I don't think the brackets are a gainly solution. They add clutter and visual noise without adding value (we're heading back to GNOME 2 Panel levels of inconsistency). To step back:
1. Menus are textual.
2. Visual indicator menu items are *stand-ins* for textual menus.
The logical way to solve this (IMHO) is to ensure that the "full textual menu" makes sense; this to replace a subset of that with an appropriate icon in a graphical environment.
mpt: If indicator-menu was purely textual (which is needed anyway for a11y), what would you expect it to show in various situations?
I don't think the brackets are a gainly solution. They add clutter and visual noise without adding value (we're heading back to GNOME 2 Panel levels of inconsistency). To step back:
1. Menus are textual.
2. Visual indicator menu items are *stand-ins* for textual menus.
The logical way to solve this (IMHO) is to ensure that the "full textual menu" makes sense; this to replace a subset of that with an appropriate icon in a graphical environment.
mpt: If indicator-menu was purely textual (which is needed anyway for a11y), what would you expect it to show in various situations?