Indicator-applet-appmenu should only reveal itself on mouse over in Gnome-Flashback (Zesty)

[Khurshid Alam]

The behavior of appmenu-applet or global-menu in Unity & in Gnome-Flashback is quite different.

On Unity,

1. It hides (shows window-title) normally & only reveals itself on mouse-over. This keeps panel tidy & distraction free.

On Gnome-Flashback (Gnome-Panel),

1. The appmenu is visible all the time
2. Doesn't show window-title

As both of them belongs to same package the behavior should be same for any other desktop-shells as well unless it hampers critical functionality.

[elhoir (jfarroyo82)]

This is not a bug. gnome-flashback is meant to be as gnome 2 was, for those who are not comfortable with the gnome 3 or Unity interface (i am one of them, i feel gnome-flashback session is easier than Unity).

That's why menus are always visible on flashback, it is intended to be as it is. It is not a bug.

[Khurshid Alam (khurshid-alam)]

How come this is not a bug? Indicator-appmenu is NOT a part of gnome-flashback. Flashback-dev doesn't even want a global menu. So "it is intended to be" doesn't count here. It's a unity component. It can be added in flashback. Just because it can be used in a different shell, doesn't mean it has to behave differently. By doing so It breaks core concept of the global menu & creates more bugs.

And if we go by this logic then each & every unity component(like indicator-messages & other) used in flashback should behave differently in flashback session when using compiz. But that doesn't appear to be the case. And it makes things difficult for developers.

Its clearly a bug simply because it doesn't show the WINDOW TITLE at all. I don't have any problem with menu remains visible all the time, but it must also show the window title. But, then, the problem is, if window title & menu both remain visible all the time, it may pollute the global menu. Hence Unity behavior of the global-menu is indeed perfect fit for this: show the window title & reveal menu only on mouse over.

[Khurshid Alam (khurshid-alam)]

This is still problematic. Tagging zesty.

[Khurshid Alam (khurshid-alam)]

@Dmitry

Anything on this?

[Dmitry Shachnev (mitya57)]

I don’t see why we should copy Unity. I like the current behavior more.

[Khurshid Alam (khurshid-alam)]

Ok. May be the global menu behavior is ok. But I do not really agree with problem (2).

It doesn't show any window title which makes things difficult to identify menu for a particular window when many windows are open on a single work-space. I have to bring a window to focus to make sure I am accessing menu for that particular window.

It becomes more pronounce in zesty as Ubuntu stopped patching gnome-apps for horizontal menu. And we are left with single vertical menu.

Of course I can determine who's menu it is by peeking at the menu itself, but it takes little extra time I don't want waste even that bit in a rigid work environment.