Re: [Usability] RFC: removing some colors from the panel...

[Vincent Untz <vuntz gnome org>]

Hi Alan,

Le samedi 04 juin 2005 �9:31 +0100, Alan Horkan a �it :
> On Sat, 4 Jun 2005, Vincent Untz wrote:
> > During GUADEC, one idea came to my mind. I have a lot of
> > applets/launchers on my top panel and they all have nice colors.
> 
> Perhaps one of the Low Contrast themes might be enough?

Well, I don't want to have Low Contrast everywhere, and particularly not
in my current window. Colors are also useful.

> > However, the panel is too distracting: when I work on a document, I
> > often look at the applets instead of concentrating on the document.
> 
> Have you tried using a panel with Auto-hide enabled, or use a panel the
> with Hide Arrows enabled?

Yes. I have one auto-hide panel, but I only use it for my window list. I
don't like having launchers on it. I once tried to enable auto-hide for
my top panel, but I couldn't stand it :-)

> > This is happening in part because the panel is too much visible. And
> > probably because I have too many colors there: a lot of red, some green,
> > a bit of yellow, etc. :-)
> 
> It would be nice if there was a simple way to set the icon used for
> a panel applet as easily (or more easily) than the way users can set icons
> for shortcuts.  (The old Mac OS made it easy to set a specific icon
> for any file, you could cut and paste a new icon by selecting the
> old icon in the Properties/Get Info dialog.)

Well, this won't solve the problem for applets that are special, like
the workspace switcher, or the multiload applet. Applets are too generic
to be easily customizable by the user.

> > What do you think about moving all the panel contents to grayscale when
> > the panel is not in use?
> 
> Window decorations grey out when not in use, and if you wanted to do this
> in a general way and fade out any window (like the panel) that was not
> currently in focus that might be interesting.  (This might already be
> possible by using with transparent windows or something like that.)

Could be interesting, indeed.

> I used to use Autohide on my Panel but I found the animation too
> distracting and having the panel obscured made it harder to get at when I
> did want it.  I expect I would feel similarly about having it greyed out,
> but I couldn't say for sure.

(note that you can remove the animation, by editing some obscure gconf
keys)

Vincent

-- 
Les gens heureux ne sont pas press�