[gutsy]Deskbar results appears in a window

[IM.tehk]

Binary package hint: deskbar-applet

After todays update my deskbar started to popup in a window rather then the traditional way. I am including a screen shot of the window.

This is on a system with the latest updates and clean new configs for deskbar.

[Pedro Villavicencio (pedro)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. It seems that this is the way deskbar-applet is working now, the popup has been removed from the code, so you're not gonna get it from newer releases i'm afraid, anyways, you can always open a report in http://bugzilla.gnome.org under the deskbar-applet product, thanks in advance.

[atreju (atreju-tauschinsky)]

I opened a wishlist-bug in the gnome bugzilla. The number is 465658, it can be found here: http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=465658

[Ralf Nieuwenhuijsen (ralf-nieuwenhuijsen)]

LOL. Could those deskbar guys have killed usability more than this?

1) it has resizing problems (the pane inside is resizeable, but doesn't resize with the window)
2) i cant click .. type .. press enter .. it will not hide by default ( i can enable that though )
3) to close it, when you decide you do not want to do anything you can't press escape anymore, you have to press alt+f4
4) it has a menu, WHY WHY WHY, its not an app we are using for an hour or so, its something we use to launch a program in a second. Duh!
5) its very slow to open, it registers another window (with an entry in the task-list), the window title does not contain whatever I typed, etc.
6) when you show the history, the internal widget gets wider and you loose the vertical scrollbar (seriously! how dumb is this)
7) to show the history you have to use the menu
8) to unshow the history you have to use the menu
9) when you show the history, suddenly that takes all the focus, and you have to close it through the menu to have the other pane take keyboard focus again
10) they use single click to launch the actions, but being in a window and all we are expecting double-click. We're also accidently launching stuff resizing the inner pane with the window.

All in all, they turned something that was controlleable only by keyboard, into something that forces people to switch between keyboard and mouse all the time.

And the design WAS good. I've seen usability fuckups before, but never from a tool that was previously well designed.

Please revert back to the old version. Nobody is going to use this. Not like this.

[Tim Perry (pimterry)]

Another vote for the old version back! Not only do I no want any extra windows, I'd REALLY like my keyboard shortcut that opens the applet, to close it again, as it used to do. Unfortunately, it now doesn't. Not useful.

[Ralf Nieuwenhuijsen (ralf-nieuwenhuijsen)]

Also the name is invalid now.

It should not be called desk-BAR anymore. Rather desk-BUTTON-that-launches-Window.

[cerealkilla (cerealkilla23)]

Honestly, this really sucks, launching stuff is going to take at least 2x as long as it used to. I'd prefer if an old version was shipped with gutsy instead.

[IM.tehk (im-tehk)]

The testing page for gutsy on the ubuntu.com site shows a picture of the old
deskbar talks about it being enabled by default in gutsy. I think this
decision needs to be reconsidered. In this condition the deskbar is not
something that will catch and excite users, but rather will be one of the
first things they remove from their panel.

If people want a capable well shaped search window they will use the
tracker-search-tool. This is where deskbar was unique . It was 100% keyboard
driven with ease, it performed simple actions in a 'bar' like window. Until
deskbar regains some of its keyboard usability I will stick to the menu bar
and tracker search tool.

[Jacob Peddicord (jpeddicord)]

After reading these comments (and on the GNOME tracker) I thought "It honestly can't be this bad."

After I enabled the deskbar, I 100% agree with every comment here. The window that opens is slow and much less usable than the bar we had earlier.

Count me in for the old style.

[Steeley (steeleyuk)]

Another vote for the previous version back. The new interface has been poorly thought out and achieves nothing over the old style (and the lack of choice about being able to choose between the old and new style is strange).

In my opinion, if the developer refuses to at least provide an option for the old style, then it might as well be removed from the default Gutsy install.

[Gabriel Mazetto (brodock)]

i agree with every single comment

[Robert Nasiadek (robzon)]

I totally agree.

[Hervé Cauwelier (hcauwelier-deactivatedaccount)]

While I agree too, I'm not convinced it has any weight on this bugtracker.

Please future commenters, report your thoughts on http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=465658

[matt nicholson (matthewnicholson)]

as deskbar is part of Gnome, i don't suppose the option is on the table to ship with the "older" stable, "regular" deskbar? I'm opening another bug, but, I'll mention it here, the new deskbar breaks the Tracker integration, as the tracker extension isn't the "new" style....sigh.

[Michael Hall (mhall119)]

One more vote for the old style.

If Gnome won't make the old-style a preference that Ubuntu can set by default, then perhaps a fork is justified.

Either way, do NOT add deskbar by default if it will be using this new style, it ruins the desktop experience.

[Ralf Nieuwenhuijsen (ralf-nieuwenhuijsen)]

The new deskbar breaks tracker integration?

So the new ubuntu will ship by default with a broken deskbar that has no tracker integration, eventhough tracker is eating up cpu in the background.

With the old deskbar + tracker integration, how big is the chance that 99% of the users will never use tracker?

They might as well remove BOTH from the default install, if they don't downgrade deskbar!

[Ralf Nieuwenhuijsen (ralf-nieuwenhuijsen)]

@Pedro .. you put this on 'Won't fix' .. (which I read as .. Won't downgrade)

Does this mean?
 a) ubuntu has decided against putting deskbar and tracker on desktops by default?
 b) ubuntu has decided for a broken deskbar and no tracker integration?
 c) ubuntu had decided for a broken deskbar and not installing tracker by default anymore?
 d) ubuntu has decided to remove deskbar from default desktop by still installing tracker?

We're all a bit confused. The old deskbar + tracker would have provided a great default desktop.
Esspecially with live search result on by default. (very spotlight like)

But the original vision is shattered. Why not just downgrade for Gutsy?

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

This bug is not constructive, gutsy is not stable yet and we are just following what upstream is doing. What about sending them bug and having a look at what they do instead of speaking about downgrading or not installing deskbar now? There is several weeks before the gutsy freeze and when there is issue usually the way is to work on them rather than ranting loud and wanting to downgrade

[Pedro Villavicencio (pedro)]

I set won't fix to your original report "Deskbar results appears in a window", the things you're telling is not part of your original report. If you want to open another bug report for the other part. thanks.

[Ralf Nieuwenhuijsen (ralf-nieuwenhuijsen)]

@sebastian

You are right. I can't speak for the others. But my comments were not the most constructive.

However, I was under the impression both GNOME and Ubuntu go under feature freeze tomorrow?
So perhaps we wrongly assumed this wasn't going to be dealt with before Gutsy was released.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

the new feature have to be available for the freeze, nothing prevent to fix bugs then and to not use deskbar for gutsy if we consider it not good enough

[Michael Hall (mhall119)]

Would it be technically and logistically possible for Gutsy to include a lesser version of deskbar, say 2.19.3 instead of 2.19.90.1?

If not, would Ubuntu support a patched deskbar that adds the old-styles back as an option? I'm not a python developer, but I'm willing to give it a shot, especially if someone from Ubuntu/Canonical will help with packaging an maintenance.

[Ralf Nieuwenhuijsen (ralf-nieuwenhuijsen)]

The new version just uploaded seemed to fix the majority of my usability concerns.
There is still some tweaking that could be done, but its much _much_ improved. Let's hope we can get a tracker plugin on time for gutsy ;-)

[Henrique Carvalho Alves (hcarvalhoalves)]

+1 for the older version. The list-menu approach makes it much more usable with keyboard only, which is the correct solution. The new approach looks just _wrong_, the new UI killed the GNOME killer-app.

[Davim (davim)]

I just hate this new window version of deskbar and I used to love this applet :( what where their developers thinking....

[wesclemens (wesclemens)]

I just think that all of you need to look at the roadmap for the next version.

http://live.gnome.org/DeskbarApplet/RoadMap222

The highest priority is getting applet mode working again. Seems that something happend right before UI freeze.

Looks like all the loyal deskbar user are going to half to wait this one out.

[Murat Gunes (mgunes)]

The "button UI" is back (as an option) with 2.21.90. The search results window is the same, but it's undecorated, and sticks to the panel.

http://www.k-d-w.org/node/37

I'm marking this as Fix Released.

[Hervé Cauwelier (hcauwelier-deactivatedaccount)]

It's almost there but the focus is not gave to the input field. I wonder how thoroughly it has been tested. I'll whine upstream.

[Murat Gunes (mgunes)]

I've filed bug #187228 on that problem. If you've already filed one upstream, please add a bug watch.