New panel in trunk

Jani Monoses jani.monoses at gmail.com
Wed Nov 9 00:08:48 CET 2005


> Yeah, I can understand some confusion when presented with a new way of
> doing things, but that doesn't automatically mean the new way is bad.
> It's a nice, simple, clean UI.

It is not confusion just a bit of disappointment.

The other was simpler for me, hence my comment.

4.2 way:

move over icon
right click
move over 'remove text'
left click

4 steps, all close to each other and consistent with other similar 
actions (delete mail from folder, file from filelist etc)

4.3 way:

mover over icon
right click
move over 'customize panel'
left click

move slightly back over the icon as the cursor is now a bit right and be 
careful which icon you select as now they are all dimmed unlike when the 
mouse hovers over them in normal mode.

click
drag
drop


4 extra steps which imply a lot of (relative to 4.2) mouse movement

I would call the old way much cleaner and simpler. Nicer I don't know, 
DnD has it's charm, but I prefer clean and simple vs nice then.
Also I have not seen yet other GUIs which handle removal like this (it 
may be me though). With dragging in the plugin list I sort of expect the
removed item to get inserted in that list - even though it is there and 
I know it won't happen.

So while I can use it and understand it because it _is_ simple it is not 
intuitive.

> 
> 
>>and the 
>>impossibility of moving plugin icons around as in the 4.2 panel.
> 
> 
> Drag them around.
> 

Hmm, I cannot seem to do that. If a click and drag nothing happens, the 
mouse stops highlighting other plugins if I move over them, so the 
original one retains the focus but it does not drag.

I think the gnome panel has this in the context menu too.Select move and 
then even w/o keeping the mouse pressed the plugin follows the horiz 
movement of the mouse.


>>The 
>>current add/remove via drag-n-drop seems too convoluted to me but OTOH I 
>>know this is not what people should do too often.
> 
> 
> Convoluted?  Seriously?

Yes, relative to the 4.2 way.

> 
>>If it's not too much 
>>to ask could this be considered as a per/panel config option?
> 
> 
> Eeeew.  Up to Jasper, of course, but that sounds ickier than just adding
> Add/Remove items back in the menu.

Well it seems not everybody liked add/remove in 4.2 so having a config 
would please both sides.

>>I like the idea of having the taskbar as a plugin. Is that still planned 
>>for iconbox too? If so will the two standalone apps be still shipped 
>>with 4.4?
> 
> 
> No, taskbar and iconbox will not be present as separate applications.  I
> thought the iconbox had already been ported as a panel plugin.  I seem
> to remember one of the default panel configs had it in there...

that's great.

thanks
Jani




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