I believe it's also worth noting that the way the icons get highlighted when they need attention has changed as well. In 13.10 and prior, all four sides of the icon highlighted. In 14.04, it's just two of the four sides (left + top sides). In some cases it seems that only the top edge of the icon when highlighted shows any difference, and even then it looks nearly identical when I click on the icon, thereby removing the highlight. Meanwhile, the left side of the icon that also gets highlighted seems to not change.
I understand that these items were changed as part of the conversion process to SVG, allowing them to scale up and look great on HiDPI screens. While I support this very much, it really does feel like a usability regression as it is now more difficult to tell when an application needs attention. If *everything* supported the Message Tray, this would be less of an issue as a user could just look there and see what took place. To be quite frank, the Message Tray certainly isn't supported by all applications, so you might see my angle on this now. Take into consideration that somebody may get up from their computer for a moment and come back several moments later. If the icons do not clearly depict that they received a message, or somebody highlighted them on IRC, etc., they wouldn't otherwise know. Given the fact that the current highlight is less obvious and the pips are smaller (making it more difficult to tell if a pip is blue or white to signify the difference), suddenly it becomes a burden to the user. Thinking it was the fact that I had selected "colored edges" for the "icon backgrounds" feature, I set everything back to default, just as it comes out of the box in 14.04, so then the icons had a solid color background without any colored edges. Sadly, this was no change (if anything, it was slightly worse since I didn't even have two of the four highlighted edges). In that case, I had to rely entirely on the color of the now smaller pips, which is cumbersome and quite a hassle. I still believe that having the ability to scale the pips independently would be a wildly effective method so the user may choose based on their preference, but with how close we are to release, at the very least I would favor seeing a more 13.10-ish size of pips on my 14.04 installs. Based on my conversations with users, it sounds like a lot of people don't notice this change. That said, I certainly notice when my messages go missed until I happen to message them again when they are in front of their system, thanks to the notification in the upper right corner on their display. :) Again, thank you for your time and efforts. Have a great day! -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of DX Packages, which is subscribed to unity in Ubuntu. Matching subscriptions: dx-packages https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1304073 Title: 14.04 Unity pips (white dots in bar) are now too small. Status in “unity” package in Ubuntu: Confirmed Bug description: On all 14.04 installs I've tinkered with so far they've all exhibited this behavior. The pips (white dots) next to the icons in the Unity bar are too small. I never noticed this before, so I went back to a 13.10 install to compare. The pips on 14.04 are so small that they, quite frankly, feel useless. They need to be of adequate size in an effort to be easily seen by the user, regardless of the actual icon size. Take note of the size of the white pips on the Unity launcher in the following screenshots. https://www.dropbox.com/sh/mc4k4yyjm5nbbzk/4t6SgqVN8H Here's an alternative 'direct download' link to the images just in case: http://skynetcore.org/shared/pips.tar.gz In an effort to present an accurate comparison I included the following screenshots (note that 48 px on both 13.10 and 14.04 seem identical, it's just the smaller sizes that down-scale too far) 13.10 - 32 px 14.04 - 32 px 13.10 - 48 px 14.04 - 48 px I also included a 5th screenshot of 26 px in 14.04 in case it helps further show what I'm referencing. While scaling the size of the pips makes sense to a certain degree, the current behavior scales them far too small. I feel as though they should have (at minimal) a 13.10 oriented type of scaling so they are more easily viewable, and therefore, more useful. If they could be adjusted in size, that would be a monumental bonus as well, but I have a feeling that might be a stretch for the given time frame. :) Thank you for your time! ProblemType: Bug DistroRelease: Ubuntu 14.04 Package: unity 7.2.0+14.04.20140403-0ubuntu1 ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.13.0-23.45-generic 3.13.8 Uname: Linux 3.13.0-23-generic x86_64 .tmp.unity.support.test.0: ApportVersion: 2.14.1-0ubuntu1 Architecture: amd64 CompizPlugins: No value set for `/apps/compiz-1/general/screen0/options/active_plugins' CompositorRunning: compiz CompositorUnredirectDriverBlacklist: '(nouveau|Intel).*Mesa 8.0' CompositorUnredirectFSW: true CurrentDesktop: Unity Date: Mon Apr 7 17:41:39 2014 DistUpgraded: Fresh install DistroCodename: trusty DistroVariant: ubuntu GraphicsCard: Intel Corporation 2nd Generation Core Processor Family Integrated Graphics Controller [8086:0116] (rev 09) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller]) Subsystem: Toshiba America Info Systems Device [1179:0009] InstallationDate: Installed on 2014-04-01 (6 days ago) InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 14.04 LTS "Trusty Tahr" - Daily amd64 (20140330) MachineType: TOSHIBA PORTEGE Z835 ProcKernelCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-3.13.0-23-generic root=UUID=5d7f7158-1b5b-4946-9916-b8a0c2f59525 ro quiet splash vt.handoff=7 SourcePackage: unity UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install) dmi.bios.date: 02/08/2012 dmi.bios.vendor: TOSHIBA dmi.bios.version: Version 1.60 dmi.board.asset.tag: 0000000000 dmi.board.name: Portable PC dmi.board.vendor: TOSHIBA dmi.board.version: Version A0 dmi.chassis.asset.tag: 0000000000 dmi.chassis.type: 10 dmi.chassis.vendor: TOSHIBA dmi.chassis.version: Version 1.0 dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnTOSHIBA:bvrVersion1.60:bd02/08/2012:svnTOSHIBA:pnPORTEGEZ835:pvrPT224U-013021:rvnTOSHIBA:rnPortablePC:rvrVersionA0:cvnTOSHIBA:ct10:cvrVersion1.0: dmi.product.name: PORTEGE Z835 dmi.product.version: PT224U-013021 dmi.sys.vendor: TOSHIBA version.compiz: compiz 1:0.9.11+14.04.20140328-0ubuntu1 version.ia32-libs: ia32-libs N/A version.libdrm2: libdrm2 2.4.52-1 version.libgl1-mesa-dri: libgl1-mesa-dri 10.1.0-4ubuntu1 version.libgl1-mesa-dri-experimental: libgl1-mesa-dri-experimental N/A version.libgl1-mesa-glx: libgl1-mesa-glx 10.1.0-4ubuntu1 version.xserver-xorg-core: xserver-xorg-core 2:1.15.0-1ubuntu7 version.xserver-xorg-input-evdev: xserver-xorg-input-evdev 1:2.8.2-1ubuntu2 version.xserver-xorg-video-ati: xserver-xorg-video-ati 1:7.3.0-1ubuntu3 version.xserver-xorg-video-intel: xserver-xorg-video-intel 2:2.99.910-0ubuntu1 version.xserver-xorg-video-nouveau: xserver-xorg-video-nouveau 1:1.0.10-1ubuntu2 xserver.bootTime: Mon Apr 7 17:24:40 2014 xserver.configfile: default xserver.errors: xserver.logfile: /var/log/Xorg.0.log xserver.outputs: xserver.version: 2:1.15.0-1ubuntu7 To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/unity/+bug/1304073/+subscriptions -- Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~dx-packages Post to : dx-packages@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~dx-packages More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp