Re: Gnome shell suggestions after a bit of usage

[Aurélien Naldi <aurelien naldi gmail com>]

Hi,

On Fri, Jul 8, 2011 at 10:48 AM, Jairot Llopis <yajo sk8 gmail com> wrote:
>> >> By the way, talking about notifications, if I move the cursor over them
>> >> it's
>> >> only because I want to open them, so why do I have to click? There
>> >> should be
>> >> an option to let you open the notifications just by hovering over them,
>> >> the
>> >> same way than when they have just popped out.
>> >
>> > No.
>>
>> I don't see any benefit to making them come out on hover, but talk to
>> aday on #gnome-design. He's working a lot on revamping the message
>> tray, so you can bounce some ideas off of him.
>
> I think it's easier and quicker, or maybe it's just laziness on my part, but
> anyway I think there is some inconsistency: when you click on an icon in the
> system status area and then move to the next one, the previous one closes
> and the current one opens, but when you do that in the notifications area,
> you have to click again.

I guess your previous message was misunderstood: you meant open on
hover when another was already open, not really just open on hover.
I have to agree that it makes a lot of sense, but as far as I
understand it is not going to happen due to technical reasons: a
notification area icon belongs to the application which put it here,
they do not know about other icons and can not interfere with each
other, furthermore, not all icons behave the same way (or have menu at
all). The system status area is fully drawn by the shell, thus can
behave more like a consistent menu.
To solve this, the application (and shell) have to move to an other
system. I think gnome-shell has a specific API for notifications which
should allow this. I would really have liked a mechanism shared with
other environments, like the indicators pushed by ubuntu (coming from
the KDE world but rejected by gnome). Alternatively proposing an other
(better?) mechanism could work, but I guess it would be hard to
convince others DE to change now...


> I agree completely. I see 2 perfect candidates to be a persistent app:
> Empathy and Rhythmbox.
>
> Both of them are open in my desktop almost all the time, but for both of
> them I don't want to see them most of the time.
>
> In the case of Empathy, right now the "classic" Empathy confuses me. There
> should be an only-notifications version. I don't see the point for having
> the contacts list in a separate window. Why is it not just embedded in the
> notification that opens when you click on Empathy's icon? The same with chat
> rooms. It's an obsolete interface, much better replaced with the
> notifications one. And it bothers me when it keeps blinking when somebody
> spoke me and I already answered him through the notification. I don't even
> like when I press alt+tab and Empathy is always there, messing around with
> the apps I directly use.

The notification-based chat is cool, but as of gnome 3, I find it too
intrusive (unless I set myself busy, which becomes not intrusive
enough).
My main gripe with it is that the notification keeps popping and steal
focus, even if I am actually answering in the empathy chat window! I
remember having seen comments about this and that it was being worked
on for the next release. An even more integrated IM experience would
be cool, but also pretty hard to get right. Something similar to the
colored icon used by the messaging-indicator (in ubuntu again) would
be nice we we are busy, it is as non-intrusive as it can be while
still providing the information. I am confident the gnome designers
will come up with nice improvements for 3.2 and 3.4.


> The same is true about Rhythmbox. It's an app I want to hear, not see,
> except for the rare cases when I need to browse my music collection.
>
> Before Gnome 3 I used panflute, which I think is the best approach.

+1 for this. I didn't know about panflute, but I do love the
sound-indicator used in ubuntu. I think they rely on the same
mechanism (MPRIS). The protocol exists, is supported by several of the
main applications. The indicator-based GUI does a decent job: it
doesn't use space, and provides information and quick mouse-driven
control for common actions. It may not be perfect but I would love to
see similar integration in gnome-shell. It can probably be tested as a
shell extension.


Best regards.

-- 
Aurélien Naldi