Re: Inconsistencies in the top menu objects

[William Jon McCann <william jon mccann gmail com>]

Hi,

On Sun, Nov 22, 2009 at 7:22 AM, mac_v <drkvi-a yahoo com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Though the gnome-shell is still in the development stages  , just wanted
> to point out that the top menu at the moment has a few oddities.
>
> 1: Not all items react.
> - In normal view >
> - The name of the app-in-view is displayed but the name is
> non-reactive , while the rest of the elements react to user interaction.
> => I understand that this is the design but , it would be better if the
> title responds and shows some options.

Yeah, this will be a menu.  Just hasn't been finished yet.

> 2: It gets even more confusing in the "Activities overview " , when the
> applets in the notification area and the user item also dont respond
> now , but the calendar responds to user interactions.
>
> Since there is no indication of the running apps[as with the taskbar] ,
> i usually tend to check the activities overview  , before shutting down,
> to see if there are any apps running in other workspaces which i havent
> closed.
> But as the user-item is now non-reactive , i have to exit the overview
> to shutdown.
> =>It would be easier if the shutdown options where available even from
> the activities overview , so that i dont have to exit the overview to
> shutdown.

I think there is general agreement that this is less than ideal.
Right now there are technical reasons for it (grabs).  We can do
better.

> 3: Certain items[system status items] have context menus , but others
> dont.
> We need to decide whether to allow context menus on the system status
> items or to add context menus on other items too.
>
> Since it is mentioned in the design guidelines that the system status
> icons need to appear as part of the top menu bar , they need to behave
> like the rest of the items too.

Yup.

> 4: System status objects and the user-item behave different from the
> Calendar and the activities options. The calendar and the activities
> items have a neat slide action , while the rest of the items just show
> the drop down menu and do not have the side animation
> => Is it possible to make all the items in the top menu use the slide
> animation?

These should probably all look and behave the same way.  That includes
the status icons/menus.

> 5: Sidebar option [checkmark] oddly placed inbetween two options of
> account information and system preferences.
> => Ideally, it needs to be placed between separators , above the account
> information option.

It was slapped in for now.  I'm not sure why that location was chosen
to be honest.  Need to thank about the future of the sidebar at some
point.

> 6: Most of the objects in the system status display the icons using the
> gtk_status_icon_set_from_icon_name [gpm and others too , afaik] ,
> but network manager applet uses the gtk_icon_theme_load_icon , this
> causes the icon to scale up to fill the panel height and appear bigger
> than the rest of the icons while the rest of the applets use the icons
> as is.
> This is not a gnome-shell problem per-se , but this is because there is
> no proper guidelines for the system status area applets .
> It needs to be mentioned , in the gnome guidelines , how the applets
> need to use the icon , so that the applet devs use the proper icon
> calls.

Yeah very much less than ideal.   I agree.

Thanks for the feedback.  BTW, what is your real name?  For me it
makes it easier to have a conversation.

Thanks,
Jon