Make use of App Title in Panel

[Tanner Doshier <doshitan gmail com>]

Hello all,

I've been brainstorming about how to improve Gnome Shell (GS) lately (I've been using it for about a month). Suffice it to say I've come up with a few ideas (~.^), but I'm going to try to stick to one general topic per email. So, onwards.

Disclaimer: This message is a little long. Sorry, maybe read it in bits so I don't waste too much of your time at once.

Nestled next to the "Activities"/Overview button is the icon and title of the currently focused application (app) which is very slick...but it does nothing. Now, I see at: http://live.gnome.org/GnomeShell/CheatSheet in "The Panel" section, it says 

> ...the name of the focused application (which will provide the application menu in the future)...

I take this to mean that it is a goal of GS to remove the menu bar from the app and place it "under" or "within" it's title in the panel, taking "...the application menu..." to mean "...the application's menu..." as in the menu of the currently focused app. But, the wording could also imply that the title will provide a menu of all installed apps (like in Overview) as it says "...the application menu..." Are either of these options what is implied by the CheatSheet?

Whatever the answer, I, for one, am in favor of removing the menu bar from an app's window for two reasons. One, it saves screen space, which is particularly important to me as I use a netbook. Two, it fits better into the document-oriented attitude GNOME 3.0 is taking. Another implication of the first reason also plays into the second reason because removing the menu bar (which does actions on a document, but really belongs to the app as it is the same across every document) gives more screen space and therefore importance/focus on the document and its contents, not on the app.

Another important thing to consider is that this has already been implement in the (GNOME 2) panel applet-ish GlobalMenu, located at: http://code.google.com/p/gnome2-globalmenu/ so I'm sure that project would jump at the chance to work on integration if asked. It's not perfect, most notably Java apps (OpenOffice.org, Firefox, etc.), but it works for GTK+ apps extremely well. It's written in Vala so it should be easy to integrate into GS.

The big/beautiful name of the app is the perfect and logical place to put the app's menu (it practically screams "I'm important!!"). Ideally, the menu bar would always be visible in the panel (like in Mac OS X or with GlobalMenu), but I think the panel is pretty much in place and wouldn't want to be changed, so that isn't an option. Putting the menu bar into the app title could be implemented in various ways:

(1) The menu bar slides out from underneath the panel when the app title is passed over by the mouse (hot spot kinda thing)

Advantages: Requires no extra user input (than before) making this a quick and effortless way to access the menu bar.

Disadvantages: Requires no extra user input, i.e., it could be accidentally activated as they pass over to the "Activities" button.

(2) The menu bar slides out from underneath the panel when the app title is left-clicked 

Advantages: No chance for accidental activation making this a much less aggravating way to access the menu bar.

Disadvantages: Requires an extra click, so now the user may have to make 3-4 (title->menu->action) clicks to do something where before it would only take 2 (menu->action).

Fixes:

(f1) A hover activation thing so it only slides out after you have hovered over it for a specified time, but this could slow down accessing the menu, taking away one of it's advantages. And it could still be activated on accident. 

(f2) Eliminating the click to open one of the menus, i.e., they click to slide out the menu bar, as they hover over the specific menu they want to access it opens, they click what they want. This gets it back to a 2 click scenario (title->{menu opens on hover}->action) so nothing is lost in that respect.

With the Fix, (2) is a much better option, it adds no extra strain on the user to access their menus and it stays out of their way, reducing frustration/annoyance.

There are also a few options for the animation of the menu bar opening:

(A) As I said before, the menu bar would slide down from behind the panel.

(B) Picture the menu bar on the back of the panel, then when the app title is clicked, the panel "flips" over to reveal that app's menu bar.

(C) When the app title is clicked the middle section (app title+clock) of the panel (or perhaps all of it, minus the "Activities" button) sides up (off the screen) to reveal the menu bar sitting behind it.

(D) The menu bar just pops in, replacing the app title+clock area.

Of these options, I think (C) is the best bet. It shows that something is happening, but shouldn't waste too many resources. (B) would be really cool, but may be too flashy or wasteful of time/resources to draw. (A) is the weakest because if an app is maximized then it will have to be resized at the same time the menu bar is coming down, wasteful and jarring for the document to be messed with like that. It's best if the menu bar occupies only the panel space so windows don't have to change. For all of the animations, they would just reverse after the menu bar losses focus for a certain amount of time to bring back the other elements.

Just some thoughts. I would love to discuss them more if anyone has any objections/additions.