Re: [Usability] Panel popup proposal

[Daniele Levorato <daniele levorato infocamere it>]

Boris Goldowsky wrote:

> On Wed, 2004-06-09 at 17:44 +0100, Calum Benson wrote: 
>  
>
> > On Wed, 2004-06-09 at 14:50, Daniele Levorato wrote:
> >
> >    
> >
> > > I have a suggestion about panels popup menu... perhaps someone has 
> > > already posted something similar however I don't know :-)
> > >      
> > We have indeed had long discussions about this before... most of the key
> > points are captured in this (now closed) bug report:
> > http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=82642
> >    
>
> Unfortunately the fix for that bug did not solve the more general
> problem, that when your panel is "full" you can't get at its menu - this
> applies to edge panels as well.  Just the other day my kids moved my top
> panel to the right side of my screen, and it was nearly impossible to
> move it back.  Note that a top panel moved to the side becomes very wide
> (to accommodate the text "Applications  Actions" sideways), and thus all
> icons within it grow to that size, and so you are left with a panel that
> is packed full even if it was quite sparse to begin with.  I ended up
> having to remove many of the icons that were on it in order to create
> some right- or middle-clickable space to move it back, since I didn't
> know the magic keyboard shortcut.
>
> On a related note, perhaps it would be nice to be able to lock a panel
> in place, the same way you can lock an applet onto a panel.  It's
> amazing what a few random random swishes with a graphics-tablet pen can
> do to an unprotected desktop......
>
> Bng
>  
Hi Boris... well you're right: after moving the panel to the right it 
was very difficult to find a free space to move it back (I managed 
myself to find it on the border between two icons!)... perhapas a "move" 
menu item in the Panel menu would be usefull... but, again, only if the 
main-panel menu is available from all the other widget too or you'll 
have to find a free space to pop it up (so resulting in the same issue)...
I've seen quickly the BUG report... and it's true: if you focus somehow 
a widget on the panel and press CTRL+F10 you'll be able to pop-up the 
parent menu and this is a good way when you don't have hide-buttons 
enabled...
... but I find it a little cumbersome (is it the right word?), 
complicated... the middle user prefer to use mouse and right-clicks to 
manage the desktop rather than CTRL-F? SHIFT-ALT-F? and so on... so a 
more ergonomic "way" to access main-panel menu should be made available.
However I agree with Boris: a "lock position" menu item would be 
usefull... and I would add a "move" item... something like the one you 
can find in the window-menu.