Unity global menu bar hides childless menu items

[Artur Nowak]

Binary package hint: unity

Applications menu items that don't have children (because, e.g. the submenu is populated at the moment of menu selection) are being hidden by Unity global menu bar. I attach a code for an example GTK application that exposes this problem. It is really problematic, because disappearing menus also cause visible menu items to be placed in different positions than the user is used to.

I haven't verified it myself, but it's possible that https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=261879 is also caused by this. However, I didn't find related report in unity bug tracker.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.04
Package: unity 3.8.10-0ubuntu2
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.38-8.42-generic 2.6.38.2
Uname: Linux 2.6.38-8-generic x86_64
Architecture: amd64
CompizPlugins: [core,bailer,detection,composite,opengl,decor,compiztoolbox,gnomecompat,move,resize,snap,vpswitch,imgpng,mousepoll,wall,unitymtgrabhandles,grid,place,regex,session,animation,expo,workarounds,ezoom,staticswitcher,fade,scale,unityshell]
CompositorRunning: compiz
DRM.card0.LVDS.1:
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 enabled: enabled
 dpms: On
 modes: 1280x800
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DRM.card0.VGA.1:
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Date: Fri Apr 29 11:46:59 2011
DistUpgraded: Log time: 2011-04-28 13:42:40.141485
DistroCodename: natty
DistroVariant: ubuntu
EcryptfsInUse: Yes
GraphicsCard:
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   Subsystem: Elitegroup Computer Systems Device [1019:9037]
   Subsystem: Elitegroup Computer Systems Device [1019:9037]
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 10.10 "Maverick Meerkat" - Release amd64 (20101007)
InstallationMedia_: Ubuntu 10.10 "Maverick Meerkat" - Release amd64 (20101007)
InstallationMedia__: Ubuntu 10.10 "Maverick Meerkat" - Release amd64 (20101007)
MachineType: MAXDATA obook3-2
ProcEnviron:
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ProcVersionSignature_: Ubuntu 2.6.38-8.42-generic 2.6.38.2
ProcVersionSignature__: Ubuntu 2.6.38-8.42-generic 2.6.38.2
Renderer: Unknown
SourcePackage: unity
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to natty on 2011-04-28 (0 days ago)
dmi.bios.date: 09/04/2007
dmi.bios.vendor: Phoenix Technologies LTD
dmi.bios.version: 1.04I
dmi.board.name: obook3-2
dmi.board.vendor: MAXDATA
dmi.chassis.type: 10
dmi.chassis.vendor: MAXDATA
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnPhoenixTechnologiesLTD:bvr1.04I:bd09/04/2007:svnMAXDATA:pnobook3-2:pvr:rvnMAXDATA:rnobook3-2:rvr:cvnMAXDATA:ct10:cvr:
dmi.product.name: obook3-2
dmi.sys.vendor: MAXDATA
version.compiz: compiz 1:0.9.4+bzr20110415-0ubuntu2
version.ia32-libs: ia32-libs 20090808ubuntu13
version.libdrm2: libdrm2 2.4.23-1ubuntu6
version.libgl1-mesa-dri: libgl1-mesa-dri 7.10.2-0ubuntu2
version.libgl1-mesa-dri-experimental: libgl1-mesa-dri-experimental N/A
version.libgl1-mesa-glx: libgl1-mesa-glx 7.10.2-0ubuntu2
version.xserver-xorg: xserver-xorg 1:7.6+4ubuntu3
version.xserver-xorg-video-ati: xserver-xorg-video-ati 1:6.14.0-0ubuntu4
version.xserver-xorg-video-intel: xserver-xorg-video-intel 2:2.14.0-4ubuntu7
version.xserver-xorg-video-nouveau: xserver-xorg-video-nouveau 1:0.0.16+git20110107+b795ca6e-0ubuntu7

[Artur Nowak (artur-j-nowak)]

Screenshot of example application with default settings.

[Artur Nowak (artur-j-nowak)]

Screenshot of the example app with UBUNTU_MENUPROXY=0

[Olli Ries (ories)]

Ted can you pls assess this and advice which MS this will be fixed

[Olli Ries (ories)]

need design input

[John Lea (johnlea)]

Could somebody provide one or two real world examples of this bug in action? Difficult to define a resolution without this, so marking as 'incomplete' for the time being.

[Artur Nowak (artur-j-nowak)]

What do you mean by 'real-world' examples? This bug affected a SWT-based back-office application that we're writing. After noticing it, I've created a quick Python test-case to pinpoint the problem and attached it along with the screenshots. I was initially suspecting that it could be related to SWT-Unity incompatibility, as was the case with Eclipse then (the menu-bar was completely disappearing). I've made a thorough search and even gave you a link to KDE bugtracker with similar report.

Marking it as incomplete after nearly a year (!) after report is simply ridiculous. I don't know how more 'complete' could my report be. I went to great lengths to give you as much details as possible and help you reproduce the problem. Marking it as incomplete after such a long time simply shows that nobody gave it enough thought at the moment of reporting it.

I'm unable to give you any other 'real-world' examples of this problem. We've made a workaround in our software, so it doesn't affect us directly anymore. All the people I know switched from Unity in the meantime, so I don't hear about any other situations that expose this bug. I don't even know if this problem persists (and you probably didn't care to check it).

To sum up: maybe in fact this bug is to expire, since all the apps either worked it around or the users stopped using Unity.

[Matthew Paul Thomas (mpt)]

Artur, you're right, this shouldn't have been marked Incomplete. Sorry for the confusion.

[Jim Hodapp (jhodapp)]

Verified on Quantal. Beginning to look into the root cause of the issue.

[Jim Hodapp (jhodapp)]

Artur, thanks for the very comlete bug report. It's one of the more complete and helpful ones I've seen. If only they were all this informative!

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package indicator-appmenu - 12.10.4daily12.11.23-0ubuntu1

---------------
indicator-appmenu (12.10.4daily12.11.23-0ubuntu1) raring; urgency=low

  [ Mathieu Trudel-Lapierre ]
  * debian/control:
    - Reorganize Build-Depends for clarity.
    - Adjust style to be consistent with other indicator packages.
    - Drop Build-Depends on cdbs.
    - Bump debhelper Build-Depends to (>= 9).
    - Add gnome-common to Build-Depends.
    - Update Vcs-Bzr, Vcs-Browser and add notice to uploaders.
    - Add gtk-doc-tools to Build-Depends.
  * debian/compat: bump compat level to 9.
  * debian/rules:
    - Convert to using the dh sequencer.
    - Make sure the build fails if there are files not listed in install files
      when building the packages.
    - Override dh_autoreconf to call autogen.sh and not run configure.
    - Temporarily disable tests due to missing dependencies.
  * debian/indicator-appmenu.install,
    debian/indicator-appmenu-tools.install: update paths to install private
    binaries to the /usr/lib/<triplet> paths.

  [ Didier Roche ]
  * Automatic snapshot from revision 219 (bootstrap):
    - Adds childless menu support to the Unity menu panel. (LP: #773101)
    - add pot template
  * Unity global menu bar hides childless menu items (LP: #773101)

  [ Automatic PS uploader ]
  * Automatic snapshot from revision 221
 -- Automatic PS uploader <email address hidden> Fri, 23 Nov 2012 07:39:58 +0000