Reduce distraction of Launcher items.

[Kostiantyn Rybnikov]

Hi.

Currently, when I do coding, I see huge distruction from unity launcher:

http://img-fotki.yandex.ru/get/6715/72443267.5/0_a831c_3aaf1b16_orig

Colorful stack of icons just get's my attention. While I know there's an options like putting your editor fullscreen or auto-hiding launcher, it doesn't work for me, since I loose features like super-fast visual switch to app I want (by clicking it's icon), or notification that something happened (skype message arrived), which brings me to unhiding launcher from time to time just to see if anything happened. I want to have launcher, but I want it to be not so distractive.

So, one of solutions I came with is to desaturate icons a bit:

http://img-fotki.yandex.ru/get/9356/72443267.5/0_a831b_70f2822c_orig

This looks better, but still distractive relative to my code editor. First, I see clear need to also adjust lightness due to your apps (code editor window is dark, so let's also darken our icons). Second, just for experiment, I fully decolorized icons:

http://img-fotki.yandex.ru/get/6704/72443267.5/0_a831a_b0f70355_orig

This seems best for me as "non-distractive mode" when I code. I know this feature is our of priority, but maybe one of you will get excited of this one :)

Thanks!

[Adolfo Jayme Barrientos (fitojb)]

Note that since Ubuntu 12.10, Launcher icons are less distracting: their backgrounds are only colorful if apps are running, transparent otherwise. Also, you can set the Launcher to "auto hide" mode as a workaround :-)