OnlyOneGnomePanel

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Warbo: "I disagree with this idea. Firstly, the panel is a useful area for applets, such as battery and network monitors, and also I strongly believe that the Deskbar applet should be included by default. This would require a lot of horizontal room (my deskbar almost fills my top panel between the menus and the notification area). Secondly, if any panel is to go, surely it would be the bottom one? By having the top panel in place users who do not know about alt-click for moving windows cannot "lose" the titlebars for their apps (Often the UI gets confused/lags and Metacity thinks I am dragging a window, resulting in an inaccessible titlebar). A consistent feeling is created due to top-right of a window being close for that window, and top-right of GNOME being close (logout) for GNOME. The top panel also does much more than the bottom panel, and it keeps the system consistent since the menus are split into three, which are labelled with text. This is more similar to a "File Edit View..." style menu, meaning it should be put it into the top left and open downwards to keep an ergonomic UI, rather than a single graphical button (it is not the "start" which differentiates the menu in Windows XP, it is the green backing), for which there is no precedent in Ubuntu, making the top left as good a choice as any anyway. The bottom panel can easily be done away with now through the use of Alt-Tab (Compiz or otherwise), placing Trash on the desktop and moving what is left to the top panel (although I think it should stay), but the same cannot be said of the top panel.

KDE's use of a single panel fails miserably when it is reduced to the default width of the GNOME panels, as applets and launchers become a confusing mess. Therefore the "screen area" idea cannot be fixed with a single panel, as the panel would have to be double-thick like Kicker to accomodate the required features, and launchers would become twice as big, making the increase in size mostly useless. However, the current underuse of the panel would make this noticably inefficient as the double-thickness would be seen as an unneccesary intrusion into the screen area, whilst the top panel is seen as essential due to it's default applets (with the inclusion of a deskbar similar in size to the window-switcher there is no wasted space). Besides, having 2 smaller panels makes the perception of bloat on the screen much less acute than a large, Kicker-style panel.

The panels offer a border for the screen, which I find subconciously comforting. The Amiga Workbench uses a "backdrop" option by default which removes all borders except for the main menu (which is, coincidently, at the top), but I always disable this in favour of turning the whole Workbench screen into an Intuition window (Intuition is similar to a window manager), complete with scroll bars, widgets in the corner, etc. as I find that definition of my useable area much more comforting, and I have been doing this for 14 years.

I think that making a default out of anything which detracts from general users' experience in exchange for pleasing Windows converts is unacceptable. Windows compatibility should only be offered optionally as a part of the installation procedure (such as "import Windows settings and bookmarks"). Ubuntu is not Windows. If the vast majority of Windows users prefer Microsoft Office to OpenOffice, Outlook to Thunderbird and IE to Firefox then I doubt destroying the panel system to make them feel at home is going to be noticable (until, of couse, they have used Ubuntu for a while and find it annoying). It is trivially easy to reconfigure the panels (dragging them is similar to Windows) so any Windows user could reconfigure it to work in the same way as windows if they wanted to. About business and recognition, I have never seen any non-Microsoft praise of a Windows user interface. However, there is widespread respect for Apple's MacOSX which this article fails to mention at all. Apple have paid vast sums of money to professional designers for their interface, and it is emulated by Windows users, KDE (Baghira has had so much work put into it that SOMEONE must care enough), GNOME and others. How is the Apple interface configured? There is a panel across the top, with menus in the top left, a deskbar-style search box, etc. Across the bottom is a launcher area, essentially another panel (this effect can be achieved in GNOME using GDesklets). I have raised many points here, but after seeing this Wiki page being referenced by many people I knew I had to act to prevent a user interface disaster for GNOME.

Summary

I think that Ubuntu should have only one gnome panel (bottom) like new Suse 10.1

Default Suse 10.1 has only one gnome panel with menu "Applications" "Places" "System". Similar to KDE and Windows.

It's important for new users which like similarity to good known Windows and for businessmen who decide is linux good for company or not (because it hav'nt standard look and is different from good known Windows). Advanced users can switch on two panels.

Screenshoots (Suse 10.1 desktop): http://shots.osdir.com/slideshows/slideshow.php?release=637&slide=27

If you want, you can change the long names of menus "Applications" "Places" "System" to shorter "Applications" "Actions" (like older Gnome) to save the space on bottom panel (but it's not necessary because people buy new monitors with higher resolutions, in future 16:9)

Discussion

PiotrUsewicz: "I think that Ubuntu team should reconsider having two panels (top and bottom). While bottom panel is OK, the top one just seems a bit too much. The most annoying thing is that you can't simply move your mouse to the top right corner to close the applications, as there is no close button. What is more, this is not OS X where you can close a window using keyboard. Ubuntu Desktop should be redesigned to gain more working space and improve general system usability. Remember that vertical space of screen is smaller, much smaller than horizontal one, especially on 16:9 screens"

Warbo: "I disagree with this idea. Firstly, the panel is a useful area for applets, such as battery and network monitors, and also I strongly believe that the Deskbar applet should be included by default. This would require a lot of horizontal room (my deskbar almost fills my top panel between the menus and the notification area). Secondly, if any panel is to go, surely it would be the bottom one? By having the top panel in place users who do not know about alt-click for moving windows cannot "lose" the titlebars for their apps (Often the UI gets confused/lags and Metacity thinks I am dragging a window, resulting in an inaccessible titlebar). A consistent feeling is created due to top-right of a window being close for that window, and top-right of GNOME being close (logout) for GNOME. The top panel also does much more than the bottom panel, and it keeps the system consistent since the menus are split into three, which are labelled with text. This is more similar to a "File Edit View..." style menu, meaning it should be put it into the top left and open downwards to keep an ergonomic UI, rather than a single graphical button (it is not the "start" which differentiates the menu in Windows XP, it is the green backing), for which there is no precedent in Ubuntu, making the top left as good a choice as any anyway. The bottom panel can easily be done away with now through the use of Alt-Tab (Compiz or otherwise), placing Trash on the desktop and moving what is left to the top panel (although I think it should stay), but the same cannot be said of the top panel.

KDE's use of a single panel fails miserably when it is reduced to the default width of the GNOME panels, as applets and launchers become a confusing mess. Therefore the "screen area" idea cannot be fixed with a single panel, as the panel would have to be double-thick like Kicker to accomodate the required features, and launchers would become twice as big, making the increase in size mostly useless. However, the current underuse of the panel would make this noticably inefficient as the double-thickness would be seen as an unneccesary intrusion into the screen area, whilst the top panel is seen as essential due to it's default applets (with the inclusion of a deskbar similar in size to the window-switcher there is no wasted space). Besides, having 2 smaller panels makes the perception of bloat on the screen much less acute than a large, Kicker-style panel.

The panels offer a border for the screen, which I find subconciously comforting. The Amiga Workbench uses a "backdrop" option by default which removes all borders except for the main menu (which is, coincidently, at the top), but I always disable this in favour of turning the whole Workbench screen into an Intuition window (Intuition is similar to a window manager), complete with scroll bars, widgets in the corner, etc. as I find that definition of my useable area much more comforting, and I have been doing this for 14 years.

I think that making a default out of anything which detracts from general users' experience in exchange for pleasing Windows converts is unacceptable. Windows compatibility should only be offered optionally as a part of the installation procedure (such as "import Windows settings and bookmarks"). Ubuntu is not Windows. If the vast majority of Windows users prefer Microsoft Office to OpenOffice, Outlook to Thunderbird and IE to Firefox then I doubt destroying the panel system to make them feel at home is going to be noticable (until, of couse, they have used Ubuntu for a while and find it annoying). It is trivially easy to reconfigure the panels (dragging them is similar to Windows) so any Windows user could reconfigure it to work in the same way as windows if they wanted to. About business and recognition, I have never seen any non-Microsoft praise of a Windows user interface. However, there is widespread respect for Apple's MacOSX which this article fails to mention at all. Apple have paid vast sums of money to professional designers for their interface, and it is emulated by Windows users, KDE (Baghira has had so much work put into it that SOMEONE must care enough), GNOME and others. How is the Apple interface configured? There is a panel across the top, with menus in the top left, a deskbar-style search box, etc. Across the bottom is a launcher area, essentially another panel (this effect can be achieved in GNOME using GDesklets). I have raised many points here, but after seeing this Wiki page being referenced by many people I knew I had to act to prevent a user interface disaster for GNOME.

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OnlyOneGnomePanel (last edited 2008-08-06 16:16:24 by localhost)