Re: [Ayatana] More complete Applications view

[Vincent Moulin]

Thanks a lot everyone for all of your feedback!

Here are the SVGs (to be opened in inkscape) if you want to work on it:
http://dropbox.nilux.org/unity/app-menu-full.svg
http://dropbox.nilux.org/unity/app-menurollov.svg

Cheers,

Vincent Moulin 


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Re: [Ayatana] More complete Applications view

[Vincent Moulin]

Hi, nice ideas you have here!

Some comments :
> 1. I've removed the "Other  applications" links because they
> duplicate the functionality of the large category button

At the time I made my mockup, I wasn't sure if the Category buttons had
to be clickable, because I didn't think it was evident for new users
that these big buttons gave access to other applications.

At the beginning, I was even thinking that the 'other applications'
overlay should appear when the user's rolls his mouse over the category
(not only the button).

But I haven't made my mind yet about which is the most usable.

> 3. I've removed "Public" as it seems out of place (and not as commonly
> used as the other items prioritised on this screen)

In my view, this 'Public' folder is more a placeholder for an Ubuntu
One, Dropbox, or any folder connected to the Internet or local network,
that's why I thought it was relevant to have it here.

I also made two columns because I thought 3 folders wouldn't be enough,
but I'm still not sure of this because it breaks the 'symmetry'.

> 4. I've aligned Trash along the bottom next to "Get more applications"
> which seems less cluttered

After further thinking, I think that the trash icon doesn't belong on
the applications view at all, because on unity's latest builds the trash
is always available in the dock.


> Anyway, just thought I'd throw those tweaks out there. Awesome work
> btw, I'd love the apps place to look like this; displaying the recent
> apps alongside the categories is genius!

Thanks :)

Cheers,

Vincent Moulin 



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Re: [Ayatana] Seeking feedback on professional video import UX design

[frederik.nn...@gmail.com]

Hi Jason,

well, this is what i've been waiting for all along:
professional post production software for Ubuntu!

On Tue, Dec 7, 2010 at 19:33, Jason DeRose  wrote:

> I didn't make it clear, but in my scenario there will very likely be a
> person editing at the workstation.
>

Being a devoted AVID user (audio), I'm well aware of the various zombie
states one can assume, operating a digital workstation for the better part
of the day..

When someone is there editing, I think NotifyOSD strikes a wonderful
> balance between reliably capturing the user's attention yet not
> distracting them.  It's all because the notifications are
> non-interactive.  They're strangely soothing, IHMO.  (Mad props to
> those who designed them so well.)
>

I can only begin to imagine the benefits of my ProTools being integrated
into its hosting DE for once.. that would change everything! Notify OSD and
AppIndicators provide such an easy way of integrating one's professional
software into the Desktop Environment seamlessly.


> All the same, it would be a small effort to try both approaches, get
> feedback from the users.  If you ever have a mockup of what you had in
> mind for said window, I'd love to see it.
>

Menus are condensed interfaces, they offer the most frequently used options
of an otherwise more comprehensive interface for rapid interaction. In a
similar way, as in Ayatana Indicator Menus, they can also offer the most
recent and current event/process/progress/item in a given activity, e.g. a
conversation, a message or a completed transfer.

I think it is always easy to see a menu as a proxy to the more comprehensive
main window of the same respective "project".
Only that the menu will give back focus to the thing you were working on
without the disturbing requirements of window management.

I know this is a very specialized use case and it might seem like I'm
> splitting hairs, but it's also a use case where small improvements can
> make a big difference to the user.
>

I can confirm that.
When only a single keyboard command changes, it can have a severe effect on
how usable my workstation is!
Imagine.. you sit behind that workstation for a dozen of hours on many a
day, doing the same thing over and over again, how terrible would it be, to
run into a logical regression in the UI design.

Thanks again for your input!  I'll add your suggestion to the wiki page.
>

keep me posted as the software becomes available for testing, i for one
can't wait to get professional post production work done in desktop Linux.
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Re: [Ayatana] progress window chrome

[frederik.nn...@gmail.com]

hi conscious,

On Tue, Dec 7, 2010 at 16:58, Conscious User  wrote:

>
> Discussions about an eventual "progress indicator" aside, I think
> this is the kind of thing modal dialogs are meant to eliminate.
>
> http://people.freedesktop.org/~david/gnome-shell-modal-dialogs.png


thanks a lot, that's cool!

about the window dragging (handle)... been testing Unity for a bit now, MPT
said it before..
there is a great necessity to begin differenciating properly between what is
a full fledged window, and what is *something else* ;)
The main reason in Unity that i see for this differenciation would be,
AppMenu, which should be reserved for Suites and Integrated Environments, i
would call these "Main Applications".

for a chat conversation, all i would need is a borderless rectangle that i
can move with the mouse. i don't need a minimize button on it, don't need a
titlebar either, and most certainly no application menu, since closing it
would only hide the conversation back into the imaginary Contact Menu it
came from, and chat is so simple a procedure that all necessary options can
be contained inside the conversation window, no need for an ancient
appliation menu.

there are more examples of this, e.g. Calculator, which should also dump its
application menu and act like a desklet, instead of fooling itself into
believing it is a full fledged suite that deserves to have a window and an
application menu.
Most of the application menus i see out there are only there for the sake of
being there, we don't really need them.

who's up to completing the following lists?

apps that need not appmenu:
* Calculator
* Tomboy
* Chat conversations
* System Monitor  (running processes)
* ?

apps that still need their appmenu:
* Evolution
* OpenOffice.org
* Firefox
* Nautilus
* ?

Regarding the various configuration dialogs and preferences windows we have,
i'm sure there's more to discuss also:
e.g. Network Manager or Empathy Suite if there was any, or Sound
Preferences, Appearance Preferences, or About Me.
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Re: [Ayatana] Launcher' icons size to big

[Jason Smith]

On Tue, 2010-12-07 at 11:17 -0500, Conscious User wrote:
> 
> Jason, while we're at this subject, could you please tell if Unity is
> going to 
> follow the WM_CLASS "emergency fallback" that Docky currently uses?

I can't remember if I implemented that or not yet. I know docky has a
fairly advanced heuristic for picking out unknown icons. I'll probably
side port it sometime this cycle.

> 
> 
> Since Unity is going to use those big icons, I'm particularly worried
> whether it will always ensure overriding small icons with large enough
> ones,
> even when the window is not directly associated to a .desktop file.
> 
> 
> 
> -Original Message-
> From: Jason Smith 
> To: Martín "A. Casco" 
> Cc: ayatana 
> Sent: Sun, Dec 5, 2010 7:05 pm
> Subject: Re: [Ayatana] Launcher' icons size to big
> 
> On Sun, 2010-12-05 at 21:47 -0300, Martín A. Casco wrote:
> > I understand your point. But just an example, since I use Ubuntu (from
> > Hardy), I always used AWN and 32 x 32 pixels for icon's launchers and
> > never have fuzzy problems... Even with Cairo and Docky.
> 
> I wrote docky, trust me, it happens :)
> 
> > 
> > But, if we use 52 x 52 small screens will loose to much space on
> > launcher, and auto-hide can't be the solutions, for many users like
> > me, auto-hide is not used..
> 
> Compared to the old launcher you lose an extra 2-4 pixels horizontally.
> I understand then point about horizontal space. I believe a better
> hiding mode may be useful for you. I hope to have intellihide ready
> soon.
> 
> > 
> > Even more, with 52 x 52 icon's size, we can't add more apps to the
> > launcher, I know the option  arrange icons when we have a lot of apps
> > on launcher or to many apps open, but this option is very unusable,
> > it's look nice, but it's unusably..
> 
> 52x52 vs 48x48 makes no difference in terms of number of vertical
> applications on the launcher in a standard netbook screen. The last once
> folds a tiny bit sooner is all.
> 
> I should note the code is completely flexible in icon sizing so we can
> do resolution independent UI in the future.
> 
> > 
> > Bets,
> > 
> > El dom, 05-12-2010 a las 18:53 -0500, Jason Smith escribió:
> > > There are unfortunate limitations on icon sizing in Linux. We are
> > > stuck
> > > with 24px, 32px, 48px, and 64px icons. We can interpolate in
> > > between,
> > > however this will make it fuzzy. Further 32x32 is not a good option
> > > since a lot of applications only ship a 24, 48, 64 set of icons.
> > > Further, svg's while scalable, do not scale all that well either.
> > > What
> > > are designed to be 1px lines end up being fractions of pixels,
> > > making
> > > them fuzzy as well.
> > > 
> > > For the compiz version of Unity it was then decided to use 48x48
> > > icons,
> > > with a 2 pixel border in the tile. This represents a growth in tile
> > > size
> > > from mavericks 48x48 to Natty's 52x52. The icons do *look* a lot
> > > bigger
> > > though because the icon fills a lot more of the tile now. In reality
> > > however, the icons are only 8% bigger. Some of this loss can be made
> > > up
> > > for by a smaller padding on each side of the launcher.
> > > 
> > > If you look at the launcher in Maverick you will see the icons are
> > > fuzzy. Be warned though, once you notice this, you can never
> > > un-notice!
> > > 
> > > To be truly scalable, Icon authors need to make svg's, and svg needs
> > > a
> > > way to denote a line has a fix pixel size. Until this is both
> > > possible
> > > and completed, we are stuck in the world of fixed icon sizes... or
> > > shipping lots of icons. 
> 
> -- 
> Jason Smith | Desktop Experience Team
> GNOME Developer
> Canonical USA Inc.
> T. +1.248.756.6266 | jason.sm...@canonical.com
> Ubuntu - Linux for human beings | www.ubuntu.com
> 
> 
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-- 
Jason Smith | Desktop Experience Team
GNOME Developer
Canonical USA Inc.
T. +1.248.756.6266 | jason.sm...@canonical.com
Ubuntu - Linux for human beings | www.ubuntu.com


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Re: [Ayatana] More complete Applications view

[Luke Benstead]

> > 4. I've aligned Trash along the bottom next to "Get more applications"
> > which seems less cluttered
>
> After further thinking, I think that the trash icon doesn't belong on
> the applications view at all, because on unity's latest builds the trash
> is always available in the dock.
>
>
Agreed. I did think about that, and then decided just to move it down, but
yeah, it really doesn't belong there. By the way, we've hit OMG!Ubuntu!
http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2010/12/mock-up-application-overview-in-unity/

Luke.
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[Ayatana] Usability - Useless effect when clicking an icon (Unity)

[Peterson Silva]

Recently I've posted this bug at Launchpad:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/unity/+bug/686822

So the thing is, if you have only one instance of an active window and you
click its icon in the Launcher, the effect is useless. Users coming from
Windows 7 (or any other version of it for that matter) or Mac OS will expect
the application to minimize; instead, it will just float. It is useless and
counter-intuitive already.

On the other hand, when there are multiple windows of the same app, the
effect is very cool and useful; clearly, applying the same effect to
different scenarios of opened programs isn't an optimal solution. Neither is
having three different behaviours for different scenarios (like I suggested
at launchpad). The problem with my original suggestion is that the behaviour
would end up depending on something the user can't see, making the
experience unpredictable, unreliable, ultimately confusing, as Shuttleworth
pointed out.

So here's what we could do, then: to have different effects based on the
windows opened, but with a visual hint so the user knows what to expect (and
can easily understand the point of the behaviour). I'm not currently using
Unity, but as far as I remember, there's no visual hint as to whether or not
there are multiple instances of a window opened. We could put a small emblem
over the program icon in the launcher (like in one of its corners) with a
number indicating the number of windows.

When user clicks an icon with a number on it --- choose windows. When user
clicks an icon with no number on it --- minimize.

What do you think?

*Peterson*
*http://petercast.net*
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Re: [Ayatana] progress window chrome

[Matthew Paul Thomas]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

frederik.nn...@gmail.com wrote on 07/12/10 01:42:
>
> what purpose has the titlebar in the attached image?
> I can only imagine that it is meant as a drag handle..
>...

Yes. It is a bug in the HIG that it recommends repeating title bar text
as primary text in progress windows.

- -- 
Matthew Paul Thomas
http://mpt.net.nz/
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Re: [Ayatana] Do You Use Gwibber?

[Matthew Paul Thomas]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
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frederik.nn...@gmail.com wrote on 07/12/10 00:58:
>
> esteemed readers,
>
> *Do you use Gwibber?*

Not me. It can't post real retweets/repeats, it presents retweets from
others with the wrong person's icon and the end chopped off, it doesn't
know about my saved searches, it can't display conversations in-line,
and the snap-to-top scrolling is hard to scan.

(Some of these things may already have been fixed or implemented since
Ubuntu 10.10, I don't know.)

>...
> We currently have Mail and IM portrayed by two seperate icons in the
> panel:
> 1) the envelope -> Mail -> Messaging Menu
> 2) the speech bubble -> IM -> Me Menu
>...

As I said last month
, I'm interested in
proposals to combine them. I just realized, though, that I hadn't
answered your question from last time:

>> But there are other layout
>> issues to consider, too.
>
> Please spell them out so we can address them collaboratively!
> I think often a good idea that replaces a complicated one makes most
> issues disappear at once.

Some of the layout issues:
*   How should someone reply to a post? Does it make sense for replying
and posting a new message to be completely different interfaces?
*   Is it possible for the entry field to look balanced, anywhere other
than the top of the menu?
*   If Gwibber is set up to post to multiple accounts, what's the ideal
way to present those accounts as toggles to choose from?

- -- 
Matthew Paul Thomas
http://mpt.net.nz/
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Re: [Ayatana] Do You Use Gwibber?

[Spike Burch]

I use gwibber. It has some extremely annoying issues though, like forgetting
your stream layout

On Dec 6, 2010 7:04 PM, "frederik.nn...@gmail.com" 
wrote:

esteemed readers,

*Do you use Gwibber?*

It would be quite gratifying if this thread could produce some statistics or
opinions.
I'm currently evaluating the role of Gwibber in the Ayatana subsystem.

We currently have Mail and IM portrayed by two seperate icons in the panel:
1) the envelope -> Mail -> Messaging Menu
2) the speech bubble -> IM -> Me Menu

Please respond, if you have the time...
I'd welcome opinions, symbolic icons for Gwibber or simply a boolean
response ;)

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Re: [Ayatana] progress window chrome

[Roth Robert]

On Wed, Dec 8, 2010 at 2:22 PM, Matthew Paul Thomas wrote:

>
> Yes. It is a bug in the HIG that it recommends repeating title bar text
> as primary text in progress windows.
>
>
The sentence that recommended repeating the title bar text as primary text
in progress windows was removed since 2.30... you can still see it in 2.28,
but it does not appear since 2.30 anymore. I guess that the screenshot was
not updated.

Regards,
  Robert <><
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Re: [Ayatana] progress window chrome

[frederik.nn...@gmail.com]

On Wed, Dec 8, 2010 at 20:57, Roth Robert  wrote:

> On Wed, Dec 8, 2010 at 2:22 PM, Matthew Paul Thomas wrote:
>
>>
>> Yes. It is a bug in the HIG that it recommends repeating title bar text
>> as primary text in progress windows.
>>
>>
> The sentence that recommended repeating the title bar text as primary text
> in progress windows was removed since 2.30... you can still see it in 2.28,
> but it does not appear since 2.30 anymore. I guess that the screenshot was
> not updated.


whow, such historical detail ;)

Now let's hope that the 3.0 will rid us of the necessity of talking about
how many titles a progress window needs..
In reality, even the current stable HIG recommends against using windows for
the indication of progress, which itself leads to the conclusion that
displaying progress within an extra window is an improper way of presenting
that kind of data.
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