[Usability] Proposals for dealing with resolution changes and small screens?

[Christian Neumair <chris gnome-de org>]

Since nowadays many computers rely on pluggable output devices like
beamers or multiple monitors, and X11 support for monitor hotplugging is
shaping up nicely, it would be a good idea to decide how we deal with
resolution changes and additions of new monitors. This mainly affects:


1. The panel
--

a) Switching to a lower resolution

When switching to a lower resolution, usually old contents doesn't fit
on the panel anymore.

Currently (on RTL locales), we just move the icons on the right hand
side offscreen. One usually has the clock there, which is definitly
required to be visible at all times - so this isn't very smart.

Maybe we should offer a drop-down menu with the available offscreen
launchers or applets if they don't fit, or allow completely different
panel layouts depending on the resolution.

b) Switching to a higher resolution

Currently, the layout on resolution changes is recalculated and stored
in GConf. When switching back to another resolution that is larger than
the previous one and the icons didn't fit previously, the panel layout
goes crazy as we have no concept how the free space is (re-)distributed
among panel contents. While there is a concept of right-stickiness, all
the layout semantics are not really working well.


2. Nautilus
--

a) Switching to a lower resolution

When switching to a lower resolution, usually old contents doesn't fit
anymore.

We will ensure that everything fits on the desktop, by putting all the
offscreen contents to the lower right-hand side, but this will result in
ugly overlapping.

b) Switching to a higher resolution

All old contents will be shown, but things that have been on the
right/lower edge of the monitor end up anywhere in the middle, or - even
worse - the previously overlapping icons (cf. a)) stil overlap.

My idea here was to allow completely different desktop layouts for
different resolutions, i.e. we'd store one position per resolution for
each desktop item.


Conclusion: We need creative solutions for resolution changes.
Especially for our Nautilus, it may be required in the long term to get
away from pixel coordinates and instead tag various areas of the screen
(i.e. its corners and its edges, "Lower Right Corner", "Right Edge"
etc.) and calculate positions ourself instead of making the user move
icon Z to position (X,Y).

I've not yet covered monitor hotplugging, since I'm not sure how we
properly deal with it: As we plug in new devices, should the layout on
the old output monitor remain the same (layouts per monitor), or should
we offer completely separate layouts, which are stored for a specific
set of output devices (layouts per sets of monitors)?

I'm looking forward to your input :).

-- 
Christian Neumair <chris gnome-de org>