When Unity is installed, Shotwell menu on desktop flashes when user switches photo view

[Adam Dingle]

This is ticketed upstream at http://trac.yorba.org/ticket/2592 .

To see the problem:

1. On an Ubuntu 10.10 machine where Unity is installed, run Shotwell from the normal GNOME desktop, *not* inside a Unity session.

2. Click the top item in the Shotwell sidebar ("Photos").

3. Repeatedly hit the down arrow key. As you move to each new sidebar item, you'll see the menu at the top of the window flash off and on. This does not happen on machines where Unity is not installed.

Here's what is possibly going on. Each time you move to a sidebar item, Shotwell hides the menu at the top of the window and shows a different menu (specific to that item). Normally, the GNOME event loop does not run during the moment between hiding the old menu and showing the new menu, so the user sees no flicker as the menu is replaced. It appears that the Unity global menu code has an effect even in a desktop (non-Unity) session, and apparently it causes the GNOME drawing code to be invoked after the previous menu is hidden (perhaps by invoking the event loop?).

[David Barth (dbarth)]

Thanks for the feedback Adam. I'm connecting this one with the appmenu-gtk updates Cody is preparing.

[Alex Launi (alexlauni)]

Could you please post a short video? I am not able to reproduce this.

[Adam Dingle (adam-yorba)]

Alex,

note that the upstream ticket was closed 4 months ago with the comments "This behavior no longer occurs. Closing." So this bug should be closed as well.

[Alex Launi (alexlauni)]

Thanks Adam

[Adam Dingle (adam-yorba)]

This behavior is occurring once again in the Natty alpha. We've reopened the upstream ticket, and I think this bug should be reopened as well.

[Adam Dingle (adam-yorba)]

Never mind: there is no issue here. As I mentioned on the upstream ticket, the global menu is enabled both in the normal and classic desktops in Natty, so there is no flashing on either desktop. If I disable the global menu by uninstalling the appmenu-gtk package, then Shotwell works normally. This bug can stay closed.