> Summary - maybe bigger icons, or just contrastier ones?  Use a wider top
> bar for touch screens?
>
> * Large width of items in the System Status area (including the user's
> name) taking up too much space in portrait mode
>
> How much is too much space?  Do you have a screenshot that shows the
> problem?
>
> I have a long name but fortunately a 1600 pixel-wide screen.  When I
> used gnome-shell on a 1024 pixel netbook it felt a bit cramped, but it
> was not a huge problem.  Maybe if the user's full name gets over a
> certain percentage of the screen's width, then gnome-shell should switch
> to showing just the Unix username?

This primarily relates to portrait mode (there's a bug for this [1]),
but it could potentially affect any user if they have a smallish
screen and a super long name.

> Also... "just move the clock to the left" and that will give you more
> space for the status area.  Here it is, roughly centered between the app
> menu and the leftmost status icon.  To me it looks nicer than centered
> on the screen - it's a local symmetry:
>
> http://people.gnome.org/~federico/misc/centered.png

It needs to be centered - the screen will feel totally off kilter if
you move it.

> * Difficult to have icons in the top bar that do not have an associated
> menu (eg. airplane mode)
>
> If gnome-shell just assumes that all icons must have a menu, then this
> is just an implementation detail.

So we pop up yet another menu with a single item in it? Not only would
yet another menu with a single item in it be sucky, but it would have
an awkward (if not broken) relationship with the existing networking
panel.

> * Difficult to have items in the menus that do not have an appropriate
> top bar icon (eg. screen brightness)
>
> Two questions:
>
> 1. Do we need absolutely every hardware-y parameter to be adjustable
> from the top bar?

Obviously not, and we don't.

> (Not trying to be confrontational here - I use the
> hardware keys for screen brightness because they are there and they
> work, but I use the volume icon in the shell because a) it works, unlike
> the hardware keys, and b) adjusting the volume with the scrollwheel is
> really nice.)

Controls for screen brightness are a nice thing to have. For many
people, it is more convenient and discoverable than the keyboard.

> 2. Instead of putting *everything* in a single menu like in the
> wireframes [2], wouldn't it be better to split them into hardware-y
> things and user-y things?  (I personally think the current
> implementation is very clear and clean - volume things under the volume
> icon, user/session things under my username.)  Putting everything in the
> same menu doesn't sound like a good idea.

"Putting everything in the same menu" is inaccurate. Some things are
being combined. Many other things are being moved to other parts of
the UI.

> * Some menus essentially have one item in them (eg. battery, volume)
>
> Why is this a problem?

It's not a huge problem, but it's not fantastic either. General rule
of thumb for menus is to only have one if you have three or more items
[2].

> (... Could we add a microphone volume slider to the volume menu?  It
> would be nice to have for those awkward Skype moments.  And about the
> only other time I use the Sound Preferences capplet is when I need to
> boost the volume past 100% - that could very well be in the slider in
> gnome-shell, I guess.)

We already have a microphone slider when a microphone is in use.

> (... If the problem of not being able to have icons without menus is
> solved, then clicking the Battery icon could just take you to the power
> capplet.)
>
> * Inconsistency between lock/login screens and the session
>
> I wasn't even aware of the inconsistency.

Does that mean it doesn't exist. We've had feedback that people are
surprised by the menu in the lock and login screens, presumably
because it deviates from what we have elsewhere.

> Can the lock screen simply have the username and icons on the same place
> as the session?  Like this:
>
> http://people.gnome.org/~federico/misc/lock.png

That doesn't solve the problem of having the menu transform depending
on where you are.

> As side comments to the lock screen... I can understand having Volume
> there (screensaver activates while listening to something; I still want
> to be able to adjust the volume).  The battery is for "oh, the screen is
> locked but I guess I should plug the laptop soon".  What is Network
> there for?

There are plenty of things that your computer might be doing that
require network. Obvious examples - downloading something, streaming
music. It might also be required for network logins, not sure about
that though.

> Apart from all that:
>
> I like the idea of a separate dialog to choose a wifi network.  The
> current menu is just unreliable:
>
> * "More..." sometimes makes the menu narrower, and the "leave the top
> five as they are, and put the rest in a scrollable sub-menu" just looks
> weird.
>
> * If you are looking at the menu trying to decide on which AP to use,
> the menu closes on you when NetworkManager refreshes the list of APs
> (?).
>
> (In general, those menus-that-can-expand-subsections seem to need
> implementation love.)

I agree that the network menu is currently awkward, partly because it
attempts to deal with a lot of complexity in one place. That's one of
the reasons that I like the updated design.

> I'm not sure if it's a good idea to move the Chat/No chat option to the
> message tray.  It seems more closely tied to the personal status
> (whether I'm available or not).  Not a strong opinion on this, though.
>
> I do like the idea of moving the Notifications/No notifications option
> to the message tray, since that is where notifications appear in the
> first place.

Cool.

Allan

[1] https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=651299
[2] https://developer.gnome.org/hig-book/3.0/menus.html.en