When FUSA applet has shutdown/logout items are duplicated in "System" menu

[Ted Gould]

Binary package hint: gnome-panel

With the shutdown/logout options being included in the FUSA applet they are no longer needed in the System menu and should be removed.

[dobey (dobey)]

I definitely think we shouldn't drop the system menu items, especially based on whether or not some additional applet is in the panel. What one applet does should have absolutely no effect on any other applets.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

changing the menus layout dynamically this way seems something confusing for users and not really a good idea, there is lot of users who still use the menus and have the applet configured too

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

Nack for Intrepid, way too close to the release, and we have more pressing bugs to fight.

I seriously dislike this in general, too. So far the system menu entries have been the only reliable way to shutdown/reboot/logout etc. If we drop them, we need to document two different ways for doing that, once for people having fusa, and another for people who don't. Since earlier Ubuntu releases didn't install either the logout or fusa, they don't have another way, and got used to the system menu.

[Mark Shuttleworth (sabdfl)]

It would be poor to end up with multiple menu items on the panel that do
the same thing. What do you suggest we can do to shift the standard
behavior for folks who are used to the old way of doing it?

Mark

[Mark Shuttleworth (sabdfl)]

Martin Pitt wrote:
> If we
> drop them, we need to document two different ways for doing that, once
> for people having fusa, and another for people who don't. Since earlier
> Ubuntu releases didn't install either the logout or fusa, they don't
> have another way, and got used to the system menu.
>

I think there is a simultaneous proposal to ensure that everyone gets
the FUSA applet, in the right place.

Mark

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

Mark Shuttleworth [2008-10-14 16:37 -0000]:
> I think there is a simultaneous proposal to ensure that everyone gets
> the FUSA applet, in the right place.

That was bug 274146, but it does not apply to "everyone", just to
"everyone who previously had fusa or the logout applet".

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

Hi Mark,

Mark Shuttleworth [2008-10-14 16:36 -0000]:
> It would be poor to end up with multiple menu items on the panel
> that do the same thing.

Aside from the fact that gnome-power-manager is already duplicating
functionality, too (suspend/resume), what is actually so bad about
this?

> What do you suggest we can do to shift the standard behavior for
> folks who are used to the old way of doing it?

Hm, I'm afraid I have no quick idea. I guess it would be hard for me
to argue :-), since I like the system menu entries (and I never use
anything else, since I never got the logout or fusa applets). Maybe
Matthew can help here?

My concern is that for upgraders this would be pretty unexpected. They
have always had these two menu options, and now suddenly they wouldn't
any more. It is not at all obvious that you can use fusa to shutdown
your machine or put it to hibernation (since these kinds of actions
are totally unrelated to switching users).

It is also a documentation issue. As long as we don't move everyone to
a forced fusa, we would end up with some inconsistency, where we had
to say "if you have fusa, use this to shutdown; if you don't, use
that".

Martin
--
Martin Pitt | http://www.piware.de
Ubuntu Developer (www.ubuntu.com) | Debian Developer (www.debian.org)

[Mark Shuttleworth (sabdfl)]

Martin Pitt wrote:
> Aside from the fact that gnome-power-manager is already duplicating
> functionality, too (suspend/resume), what is actually so bad about
> this?
>
It's bad form, from a usability perspective, to have lots of ways to
achieve the same goal. It's reasonable to lead people from one place
where they often go and peek to try and get something done to the "right
place", but not to have two, totally different, ways to do something.
The same reason we don't ship evolution *and* thunderbird!

> My concern is that for upgraders this would be pretty unexpected. They
> have always had these two menu options, and now suddenly they wouldn't
> any more.
True, we need to figure out how to coach people through changes like
this, but we also should not be afraid to move people firmly in a
particular direction.

Mark

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

Mark Shuttleworth [2008-10-14 18:44 -0000]:
> It's bad form, from a usability perspective, to have lots of ways to
> achieve the same goal.

Agreed on that.

> It's reasonable to lead people from one place where they often go
> and peek to try and get something done to the "right place"

Right, I just don't see how to sanely do that "use that ----> button
over here" educationary UI in the current state of intrepid (or at
all, but that requires some UI expert).

> but not to have two, totally different, ways to do something.

That's actually my very concern here. With the current panel we
currently have one way which *always* works (system menu). If we hide
that, we suddenly have two different ways to shut down the system,
one for people with fusa, one for people without. Since we can't
enforce fusa without rewriting the panel first [1], we still need to
have the system menu entries at least for upgrades.

[1] Side note: OMGponies! My poor panel is going to be abducted!
http://live.gnome.org/Boston2008/GUIHackfest/WindowManagementAndMore

> The same reason we don't ship evolution *and* thunderbird!

That's actually a very good example. If an user installed tbird and
upgrades to intrepid, he will continue to have tbird, while a fresh
intrepid installation comes with evo. I know that it doesn't fit this
bug to 100%, but it demonstrates that we need to take into account
user preferences for not doing things the way we intend to by default.

> True, we need to figure out how to coach people through changes like
> this, but we also should not be afraid to move people firmly in a
> particular direction.

Full ack on this.

Thank you!

Martin

--
Martin Pitt | http://www.piware.de
Ubuntu Developer (www.ubuntu.com) | Debian Developer (www.debian.org)

[Mark Shuttleworth (sabdfl)]

Martin Pitt wrote:
> Right, I just don't see how to sanely do that "use that ----> button
> over here" educationary UI in the current state of intrepid (or at
> all, but that requires some UI expert).
>
Exactly, so the better option is to move it, and let people figure it out.

The current patch shows the power icon in the top right in any event.

>> but not to have two, totally different, ways to do something.
>>
>
> That's actually my very concern here. With the current panel we
> currently have one way which *always* works (system menu). If we hide
> that, we suddenly have two different ways to shut down the system,
> one for people with fusa, one for people without. Since we can't
> enforce fusa without rewriting the panel first [1], we still need to
> have the system menu entries at least for upgrades.
>
No we don't. We only need the system menu entries if someone has removed
fusa. We will place fusa correctly for everyone on upgrade, and only
show a single set of menu entries.

> [1] Side note: OMGponies! My poor panel is going to be abducted!
> http://live.gnome.org/Boston2008/GUIHackfest/WindowManagementAndMore
>
Yes, we helped write that last week.

> That's actually a very good example. If an user installed tbird and
> upgrades to intrepid, he will continue to have tbird, while a fresh
> intrepid installation comes with evo. I know that it doesn't fit this
> bug to 100%, but it demonstrates that we need to take into account
> user preferences for not doing things the way we intend to by default.
>
The user has upgraded the SYSTEM from 8.04 to 8.10. In the process, the
SYSTEM has changed, and one of those changes is the location of the menu
options to log out.

You won't convince me that we need to leave old crap around when we
upgrade ;-).

Mark

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

> The user has upgraded the SYSTEM from 8.04 to 8.10. In the process, the
>SYSTEM has changed, and one of those changes is the location of the menu
> options to log out.

I've nothing against the change and having a preference letting the user select the layout to use would be alright but doing dynamic menus change depending of the configured applet is really something that looks non obvious

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

Mark Shuttleworth [2008-10-15 7:34 -0000]:
> No we don't. We only need the system menu entries if someone has removed
> fusa. We will place fusa correctly for everyone on upgrade, and only
> show a single set of menu entries.

As I said, once we actually do this, I could live with it, but right
now we don't. But right now we only place the new fusa for people who
either had the old fusa or the old logout button. This isn't true for
people who either reconfigured their panel or upgraded from earlier
Ubuntu releases (where we did not have these applets).

But anyway, I'm just stating my concerns here. You are the SABDFL. :-)

So what should happen exactly for intrepid and for further releases?
Dynamic system menu? That needs to be implemented *very* quickly now
(Intrepid freezes tomorrow, and has been in UI freeze for a long time
already).

[Mark Shuttleworth (sabdfl)]

Sebastien Bacher wrote:
> I've nothing against the change and having a preference letting the user
> select the layout to use would be alright
No, we don't want to introduce tons of preferences just to let people
stay on an old layout.
> but doing dynamic menus change
> depending of the configured applet is really something that looks non
> obvious
>
Please feel free to suggest ways we can make people aware of the change.

Mark

[Mark Shuttleworth (sabdfl)]

Martin Pitt wrote:
> Mark Shuttleworth [2008-10-15 7:34 -0000]:
>
>> No we don't. We only need the system menu entries if someone has removed
>> fusa. We will place fusa correctly for everyone on upgrade, and only
>> show a single set of menu entries.
>>
>
> As I said, once we actually do this, I could live with it, but right
> now we don't. But right now we only place the new fusa for people who
> either had the old fusa or the old logout button. This isn't true for
> people who either reconfigured their panel or upgraded from earlier
> Ubuntu releases (where we did not have these applets).
>
We should place the menu in the correct place for all users - new,
upgrade, regardless of their configuration.
> So what should happen exactly for intrepid and for further releases?
> Dynamic system menu? That needs to be implemented *very* quickly now
> (Intrepid freezes tomorrow, and has been in UI freeze for a long time
> already).
>
We should certainly place the FUSA in the top right, and lock it, for
all users. If we can, I would like the system menu to amend itself
accordingly, though I understand that we are late in the cycle for that
kind of change and will accept it if we can't make it in time for release.

Mark

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

Mark Shuttleworth [2008-10-15 8:56 -0000]:
> We should place the menu in the correct place for all users - new,
> upgrade, regardless of their configuration.

OK, it's at least much more consistent than the "dynamic menu" black
magic.

> We should certainly place the FUSA in the top right, and lock it, for
> all users.

Sebastian, Ted, how can this be done sanely on upgrades? It'd require
some heuristics to figure out which of the existing panel objects can
be moved to the left, until we hit one which we can squeeze by the
width of fusa, and thus where the "move to left" process can stop.

E. g. for my own panel the only stretchable area is the window list;
there is no free space, and the other things on the panel have a fixed
width.

Do applets tell whether they are stretchable?

Thanks,

Martin

--
Martin Pitt | http://www.piware.de
Ubuntu Developer (www.ubuntu.com) | Debian Developer (www.debian.org)

[Ted Gould (ted)]

On Wed, 2008-10-15 at 10:04 +0000, Martin Pitt wrote:
> Sebastian, Ted, how can this be done sanely on upgrades? It'd require
> some heuristics to figure out which of the existing panel objects can
> be moved to the left, until we hit one which we can squeeze by the
> width of fusa, and thus where the "move to left" process can stop.
>
> E. g. for my own panel the only stretchable area is the window list;
> there is no free space, and the other things on the panel have a fixed
> width.
>
> Do applets tell whether they are stretchable?

The way that this works is that the panel does all of the work.
Basically in the configuration there is a suggested location and the
panel tries it's best to honor that suggestion. So what we do in the
default configuration is set the locations to incremental pixel
locations, for example the FUSA applet at 1 and the clock at two. The
panel first honors the FUSA request and puts it on the right, and then
honors the clocks request to be as close to that as possible.

So an upgrade script doesn't really need to do heuristics as much as it
needs to ensure that there is a count between all of the applets and
that, of the right aligned applets, the FUSA applet has the lowest
number. The panel will take care of the rest.

[Ted Gould (ted)]

On Wed, 2008-10-15 at 08:27 +0000, Martin Pitt wrote:
> So what should happen exactly for intrepid and for further releases?
> Dynamic system menu? That needs to be implemented *very* quickly now
> (Intrepid freezes tomorrow, and has been in UI freeze for a long time
> already).

I think future releases aren't too much of an issue. In Boston there
seemed to be no one promoting keeping the current panel code. It may be
around for Jaunty, but I can't imagine longer than that.

Upgrading user settings? I do think we need a better plan/mechanism for
making that work. I'm not sure which track, but I think that'd be a
good UDS session.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

> We should certainly place the FUSA in the top right, and lock it, for all users.

what do we do for users who changed their gnome-panel to only have one bar at the bottom of the screen for example? that's quite a common scenario

[Mark Shuttleworth (sabdfl)]

Sebastien Bacher wrote:
>> We should certainly place the FUSA in the top right, and lock it, for
>>
> all users.
>
> what do we do for users who changed their gnome-panel to only have one
> bar at the bottom of the screen for example? that's quite a common
> scenario
>
Good point. We should pop it on that toolbar, at the right.

[Mark Shuttleworth (sabdfl)]

I believe there's a patch from Ted on this bug which implements the conditional menu's, and it's working in a PPA. Can we have a review of that from the platform team please?

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

the patch ted wrote does mostly the job, there is an issue though which is that the changes are not dynamic, which means that an user removing the applet has not way to logout.
one other thing which could turn to be an issue is that the namespace used by the user switching applet is not ubuntu specific, which means users who will install gdm-snapshot (the new gdm upstream version) which has its own applet version will have not menu items either

[Scott James Remnant (Canonical) (canonical-scott)]

Martin has also volunteered to review the patch.

[Matt Zimmerman (mdz)]

I agree with Martin's assessment in https://bugs.edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-panel/+bug/283278/comments/5. The final release freeze is not a good time to experiment with this.

The fact that there is more than one way to exit the session is not new: the panel has had two ways to do this (logout button and System menu) since 6.06, not to mention the keyboard shortcuts and hardware power button. This is unrelated to the exchange of the new fusa applet for the logout button, and is not a regression (usability or otherwise).

There are valid questions about how best to solve this, but we cannot address them properly in the time we have available. I recommend postponing any further changes to the panel until after the 8.10 release.

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

The patch generally looks good to me. I'll simplify it a bit to not export the new function as a public API, and test it with both cases.

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

Ah, so Seb already reviewed it, too. Indeed the "lock yourself out" is a concern here, it really needs to be dynamic (which will also look better in the other direction, when people upgrade and use the new fusa).

[Ted Gould (ted)]

While I agree that it should be dynamic, the goal was to make the patch as small as possible considering the date in the release cycle. The reality is that, to make it dynamic, will require introducing some plumbing into gnome-panel that is not really there.

Since it looks like this will not be applied for Intrepid, what do people think for Jaunty? I'm unsure that it's worth the work to add the plumbing when all signs are pointing to Jaunty probably being the last release with gnome-panel.

[Mark Shuttleworth (sabdfl)]

Ted Gould wrote:
> While I agree that it should be dynamic, the goal was to make the patch as small as possible considering the date in the release cycle. The reality is that, to make it dynamic, will require introducing some plumbing into gnome-panel that is not really there.
>
> Since it looks like this will not be applied for Intrepid, what do
> people think for Jaunty? I'm unsure that it's worth the work to add the
> plumbing when all signs are pointing to Jaunty probably being the last
> release with gnome-panel.
>
We should definitely fix this for Jaunty, and I would like to backport
the fix to Intrepid once the release is settled.

Mark

[dobey (dobey)]

Ted, if that's the case, then why bother with it at all? You could just wait until the "new panel" comes about, and have it Just Work (TM) without all the breakage in the meantime, because the patch is inadequate for dealing with a lot of seemingly common cases. I know one of the first things I always do when I install a new system, is to immediately remove the FUSA applet. It is of absolutely no use to me, having only one user ever.

[Ted Gould (ted)]

On Thu, 2008-10-16 at 13:53 +0000, Rodney Dawes wrote:
> Ted, if that's the case, then why bother with it at all? You could just
> wait until the "new panel" comes about, and have it Just Work (TM)
> without all the breakage in the meantime, because the patch is
> inadequate for dealing with a lot of seemingly common cases. I know one
> of the first things I always do when I install a new system, is to
> immediately remove the FUSA applet. It is of absolutely no use to me,
> having only one user ever.

Because basically we're prototyping features of the new panel.

FWIW, the applet does do a lot more than switch users. It does IM
status, login/shutdown, lock the screen and allow you to start guest
sessions.

[Scott James Remnant (Canonical) (canonical-scott)]

retarget to development release

[Mark Shuttleworth (sabdfl)]

No, Scott, I'd like to backport the fix as an SRU.

[Scott James Remnant (Canonical) (canonical-scott)]

On Thu, 2008-10-16 at 15:55 +0000, Mark Shuttleworth wrote:

> No, Scott, I'd like to backport the fix as an SRU.
>
Sorry Mark, but changing a behaviour such as the ability to log out
*after* a release is insane!

All of the documentation and screenshots refer to the existence of those
menu options; users will have been using the system for a while, and may
be used to using those options.

You can't suddenly disappear something as important as "Log
Out"/"Shutdown" after a release in an update!

Scott
--
Scott James Remnant
<email address hidden>

[Mark Shuttleworth (sabdfl)]

Scott James Remnant wrote:
> On Thu, 2008-10-16 at 15:55 +0000, Mark Shuttleworth wrote:
>
>
>> No, Scott, I'd like to backport the fix as an SRU.
>>
> Sorry Mark, but changing a behaviour such as the ability to log out
> *after* a release is insane!
>
Then reconsider the position before the release. It's insane to ship two
menu items on the same panel that do the same thing.

Mark

[LumpyCustard (orangelumpycustard)]

I was in a computer shop earlier, we were discussing Windows (the guy that worked there was saying how much he liked M$)... he then said (with no prompting) something to the line of "I think people will start using linux soon. All Ubuntu needs to do is change their menus so there's only one - at the bottom." i.e. to be more like Windows.

Unfortunately, I think this is partially true. Windows has a Start menu... that's extremely well understood, almost universally. So, people expect to see a menu and for it to be in the location they expect.

It's seems to simple to even mention that Ubuntu has a menu, more than one in fact, but that it's in a different corner of the screen to its Windows counterpart, but I think something as simple as that will put off a huge number of people using it.

I'm not saying we should change anything but, just like M$ said they took *a very long time* to design their Start button in Vista, I think for Jaunty some serious design decisions should be looked at to see if the current menu system/location is giving the best results.

[Ted Gould (ted)]

Included here is a patch to GNOME Panel which creates an infrastructure
for detecting when applets are added and removed from the panel. The
menus object then attaches to the signal handler to detect when the FUSA
applet is added or removed and hides the menu items for lock screen,
logout and shutdown. It also includes some utility functions for
dealing with IIDs in a clean fashion.

I think that this address the concerns of several posters in this bug in
that if the applet is not present the items will be reshown as soon as
the applet is removed.

Attached is a debdiff between the latest in Intrepid, 0ubuntu9 and
0ubuntu10. It includes mostly a new patch which is probably more easily
examined in Bazaar:

bzr diff -p1 -r ancestor:lp:gnome-panel
lp:~ted-gould/gnome-panel/dynamic-menu/

Also, you can try the package out by installing
gnome-panel_2.24.0-0ubuntu10 from my PPA:

http://launchpad.net/~ted-gould/+archive

Also attached is a diffstat on the debdiff and the patch itself.

[Mark Shuttleworth (sabdfl)]

Ted, you rock!

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

Thanks, Ted. In fact the bulk of the patch, which provides the applet add/remove signalling infrastructure, is fairly generic and could even go upstream. Maybe you can discuss it with the upstream developers? Then we only need to keep the actual f-u-s-a handling bits, which are very small, and can easily be carried as an Ubuntu delta.

Seb, can you please apply this with the first Jaunty uploads of gnome-panel? Thanks!

[teseglet (mobil1guru)]

I'm not sure where things ended up here but have been using Intrepid beta for last month and only have access to a shutdown button that includes only shutdown and restart and a user switcher button with the "guest" option and logoff but without shutdown or restart. When I go to guest user I then see the combined user switcher/logoff... which I really like. How can I access the new configuration on my main system? I have not found any help to correct my situation elsewhere.

[Mark Shuttleworth (sabdfl)]

You need to install the user switcher yourself, I'm afraid. Right click
on the top panel, choose "Add to Panel" and go from there. I would
recommend putting it in the top right.

Mark

[teseglet (mobil1guru)]

Thanks but the user switcher, when added to the panel, does not include
the shutdown or restart options, which is what I am looking for. I even
tried reloading the applet from synaptic. No worries. I'm just about
to start a fresh install.

-Tom

Mark Shuttleworth wrote:
> You need to install the user switcher yourself, I'm afraid. Right click
> on the top panel, choose "Add to Panel" and go from there. I would
> recommend putting it in the top right.
>
> Mark
>
>

[UbuntuCleric (ubuntucleric)]

I'm having a similar problem. I recently did a fresh install, but at some point afterwards (I first noticed it after installing a new theme) my FUSA only has the entries: "Guest session", "Lock screen" and "Log out". When I click the "Shut-down" item on the System menu, it also shows "Shut-down" and "Restart".

I've since switched back to the default theme, but my FUSA is still not working like it did initially (i.e., have all the power management and shut-down entries). Can anyone help me?

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package gnome-panel - 1:2.25.91-0ubuntu2

---------------
gnome-panel (1:2.25.91-0ubuntu2) jaunty; urgency=low

  * 25_dynamic_fusa_detection.patch: Adding a patch that removes the
    shutdown, logout and lock screen items when the FUSA applet is
    on the panel. (LP: #283278)
  * 26_dynamic_fusa_detection.autotools.patch: Adding a patch that includes
    the autotools changes required for patch 25.

 -- Ted Gould <email address hidden> Wed, 18 Feb 2009 23:25:14 +0100

[wensveen (wensveen)]

I just added a second FUSA, and then removed it again. After this the shutdown, logout and lock screen items reappeared in the system menu. This is only temporary, however. After killing gnome-panel the items were gone again.

BTW, I happened to like these items under system. I also like to be able to switch users fast, but I don't like the fact that fusa can do all kinds of other stuff as well, like configuring the login screen, displaying pidgin status, etc. But maybe that's just me. A user pref (maybe not even a visible one, just configurable in gconf-editor) would be great.

I think for now I'll just remove fusa...

[Ted Gould (ted)]

On Thu, 2009-02-26 at 01:41 +0000, wensveen wrote:
> BTW, I happened to like these items under system. I also like to be able
> to switch users fast, but I don't like the fact that fusa can do all
> kinds of other stuff as well, like configuring the login screen,
> displaying pidgin status, etc. But maybe that's just me. A user pref
> (maybe not even a visible one, just configurable in gconf-editor) would
> be great.

You might play with the GConf settings that are there. There are
several that control which things FUSA shows, you might find something
you like.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

new minor isse due to this change: bug #335242, the menu tooltip is now incorrect

[Matthew East (mdke)]

Another issue introduced by this is that (as Martin mentioned earlier) we need to document both ways to shut down. This affects not only Ubuntu documentation but includes yet another delta in the Gnome documentation where we need to depart from upstream. We've only just found out about this change in the documentation team, although fortunately it is before string freeze.

Lots of people will remove the FUSA applet, either intentionally to save panel space (because they don't have multi-user systems and can't see the point of the huge long applet) or accidentally, so I can't see that we can avoid documenting both ways. And this looks clumsy.

I would have thought that having one consistent way to shut down the system is much more desirable.

There is also a problem with reinstating the FUSA applet - it's very difficult to find in the "Add to Panel" dialogue. I've reported that as bug 337479.

[wensveen (wensveen)]

Before there was FUSA, there was another applet that could be used to shut down or log off. So then there were multiple ways to shut down as well. I don't see why FUSA has caused people to think differently, when all it did was to incorporate that same *existing* functionality with user switching (and IM status).

Speaking of which. Will we tweak the pidgin notification area 'thingy'? Because that is duplicate functionality as well. Oh, and I can shut down using the terminal, and by pressing the power key on my keyboard, and the power button on my computer case. I don't see what's so wrong with having multiple ways to do things. Being able to choose is good!

Sorry for the flamey tone of this comment, but I feel quite strongly about this.

About the implementation of this patch: isn't there any way FUSA could disable stuff in the gnome-panel, instead of the gnome-panel looking for FUSA? That would be a little more future-proof. FUSA might not be around forever.

[Ted Gould (ted)]

On Wed, 2009-03-04 at 08:18 +0000, Matthew East wrote:
> Lots of people will remove the FUSA applet, either intentionally to save
> panel space (because they don't have multi-user systems and can't see
> the point of the huge long applet) or accidentally, so I can't see that
> we can avoid documenting both ways. And this looks clumsy.

I think that for documentation we can assume that people won't remove
the FUSA applet. It is locked on the panel, so it is relatively
difficult to do. If they're going to go to that effort, I think that
they're taking their own path, and are outside the documentation. If
you're going to go that far, you should also document people who choose
to remove the system menu.

[Ted Gould (ted)]

On Wed, 2009-03-04 at 12:24 +0000, wensveen wrote:
> About the implementation of this patch: isn't there any way FUSA could
> disable stuff in the gnome-panel, instead of the gnome-panel looking for
> FUSA? That would be a little more future-proof. FUSA might not be around
> forever.

Not really without making the panel menus have another interface, on
DBus or something similar. While possible, it would make the patch very
large and make the panel have two IPC mechanisms. I looked for a way to
do that efficiently, and unfortunately there wasn't one. I think it's a
good idea but not reasonable to implement.

[Matthew East (mdke)]

On Wed, Mar 4, 2009 at 2:13 PM, Ted Gould <email address hidden> wrote:
> On Wed, 2009-03-04 at 08:18 +0000, Matthew East wrote:
>> Lots of people will remove the FUSA applet, either intentionally to save
>> panel space (because they don't have multi-user systems and can't see
>> the point of the huge long applet) or accidentally, so I can't see that
>> we can avoid documenting both ways. And this looks clumsy.
>
> I think that for documentation we can assume that people won't remove
> the FUSA applet.  It is locked on the panel, so it is relatively
> difficult to do.  If they're going to go to that effort, I think that
> they're taking their own path, and are outside the documentation.  If
> you're going to go that far, you should also document people who choose
> to remove the system menu.

Although your first point is one worth considering, I don't think the
last sentence is logical. There are no obvious reasons to remove the
system menu - it contains a lot of crucial applications. On the other
hand, even though I haven't done it myself, there are obvious reasons
for some people to remove the FUSA applet: it takes up a lot of panel
space because it has the user's name by it, and for the majority of
people who just have one user account, they are pretty likely to
remember their name already.

See for example:
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-doc/2009-March/012450.html

Maybe the solution is to remove the name, making the applet smaller, I
don't know - after all the applet is no longer really about switching
user, it will be used a lot more often to shut down the computer and
log off.

I'm still vaguely annoyed that we have to go to the trouble of
patching Gnome documentation about this though, it seems to me that
the correct approach would have been to convince upstream that this is
the right way to go, and then feed the work in that way. Any serious
deltas with Gnome that makes it necessary to patch their documentation
are unfortunate because not only do we need to write and maintain the
patch as upstream documentation changes, but our translators have to
translate the new strings too.

--
Matthew East
http://www.mdke.org
gnupg pub 1024D/0E6B06FF

[Ted Gould (ted)]

On Wed, 2009-03-04 at 14:34 +0000, Matthew East wrote:
> Although your first point is one worth considering, I don't think the
> last sentence is logical. There are no obvious reasons to remove the
> system menu - it contains a lot of crucial applications. On the other
> hand, even though I haven't done it myself, there are obvious reasons
> for some people to remove the FUSA applet: it takes up a lot of panel
> space because it has the user's name by it, and for the majority of
> people who just have one user account, they are pretty likely to
> remember their name already.

I think that they're roughly equivalent in likelyhood. Figuring out how
to remove applets from the panel is rather difficult, and should not be
encouraged.

> Maybe the solution is to remove the name, making the applet smaller, I
> don't know - after all the applet is no longer really about switching
> user, it will be used a lot more often to shut down the computer and
> log off.

This is a supported preference. You can replace your name with an icon,
I've seen people do that. The other feature that most people will loose
is the ability to use the guest session feature. Personally, I do use
that feature and would miss it if gone.

Also it's important to note that with the messaging indicator in the
current Jaunty the default for Pidgin is to not show it's status in the
notification area. Without the FUSA applet it would be a pain for users
to change their IM status also.

> I'm still vaguely annoyed that we have to go to the trouble of
> patching Gnome documentation about this though, it seems to me that
> the correct approach would have been to convince upstream that this is
> the right way to go, and then feed the work in that way. Any serious
> deltas with Gnome that makes it necessary to patch their documentation
> are unfortunate because not only do we need to write and maintain the
> patch as upstream documentation changes, but our translators have to
> translate the new strings too.

We have talked with upstream about this several times. They are now
adding similar functionality to the user switch applet with the new GDM.
All changes from upstream are difficult, but unfortunately to innovate
we're required to make some changes.

[Matthew East (mdke)]

On Wed, Mar 4, 2009 at 2:53 PM, Ted Gould <email address hidden> wrote:
> On Wed, 2009-03-04 at 14:34 +0000, Matthew East wrote:
>> Although your first point is one worth considering, I don't think the
>> last sentence is logical. There are no obvious reasons to remove the
>> system menu - it contains a lot of crucial applications. On the other
>> hand, even though I haven't done it myself, there are obvious reasons
>> for some people to remove the FUSA applet: it takes up a lot of panel
>> space because it has the user's name by it, and for the majority of
>> people who just have one user account, they are pretty likely to
>> remember their name already.
>
> I think that they're roughly equivalent in likelyhood.  Figuring out how
> to remove applets from the panel is rather difficult, and should not be
> encouraged.

It's not that difficult, and people will find a way if they think
there is a good reason. I don't think there is a reason that people
will try to find a way to remove the System menu... Anyway we can
agree to disagree about that.

>> Maybe the solution is to remove the name, making the applet smaller, I
>> don't know - after all the applet is no longer really about switching
>> user, it will be used a lot more often to shut down the computer and
>> log off.
>
> This is a supported preference.  You can replace your name with an icon,
> I've seen people do that.

Yeah, I saw that option. But it's a bit ugly, because the two icons
next to each other look a bit odd. Better just to have the red power
icon, I think.

> The other feature that most people will loose
> is the ability to use the guest session feature.  Personally, I do use
> that feature and would miss it if gone.

You wouldn't have to remove that feature if you remove the name by the
icon, you just change the look of the applet and reduce its imprint in
the panel.

> Also it's important to note that with the messaging indicator in the
> current Jaunty the default for Pidgin is to not show it's status in the
> notification area.  Without the FUSA applet it would be a pain for users
> to change their IM status also.

Yes, I'm certainly not arguing against the existence of the applet.

>> I'm still vaguely annoyed that we have to go to the trouble of
>> patching Gnome documentation about this though, it seems to me that
>> the correct approach would have been to convince upstream that this is
>> the right way to go, and then feed the work in that way. Any serious
>> deltas with Gnome that makes it necessary to patch their documentation
>> are unfortunate because not only do we need to write and maintain the
>> patch as upstream documentation changes, but our translators have to
>> translate the new strings too.
>
> We have talked with upstream about this several times.  They are now
> adding similar functionality to the user switch applet with the new GDM.

That's good to know.

--
Matthew East
http://www.mdke.org
gnupg pub 1024D/0E6B06FF

[Dovel (dov01)]

I am sure that, like many users who are used to logging out from the System menu (which is a pretty standard way to do things across many desktop environments!) I find using the applet quite annoying. Why can't there be more than one way to do things? When we start restricting the ways in which users can use their desktop, it's a slippery slop to the end. Bring it back. I've been logging out via a menu or text for about 18yrs now. Not going to change to an applet I don't even want on my panel. It has no use for me.

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

Hello Dovel,

Dovel [2009-03-29 22:04 -0000]:
> Not going to change to an applet I don't even want on my panel. It
> has no use for me.

If you don't need it, just remove it, and the System menu entries will
reappear.

[wensveen (wensveen)]

Is there an alternative to FUSA that just has user switching, but not shutdown and IM stuff? Or could this be a pref of FUSA (that influences the system menu, though). That would at least give users the choice of where they want the shutdown stuff to appear.

To reiterate a point I made earlier: why do we need to do this now, when there has been an applet that did shutdown stuff for a long, long, time and nobody seemed to care about duplicate functionality back then.

[Dovel (dov01)]

Thank you Martin, now I can see that you guys have put in better work than I appreciated before. My apologies.