It's difficult to close the launcher without tapping on something you didn't want to

[Daniel van Vugt]

It's difficult to close the launcher without tapping on something you didn't want to.

Test case:
  1. Open an app.
  2. Open the launcher swiping from the left.
  3. Close the launcher without triggering any touches in the app.

Expected: Tapping outside the launcher will close it without touches reaching the app.
Observed: Tapping outside the launcher closes it but unwanted touches reach the app.

You can close the launcher by swiping it back off the side, but it's too small to do that very easily without also accidentally touching the top-most app.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

We have similar problems with menus too, which really could do with the same solution -> bug 1506713

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[dinamic (dinamic6661)]

same here, i accidentally open apps while trying to close the launcher

[Michał Sawicz (saviq)]

This

[Michał Sawicz (saviq)]

... was done explicitly as a fix for bug #1575137, it's the same design as unity7 - there's no need to "close" the launcher, you just start interacting with whatever you wanted to interact with.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Well the Unity7 design doesn't apply on a phone because you have a very small screen and large pointer (a finger). It's harder to avoid the problem on a phone.

[Michael Zanetti (mzanetti)]

you can still drag the launcher to the left

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

No you can't. I mentioned in the bug description; on krillin the launcher is too small to be able to do that with a finger.

[Anupam (anupam207)]

I second Daniel. This is fine with desktop/laptop/tablet, but unintuitive for phone use (staged mode). The launcher takes ~20% of the screen in portrait mode, and then it feels awkward when you can't dismiss it.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

This is kind of another use case we need pointer grabs for -- to safely close a pop-up without affecting anything else. See bug 1506713.

[Victor Gabillon (victorgabillon)]

I have the same problem, and agree with Daniel. For the phone at least, I think that when the left launcher is revealed, the first touch that is outside of the left launcher should only hide the left launcher and not activate whatever is outside of the launcher. It would be very practical and intuitive.

[Anupam (anupam207)]

Why is this marked as "Incomplete"? What else is to be provided?

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

That's just standard practice - mark all other tasks as Incomplete while waiting to hear from the design team (the Ubuntu UX task).

Certainly the bug is valid with several of us complaining about it, but if an issue is deemed at all contentious then the developers will generally defer to the design team for input.

[Anupam (anupam207)]

@Daniel Thanks for the explanation. I mistakenly thought it is marked so because it requires more info from the users.