Ubuntu Wiki

• Launchpad Entry: https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+spec/extra-desktop-planning

• Created: 2005-10-31 by SebastienBacher

• Contributors: JeffWaugh, MarkShuttleworth, MattZimmerman, ScottJamesRemnant

• Packages affected:

Summary

This specification documents decisions taken at UbuntuBelowZero for the Dapper release. These will be implemented early for user feedback, and possibly updated based on that feedback.

• Michael finds the list of language screen of the login screen pretty ugly and doesn't match the nice default them
• Scott thinks that the in/out activity of the default network applet is pretty disturbing

• Claire has just discovered how to change workspaces while clicking by error on the corresponding applet, she thinks that's a nice feature but it should be easier to figure what these squares on the bottom panel do -- ØivindHoel: How about using libnotify or similar to tell the user something like "You are currently working in workspace 1" ?

Desktop Changes

GDM

(read GdmRoadmap about that too)

The current language list is ugly and doesn't match the login screen theme.

We are going to:

• make it use the human GTK theme
• add icons to the context menu (shutdown, restart, suspend, change language, session)
• replace all the bottom/left actions with a single "Advanced" item that brings up the context menu
• remove the language and session options, because they can be accessed through the "Advanced" context menu
• change the way to list the languages
• give indications on how to add a new language, on the language list selector

The options for the list of languages are still to discuss:

• list only the language (ie: english) with a disclosure widget for the variants
• sort the languages by region?

The session menu has a "Default System Session" item, what it does is not clear, we are going to rename it.

network applet

The in/out activity is annoying, we are moving to network manager which will fix that.

the "log out" is not easy enough to find

We are going to put a button to the top-right corner for this.

• - we are going to have a top level button for this => top right corner - this will bring up a new logout / shut down session dialog (see below) - no radio buttons, and "Cancel" as the default button

the session dialog need to be reworked

The current dialog is quite ugly we are going to design a new one, which:

• uses different categories for logout/switch user and shutdown/reboot
• doesn't use radio button, instead each option is a button
• has "cancel" as default action

workspace switcher

We want to keep this applet on the default panel because that's a nice, powerful feature that users like and that windows doesn't have. The feature is not obvious to user, we are going to add a tooltip for it (like the clock applet one). The tooltip will say "Switch between Workspaces", or "Switch to Workspace X".

volume control applet

• ubuntu express/hardware database collector

battstat applet

• The artwork need to be reworked. Nokia has a nice icon for this. We need to get a description of the artwork we want during UBZ. The icon should take no more space than the current battstat, and it needs to have the same basic style (battery when on battery, plug when on power), but it needs to show the battery charge level WHILE the battery is charging too.

network manager

We are going to have it for dapper so it should be pushed as soon as possible to get feedback on it.

update notifier

• We will try to behave similarly to the Windows user experience
• The notifier popup will just have an [x] to close it, to click on.
• Clicking anywhere in the notifier popup will actually close it.
• This means that the only way to activate the update manager is to click on the notifier icon itself, not on the popup.

add to panel dialog

We are going to get rework the first category ("special cases"):

• make clear differents icons for the two kind of menus: "1 menu opening up" and "3 menus opening down"
• move the menus with "Utilities"
• move the launcher icon to a button?

• having tooltips on mouseover would be nice bug GnomeCanvas doesn't allow to do this. This need to we worked upstream

applets

We are going to review all the applets icons/label.

top panel icons

We will just keep the browser/mailer icons.

Implementation

Outstanding issues

BoF agenda and discussion

workrave

It should use the applet icon, not the status one, and show the time for micro/rest breaks next one to the other. We need to fix the icon for it which is not set at the moment.

contact-lookup-applet:

We are going the fix the greyed entry if evolution-data-server has not contact configured

recently used applications

(This is not for dapper)

• menu item that shows the recently used applications
• popup notification to tell users when it adds an application

Comments

Duffman25:

• During breezy development, I made a comment in gnome's bugzilla about the dropped "run applications" menu item. A gnome developer told me that there are plans to make the gnome menus completely editable: http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=167090#c8. Could this be discussed to see if it's possible to include in dapper? Maybe help out with the implementation?

SebastienBacher: that's probably not going to happen for the next GNOME or dapper and is not related to this spec, we already have a menu editor.

• On another note, but related to this, as a user, I don't understand why I have a menu item to capture a screenshot but I don't have one to run any application, which it's even more frustating since I can create a menu item for the screenshot app since there's a command for it: gnome-screenshot, but I can't re-add the application launcher to the menu since it's a built-in command in the panel and therefore there's no command for it, just an keybinding or applet.

SebastienBacher: The screenshot item will be moved to the applications menu. You may be interested by the MenuRevisited spec.

• I think something cool could be to add the posibility of creating menu items out of applets, for example adding the run application dialog applet as a menu item, this would satisfy the previous comment.

OlafurArason: Doesn't deskbar solve the run applications usecase and also add a nifty search capibility if combined with beagle, plus loads of other cool features. I think it also replaces contact-lookup-applet. Duffman25: Not exactly. While I agree that the deskbar is cool, the version provided in breezy doesn't let you launch applications with parameters. Try launching rhythmbox with --play HiddeBrugmans: Deskbar has been completely reinvented since, and the version living in gnome cvs is not comparable. It should be quite functional for Dapper