Re: [Ayatana] [Bug 863399] Re: Unity needs a way to switch (tab) between windows on current workspace

[Mark Shuttleworth]

The Forums thread at http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1862661 is
essentially correct - the relationship between Workspaces and the rest
of Unity is inconsistent. That's simply because we have not yet got to
implement Workspaces the way we'd like, and what's currently shipping is
the Compiz Workspaces plugin bolted alongside the rest of Unity.

Some pieces are already in place, for example,  the Launcher
distinguishes between apps running on this workspace, and other workspaces.

Among many other changes we'd like to see in Workspaces:

 * Alt-TAB should only switch between apps on the current Workspace
 * Clicking on a Launcher icon for an app running elsewhere but not in
the current Workspace, which knows how to have multiple windows and
create new windows, should create a new window in the current Workspace

I've cc'd John Lea and Stewart Wilson who are the right folk to lead
further discussion.

Mark



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Re: [Ayatana] Comments on the Device & User Menu specs

[Mark Shuttleworth]

Hi Jeremy, thanks for your mail.

On 02/08/11 00:35, Jeremy Bicha wrote:

Since I help out on the Documentation Team, I value clear user
interface terminology so that users, powerusers, and maybe even
developers can use the same, understandable language. The old session
menu name became unclear when System Settings was added to it, but I
have to say that "device menu" is an even worse name. I strongly
prefer calling this menu the "system menu" since the items here are
generally system actions or configurations. Also, it's parallel to the
power menu having a power settings button and the sound menu having a
sound settings button.


+1 from me. I'd like to hear MPT's opinion on this, but if he raises no 
objections consider that an approval to move forward. If he does, I'll 
be glad to resolve it one way or the other.



http://pad.lv/815077 was reported about the lack of a Restart button.
It appears as though the spec is that Restart will only be shown if
restart-required updates have not been applied. A typical user will
want to restart to Windows or OS X. A fair number of developers have
another Ubuntu install or Linux distribution they would like to reboot
to use. Requiring users to log out before they restart seems to make a
common usecase more frustrating. If the desire is to reduce menu
option clutter, I suggest keeping the option as Shut Down (or Power
Off might be a good descriptive alternative). And then use a pop-up
like Gnome Shell to allow Restart, Shutdown (automatic after 60
seconds), or Cancel. See http://i.imgur.com/lLPoL.png


+1 also.



Login Items (Startup Applications) has only a very narrow, power user
use case especially in its current condition. I have never used it for
anything useful. For power users, it's easily findable in the Dash.


Agreed.


Since Bluetooth has its own menu, it definitely should not be in the
system menu. Many computers don't have bluetooth support anyway.
Honestly, I strongly question the need to have direct links here to
individual panels of System Settings. The most common options (Power,
Bluetooth, Sound, etc.) already are consistently at the bottom of
their respective menus. Displays also should just work for most
people; for others, set once and then always work.


Bluetooth will either move to the new menu, or stay special-cased on the 
panel, not both.




Devices sounds like it should also include the ability to unmount
removable drives, but perhaps this is a conflict with the Places Lens
thing.


We might drop the launcher visibility of mounted drives, based on user 
testing.



I very much like having System Settings at the top of the system menu
and the Lock/Sleep/Power options at the buttom. I also like the
Software Updates status incorporated into the system menu.


Thanks :-)

Mark

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Re: [Ayatana] New Alt-Tab

[Mark Shuttleworth]

On 28/07/11 22:20, Evan Huus wrote:

Admittedly, I've never used the spatial alternative proposed here, but
I imagine it would be much nicer if I could know 'four tabs is app X'
all the time, rather than, 'four tabs is the
fourth-most-recently-used, which was, uh, what again?'


Then you might like the Super+n key combinations, holding down Super 
(the Windows key on many laptops) and pressing 0-9 will launch/switch to 
that launcher. Hold down Super for a while to see the actual number.


I would also be happy to try a patch which used Super+TAB the way we've 
discussed, tabbing through the launcher.


Mark

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Re: [Ayatana] New Alt-Tab

[Mark Shuttleworth]

It's a lovely idea, and three consecutive designers have dashed 
themselves on the rocks trying to get it right. I'd be thrilled if 
someone could do better!


Here's what we found each time we tried it:

*The launcher is spatial, the alt-tab is logical.* The alt-tab works 
best when it is a stack, with the most recently used stuff first. 
Toggling between apps is always a single alt-tab, and moving between a 
small group of apps scales up accordingly, alt-tab-tab-tab gets you to 
the third most recently used app/window.


If you want to jump more than one step back in the stack, you want to be 
able to see where you are going. And this is the problem with the 
launcher, in order to give a sense of trajectory, you would need to 
reorder the items on the launcher. Which breaks people's sense of "where 
things are" and makes the launcher seem arbitrary. On the other hand, 
you could jump from item to item, but then you are not providing any 
clue as to where the next tab will send you. Which feels sucky (we tried 
it :-)).


So, it's an interesting exercise and a very attractive idea, and if 
someone can make it work I would embrace the patch, but I think it's one 
of those attractive-but-wrong sinkholes. Prove me wrong :-)


Mark

On 28/07/11 15:52, Owas Lone wrote:

Great Idea.

On Thu, Jul 28, 2011 at 7:42 PM, Alex Launi  wrote:

I love this. It really just makes alt-tab a keybinding for features we
already have. Very clean, very simple, and enhances the idioms we've already
started developing.

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Re: [Ayatana] No one will ever use the upper-left Ubuntu button

[Mark Shuttleworth]

Let's see what people who try it have to say. Don't worry if there is
negative feedback, that's what exploring and testing are all about.
Thanks for making the testable mockup.



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Re: [Ayatana] No one will ever use the upper-left Ubuntu button

[Mark Shuttleworth]

On 09/03/11 20:40, David wrote:
> Hello again,
>
> http://unity.exemo.net/

A great start for testing, thanks!



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Re: [Ayatana] No one will ever use the upper-left Ubuntu button

[Mark Shuttleworth]

On 08/03/11 14:14, Marc Lajoie wrote:
> If I had a say (which I don't), I'd have a "two-sided" dock: on one
> side, the application buttons, on the other, the "function" buttons.
> The Ubuntu button would flip the dock over (perhaps with a pretty
> revolving animation!). See the attached mockup.
>
> Of course, if the dock is hidden, the first click will recall it. The
> second click will flip the dock.
>
> It might seem to waste time to have the extra click to get to the
> function buttons, but I think it comes to the same as having to hunt
> through the application buttons in the dock to find them.
>

An interesting suggestion - maybe a web-based mockup would help test it?



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Re: [Ayatana] No one will ever use the upper-left Ubuntu button

[Mark Shuttleworth]

On 07/03/11 11:06, frederik.nn...@gmail.com wrote:
> Hello Mark,
>
> On Mon, Mar 7, 2011 at 08:16, Mark Shuttleworth
>  <mailto:mark.shuttlewo...@canonical.com>> wrote:
>
> The dash / launcher can be revealed with a 4-drag from left to
> right on touch devices.
>
>
> Will this ever be possible on synaptics clickpads and touchpads, too?

Yes, if they support 4-touch, otherwise they will be used as pointing
devices, clicking on the button.

Mark


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Re: [Ayatana] No one will ever use the upper-left Ubuntu button

[Mark Shuttleworth]

On 06/03/11 22:02, Martín A. Casco wrote:
> Click on Ubuntu's Icon for some shortcuts, lets see.. Apps (we an icon
> on Launcher for that); Files and Folders (same situation that Apps);
> then, Banshee (Sound Menu or Launcher if we want), Web Browser
> (include on Launcher out of the box), Shotwell (same that Browser if
> we want)..
>
> I mean, from Ubuntu's icon we can access to Web Browser, Apps,
> Files/Folders, Banshee, Shotter... But, from Launcher we can access to
> the same apps, folder or shortcuts. We have 3 icons for access  the
> same Dash with 3 different (unnecessary) filtering options.

Yes, the degree of overlap between the launcher and the shortcuts bears
thinking about. In part, we were concerned that a user might
inadvertently remove one of the key apps from the launcher, and the
shortcuts would thus provide a standardised way to restore them. We
deliberately made the shortcuts "shrinkable", and a future update will
use that fact to make the Dash leaner and neater.

We've said we want to use icon styling to differentiate between "dash
lenses" and "applications".

> So:
>
> - Maybe it could be better eliminate Apps and File/Folder's icons from
> Launcher and integrate them on Ubuntu's icon.
>
> - Use Ubuntu's Icon for show System Information or another useful
> option/application.

Putting system settings in the shortcuts is one option, yes.

>> - Have it be a trigger to recall the dock. This would be useful in the
>> case of a touch interface, so that the dock's autohide may be used on
>> touch-enabled devices (esp. ones with limited screen real-estate)
>
> This last idea it's great!

None of the menu bar elements is touch friendly. A touch point needs to
be 8mm square, by our definition. 22px is much less on any normal
display. So this is not a great plan. The dash / launcher can be
revealed with a 4-drag from left to right on touch devices.

Mark



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Re: [Ayatana] Launcher DnD - import applications on DnD start

[Mark Shuttleworth]

On 22/02/11 13:28, John Lea wrote:
> I think there are two different interactions we can implement here,
> one that is mostly additional functionality and a second that needs
> further thought and visual design treatment.
>
> ---
> 1)  Find all apps that can open a specific file type.
>
> In this interaction, when a user starts dragging a file (or files) the
> 'App Lens' is one of the Launcher icons that highlighted indicating it
> is a valid drop receptacle.  Dragging the file over the app lens
> launcher icon reveals the app lens showing only the applications which
> can open the specific file type(s).
>
> Use Case 1 - Continued drag and drop
>
> The user then continues dragging the file and drops it on a
> application icon in the app lens.  The action closes the app lens and
> opens the file in the selected application (installing the application
> first if necessary).

We can't just install an app with such a lightweight signal. We need to:

 * clearly distinguish between apps which are installed, and apps which
are not
 * provide an intermediate "do you want to install this" confirmation en
route to *s*a*t*i*s*f*a*c*t*i*o*n* :-)


> Use Case 2 - Drop then select
>
> The user drops the file on the app lens icon. They then click on the
> application in the app lens they want to use to open the file.  The
> action closes the app lens and opens the file in the selected
> application (installing the application first if necessary).

I think dropping content on a lens is a concept we should explore in
more detail for Natty+1. I can see it being relevant for lenses which
might also be storage interfaces - think a Flickr lens. But because a
lens is intrinsically open-ended, I find dropping on the lens itself a
little mysterious. Gliding *through* the lens, to some more obvious
destination, is better, as might be  a quicklist-target.


> Use Case 3 - Abandon action and exit
>
> If the user decides to abandon the action they can either:
> a) drag the file back on to the launcher, this closes the app lens
> b) drag the file outside of the dash area (only applies to the desktop
> dash)
> c) drop the file in any area of the dash that is not a application icon

We do need to think through the general case of "abandoning a
drag-through". Similarly in the drag-through-an-app-spread story.


> Considerations:
> a) In the use cases described above, the app lens should display two
> category headers.  These should be "Installed Apps that can open .jpg
> files" and "Apps Available for Download that can open .jpg files". 
> Both of these categories should be expanded by default.

+1

What about cases where there are too many of them?

> b) For use case 1 (continued drag and drop) dragging the file to the
> bottom or top of the app lens should initiate a auto-scroll behavior

+1 too :-)


> ---
> 2)  Display the currently installed default app that can open the
> specific file type in the Launcher (if it is not there already).
>
> While I like the interaction because it increases the vocabulary of
> drag and drop launcher behavior, it is essentially a *slower* way of
> performing exactly the same action as double clicking or tapping on
> the file.

It is, however, explicit rather than implicit.

Mark




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Re: [Ayatana] Launcher DnD - import applications on DnD start

[Mark Shuttleworth]

On 20/02/11 23:51, Jason Smith wrote:
> Placing at the bottom will hold challenges for a folded situation,
> though placing at the top will slide things that would otherwise be
> stationary. However, since we are known to be in a situation where no
> icon can possibly resolve the drop (with the exclusion of the trash),
> perhaps always placing at the top (and sliding existing icons down) is
> not evil?

We could unfold the bottom explicitly. I think we'll need to think about
cases where we want to have multiple unfolded sections, with folded
sections squeezed.

Mark



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Re: [Ayatana] Windicators

[Mark Shuttleworth]

On 20/02/11 18:39, Mitja Pagon wrote:
> Using the example of volume control mentioned below, am I the only one
> who thinks windicators make little sense and are in fact bad UX.

No, of course you are not the only person, there's lots of dissent,
which is fine and stimulates discussion to get a better result.

> Follow my example.
> What is the added benefit of having the per-application volume control
> as "windicator". Music players already have per application volume
> controls in their UIs and space gained by moving them into the window
> title is minimal. Are there any other benefits am missing?

It would not make sense to have volume controls both inside the UI, and
in the title bar as an indicator. But the suggestion of course was to
let apps *move* that functionality to the indicator, not duplicate the
functionality.

Indicators are abstract, logical entities that are exported from the
app. They can thus be useful in more general cases. For example, in the
window spread views, indicators could be rendered at full size, so their
semantic meaning can be scanned in the spread view. They could even be
interactive in those views, allowing one to set the appropriate volume
for multiple windows, quickly, in the volume example.

> On the other hand you are adding visual clutter to the title bar,
> introducing confusing behavior, as the same indicator is sometimes
> applications specific, other times it system wide, not to mention you
> are giving yourself additional technical problems to solve and thus
> requiring more resources. All of this are negative implications of
> this idea.

Giving technical problems to solve is called "challenging the engineers"
and we rather like to do that, and they rather like it too, round here
;-) As long as the work feels like it is foundational and will stick
around for a long time and be used, solving hard problems is worthwhile.

> If you apply simple math to this you can conclude that he negatives of
> this idea outweigh the positives.
>
> There are some other use cases mentioned, but most of the same logic
> applies and as for using windicators for notifying users there is
> already notify-osd.

Notify-OSD is purely for momentary events, not status. Indicators
combine status and manipulation of the status, they are entirely
different from notifications.

Mark


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Re: [Ayatana] Windicators

[Mark Shuttleworth]

I think we should provide a standard "collapsing" approach for things
which could be window indicators and which are commonly system
indicators too, like volume. When maximised, the window indicator is
embedded in the system indicator (so there's only one volume indicator,
and in there you find what you probably expect to find).

Needs cogent thinking, but I think it's doable.

Mark

On 04/01/11 20:06, Carl Simpson wrote:
> To clarify, I mean people tend to want that somewhere in the
> front-and-centre interface; I'm aware that it's there in
> gnome-volume-control.
>
> 2011/1/4 Carl Simpson  <mailto:cwd.simp...@gmail.com>>
>
> 2011/1/4 Mark Shuttleworth mailto:m...@ubuntu.com>>
>
>
> When maximised, they go into the panel, on the right, left of any
> app-indicators.
>
>
> Can we can assume from this that per-application functions, such
> as volume control and network status, wont be tenable uses of the
> windicator idea, since this would result in duplicates (e.g., two
> volume controls) or confusingly similar items in the panel when
> applications are maximised?
>
> If that is the case, then as a side note: I get the sense that
> per-application volume control is something that people generally
> think that they want- is there any plan for that sort of thing?
>
>



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Re: [Ayatana] Launcher DnD - import applications on DnD start

[Mark Shuttleworth]

Great suggestions all! How about this:

 - if no app on the launcher can handle this type, and there is a
default launcher, we put it at the bottom (where it would launch) and
wiggle it to call attention to it

 - we also allow drag to the apps place, which would open (on hover)
with the top section showing all known apps which could handle that type

Mark



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Re: [Ayatana] Better use of backlight in Unity launcher

[Mark Shuttleworth]

We're experimenting with different uses of the backlight. For example,
we'd like to experiment with using that to show focus in the keyboard
navigation case (Alt-F1). I don't think "running" is useful, given we
already have the symbolic pips, and I think there are risks to changing
the "look" of the icon when people are scanning lots of them quickly.

Suggestions welcome :-)

Mark



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Re: [Ayatana] I don't think global menu and the panel is good for a touch OS

[Mark Shuttleworth]

On 18/01/11 18:09, Conscious User wrote:
>
>> They are very different things, and a design that works well for one
>> will hardly ever work well for the other.
>
> I'm a little bit confused now because Mark's blog post about Unity
> clearly stated that some design decisions were motivated by touch
> devices. Is the Unity design still taking touch into consideration
> or this was completely dropped once it was decided that Desktops
> would use it too?

No. Menu's are inherently antagonistic to touch. They are not
salvageable in their current form, so we're making no effort to do so.
As MPT has said clearly here, if you want to make a touch friendly
*app*, you need to use touch friendly styling and gestures. And not
depend on menus at all.

Utouch makes that easy to do, but you won't get "touchiness" for free in
the app, you have to design for it. Similarly, we didn't get it for free
in the shell, we had to design for it.

Mark



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Re: [Ayatana] Left close buttons on tabs

[Mark Shuttleworth]

The close-multiple-tabs-fast behaviour just requires that the tab
realignment be smart. If you look closely, Chrome realigns twice, once
for fast closing, then for better spacing.

In other words, if fast-closing is a goal, then it's perfectly possible
to ensure that successive close buttons are placed underneath one
another, and then the whole set are re-flowed once the obvious
"closefest" is over.

So, +1 for moving the close button to the left, for consistency, as long
as the rapid-close behaviour is preserved.

Mark



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Re: [Ayatana] Indicator keyboard shortcuts missing in Unity

[Mark Shuttleworth]

The indicators are a continuation of menus. So F10 will bring up the
menu, from whence one can get to the indicators. I think we should stop
using Super+S now that this is the case, and ensure that F10 always works.

cc'ing Jorge because I think he setup the hotkey wiki page :-)

Mark



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Re: [Ayatana] Windicators

[Mark Shuttleworth]

We already promote the idea of apps embedding themselves in system
indicators. Where there is overlap between a window indicator, and a
system indicator, we should explore the merger of the two in the
maximised case (i.e. embedding the maximised window indicator into the
standard system indicator).

Mark



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Re: [Ayatana] Windicators

[Mark Shuttleworth]

On 04/01/11 02:44, Shane Fagan wrote:
> On the design of the windicators, how exactly do they fit? Im not really
> getting a good image in my head about how they will be fitting in since
> the area that they were supposed to be put into is going to be removed
> for maximized windows.

When maximised, they go into the panel, on the right, left of any
app-indicators.

[U  OOO Application Name or Menu  W W W A A A S S S S ]

Where:
  - U = Ubuntu button
  - O = Window controls
  - W = Windicators for the maximised window
  - A = App indicators
  - S = System indicators

Mark



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Re: [Ayatana] Contributions?

[Mark Shuttleworth]

On 17/11/10 20:30, Carsten Agger wrote:
> That may be inconvenient, as people here mostly speak Danish, a tiny
> language not understood outside our borders ... which means such
> videos will be less useful for people in most of the world.

Well, multi-cultural testing is really valuable, as sometimes people
react quite differently to an icon, or expect to find things in a very
different place, based on cultural patterns.

What really matters to *us* is your write-up of the findings. So for
example, if you decided to test "how easily a new user can move photos
from their camera to facebook", you could write up the findings in
English even if the video itself was folks chatting in Danish.

Mark



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Re: [Ayatana] Unity and tooltips

[Mark Shuttleworth]

On 17/10/10 11:39, Vishnoo wrote:
> Is there a reason Unity's Launcher has tooltips for applications and
> places? [While Application icons could be considered as unrecognizable,
> Places icons are our custom icons so they should atleast be a bit
> recognizable.Still not sure how these tooltips are more important...]

We give the name of the application because, if you don't know the icon,
there's absolutely no way to know what it is otherwise. We dropped
tooltips elsewhere because they were by-and-large trying to convey
overly-detailed information.

Mark



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Re: [Ayatana] Compiz close-buttons on expose

[Mark Shuttleworth]

For completeness on this thread, I'd like to say:

 - yes, we should show a close button on window previews in our spreads
 - it should only be the close button, none of the other window controls
are relevant
 - it should only appear on mouse proximity (fallback - mouseover,
prefer - fade-in with proximity like the notify-osd proximity effects)
 - it should be full-sized, not scaled, of course :-)

Sam, is that sufficient guidance, or would a mockup help?

Mark



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Re: [Ayatana] Windicators

[Mark Shuttleworth]

On 10/12/10 06:52, Shane Fagan wrote:
> On Fri, 2010-12-10 at 12:04 +0530, Owais Lone wrote:
>> Just wanted to check. Are Windicators targeted for Natty? How much
>> work has been done? What if I wanted to play with it a little?
> No there was no talk about anything unless canonical have it going on
> it.

I'd love to see it done, but it's not critical to "getting Unity out
there" which is our mission for 11.04. So if you're interested:

 - look at the AppIndicator protocol / API's
 - chat with Mikkel on IRC, or Ted Gould, depending on your timezones
 - sketch out an API which essentially generalises AppIndicator, so an
app can publish multiple window indicators on the dbus, each window
indicator behaving just like an AppIndicator: it's an icon (which can
change) and a menu (which can change)
 - we can arrange to patch Compiz to put the windicators in the window
title bar or panel

Mark



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Re: [Ayatana] Indicator-Network

[Mark Shuttleworth]

Apoorva posted the correct item, which is the desired design for the
network indicator. We're currently implementing that, with Connection
Manager as a backend. It's not ready for prime time, but chat to Kalle
Valo if you're interested in helping out.

Mark



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Re: [Ayatana] Compatibility goals for Natty appmenu

[Mark Shuttleworth]

On 31/12/10 11:02, Conscious User wrote:
> I'm curious with respect to the appmenu compatibility goals
> targeted for Natty. So far there are some important apps
> non-compatible with it:
>
> XUL apps
> [Open,Libre]Office
> Swing apps
> SWT apps
> MonoDevelop
>
> I know that XUL is being worked on, but I heard no news
> about the rest. I'm particularly interested in SWT
> compatibility as an Eclipse user.

Each of these will need a bit of work from both folks working on Unity
tech, and the projects / toolkits themselves. In the case of XUL, there
are folks working on it from both Unity and Mozilla. We'll need someone
to step up in each case, so if you know people in those communities,
please get them aware of the issue and see if there's someone interested
in being the counterpart, then put them in touch with Ted Gould or Cody
Russell.

I've filed a bug in LibreOffice, and it's received a little attention
already. I'm sure it will be a popular issue, but getting a developer
interested is the most important bit.

Mark



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Re: [Ayatana] Ayatana for Frugalware

[Mark Shuttleworth]

On 22/12/10 17:20, Devil505 wrote:
> I hope my work will help people who want to port Ayatana to linux
> distributions other than Ubuntu.

Very glad to see this, thanks for stepping up and patches welcome if you
run into things which help folks building Unity elsewhere.

Mark



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Re: [Ayatana] New ideas for light themes

[Mark Shuttleworth]

Yes, this is filed as a bug. The controls-in-menubar and
controls-in-window-titlebar should be styled exactly the same.

Mark



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Re: [Ayatana] Evolution indicator

[Mark Shuttleworth]

On 21/12/10 15:08, Jeremy Nickurak wrote:
> Email notifications tell me when I need to have my email open. When
> I'm done, I close my email app (which should NOT stop me from getting
> email notifications). When I get another notification (which I don't
> right now, because the previous step broke them), I open my email app
> again (either by running it in the menu, or by selecting the message
> in the messaging menu).

We're in complete agreement - the mail client should happily run in the
background with no windows showing, the messaging menu can indicate the
app is running, and clicking on entries in the messaging menu should
create the window instantly.

Mark



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Re: [Ayatana] Why the launcher should be on the right

[Mark Shuttleworth]

On 19/12/10 17:22, Mirek M. wrote:
> *The whole left side of the screen would be devoted to the current
> application*
> Right now, you get some system-related commands on the right of the
> top panel, application-related commands on the left, and some more
> system-related commands on the far left.
> Moving the launcher and the Ubuntu button to the right would put all
> the system-related commands on the right and all the app-related
> commands on the left, so neither the launcher nor the Ubuntu button
> gets in the way when working with a single application.

One idea we try to preserve is the "hierarchy of information", which
says that (in left-to-right languages) organising structure should be on
the left, and content on the right. In this case, the launcher is very
much "organising structure".

> *A "hot corner" wouldn't get in the way*
> Keeping application commands separate from system commands is
> especially important to workflow when you have areas that activate on
> hover (e.g. Ubuntu button). It is extremely annoying and distracting
> when you accidentally mouse over a "hot corner"and have to wait a few
> seconds to get back to work. As the menu bar and window buttons are
> aligned left, and as most toolbars are also left-aligned, a hot corner
> on the right will be less likely to be accidentally triggered than a
> hot corner on the left.

At the moment, the corner is overly sensitive because the launcher shows
up for a few seconds if you go over the Ubuntu button. But in fact, it
should actually require you to hit the corner. Fixing that should reduce
the impact of this feeling.


> *The application would get the most focus*
> As most languages are read from left to right, our focus tends to
> start at the left side of the screen. If the goal of Unity is to
> maintain focus on a single task, it makes most sense to put the
> launcher somewhere where it doesn't distract from the application --
> on the right.

Well, when you are focused on an app, the launcher should be invisible.
Balancing focus and awareness is a key design goal for us in Unity,
hence the intellihiding approach. There are other things we can do to
take this even further, but they'll have to wait for 11.10.


> *"Tools" would be easier to target*
> Most image editors, raster or vector, have a "Tools" sidebar on the
> left, which is very easy to target when it is at the edge of the
> screen, but very hard to target when there's a launcher at the left
> edge of the screen.

Again, the app should generally get all the real estate, including the
left edge, solving this issue (i.e. giving Fitt's Law friendly edges to
the app).

> I hope that this is enough to at least consider moving the launcher to
> the right.

Good points, well argued, but I'm afraid the balance remains in favour
of the left edge for now.

Mark


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Re: [Ayatana] Graceful degradation of Unity

[Mark Shuttleworth]

On 13/12/10 17:17, Spike Burch wrote:
> What I would do, although this is duplicating effort in the long run,
> is write a 2d version of unity using EFL, just like they did with the
> old netbook interface

That's what I would do too :-)

For 11.04, the focus is on getting Unity-with-GL as good as we can.
However, in time for the LTS, we will want a 2D experience which shares
enough of the interactions that it doesn't require a second set of
documentation.

As Ryan Prior pointed out, Unity is unproven. We're confident in it -
enough to commit to it for 11.04, and the design has been flattered with
imitation elsewhere, so that's reassuring too :-). But having the
existing Gnome 2 style panel-based fallback is fine in 11.04 because it
provides a familiar environment for those who want it, and is stable and
well trusted.

Mark



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Re: [Ayatana] Some ideas for the Software Center

[Mark Shuttleworth]

I agree, we don't need pre-emptive downloading of packages without an
explicit user request for installation.

On 13/12/10 11:52, Matthew Paul Thomas wrote:
> Like apt-get, USC installs recommended items by default, though you can
> uncheck them in the "Add-ons" section if you want to.

No doubt it's in your head already, but we could do a lot better with
package recommendations than simply looking at the Recommends metadata.
For example, if the user has python-dev installed, and installs libmysql
directly rather than as a dependency, we could recommend the Python
bindings and development libraries. I suspect a lot of this will require
some server-side smarts but it's a fruitful area for us to be exploring.

Mark



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Re: [Ayatana] The Unity launcher and minimized windows

[Mark Shuttleworth]

"Minimize" is really "hide". It means "keep this window alive, but get
it out of my desktop view". The window is still in every sense part of
the working set of windows, so it should show up in glorious
technicolour during things like spread and alt-tab.

Sam, would you make it so? It sounds like you're already on track ;-)

Mark



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Re: [Ayatana] Fwd: Fwd: Super Compiz Unity Mockup Idea!!!!

[Mark Shuttleworth]

On 21/12/10 22:47, Carl Simpson wrote:
> Isn't it still confusing that you have disabled window controls near
> the menus for, and the name of, the active window?  That tells me that
> I can't maximise, minimise or close the active window.  This is a
> message that conflicts with that given by the ones in its own window
> decorations.

Yes - Martin's mockup doesn't reflect the plan or direction. The panel,
if it show window controls, should ONLY show them for the maximised AND
focused window. If you have a maximised app, and a normal window over it
that has the focus, the panel should only show information for the
focused app.

Mark



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Re: [Ayatana] [Bug 692921] Re: Allow for the panel to be disabled (wishlist)

[Mark Shuttleworth]

On 22/12/10 04:53, Frederik Nnaji wrote:
> On Tue, 2010-12-21 at 17:10 +0100, zekopeko wrote:
>
>
>> I think that a decent solution for 11.04 would be to create a
>> temporary workspace for the fullscreen app so that it shows in the
>> Expo (Workspace switcher) mode but once the app is un-fullscreen-ed it
>> would return to the workspace from which it originated (no fancy
>> animation transitions). Alt-Tab-ing while the fullscreen app is
>> focused would tab-between workspaces and not applications. If you
>> alt-tab while a non-fullscreen applications is focused (so you can see
>> the launcher and the panel) would tab between applications that are
>> currently open and the fullscreen apps.
>
> they removed ALT+F2, so i'm not even sure they'll keep ALT+TAB.

Alt-F2 is just not yet implemented, it's filed as a bug and will get
fixed. Of course we'll retain Alt-TAB!

> *Close, MaxVert, Fullscreen Mode*
> in a recent thread, i suggested to add a button to the window
> controls: fullscreen. This, because many users don't even know what
> fullscreen mode is, except for in movie players.. they learn it on
> youtube, where there is a more than obvious "fullscreen" button, and
> start looking for such a button in totem, vlc etc..

The issue then is to figure out how to get OUT of fullscreen :-)

The approach we are taking is reversible gestures, where a particular
gesture gets you into a fullscreen situation, and reversing the gesture
(I wave my hands furiously ;-)) gets you out.

> *Floating Indicators*
> One could think of single icons popping up upon transient events top
> right corner of a fullscreen window, provided i'm not set to "do not
> disturb".
> But the visibility of single icons popping up above whatever content
> is beneath them is low.
> WingPanel is an excellent option here, it would only have to be
> transparent, and it would have to know when it is above the content
> area of an application in fullscreen mode. 

Yes, there are some interesting ideas in wingpanel, and I'd encourage
experimentation and discussion here.

Mark


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Re: [Ayatana] [Bug 692921] Re: Allow for the panel to be disabled (wishlist)

[Mark Shuttleworth]

We definitely need a natural way to move between "full screen" (no
panel) and "panelled" mode, across multiple apps. And perhaps we need a
good way for things like indicators to show up at appropriate times,
when the panel is not being displayed.

So kudos to the Elementary team for their explorations with wingpanel.

In terms of space efficiency, though, if you maximise a window and have
wingpanel float over it, you effectively have the same thing as the
design goal for 11.04 Unity: maximised windows put titles / window
controls / windicators into the panel themselves. And if you're not
using a maximised window then space efficiency is by definition not your
primary concern.

I can see that there's a "lightness" of the desktop without the panel,
yes. So I think this idea has merit and is worth exploration. I would
welcome mockups and discussion on the Ayatana list, cc'd.

Mark



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Re: [Ayatana] [Fwd: Re: Presence via Me Menu]

[Mark Shuttleworth]

On 16/12/10 12:56, Martín A. Casco wrote:
> There is an interesting mail here about unifying Messaging Menu and Me
> Menu... for example, launch empathy (or Pidgin if installed) from
> Messaging Menu, see contacts chats from messaging menu, but if we want
> to set quickly our chat status we have tu use Me Menu... Maybe a
> unified option could be mor logical and better.
>
> On Gwibber, launch and see mentions or DM from Messaging menu, but if
> we want to twit we have to go to Me Menu, delete de "Publicar en
> Twitter" (I'm from Argentina) and write our twit, but there is no
> shorter URL (Like twitter) and sometimes notification bubble interfere...
>
> I believe that a unified solution could be better, don't you?

Yes, I do. The biggest issue has been finding a way to make that compact
enough to be a clean indicator. We can have another stab at that for
11.10. Whatever we do there will need to stick for 12.04 LTS.

Mark


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Re: [Ayatana] Desktop Silent Mode

[Mark Shuttleworth]

On 16/12/10 18:42, frederik.nn...@gmail.com wrote:
> Hi SABDFL,

Yikes, that's much better in lowercase. In upper, it's more D than :-D

> This has probably been lying around for so long, because of design
> conflicts with how the Ayatana subsystem is currently wired.
> * Presence has no local effect

Well, don't think of that menu as presence, think of it as "desired
presence". I.e., if the user wants to be present, she can signal it
there, and we can make it so.

> * Presence has no effect on Skype (except with Pidgin running)
>-> https://bugs.launchpad.net/indicator-me/+bug/684678

Don't worry about Skype for now - get a great design, and we'll have a
word with them. Everything is possible.

> * System Sounds are not connected with notifications (perhaps with
> Dylan's patch?)
>-> Dylan, what's the status/bug ;) ?

Yeah, I'm keen to get that sorted out too :-)

> Busy aka DoNotDisturb has been around for as long as i know Presence
> in IM, now is the time to implement it for the local system.
> I would like to discuss the above problems in order to get some
> opinions, before i am confident that i can draft a simple spec for
> "Silent Mode" aka "Do Not Disturb" aka Presence="Busy".

I'm not sure Busy is the same, but I think "Silent" and "DND" are the same.

> * Invisible doesn't really work - it jumps to busy always

Let's get a spec together, and perhaps a hero will step forward.

> * the Session Menu is on the wrong side of the panel (imo)

Fuggedaboudit ;-)




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Re: [Ayatana] unity and notifications

[Mark Shuttleworth]

On 16/09/10 16:25, Conscious User wrote:
> Le jeudi 16 septembre 2010 à 13:29 +0100, Luke Benstead a écrit :
>>
>> On 15 September 2010 17:25, Greg K Nicholson  wrote:
>> On 15 September 2010 16:54, Conscious User
>>  wrote:
>> > I know it's the space for the confirmation bubbles, but I
>> think it
>> > would be much better if those appeared in another place
>> entirely,
>> > like a bottom corner.
>> 
>> 
>> I've suggested before that synchronous notifications (e.g.
>> volume)
>> should appear horizontally centred. Then the asynchronous
>> notifications (IM etc.) can appear immediately below the top
>> panel, at
>> the right.
>> 
>> No-one has come up with any drawback whatsoever to this design
>> —yet ;)
>> --
>> Greg
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>
>> That's definitely the best solution I've heard yet. Why are we not
>> doing that?
>>
>> Luke.
> As a matter of fact, because the confirmation bubbles have a fixed
> size, they can be placed pretty much anywhere with little issues.
>
> If I were to guess the reason of the current placement, is that the
> designers believe that giving the user two different places from
> which bubbles can come from is confusing. Can someone confirm?

We want to keep notifications and indicators in relatively close
proximity. Synchronous (keyboard-response, user-generated,
self-overwriting) notifications like volume-up and -down are on top,
because that area has more precious content (firefox search, for
example) than the area just below it, and because they are fixed-size,
where the async ones are variable-size.

Mark



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Re: [Ayatana] Audial notifications.

[Mark Shuttleworth]

On 25/09/10 17:28, Dylan McCall wrote:
> Attaching a sound hint to notifications is in notify-osd's
> specification (and the desktop notifications spec).
>
> I put a patch implementing the feature here:
> https://bugs.edge.launchpad.net/notify-osd/+bug/549900
>
> As for tying together libnotify and the message indicator under Yet
> Another library, I'm pretty worried about that idea. It would split us
> further from upstreams (in a wacky, tangled way), increasing the
> significant load of patches being applied and maintained within
> Ubuntu.
>
> The notifications spec (as in libnotify) is pretty expressive, and I
> get the feeling that it's completely wrong that all the
> implementations use a single trick for presentation (a bubble),
> leaving other methods of presenting that same information to other
> specifications entirely. It's like buying an assault vehicle to get
> the groceries.

Hi Dylan

Was this patch landed? If not, let's see if we can steer it home.

For notifications generally, we definitely want the app to have more
influence over the notification after it's dispatched it.

For example:

 - we want the app to be able to associate a sound with the display.
This has to be done through the notification system, since only the
notification system knows when the notification will actually get
displayed, and even though we want to tell the app, we don't want the
roundtrip delay of a message to an app which then tells the sound system
to play the sound.

 - we want the app to get an "about to show" callback when the message
gets to the front of the queue (i.e. if it has been queued for a while
as other notifications are displayed, it should this callback either
when this notification is next, or perhaps when this notification as an
estimated second left before display). So an app can update the text
appropriately, or delete it from the queue, or change the sound
associated with it.

 - we want apps to be better about appending / updating notification
content, rather than just slamming new messages to the bus. For example,
the sequence of "connected / disconnected" messages is disconcerting
from NM, these should be *amended* in place, not queued.

Mark



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Re: [Ayatana] Desktop Silent Mode

[Mark Shuttleworth]

On 22/09/10 11:37, frederik.nn...@gmail.com wrote:
> we can save ourselves a lot of annoyance by introducing Silent Mode
> finally.
> Synonyms for this use case have been "DoNotDisturb", Busy mode or
> NotAvailable to name most of them.
>
> The high level concept of Silent Mode active during a Desktop session
> is that the user has a simple way of enabling an disturbance-free
> experience in order to be able to focus on an important task, work,
> project, conversation, movie, audio or what have you.
>
> Has anyone started speccing this out already?

I don't believe so. If you would like to do a spec, either work with MPT
or I'll review it with you until it gets approval and then it can be
queued for 11.10. This is LNG overdue, and I appreciate your offer
of help.

Mark



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Re: [Ayatana] Restart Required

[Mark Shuttleworth]

On 10/09/10 12:15, Bilal Akhtar wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 9, 2010 at 14:57, Mark Shuttleworth  wrote:
>
>> Done at https://bugs.edge.launchpad.net/indicator-session/+bug/634003
> Fix available as well! Branches attached to bug report contain fix.

Ted, what's the status of this?

Mark



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Re: [Ayatana] the Window Title Bar is now diamonds

[Mark Shuttleworth]

On 15/09/10 19:01, frederik.nn...@gmail.com wrote:
> I suggest removing the minimize button in this case, and also to trade
> in "maximize" for "full screen".
> In Fullscreen Mode, i suggest every app that has the fullscreen button
> in its window decoration, should carry a "windowed" button in its
> fullscreen OSD.
> depends on how we make progress with the "semantics" of those window
> decoration buttons (close, min, max)

Yes, I think we should review the iconography used to represent
"maximise" and "restore". At the moment, we have two rectangles, one
larger and one smaller, for those two different behaviours.

I think there are well-established symbols for full-screen and
non-fullscreen, c.f. YouTube and the like. Perhaps we should use those
for the "maximise" and "restore" visuals in the window controls?

Mark




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Re: [Ayatana] Presence via Me Menu

[Mark Shuttleworth]

On 09/09/10 11:00, Frederik Nnaji wrote:
> I was hoping Mission Control 5 in Telepathy would make it possible to
> change back to "online", "away" or "busy", even when Empathy says my
> accounts are "offline".
> Another thing is, that i'm being logged out, not sent offline. My
> computer is still online, it's just that IM accounts are being logged out.
> This is why i don't understand the use case of "offline", if all it
> does is actually "log out".
>
> If offline was to be a state of Presence, it would be better if i
> could alternate between "offline" and the other states of Presence via
> the MeMenu directly.
> Now remains the question, why in the implementation the Presence part
> of the MeMenu is "disabled" when all Empathy-configured accounts are
> "offline"..
>

Sorry for the response to old email, but I didn't see a follow-up.

If empathy is not running, you should be able to launch it simply by
changing your status to Available or another online state. In other
words, the states should be achievable even if that means first starting
empathy.

Mark



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Re: [Ayatana] Allowing windows to move past launchers

[Mark Shuttleworth]

On 09/12/10 17:43, Sam Spilsbury wrote:
> My idea was this:
>
> 1) On the intellihide case:
> [...]
> -> When resizing a window, if the resize border touches the launcher,
> it goes away, easy

I'd like to see a proximity "push" in this case. When the window is
brought "close" to the launcher, we start to "push" the launcher away.
Say, when the edge of the window is 10px from the launcher, we start to
move the launcher 1px for each 2px it approaches. When the window gets
to the point where it would have touched the launcher, the launcher goes
away.

I think this would feel a little more organic and real than the current
"insta-trigger". The px values might best be shared with the notify-osd
proximity-effect fade boundary too.

> 2) On the "fixed launcher" case:
>
> -> We set the strut property, so no implicit incorrect placement
> -> On maximization the window does not cover the launcher
> -> Windows cannot be resized underneath the launcher
> -> Windows cannot be moved underneath the launcher.
>
> The reason for the fourth one is because we have the window buttons on
> the left - we do not want to have to obscure them  in the case that we
> move a window.

Let's do some testing with a less rigid interpretation - allow the
window to be resized or moved so its left edge is under the launcher,
but make sure it encounters some resistance when it touches, before
pushing through under the launcher.

Mark



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Re: [Ayatana] Allowing windows to move past launchers

[Mark Shuttleworth]

On 09/12/10 10:59, Didier Roche wrote:
> Le jeudi 09 décembre 2010 à 18:55 +0800, Sam Spilsbury a écrit :
>> Hi,
>>
>> I was doing some work on the snap windows plugin for compiz and I was
>> wondering if it is the correct behaviour design wise to allow windows
>> to move underneath the launcher and the panel. Currently we have it so
>> that windows snap to the launcher but the user can move the window
>> past the launcher if they "move hard enough" but I was wondering if we
>> should even allow windows to move past these panels in the first
>> place.
>>
>> Let me know what you all think.
> We should just perhaps agree on the snap value? I mean, we want to avoid
> false positive on intellihide but still enabling people to have
> intellihide :)

In the intellihide, moving the window against the launcher should kick
the launcher out immediately, as it currently does. I think Sam's
referring more to the case where the launcher is locked in place, not
intellihide.

Mark



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Re: [Ayatana] Sound Menu

[Mark Shuttleworth]

On 11/11/10 12:21, frederik.nn...@gmail.com wrote:
> and yeah.. the speaker icons to the left and to the right of the
> volume slider should receive visual focus on hover, according to how i
> understand consistency in the careful treatment of threefold
> horizontal control elements in Sound Menu.. What do you think?

Some sort of indication that the volume slider is active would be good, yes.



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Re: [Ayatana] Sound Menu

[Mark Shuttleworth]

On 09/11/10 20:39, Jeremy Nickurak wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 9, 2010 at 13:31, Mark Shuttleworth  <mailto:m...@ubuntu.com>> wrote:
>
> On 09/11/10 20:07, Jeremy Nickurak wrote:
>> On Tue, Nov 9, 2010 at 12:21, Mark Shuttleworth > <mailto:m...@ubuntu.com>> wrote:
>>
>> I don't think we have a comprehensive horizontal-nav
>> guideline, yet. I do think we have a policy that cases where
>> horizontal behaviour is introduced need to be carefully
>> thought through and documented - I thought for example that
>> the Sound Menu specified the following behaviour for the
>> playback controls: moving down or up to the playback controls
>> should place the visible focus on the play button, where
>> space would pause/play, and left/right would trigger
>> previous/next returning the focus immediately to the play button.
>>
>>
>> Really? Keyboard controls on hovering on a menu item would seem
>> to have really really low discoverability. I never would have
>> imagined to try such a thing.
> No, this is keyboard navigation, nothing to do with mouse hover.
>
>
> Aren't right/left supposed to switch between menus?
>

Yes, they are, and hence the need to think this through carefully. The
calculus was that the normal user flipping between menus is running
along the "top" item in the menu. If they've come all the way down to
the playback controls, left and right can reasonably be interpreted as
"next/previous track" rather than "go to the menu left or right of the
sound menu". That's a tradeoff, but it's a calculated one rather than an
accident. The movement in the focus (briefly to the next/previous
button, then back to the play/pause button) should make this explicit.

We faced a similar, harder, problem with the Me Menu. The top entry
there is a broadcast textbox. That used to trap focus, meaning that left
and right were interrupted. We said left/right there should jump to the
next menu if the textbox was empty, to resolve that issue.

I'm saying: we don't have a full, complete, definitive guideline, only a
guideline to think through this and try to balance common patterns and
behaviours, backed by user testing.

Mark


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Re: [Ayatana] Sound Menu

[Mark Shuttleworth]

On 09/11/10 20:05, frederik.nn...@gmail.com wrote:
> Hi Mark,
>
> On Tue, Nov 9, 2010 at 20:21, Mark Shuttleworth  <mailto:m...@ubuntu.com>> wrote:
>
> On 09/11/10 01:36, frederik.nn...@gmail.com
> <mailto:frederik.nn...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>     On Wed, Jun 16, 2010 at 15:54, Mark Shuttleworth > <mailto:m...@ubuntu.com>> wrote:
>>
>>
>> Because of the potential issues horizontal navigation
>> introduces in
>> indicator menus, we have tried to take great care to specify
>> the exact
>> behaviour whenever horizontal nav within a menu is a
>> possibility. Please
>> do report cases that don't work, or which are not precisely and
>> completely spec'd.
>>
>>
>> I'd like to know if you have a spec or guideline for how to use
>> horizontal menu elements.
>> The Sound Menu wiki didn't specify anything about horizontal menu
>> elements, the only reference is this mail of yours..
>>
>> What i know so far about how to design with horizontal elements:
>> * use only where necessary
>> * try to design for easy pointer-aiming ( as few horizontal
>> elements as possible)
>> * look out for cases of mutual exclusion to help reduce the
>> number of simultaneously displayed items
>> * use for frequently accessed controls that must be close to each
>> other
>> * use for  controls that have a special semantic proximity (e.g.
>> backward, pause/play, forward)
>>
>> looking through the Indicator Menus, i found 2 places where
>> horizontal elements were being used so far, both in the Sound Menu:
>> a) the volume bar with the Mute button (loudspeaker with no
>> waves), Fader, Full Volume Button (loudspeaker with three waves).
>> b) playback controls
>>
>> what can we deduct from this?
>>
>> First of all, that we have two Mute buttons in the Sound Menu...
>> Second: It *is* possible to design a comfortable menu interaction
>> experience with horizontal elements.
>
> I don't think we have a comprehensive horizontal-nav guideline,
> yet. I do think we have a policy that cases where horizontal
> behaviour is introduced need to be carefully thought through and
> documented -
>
>
> The Sound Menu spec is exemplary, thanks for that!
>  
>
> I thought for example that the Sound Menu specified the following
> behaviour for the playback controls: moving down or up to the
> playback controls should place the visible focus on the play
> button, where space would pause/play, and left/right would trigger
> previous/next returning the focus immediately to the play button.
>
>
> It might be specced, but it's not implemented. I didn't find a bug for
> that yet, so here's a new one:
> "no visible focus on horizontal controls"
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/indicator-sound/+bug/673185
>
> the keyboard controls don't work for me, yet, i guess that's still in
> the making, is it?

Conor is the right person to ask on this!

Mark


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Re: [Ayatana] Sound Menu

[Mark Shuttleworth]

On 09/11/10 01:36, frederik.nn...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 16, 2010 at 15:54, Mark Shuttleworth  <mailto:m...@ubuntu.com>> wrote:
>
>
> Because of the potential issues horizontal navigation introduces in
> indicator menus, we have tried to take great care to specify the exact
> behaviour whenever horizontal nav within a menu is a possibility.
> Please
> do report cases that don't work, or which are not precisely and
> completely spec'd.
>
>
> I'd like to know if you have a spec or guideline for how to use
> horizontal menu elements.
> The Sound Menu wiki didn't specify anything about horizontal menu
> elements, the only reference is this mail of yours..
>
> What i know so far about how to design with horizontal elements:
> * use only where necessary
> * try to design for easy pointer-aiming ( as few horizontal elements
> as possible)
> * look out for cases of mutual exclusion to help reduce the number of
> simultaneously displayed items
> * use for frequently accessed controls that must be close to each other
> * use for  controls that have a special semantic proximity (e.g.
> backward, pause/play, forward)
>
> looking through the Indicator Menus, i found 2 places where horizontal
> elements were being used so far, both in the Sound Menu:
> a) the volume bar with the Mute button (loudspeaker with no waves),
> Fader, Full Volume Button (loudspeaker with three waves).
> b) playback controls
>
> what can we deduct from this?
>
> First of all, that we have two Mute buttons in the Sound Menu...
> Second: It *is* possible to design a comfortable menu interaction
> experience with horizontal elements.

I don't think we have a comprehensive horizontal-nav guideline, yet. I
do think we have a policy that cases where horizontal behaviour is
introduced need to be carefully thought through and documented - I
thought for example that the Sound Menu specified the following
behaviour for the playback controls: moving down or up to the playback
controls should place the visible focus on the play button, where space
would pause/play, and left/right would trigger previous/next returning
the focus immediately to the play button.

Mark


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[Ayatana] Workspace representations in the Launcher

[Mark Shuttleworth]

I'm replying both to the bug, and to the Ayatana list, about the
suggestion exemplified in the mockup at
http://launchpadlibrarian.net/58399971/Launcher%20d.png

First, thanks David for a very interesting idea, and for expressing it
in a series of mockups that let people get a visual handle on the
suggestion, that's a good technique and facilitates discussion of the
design.

For now, we'd prefer to keep workspaces confined to a single icon on the
launcher. We do want to improve the experience folks have when they use
that icon, however:

 - by default, in Natty this will do a "desktop spread" showing all the
windows on the current workspace, rather than the Maverick behaviour of
showing all the workspaces. This is to accommodate the fact that most
people only use one workspace, and everyone starts out that way till
they activate the others.

 - you will be able to jump smoothly between workspaces in this view,
and move windows from the current workspace to any other workspace very
easily.

 - however, we will limit the number of workspaces to 4 in Natty, with
experimentation under way for more workspaces in line with the
interactions we support in Natty.

I do like the idea of being able to drag a window directly to a
workspace, and we should consider whether dragging the launcher of a
running app could be used for that. A question, though - would dragging
the launcher move ALL the windows of that app to that workspace, or just
the most recently focused window?

Mark



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Re: [Ayatana] Restart Required

[Mark Shuttleworth]

 On 09/09/10 13:20, Vishnoo wrote:
> I dont think there is a bug regarding that color change either.. Someone
> should first file the bug. :)

Done at https://bugs.edge.launchpad.net/indicator-session/+bug/634003



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Re: [Ayatana] SVG default wallpaper was: OMG!

[Mark Shuttleworth]

 On 06/09/10 18:39, Martin Owens wrote:
> It uses all python standard libs. random, datetime and xml.dom.minidom
> so nothing special. The rendering is done by gnome and I just did a test
> with a 10.04 CD, renders there quite fine.
>
> So long as gnome hasn't ripped out it's svg support, we should be fine.

Brilliant.

We'll need to look at things like render-time and the impact on boot
time. It might be necessary to pre-render it to something like png and
use that on boot. Details like that can be worked out at UDS.

Mark




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Re: [Ayatana] SVG default wallpaper was: OMG!

[Mark Shuttleworth]

 On 05/09/10 06:07, Martin Owens wrote:
> Well you know how gullible I am for making things for free ;-), here you
> go your feature request has been granted:
>
> http://doctormo.org/2010/09/04/whoa-wheres-it-going/

That rocks very hard indeed!

Can you send me some sample SVG's so I can get a feel for the rendering
quality?

Now, we need to figure out how to ship it in Natty :) Are there any bits
needed which aren't already on the CD?

Mark



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Re: [Ayatana] SVG default wallpaper was: OMG!

[Mark Shuttleworth]

 On 03/09/10 21:44, Diego Moya wrote:
> One word of warning - if  this feature finally gets included in
> Ubuntu, please make sure that the orange highlights are always kept
> subtle and never run out of control. 
>
> In Owens' demo the generated wallpaper looks great mainly because it
> contains very few and faded orange splashes. On the other hand, the
> original wallpaper that generated so much controversy contains no less
> than three big, highly saturated stains.
> http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2010/08/ubuntu-1010-default-wallpaper.html
>
> The new Ubuntu color palette takes an aggressive stance by combining
> purple and orange. While this combination can achieve a vibrating
> effects in the hands of a skilled designer, it's simply too risky to
> use in a random generator. So please put a constraint so that the
> orange highlights are always restricted to low saturations.
>

+1



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Re: [Ayatana] SVG default wallpaper was: OMG!

[Mark Shuttleworth]

Martin hit the nail on the head - the gap between what's on the CD, what
works in practice, and the SVG standard, is rather wide.



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Re: [Ayatana] Restart Required

[Mark Shuttleworth]

 On 03/09/10 05:12, David Hamm wrote:
> It may have taken years to make the first Elvis Sandwich, but no one
> can deny its tastiness.* *
> *
> *
> If however we are trying to achieve an orgasm then, well, you guys
> are on your own.
>

And back to the topic, please ;)


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Re: [Ayatana] OMG!Ubuntu a bane or a boon? [was]Re: The new default wallpaper

[Mark Shuttleworth]

Thanks Vish for reminding folks of the importance of respect when
providing feedback. As Ubuntu grows, it's necessary for calm heads to
constantly remind newer folks of the core values of the project,
otherwise we'll lose the gravity that holds our galaxy together, so to
speak. The Code of Conduct is important, so when you see people stepping
out of it, please everyone help them cool down and we'll all be more
effective as a community as a result of your taking the trouble to do so.

That said, I think the feedback on the wallpaper is representative of
real concerns about it. Otto, the lead visual designer for our desktop
work in the Canonical design team, blogged about where he wants to go
with it at http://design.canonical.com/2010/09/ubuntu-default-wallpaper/
where he also invites folks who are keen to help pursue the underlying
idea. As a result of the feedback (even though some of it was, ahem,
undiplomatic ;-)) we'll revamp the wallpaper (and yes, it's a failure on
our part to have to do that post-UIF).

To summarise the idea: we want to make the desktop have a unique style,
but be personal to every different PC. In essence, the wallpaper for the
Lucid->12.04 series is a symphony of light and light-related effects,
and we want to make it so every day, each of those lights and effects
moves just a little bit for each user, in a different direction. So, at
release time, all the wallpapers look the same, but over the course of a
month or so they all end up being different. For each release, we'd vary
the "elements" a little, i.e. the number and relative strength of lights
/ flares / blurs.

We didn't get to implement that this cycle. I thought we could do it
with a Python-GIMP script that ran nightly. We need to use something
like Gegl for high-quality effects. Alas, we then dropped the GIMP from
the CD, so we'll need to figure a plan B :-)

Mark



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Re: [Ayatana] Restart Required

[Mark Shuttleworth]

 On 22/08/10 19:47, Frederik Nnaji wrote:
>
> everything exactly, that restart experience is really bad (the
> warning,
> the breakage if you don't do it, it's all poor, and if every app did
> that we'd be a mess!).
>
>
> doesn't Firefox do something like this if you do
> Tools>Start_Private_Browsing?
> wouldn't there be a sort of dump-file from which Ff recovers the
> session afterwards?
> Boy, I wish we could tell Firefox to save state, restart, and restore

I don't know but it's worth pursuing, fixing this would be a big win.


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Re: [Ayatana] Maverick Movies!

[Mark Shuttleworth]

 On 21/08/10 17:40, Andrew wrote:
> Actually the font is available for everyone with a Launchpad account
> [1] but it seems not a lot of people know this...
>
>
> [1] http://www.webupd8.org/2010/08/new-ubuntu-1010-font-available-for.html
>

It should not (yet) be available to open teams. We are aiming to nail
the first wave of issues, as soon as that's done we'll make the beta
fully open by landing the font in Maverick and in a public PPA. I've
fixed the Accessibility team case now, and will fix others that arise
accidentally.

For the purposes of this discussion, I'll say:

 - it's no problem for someone making one of these movies to get access
to the font if they don't already have it.
 - I can add Ubuntu Marketing if it's not an open team (i.e. requires
some supervision and criteria to join)
 - I can add any other supervised team (that has a criteria related to
Ubuntu participation and contribution)

The rationale for the semi-open stage in the beta process is: (a) we
don't own the font till it's done 1.0, and (b) we want the font to
mostly strongly reflect the views of those who contribute most to Ubuntu.

Mark



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Re: [Ayatana] Maverick Movies!

[Mark Shuttleworth]

 On 20/08/10 18:54, Jake Tolbert wrote:
> This is an interesting question that I'd like some perspective on (as
> a bit of an outsider to Canonical, but part of the FLOSS community):
> where does Canonical a/o Ubuntu's responsibility to maintain the
> Ubuntu brand end?
>
> As a marketer in a rather traditional market, I'm conditioned to think
> that I need to preserve my brand wherever possible, to make sure
> everything looks consistent in every medium.
>
> At the same time, it's foolish, and I think, counter to FLOSS
> ideology, to clamp down on this sort of 'fan art', to categorize it
> broadly. So how does a company deeply devoted to open source ideology
> interact with fan art?

Canonical owns the brand / trademark, but we license it very freely to
the Ubuntu community. Folks who want to set something up that claims to
be Ubuntu, or representing Ubuntu, just send mail to
tradema...@canonical.com and as long as the use falls within the
trademark policy, it gets ack'd and approved.

Your point is exactly right: Ubuntu is bigger than Canonical's
contributions could ever make it, it's the sum of aspirations, hope,
dreams and effort from a very large community, and that community needs
to be able to express itself and speak for Ubuntu.

In the design guidelines, we have a framework for styling that includes
an axis from "Canonical <-> Community". When designing materials, you
ask the question "am I speaking for a Canonical service or offering, or
from a Canonical perspective, or from a community perspective, or
somwehre in between". Then, based on the position on that axis, we
provide guidance as to the balance of colour in the materials (in short,
more Canonical == more aubergine, more Community == more orange).

We're breaking quite a bit of new ground, I think, in formalising the
voice of a broader community in the brand.

Mark



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Re: [Ayatana] [ubuntu-marketing] Maverick Movies!

[Mark Shuttleworth]

 On 21/08/10 07:49, Lisandro Vaccaro wrote:
>
> We can also make a youtube site and gather all the videos and put the
> winner on the main page. I have been thinking on it for some time. We
> could also have something like the best video of the month and have it
> always on the main page and keep it going.  

Sure, sounds good.



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Re: [Ayatana] Maverick Movies!

[Mark Shuttleworth]

 On 20/08/10 17:55, Shane Fagan wrote:
> Well I think it would be fun to put some of the high quality ones on
> the front page of ubuntu.com  using HTM5 video
> embedding.

We can do that for release if we get something stunning.


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Re: [Ayatana] Maverick Movies!

[Mark Shuttleworth]

 On 20/08/10 15:17, Christian Giordano wrote:
> Shouldn't we promote our style guides? Sure they probably don't
> include video editing/transitions etc, but the typography of some of
> those videos is just too inconsistent.

Yes, we should. The wiki page at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MaverickMovies
says "use the styling of 10.10 where you can: Ubuntu Font, colour
palette, circle of friends... you get the drift." Please go ahead and
update that with pointers to the actual guidelines!

Mark



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[Ayatana] Maverick Movies!

[Mark Shuttleworth]

 Hi folks

I saw this amazing movie from the Ubuntu Ads guys
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHzP7mxRFJE and was inspired to blog 
http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/489 about
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MaverickMovies


Shout if you are interested in helping host the process or participating.

Mark


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Re: [Ayatana] Unity's "desktop"

[Mark Shuttleworth]

Joern, that looks really interesting!



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Re: [Ayatana] [Usability] The Future of Window Borders, Menu Bars, and More

[Mark Shuttleworth]

 On 19/08/10 12:54, Allan Caeg wrote:
>
> Oops! That's not what I meant, good sir! I just wanted to make sure
> that we're not forgetting other platforms. I love what you and the
> rest of the Ubuntu team do. We sometimes just have miscommunications
> because of semantics and stuff.
>
> Perhaps, what I should have said was, "thanks for the support from the
> Unity side of things and we'll find ways to do the same for other
> environments."
>
> I apologize, Mark
>

No apology needed, I didn't take offense, just letting you know how we
feel about that area. Your sentiment is fully supported here - FF needs
to be able to express this nicely on each fo the places it will be used.

Mark




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Re: [Ayatana] [Usability] The Future of Window Borders, Menu Bars, and More

[Mark Shuttleworth]

 On 19/08/10 10:48, Allan Caeg wrote:
> That could work for Unity (though I'm not very familiar with it), but
> we also have to think about other platforms. Got to think about
> something that will work upstream (GNOME).

Ah, you touch on my sensitivities!

From our perspective, Unity is "upstream", it's design and lead
implementation is completely independent of the Ubuntu team. It's also
as much part of GNOME as something like Zeitgeist and lots of other
projects that have started out in the wild and moved to the center over
time. We would like Gnomers to think of it as a proud contribution from
Canonical, and we're a little hurt when people suggest otherwise. So,
tread softly when you tread on folks dreams, even if inadvertently ;-)

> Let's not forget other desktop environments too. It's Firefox on the
> Linux desktop that we're talking about so there's a lot more to it
> than its presence on Unity.

Indeed, I would expect FF to inspect its environment and use the right
tools as available, and we'd support making that easy for the Unity case.

Mark



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Re: [Ayatana] Places > People

[Mark Shuttleworth]

 On 12/08/10 07:52, Frederik Nnaji wrote:
> for the advantages the new Places will bring it might be an attractive
> undertaking, yet the primary place for contacts IMO should be the
> human memory, where the most valuable and important contacts are
> permanently being kept alive through human social interaction.
>
> More important than a Places > Contacts is, according to this logic,
> an intelligent Contact Menu.
>
> Ayatana already has:
> * Messaging Menu
> * Networking Menu
> * Me Menu
> * Power Menu
>
> hopefully soon also "Contact Menu".
> On the other hand, i'm moving away from the concept of Contacts as a
> Place:

The Dash is a much better place for managing sets of data than a menu
is. Menus should have a fairly constrained set of alternatives, to make
them efficient to render and use. With the Dash, we have a much "bigger"
space, that's visually richer. Let's stick with Contacts in the Dash.

Mark



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Re: [Ayatana] [Usability] The Future of Window Borders, Menu Bars, and More

[Mark Shuttleworth]

 On 11/08/10 10:14, Allan Caeg wrote:
> I just noticed that Firefox 4.0 beta 2 on Windows also has a menu bar
>  (activated by alt) and its contents are
> different from the Firefox button 's (some
> stuff are in both menus, though). Apparently, the Firefox button isn't
> a menu bar replacement.
>
> You might also be interested in a fresh mockup of the Firefox button
> ( 
> http://people.mozilla.com/~faaborg/files/firefox4Mockups/firefoxButtonTwoPanes.png
> 
>  ). 
>
>
> Right now, I can't think of any recommendation to accommodate these.
> Heeelp. LOL

Me neither :-(

For a while, I thought a windicator would work, but I can't think of a
relevant status that covers the use cases of the menu other than a
"tools" icon, which isn't status at all.

Functionally, I think a windicator would work just fine (it's a menu on
the window decoration, just what the doctor ordered). But it would
really be messing with the concept, and likely to lead to all sorts of
abuse if encouraged.

However, in 10.10 Netbook Edition, with Unity, we're already making
menus much less visible by hiding them under the window title in the
panel unless invoked with mouse or Alt. That's for the maximised browser
window case, which is I think the one where the user is most concerned
with pixel efficiency.

How about if we start with that?

Mark


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Re: [Ayatana] Unity's "desktop"

[Mark Shuttleworth]

 On 08/08/10 20:49, Apoorva Sharma wrote:
> I like all these ideas, but why not do what KDE4 did, and present a
> desktop of files, a zeitgeist timeline, etc. as widgets, so you could
> have access to files and useful information?

I do think a gadget story is interesting. There's no really compelling
framework out there today, though. Google's implementations have a lot
of rendering and usability problems, and the gadgets are not attractive.
Yahoo's is closed source. The others are marginal.

Am I missing a good candidate?

Mark



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[Ayatana] Space in the sound menu

[Mark Shuttleworth]

I blogged about the layout of the track metadata in sound indicator at
http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/446

With a mockup like:



In comments on the post, Mike Rooney pointed me to a thread that
included
http://picasaweb.google.com/100804433705878937883/Mockups#5493946264489470306



It's certainly nice and clean. I think a combination might rock.

I do think the play/pause/next/previous buttons have some work in the
pipeline that will improve the styling.

Mark



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Re: [Ayatana] Sound indicator position indicator and scope

[Mark Shuttleworth]

On 04/08/10 02:44, Dylan McCall wrote:
> http://www.markshuttleworth.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/soundmenu.png
>
> That position indicator has stuff going on on both sides and the number
> of the left side is continually ticking. It contributes to that music
> player element looking big, bulky and disjointed.
>
> To me, that begs the question: how often do ordinary people do this? Is
> all the noise necessary, or is this the sort of once-a-month operation a
> person can be expected to open Rhythmbox to do?
>
> In my own circle of friends, it's a pretty unusual operation. Music is
> designed to be listened to in order, and historically that has been the
> only way of doing it.

I think there's a case for dropping the scrub bar, yes. It's fiddly (and
that looks  more and more like a design issue, not an implementation
issue, there's been lots of work on the implementation).

Conor and MPT may want us to let the implementation mature another
couple of rounds, because I know there's work ongoing, and there may be
other use cases for the widget which will make us glad for having it,
but we can review it closer to final release and decide if it stays.

Mark



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Re: [Ayatana] Light Sound Theme

[Mark Shuttleworth]

 On 03/08/10 22:54, S. Christian Collins wrote:
> Thanks for the pointers, Mark!  They will give me a much clearer idea
> of what you all are looking for in a sound theme.

Well I'm just one opinion, there are others with better musical taste in
the room I'm sure ;-)


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Re: [Ayatana] Restart Required

[Mark Shuttleworth]

 On 03/08/10 20:25, Matt Wheeler wrote:
> In reality (as ScottK has already mentioned) only Firefox *needs* a
> restart after an update, everything else will just continue to run the
> slightly out of date version until you get around to restarting it.

Boy, I wish we could tell Firefox to save state, restart, and restore
everything exactly, that restart experience is really bad (the warning,
the breakage if you don't do it, it's all poor, and if every app did
that we'd be a mess!).

Mark




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Re: [Ayatana] Light Sound Theme

[Mark Shuttleworth]

 Hi Chris

Thanks for the pointer to the sound theme, here are some comments:

In general, I think we want something "lighter", more ethereal. Quite a
number of the instruments seemed to be full-bodied, more like piano's
than harpsichords, if you know what I mean.

The -connect-3 and -disconnect-3 sounds seemed very muted, stifled almost.

Empty-Trash sounds magical, but not related to trash at all. I don't
think we want anything harsh like a shredder, but we want something that
sounds appropriate, like a match striking or paper crumpling or paper
landing in a trash can.

Error-1 was appropriately cautionary but still pleasant, while error-2
sounds like a prelude to a shower scene of the ketchup variety.

Notification-2 was interesting, but seems to choke at the end.

I liked the peaceful lift at the end of shutdown-1 and -4. shutdown-3
seemed sad, but -2 had a gentle slowing and nice lilt in the finish too.
I think -4 takes the prize for me.

All of the startup sounds strike me as being a little mournful.

Hope that helps!

Mark





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Re: [Ayatana] Restart Required

[Mark Shuttleworth]

 On 02/08/10 15:40, Cody Russell wrote:
> So I've gone ahead and made this change in bzr, but seb128 is pointing
> out that this longer string is much more awkward for translations.
>  See his comment on the bug report:
>
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/indicator-session/+bug/586928/comments/4

Thanks Cody for making the change, let's see how it feels in practice,
and if seb's concerns materialise we can reconsider it.

Mark



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Re: [Ayatana] Light Sound Theme

[Mark Shuttleworth]

 Hi Christian

Conor would be the best person to chat with regarding the current sound
theme. If you'd like to send me an .ogg of the various elements, I'd be
happy to comment too.

I'd definitely like to keep our sound theme fresh and consistent with
the branding, so your offer is most welcome. It would also be cool to
have folks submit alternative sound themes as part of the free culture
showcase.

Mark



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Re: [Ayatana] Sound Menu and ellipsizing in the middle

[Mark Shuttleworth]

 On 31/07/10 10:38, Mohammed Amine IL Idrissi wrote:
> (Sorry if this has been asked before)
>
> Hello,
> Currently, the Sound Menu ellipses the track name in the middle. Why's
> that? Ellipsizing in the middle creates confusion: for example,
> "Casiokids - Min Siste Dag" becomes "Casioki...ste Dag", which is not
> very understandable. Why not ellipsizing in the end instead?
>

There are often sets of things that start the same way. For example,

  Air on a C String Movement 1
  Air on a C String Movement 2
  Air on a C String Movement 3
  Air on a C String Movement 4

If your ellipsis are in the middle, you more often capture the essential
bits.

Even better, if you *know* the set of things, you can choose ellipsis
smartly so that you always capture the differentiating bits.

Mark



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Re: [Ayatana] Restart Required

[Mark Shuttleworth]

 On 31/07/10 21:57, Frederik Nnaji wrote:
> On Fri, Jul 30, 2010 at 21:59, Mark Shuttleworth  <mailto:m...@ubuntu.com>> wrote:
>
>  On 30/07/10 20:57, Vishnoo wrote:
> > Right , just wanted to mention that we dont need to use punctuations
> > or brackets in menus:
> > "Restart To Complete Update..."
> > [ or s/complete/finish or any synonym ]
>
> Yes, that would fit nicely :-)
>
>
> perhaps in red, too?

Certainly.


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Re: [Ayatana] The Future of Window Borders, Menu Bars, and More

[Mark Shuttleworth]

 On 31/07/10 08:40, Allan Caeg wrote:
> As far as I know, there wouldn't be. Firefox UX doesn't seem to be
> looking at that for any platform. Here are their mockups for Linux
> . 
>
> I can raise your concern to them, if you want. I'm just afraid that it
> may add inconsistency to the platform. If we want Firefox to put the
> Firefox Button/menu beside its toolbar, how about other apps? 
>
> What do you think?
>

I agree the Mozilla team will want consistency, I was just asking if
this was one of the considered / existing options, as it would be
straightforward.

Mark


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Re: [Ayatana] Restart Required

[Mark Shuttleworth]

 On 30/07/10 20:57, Vishnoo wrote:
> Right , just wanted to mention that we dont need to use punctuations
> or brackets in menus:
> "Restart To Complete Update..." 
> [ or s/complete/finish or any synonym ]

Yes, that would fit nicely :-)



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Re: [Ayatana] Restart Required

[Mark Shuttleworth]

 On 30/07/10 20:01, Martin Owens wrote:
> Could the level of warning not be directly related to the severity of
> the security problems in the update?

Also... we don't want to get too anorack about this. In theory, we could
use blue for "informational" updates, orange for "low priority" updates
and red for "critical security". But that's more likely to confuse
people than help them. So for the moment we'll pick one colour and stick
to it.

Mark



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Re: [Ayatana] Restart Required

[Mark Shuttleworth]

 On 30/07/10 20:01, Martin Owens wrote:
>
> On Fri, 2010-07-30 at 19:31 +0100, Mark Shuttleworth wrote:
>> Could do, yes. By then the updates have been installed, so I was
>> looking
>> for language which indicated that the update process wasn't complete. 
> Could the level of warning not be directly related to the severity of
> the security problems in the update?

I don't think we know - it's either "reboot required" or "not".

Mark



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Re: [Ayatana] The Future of Window Borders, Menu Bars, and More

[Mark Shuttleworth]

Allan, I haven't followed the Firefox usability and design discussion
around the Firefox Button, but can you tell us if there will be an
option to expose the button/menu off a button in the toolbar next to the
URL, as it is in Chrome? That would be most straightforwardly compatible
with our direction.

Mark



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Re: [Ayatana] Restart Required

[Mark Shuttleworth]

 On 30/07/10 19:24, Vishnoo wrote:
> How about :
> "Restart To Apply Updates..." or 
> "Restart and Apply Updates..."

Could do, yes. By then the updates have been installed, so I was looking
for language which indicated that the update process wasn't complete.

Mark



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Re: [Ayatana] Restart Required

[Mark Shuttleworth]

 On 30/07/10 16:44, Luke Benstead wrote:
> The red indicator has been a bug bear of mine for a while, red is far
> to severe a colour for something that isn't an error condition. I'd
> again suggest blue for information, or at most an amber to indicate a
> warning (I guess it's possible a kernel update had a security fix).

The strong likelihood is that you are insecure until you reboot, so we
class it as a warning and make it red.

> Also, "Restart required" isn't an action, and it's not required.
> "Restart (recommended)" might make more sense, brackets
> differentiating the action from the recommendation.

Agreed, the language is bad. The current plan is to change it to
"Restart, completing updates..." which is more accurate. Still open to a
better choice of words if you have something in mind.

Mark



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Re: [Ayatana] Details on the netbook menu bar plan

[Mark Shuttleworth]

 On 28/07/10 20:27, Scott Kitterman wrote:
> http://skitterman.wordpress.com/2010/07/09/menubar-for-gtk-and-qtkde-apps-on-
> kubuntu/

Very nice to see! As more people start using it we'll no doubt chase out
those last bugs around icons etc. Getting it tested properly
cross-desktop is essential. I'm testing Amarok-on-Ubuntu and it's got
the accelerator key artifact still visible, but that will get fixed
shortly iirc.

Mark



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Re: [Ayatana] SoundMenu and hovering

[Mark Shuttleworth]

David, I see only one state in the .gif, the rest seem blank. T-bird 3.1.1.

Mark

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Re: [Ayatana] Me menu broadcast message feedback

[Mark Shuttleworth]

On 13/07/10 21:27, Frederik Nnaji wrote:
> you are suggesting the introduction of a "generic throbber" over an
> indicator menu..
> did i understand that correctly?
>   

I think it will be difficult to have a generic throbber that is also
super-classy. I think we could have a generic throbber which any
AppIndicator can use (perhaps, a spinny behind the actual icon) but also
create the ability for indicators to have classy, custom throbbers like
the network one for wifi connections.

>   3. A green flash for success
>   
>> 
> perhaps keep a notification open until the indicator system knows that
> the user is acknowledging/has acknowledged the situation..
> in particular, such failure indicates some sort of network failing in
> the background, which deserves being promoted into the user's
> awareness..
>   

No, notifications are asyncronous, we can't coordinate them that way it
would interfere with the queuing of other notifications.


>> When we wish to signal a warning, we use orange or red depending on the
>> criticality. We may use it in a persistent fashion or as a temporary
>> indicator.
>> 
> this should be "persistent until acknowledged"-class of notification:
> "one of your tasks has just started up/is now failing/requires your
> attention""
>   

Some persistent, some don't.

> i strongly do not recommend hierarchically organized concepts of
> failure categorically coloured in my focal point...
>   

I agree that we don't want every indicator pedantically to have an
orange and red state. We DO, however, want people to think about the
nature of what they need to communicate, and use colour appropriately.
SOME indicators would have both, some would just have one or the other,
some would have none.

Mark



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Re: [Ayatana] CSD and the pressure to innovate

[Mark Shuttleworth]

On 08/07/10 00:10, Sam Spilsbury wrote:
> Why exactly do we want the WM to be handling tabs here? Trying to do
> tabbed applications within the window manager for the sake of having
> tabs is a huge waste of memory, especially when the application itself
> can already do tabs.

... the result is a whole bunch of major inconsistencies in the user
experience of tabs. Where is the close button? What are the key bindings
to move between tabs, and to move tabs around? How does one move a tab
between two windows of the same app?

The typical path for something like tabs is that they are invested
somewhere, then implemented individually in a bunch of apps, then become
part of the system. We need to make that last step happen.

> It also does not make sense from a design perspective. the whole point
> of tabbed windows (as it is implemented in both Compiz and KWin) is to
> allow multiple /applications/ to be shoved into one window,
> applications which the user delegates themselves as related. Confusing
> documents and windows here doesn't help at all.
>   

You're right at the start: tabs are "multiple applications in one
window". They are whole things that you want to navigate between with
keystrokes, see previews of, etc. They are systemic objects, and they
deserve to be treated as such.

Mark



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Re: [Ayatana] CSD and the pressure to innovate

[Mark Shuttleworth]

On 07/07/10 09:29, Diego Moya wrote:
>
>
> On 7 July 2010 07:32, Philipp Wendler wrote:
>
> How would you handle the advanced application-specific features
> related
> to tabs? In Firefox for example, there are quite a few actions
> when you
> right-click on the tab bar:
> - reload tab
> - make tab into a bookmark
> - undo tab closing
>
>
> Creating a standard protocol for tabs that allows collaboration
> between application and the WM.

Exactly! We already do this in a couple of places, where an app can use
an existing framework then extend it with additional options. For
example, in the Music Menu, an app can add menu items related to the
current-playing-track, or the app as a whole.

Mark


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Re: [Ayatana] Brainstorming the Me Menu again

[Mark Shuttleworth]

On 29/06/10 09:19, Conscious User wrote:

  One thing that is universal, though, is how [tweets] are
displayed: picture on the left, message to the right
with the name in bold. So why not take advantage of
the familiarity of this layout to make the purpose
of the broadcasting field more evident? See the
attached mockup.
  



Wow. This is the single neatest suggestion I've seen on the Ayatana
list. I particularly like the echoing of standard web presentation in
the menu, to cue users as to the purpose of the field.

The rest of the thread has further good ideas, so I'm not +1'ing this
mockup as a final position, but wanted to call it out as a *great* bit
of thinking and mocking-up.


  You will also notice that I added a "says:" to the
broadcasting field. I thought it might be a good
way to differentiate broadcasts from IM custom
status, which are more like temporary descriptions.
But I'm not entirely sure on this one.
  


I think the "says:" piece is unnecessary and a little blunt. We can
address the IM custom status requirement separately (for example,
putting a text field inline there too).

Mark




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Re: [Ayatana] CSD and the pressure to innovate

[Mark Shuttleworth]

On 07/07/10 03:52, Apoorva Sharma wrote:
> Since tabs in firefox and nautilus are just ways of combining multiple 
> windows into one, why not have the window manager handle tabs for all apps? 
> Maybe apps like firefox or nautilus etc could tell the window manager that 
> they want tabbed windows, and it could be done for them. This would make 
> tabbed interfaces consistent and more easily read for integration with the 
> taskbar (like win7). 
>   

Yes, the general meme is to make Tabs a first-class experience, in
multiple senses. I think the KDE folks are further down the road with
this than GNOME, but we'll help move things in that direction.

Mark



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Re: [Ayatana] Unity launcher - will an autohide option be available?

[Mark Shuttleworth]

On 06/07/10 14:39, Diego Moya wrote:
> My previous post was not to criticize the Launcher design, just to
> discourage mouse proximity as the method to show the hidden panel,
> since it has several drawbacks.

This will need to be tested, but the current plan is for the Launcher
auto-reveal to happen when the mouse is over the top left Ubuntu icon
only, not just against the left of the screen.

Mark



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Re: [Ayatana] mail indicator not consistency

[Mark Shuttleworth]

On 06/07/10 08:49, Philipp Wendler wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Am 06.07.2010 08:41, schrieb Mark Shuttleworth:
>   
>> Interesting questions. My gut feel would be:
>>
>>  - incoming IM notifications would be suppressed
>>  - incoming calls would be displayed
>> 
> Why the latter? When I put my cellphone in DND (or silence) mode,
> nothing is signaled: no calls, no SMS, no VoIP calls, no IM. I think a
> PC should behave similarly.
>   

Does your phone vibrate? Does the screen show the incoming call? I
suspect that your phone only suppresses the ring tone, and not visual /
physical cues of an incoming call. For that, there's "airplane" mode and
"off".

Mark



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Re: [Ayatana] CSD and the pressure to innovate

[Mark Shuttleworth]

On 06/07/10 02:02, Frederik Nnaji wrote:
> I thought it didn't depend on window decoration anymore!?
> Doesn't Global Menu read its items idenpendently already?
>

Our Global Menu requires the application to publish it's menu using a
protocol we have designed and implemented, over d-bus.

For Gtk and Qt, the aim is to make that automatic (i.e. the app doesn't
have to do anything special unless it really wants to).

The issue for Firefox is that it will need to implement this for itself,
it doesn't use Qt or Gtk.

Mark



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[Ayatana] Me menu broadcast message feedback

[Mark Shuttleworth]

Hi MPT

If you're in the thick of things and don't have a chance to respond
that's fine, please just copy this into the Me-Menu-Nifty spec as a
placeholder for later discussion.

== Broadcast Message Feedback ==

In order to provide feedback on the success or failure of broadcast
messages and status updates sent from the Me Menu, we will use the
following patterns:

 1. Preserving Menu Interaction

Menus have several key attributes: selecting or activating a menu item
dismisses the menu, and a dismissed menu releases focus and disappears,
clearing screen space.

  => So, we'll preserve the experience that putting a broadcast message
in the me menu and pressing enter closes the menu immediately and
completely.

 2. A throbber for work-in-progress

We often use a throbber or spinny to indicate that work is in progress
in the background. The spinny is most effective if it is tightly
associated with the item that is doing the work, or the place where the
work is being done.

In some cases, a generic throbber / spinny is used, in other cases like
the wifi-connection we use a custom animation of the relevant state
indicator.

From hard experience, we've learned that the engineering of the spinny
needs to be very performance-aware, otherwise it can create an
unnecessary drain on CPU and battery.

  => So, we'll create a throbber / spinny animation for the Me Menu that
will be active while the broadcast message is being sent.

 3. A green flash for success

In Launchpad and other web properties, we use a green flash to indicate
the success of a transaction that does not create a long term change in
state (where we'd use a persistent blue or green colour). It's
desireable to have common patterns between web and desktop properties.
We already use this approach in the desktop in the messaging menu, when
we indicate that someone has come online (a notification tells you who).

  => So, when the message is sent successfully, the Me Menu will flash
green. The flash will use standard timing and effects (harmonised with
the messaging menu and other indicators which adopt the pattern).

 4. Persistent red (or orange) for a warning or significant failure

When we wish to signal a warning, we use orange or red depending on the
criticality. We may use it in a persistent fashion or as a temporary
indicator. For example, when you are disconnected from the wifi network,
a red highlight appears on the wifi indicator. Also, when a security
update has been installed but requires a restart to be effective, we
introduce a red effect on the session menu ("on/off") indicator. We also
have a pattern of signalling which element of the menu is associated
with the warning - for example, the fact that the "Restart" menu item
will be coloured red and changed in text when a restart is required from
10.10 onwards.

 => So, when a broadcast message fails, we will use an orange or red
visual touch to indicate that. We need to debate and decide whether it
should be a transient indication (a flash) or a persistent state
indication (a red/orange element on the icon, or a red/orange effect
around the icon). We also need to decide whether it is a warning
(orange) or a failure (red), and if it is persistent, how to signal
which element of the menu is associated to it. For example, we might
choose to put a persistent orange glow on the Me Menu when the last
broadcast failed, and to outline the text field in that menu in orange -
distinct from the theme's focus colour - as well.


Mark



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Re: [Ayatana] Some thoughts about unclutter

[Mark Shuttleworth]

> I would add that my first annoyance with this behavior is that I often
> use the mouse pointer to "point out" something in a screenshot. Now I
> must stay physically active to do so rather than just setting the
> screenshot delay time properly, positioning the pointer, and waiting.

That's easy to fix in the screenshot app, which I think will see some
design love in the next cycle.

As a sketch:

 - don't ask any questions up front if invoked via printscreen
 - only ask for the delay, if invoked via a menu
 - take a screenshot of the entire desktop (or multiple desktops /
workspaces if possible)
 - also, record positions of the windows and pointer
 - THEN
  - establish if the user wants the whole desktop or a specific window,
  - ask if the window borders are required,
  - allow for direct cropping of the image
  - ask if the pointer is required, and add it if needed
  - ask for any decorations like shadows etc

This way, you get to choose whether you want the pointer.

Mark



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Re: [Ayatana] Windicators

[Mark Shuttleworth]

On 30/06/10 14:15, Matthew Paul Thomas wrote:
> I agree that the F-Spot example isn't status; I couldn't think of
> anything appropriate for that. :-)
>

Does F-Spot not have an online / offline mode yet?



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