Right click menu could confuse users, leading to accidental removal of panel applet
Affects | Status | Importance | Assigned to | Milestone | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Indicator Applet |
Won't Fix
|
Undecided
|
Unassigned | ||
indicator-applet (Ubuntu) |
Confirmed
|
Low
|
Unassigned | ||
Lucid |
Won't Fix
|
Low
|
Unassigned |
Bug Description
Binary package hint: indicator-applet
With indicator-applet taking on the role of the notification area, users will expect to right click on individual items in the menu. Here is a highly likely example involving the Rhythmbox icon:
* A user wants to quit Rhythmbox using its indicator icon. This was possible before...
* He right clicks the Rhythmbox icon. An unfamiliar menu appears with About and Remove from Panel.
* Remove from Panel in the context of the Rhythmbox icon seems to say "remove Rhythmbox from the panel." Upon choosing this option, however, the entire indicator applet is removed. There is no obvious way to add it back.
I suggest that indicator-applet should suppress gnome-panel's right click menus, treating all mouse button events the same (to activate the menu). The behaviour would be consistent with menus elsewhere in the desktop and would prevent confusion of the sort I just described.
This demands the addition of a grabber bar for the applet, but that should not be a concern as time goes on, since the indicator applet will be replacing the notification area in the future.
-----
Please do not ask support questions here. However, if you have accidentally removed this applet and want it back, what you need to do is right click an empty area on your panel, choose Add to Panel, and look for Indicator Applet. That is the applet being discussed in this bug report. If you feel that your experience was due to the issue described here, it would help if you indicate that the bug affects you, but please do not post a "me too" comment.
Related branches
Changed in indicator-applet (Ubuntu): | |
status: | New → Confirmed |
Changed in indicator-applet (Ubuntu): | |
importance: | Undecided → Low |
description: | updated |
Linked in a branch with one possible fix, successfully built and tested on the latest Lucid.
As I suggested, it gets rid of the context menu when the user right clicks over an indicator icon, since users could falsely see the menu which appears as relative to the specific icon. As a result, for example, Remove from Panel may be interpreted as removing a specific indicator from the panel but in fact removes the entire applet.
It adds a handle to the panel applet using the necessary hint. Two reasons for this:
* We need somewhere else to put a context menu for the entire applet, as mentioned.
* Applet could exist on the panel with no other contents. The handle functionality is intended for this case, so we should use it. (See window list applet and notification area).
I changed menubar_press to suppress the context menu completely for anything but a left click. This could do with some debate. It is possible to have this behave exactly like a normal menu by removing the menubar_press function. However, no other applets behave like normal menus in GNOME 2.x. So, having this one work that way could give the user a false impression and lead to confusion when interacting with other applets.