Wishlist for Gimmie
James Ogley
I recently switched to using the Gimmie bar in place of my main GNOME
panel (I also have a panel across the top of my desktop with launchers
and applets that I can't embed in Gimmie). I've come up with a list of
things that it would be really cool to have but, as I was discussing
with Seif on Facebook, I don't really have the time to look into
implementing things but can certainly test stuff.
I've attached a screenshot of the bottom of my desktop which illustrates
some things.
Firstly, it would be great if Gimmie told Nautilus that it was a panel
(I assume that's how gnome-panel works anyway) so that icons don't
encroach underneath the Gimmie bar - you can see on the screenshot that
the file to the right of the 'swamprat - sites' icon is underneath the
bar.
Secondly, there's the size of icons. My screen is 1280 pixels wide and
yet the Gimmie bar nearly fills the width with only three apps open,
three favourite places in the Library and three favourite People. This
is because of two things:
- First, Gimmie's own icons. By this I mean the icons in Programs,
Library and People (and the Trash icon). They are the full height (and
therefore their width is the same as the full height normally) of the
bar.
- Second, the Notification Area icons. As can be seen in the
screenshot, these are inconsistent in size (presumably governed by
whether the icons provided by the apps are SVG or a fixed-size PNG).
Apart from looking ugly as a result, the ones that take the full height,
like the other icons, have a width that equals the height of the bar.
My suggested solution to both these issues is to be able to configure
Gimmie to show icons in both the Notification Area and
Programs/Library/People in two rows, each half the height of the Gimmie
bar. This will save on width and mean that notification icons are
closer to a consistent size.
Thirdly, leading on from that, is configuration. I think that
right-clicking on the topic buttons is meant to open a menu for doing
just that (and possibly for performing other tasks too - long time since
I actually looked at this bit of the code) but in the screenshot, on the
'openSUSE' topic button (renamed in a patch we use), at the left-hand
end of it, you'll see a small oval. This is what happens when I
right-click. It seems a menu is drawn but never populated.
Fourth is the clock applet. When I hover over it, the tooltip tells me
I have no appointments today. Today, that happens to be right but it
actually happens every day. Clicking on the applet shows the calendar,
but it shows no appointments on any day. A quick look at the code
doesn't show any communication with evolution-data-server. Is this
planned to be added or should line 744 of gimmie_gui.py be removed? It
would also be useful if the 'Computer' topic button (or 'openSUSE' in my
case) could be configured to show the time even if the clock applet is
being used as I normally cover the rest of the bar with open windows
which means I then have to show it to see the time.
Fifth is what happens when you click a topic button - it opens the
relevant topic. At the moment, it's opened in a new window. Would it
be possible to have it open 'attached' to the Gimmie bar in the same way
that the applet version opens the topics? Also, it would make sense if
clicking a topic button - when that topic is already open - closed the
topic window.
Hope that's not too much.
James
--
James Ogley
ja...@usr-local-bin.org http://usr-local-bin.org
GNOME for openSUSE: http://software.opensuse.org/download/GNOME:/
Help end poverty: http://oxfam.org.uk/in
James Ogley
> have
Just remembered something else...
Sixth is the pager. Clicking it doesn't change Desk and it doesn't show
the contents of the Desks either. (Again, this is demonstrated in the
screenshot)
James Ogley
My brain is still playing catch-up...
Seventh, clicking on the icon for a minimised application in Programs
restores it (of course). Intuitively, clicking on the icon for a
visible application ought to minimise it.
Hajo Engelke
> Firstly, it would be great if Gimmie told Nautilus that it was a panel
I fully agree.
> Secondly, there's the size of icons.
+1. Perhaps it's an idea that the bar is expanded by default to the
full width of the screen? That would also solve the really annoying
issue that it resizes everytime a program is closed or started.
Because in general i like these big icons.
> - Second, the Notification Area icons.
That's right, but: GNOME Panel has the same issue as you can see in
this screenshot:
http://img223.imageshack.us/img223/9650/bildschirmfotomx8.png
> show icons in both the Notification Area and Programs/Library/People in two rows, each half the height of the Gimmie
bar.
So that would make 16x16 icons, right?
> Thirdly, leading on from that, is configuration. [...] It seems a menu is drawn but never populated.
+1 too here.
> Fourth is the clock applet.
Perhaps this could be solved by changing the code to support all
applets that work with GNOME Panel. I don't know if this could be
possible. I wished.
> Would it be possible to have it open 'attached' to the Gimmie bar in the same way
> that the applet version opens the topics? Also, it would make sense if
> clicking a topic button - when that topic is already open - closed the topic window.
Full Ack. This would make life easier.
On 2 Okt., 11:38, James Ogley <ja...@usr-local-bin.org> wrote:
> Seventh, clicking on the icon for a minimised application in Programs
> restores it (of course). Intuitively, clicking on the icon for a
> visible application ought to minimise it.
Yeah i've also talked with Alex about this. I can't remember exactly
what he has said but clicking on a icon to minimize it isn't the way
to go because a left click cycles through opened windows. Sadly he is
not that interested in the development of the standalone bar. My
suggestion would also be to minimize windows by clicking on them again
(and show them as grey icons if minimized). This solution would mean
to have same icons in the bar. I don't see that this would be a
problem though.
I would also suggest to close a window by right clicking on the icon.
What do you think about this?
One addition: I think it's time for Gimmie to have some bling bling
like it is seen here http://tsui.tony.googlepages.com/gimmiestuff
Best regards,
--
Hajo
Jauco Noordzij
* full width/partial width gimmie bars
* panel applets. (among other things)
* telling nautilus it's a panel
* transparency
--
groeten,
Jauco Noordzij