Re: [Ayatana] White text in lenses doesn't work well with light background images.

2011-08-31 Thread Mirco Müller 

Am 31.08.2011 08:52, schrieb Thorsten Wilms:

On 08/31/2011 02:25 AM, Conscious User wrote:


1 - use an outline
2 - use the opposite of the background in a chosen color space


3 - switch to black text for any background that exceeds some 
brightness level on most of its surface.


4 - forget about the transparency. Set static back- and foreground 
colors. Have a heart for everyone with less than perfect vision.



It should be mentioned that GNOME always had this problem with the label
of desktop icons...


Indeed, if I squint my eyes just a bit, what I see resembles a badly 
rendered dark gray text. That is, what I can see is the shadow 
duplicate of the text, while the white original only serves to shoot 
holes through it.


This is why I propose to switch the main text color, if you don't 
restrict the background more tightly.


If we use the same approach currently implemented in notify-osd, we 
don't need to make any of the text in the dash adapt to the background, 
restrict anything or add even more logic in code. notify-osd does all 
its text-rendering with a centered and slightly blurred drop-shadow 
(white text against black drop-shadow).


This makes sure there's always enough contrast for the text no 
matter what kind of background is used. See the attached sample for the 
technique implemented in notify-osd.


I also added this suggestion to LP: #824916

Best regards...

Mirco
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Re: [Ayatana] White text in lenses doesn't work well with light background images.

2011-08-31 Thread Stefanos A. 
Not only is the text unreadable, but the lenses icons look bad. A soft drop
shadow around every icon and text element would help immensely.

Of course, toning down the transparency, saturation and luminocity would
also solve the issue and look better to boot.
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Re: [Ayatana] White text in lenses doesn't work well with light background images.

2011-08-31 Thread Thorsten Wilms 

On 08/31/2011 09:46 AM, Mirco Müller wrote:


If we use the same approach currently implemented in notify-osd, we
don't need to make any of the text in the dash adapt to the background,
restrict anything or add even more logic in code. notify-osd does all
its text-rendering with a centered and slightly blurred drop-shadow
(white text against black drop-shadow).

This makes sure there's always enough contrast for the text no matter
what kind of background is used. See the attached sample for the
technique implemented in notify-osd.


It may be a bit better than a solid, offset shadow, but if I simulate 
slightly worse vision by squinting or increasing the distance to 2 
meters, the first example is bearable, only the 2nd is fine and the 
bottom 2 are just unreadable (as in really can't decipher).


And that is on uniform backgrounds ...

Heck, even under normal conditions and given that rather large text 
size, the bottom 2 are unpleasant to look at.



--
Thorsten Wilms

thorwil's design for free software:
http://thorwil.wordpress.com/

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[Ayatana] Regressions in Unity for 11.10?

2011-08-31 Thread Tommy Bongaerts 
Hi all,

Most of the current big changes in the Unity shell are serious
regressions in my opinion. I think Unity as shipped with 11.04 is much
better. Here are the reasons why:

It has the 'Ubuntu botton' integrated in the top panel. I thought that
this was a very good idea, because it is in a way the 'window' into the
system. With the 'Ubuntu button' inside the launcher, there no longer
is a clear distinction. I also think it looks more pleasing to the
eye, as it makes the launcher look more or less 'locked' into the top
panel.

The dash now has close/minimize/maximize widgets, just like regular
windows. Very bad idea. It is /not/ a regular window, and should not
be treated as such. Using the 'Ubuntu button' (or the 'super' key) to
open/close the Dash made perfect sense

When an application is maximized, the close/minimize/maximize widgets
are hidden by default. To make them appear, the user has to hoover
over the top panel. This means aiming twice: once to make the widgets
appear, and then again to click on the desired widget. Seems very
counterproductive to me.

The same is valid for the global menus by the way, but I never found
this to be problematic myself. Still, it would be a good idea to at
least provide a user setting to keep the global menus displayed by
default.

The application name still gets clipped (with a 'fade out') when the
global menu is displayed. I think that this looks extremely bad. I'd
keep the application name fully displayed at all times, and have the
menu next to that. Okay, this would mean that the position of the menu
is no longer absolute, but that's not a big deal I think.

In relation to the previous item, when the application name stays
displayed at all times, it could be turned into an indicator-like
button, sporting all kinds of 'services' for the current application.
These services could include eg. 'kill application', 'take snapshot',
'move to workspace', 'hide', 'tile left/right'...

It would also be nice if the user had to option not to use 'global'
menus if they want to.

Anyway, I've created a couple of mock-ups to make clear how the panel
ideally would look like in my opinion:

http://www.drumscum.be/var/unity_menu_maximized.png
http://www.drumscum.be/var/unity_menu_windowed.png
http://www.drumscum.be/var/unity_window-menu.png

Please let me know what you think.

-- 
Look, the thing about my family is there's five of us.
Marge, Bart, Girl Bart, the one who doesn't talk, and
the fat guy. How I loathe him.
~ Homer J. Simpson

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Re: [Ayatana] Regressions in Unity for 11.10?

2011-08-31 Thread Pedro 
Hi.
Very good points indeed.

I agree with all all of them, except for one, little thing.

While I also think the application name should be displayed at all times, I
don't think it should move the main menu depending on how long it is.
One way to handle it would be to put the full window title in the global
menu and switch to the menu when mouse is over it, and then put the
application name always visible but on the far right side of the menu (right
aligned). Just an idea.

I would also like to point out another problem that is very annoying for me
but you didn't mention when you said: "When an application is maximized, the
close/minimize/maximize widgets are hidden by default".
And additional problem with this is that if you have a not maximized window
over a maximized window you cannot close the background maximized window (or
minimize it to see the next thing behind it) without first clicking on the
window body to make the close/minimize/maximize widgets appear.

This is so annoying for me, that I won't use maximized windows at all, so I
have the close/minimize/maximize widgets for every window visible all the
time.
So that's the point I agree most with.

Regards.

On Wed, Aug 31, 2011 at 11:58 AM, Tommy Bongaerts  wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> Most of the current big changes in the Unity shell are serious
> regressions in my opinion. I think Unity as shipped with 11.04 is much
> better. Here are the reasons why:
>
> It has the 'Ubuntu botton' integrated in the top panel. I thought that
> this was a very good idea, because it is in a way the 'window' into the
> system. With the 'Ubuntu button' inside the launcher, there no longer
> is a clear distinction. I also think it looks more pleasing to the
> eye, as it makes the launcher look more or less 'locked' into the top
> panel.
>
> The dash now has close/minimize/maximize widgets, just like regular
> windows. Very bad idea. It is /not/ a regular window, and should not
> be treated as such. Using the 'Ubuntu button' (or the 'super' key) to
> open/close the Dash made perfect sense
>
> When an application is maximized, the close/minimize/maximize widgets
> are hidden by default. To make them appear, the user has to hoover
> over the top panel. This means aiming twice: once to make the widgets
> appear, and then again to click on the desired widget. Seems very
> counterproductive to me.
>
> The same is valid for the global menus by the way, but I never found
> this to be problematic myself. Still, it would be a good idea to at
> least provide a user setting to keep the global menus displayed by
> default.
>
> The application name still gets clipped (with a 'fade out') when the
> global menu is displayed. I think that this looks extremely bad. I'd
> keep the application name fully displayed at all times, and have the
> menu next to that. Okay, this would mean that the position of the menu
> is no longer absolute, but that's not a big deal I think.
>
> In relation to the previous item, when the application name stays
> displayed at all times, it could be turned into an indicator-like
> button, sporting all kinds of 'services' for the current application.
> These services could include eg. 'kill application', 'take snapshot',
> 'move to workspace', 'hide', 'tile left/right'...
>
> It would also be nice if the user had to option not to use 'global'
> menus if they want to.
>
> Anyway, I've created a couple of mock-ups to make clear how the panel
> ideally would look like in my opinion:
>
> http://www.drumscum.be/var/unity_menu_maximized.png
> http://www.drumscum.be/var/unity_menu_windowed.png
> http://www.drumscum.be/var/unity_window-menu.png
>
> Please let me know what you think.
>
> --
> Look, the thing about my family is there's five of us.
> Marge, Bart, Girl Bart, the one who doesn't talk, and
> the fat guy. How I loathe him.
>~ Homer J. Simpson
>
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Re: [Ayatana] Regressions in Unity for 11.10?

2011-08-31 Thread anthropornis 

I'm mostly in agreement with you.

I'd be curious as to hear your feedback on my proposed redesign of the 
top panel (with the Ubuntu button left in its Natty position), which 
would accommodate most everything everyone wants while keeping it all 
discoverable simultaneously (and could have additional keyboard 
shortcuts applied to it):

https://lists.launchpad.net/ayatana/msg06419.html
(alas, no mockups, I am graphically-challenged)



On 08/31/2011 05:58 AM, Tommy Bongaerts wrote:

Hi all,

Most of the current big changes in the Unity shell are serious
regressions in my opinion. I think Unity as shipped with 11.04 is much
better. Here are the reasons why:

It has the 'Ubuntu botton' integrated in the top panel. I thought that
this was a very good idea, because it is in a way the 'window' into the
system. With the 'Ubuntu button' inside the launcher, there no longer
is a clear distinction. I also think it looks more pleasing to the
eye, as it makes the launcher look more or less 'locked' into the top
panel.

The dash now has close/minimize/maximize widgets, just like regular
windows. Very bad idea. It is /not/ a regular window, and should not
be treated as such. Using the 'Ubuntu button' (or the 'super' key) to
open/close the Dash made perfect sense

When an application is maximized, the close/minimize/maximize widgets
are hidden by default. To make them appear, the user has to hoover
over the top panel. This means aiming twice: once to make the widgets
appear, and then again to click on the desired widget. Seems very
counterproductive to me.

The same is valid for the global menus by the way, but I never found
this to be problematic myself. Still, it would be a good idea to at
least provide a user setting to keep the global menus displayed by
default.

The application name still gets clipped (with a 'fade out') when the
global menu is displayed. I think that this looks extremely bad. I'd
keep the application name fully displayed at all times, and have the
menu next to that. Okay, this would mean that the position of the menu
is no longer absolute, but that's not a big deal I think.

In relation to the previous item, when the application name stays
displayed at all times, it could be turned into an indicator-like
button, sporting all kinds of 'services' for the current application.
These services could include eg. 'kill application', 'take snapshot',
'move to workspace', 'hide', 'tile left/right'...

It would also be nice if the user had to option not to use 'global'
menus if they want to.

Anyway, I've created a couple of mock-ups to make clear how the panel
ideally would look like in my opinion:

http://www.drumscum.be/var/unity_menu_maximized.png
http://www.drumscum.be/var/unity_menu_windowed.png
http://www.drumscum.be/var/unity_window-menu.png

Please let me know what you think.




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Re: [Ayatana] Regressions in Unity for 11.10?

2011-08-31 Thread André Oliva 
As I mentioned before in another post, this is exactly the reason I joined
this mailing list. Very bad changes for Oneric, and they simply don't help
to keep a recognizable interface for new users, the same reason of why the
wallpaper is almost the same for Ubuntu 10.10, 11.04 and 11.10.

And for the problem of the Ubuntu button, I repeat the solution proposed
originally by user Sashin of Launchpad:

https://blueprints.launchpad.net/unity-shell/+spec/better-ubuntu-button-bfb

For which I made a better mockup here:

http://sites.google.com/site/gandreoliva/hybridbutton

And this solves the original usability problem of people clicking "home
folder" button instead of Ubuntu button by mistake.

I also think that the application menus have to be more "discovereable", or
at least there has to be a configuration option for always showing the
menus. There are lots of touch devices using Ubuntu shown in YouTube. And I
think Unity has to be the most "touch friendly" possible.


2011/8/31 anthropornis 

> I'm mostly in agreement with you.
>
> I'd be curious as to hear your feedback on my proposed redesign of the top
> panel (with the Ubuntu button left in its Natty position), which would
> accommodate most everything everyone wants while keeping it all discoverable
> simultaneously (and could have additional keyboard shortcuts applied to it):
> https://lists.launchpad.net/**ayatana/msg06419.html
> (alas, no mockups, I am graphically-challenged)
>
>
>
>
> On 08/31/2011 05:58 AM, Tommy Bongaerts wrote:
>
>> Hi all,
>>
>> Most of the current big changes in the Unity shell are serious
>> regressions in my opinion. I think Unity as shipped with 11.04 is much
>> better. Here are the reasons why:
>>
>> It has the 'Ubuntu botton' integrated in the top panel. I thought that
>> this was a very good idea, because it is in a way the 'window' into the
>> system. With the 'Ubuntu button' inside the launcher, there no longer
>> is a clear distinction. I also think it looks more pleasing to the
>> eye, as it makes the launcher look more or less 'locked' into the top
>> panel.
>>
>> The dash now has close/minimize/maximize widgets, just like regular
>> windows. Very bad idea. It is /not/ a regular window, and should not
>> be treated as such. Using the 'Ubuntu button' (or the 'super' key) to
>> open/close the Dash made perfect sense
>>
>> When an application is maximized, the close/minimize/maximize widgets
>> are hidden by default. To make them appear, the user has to hoover
>> over the top panel. This means aiming twice: once to make the widgets
>> appear, and then again to click on the desired widget. Seems very
>> counterproductive to me.
>>
>> The same is valid for the global menus by the way, but I never found
>> this to be problematic myself. Still, it would be a good idea to at
>> least provide a user setting to keep the global menus displayed by
>> default.
>>
>> The application name still gets clipped (with a 'fade out') when the
>> global menu is displayed. I think that this looks extremely bad. I'd
>> keep the application name fully displayed at all times, and have the
>> menu next to that. Okay, this would mean that the position of the menu
>> is no longer absolute, but that's not a big deal I think.
>>
>> In relation to the previous item, when the application name stays
>> displayed at all times, it could be turned into an indicator-like
>> button, sporting all kinds of 'services' for the current application.
>> These services could include eg. 'kill application', 'take snapshot',
>> 'move to workspace', 'hide', 'tile left/right'...
>>
>> It would also be nice if the user had to option not to use 'global'
>> menus if they want to.
>>
>> Anyway, I've created a couple of mock-ups to make clear how the panel
>> ideally would look like in my opinion:
>>
>> http://www.drumscum.be/var/**unity_menu_maximized.png
>> http://www.drumscum.be/var/**unity_menu_windowed.png
>> http://www.drumscum.be/var/**unity_window-menu.png
>>
>> Please let me know what you think.
>>
>>
>
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Re: [Ayatana] Regressions in Unity for 11.10?

2011-08-31 Thread Omer Akram 
Hello Tommy,

On Wed, Aug 31, 2011 at 2:58 PM, Tommy Bongaerts
 wrote:

> It has the 'Ubuntu botton' integrated in the top panel. I thought that
> this was a very good idea, because it is in a way the 'window' into the
> system.

I thought that too but it seems the people who were given to test
Unity during user testing session had hard times finding the use of
Ubuntu button in the panel, though we will know better once the user
testing for Oneiric Unity is done and published where the BFB is
better.

> I also think it looks more pleasing to the  eye, as it makes the
> launcher look more or less 'locked' into the top panel.

No, I dont think so because now when i use a maximized window is looks
better to atleast my eyes, without the BFB and the weird location
window controls in the panel.

> The dash now has close/minimize/maximize widgets, just like regular
> windows. Very bad idea. It is /not/ a regular window, and should not
> be treated as such. Using the 'Ubuntu button' (or the 'super' key) to
> open/close the Dash made perfect sense

At the moment is does indeed look weird with the colored buttons, the
minimize button is supposed to be dimmed out and not clickable, close
should close and maximize button should toggle between the states of
the dash i.e. fullscreen/desktop dash. Nothing could be more friendly
for a first time user of Unity to close the dash IMO. see the attached
image its supposed to look like that soon I believe.

> When an application is maximized, the close/minimize/maximize widgets
> are hidden by default. To make them appear, the user has to hoover
> over the top panel. This means aiming twice: once to make the widgets
> appear, and then again to click on the desired widget. Seems very
> counterproductive to me.

it depends. I hit the top left corner to show the controls and then
move right for the button i want to hit, is faster than 11.04 and any
other release of Ubuntu with the top panel. Actually I read somewhere
the top left corner should close the window with a blind click (I
might be wrong there though)

> The same is valid for the global menus by the way, but I never found
> this to be problematic myself.

Me neither but the people close to me who happen to use unity for only
empathy have indeed not found the menu themselves.

> It would also be nice if the user had to option not to use 'global'
> menus if they want to.

If an OS provides such type of option to its users then its simply NOT
a good OS to start with.

Thanks!
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Re: [Ayatana] Regressions in Unity for 11.10?

2011-08-31 Thread Mark Curtis 


> When an application is maximized, the close/minimize/maximize widgets
> are hidden by default. To make them appear, the user has to hoover
> over the top panel. This means aiming twice: once to make the widgets
> appear, and then again to click on the desired widget. Seems very
> counterproductive to me.
> 
> The same is valid for the global menus by the way, but I never found
> this to be problematic myself. Still, it would be a good idea to at
> least provide a user setting to keep the global menus displayed by
> default.
How is it you find it problematic hiding the same three buttons in same 
position, yet don't for hiding a menu of varying sizes and content?
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