panel position should be bottom

[Irios]

Not wanting to start a religious war, but there is a powerful reason why in the particular case of the network remix the panel bar should be by default IN THE BOTTOM. With maximus and the window picker app, we conveniently save the space otherwise taken by the window bar, but this could bring a big added advantage:

WITH NO WINDOW BAR AND BOTTOM PANEL, THE MENU BAR WOULD BE FLUSH WITH THE TOP.

If we think about Fitts law, this would be unarguably good, especially on a small device such as a netbook with a cramped touchpad and no mouse.

With no maximus, the advantage ceases to exist, such as in a normal desktop, where panel position is more a matter or preference. But in the network remix, useability would be measurably improved.

[Pete Goodall (pgoodall)]

I'm not sure I understand your rationale. Putting the panel at the bottom doesn't save any space, it just takes up space at the bottom instead of the top. In addition, the title for the window would be at the bottom of the screen. Would this not be confusing? I'm not saying you are wrong, but I'm a bit confused on the benefits of your suggestion.

[Irios (irios)]

It is not about saving additional space. What I mean is that with a bottom
panel, the pull down menus would be right at the top of the screen, which
would make them a lot easier to hit as stated by Fitts law.

When there is a panel and/or a window frame at the top, reaching the menus
takes a lot more effort: you can carefully move up to them (which takes care
and time) or shoot to the top of the screen and carefully move down (which
also takes care and time). However, with the menu at the very top, shooting
up ALWAYS lands in the menu, which is faster.

Moreover, moving left and right along the menu really becomes a lot easier:
move the mouse or your finger on the pad more or less horizontally, quite
carelessly, and the pointer won't stray off; bear in mind that when there's
free space above it, moving along the menu requires pretty steady horizontal
gestures, or continual corrections to keep the pointer within. As a related
fact, contemplate how submenus are difficult to select unless you first
click on the parent, because they have the nasty habit of disappearing
unless you exit the parent _exactly_ through its narrow side.

In a small notebook, with a clumsy trackpad, I believe the bottom panel
would bring a genuine advantage.

As for confusing users, window-picker + UME launcher is different enough
from the standard taskbars in Gnome, KDE or Windows to require (a small)
adjustment, and although you see it as the window title, I was actually
seeing it as a more clever taskbar button!

On Thu, Oct 30, 2008 at 4:37 PM, Pete Goodall
<email address hidden>wrote:

> I'm not sure I understand your rationale. Putting the panel at the
> bottom doesn't save any space, it just takes up space at the bottom
> instead of the top. In addition, the title for the window would be at
> the bottom of the screen. Would this not be confusing? I'm not saying
> you are wrong, but I'm a bit confused on the benefits of your
> suggestion.
>
> --
> panel position should be bottom
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/291025
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>

[Yuri Khan (yurivkhan)]

So I moved my panel to the bottom to see if it helps any. It doesn't, as clicking the top pixel seems to land above the clickable part of the menus. Tested in firefox, gedit and gconf-editor (just what happened to be open).

[Treris (treris)]

I'm not seeing a benefit to switching the panel to the bottom either, I'm glad with the way the panel and the window borders are now incorporated into one entity (the panel with the window-picker applet).
It gives me a nice smooth look which takes up a minimum amount of space.

[furicle (furicle)]

I would at least like this to be an exposed option. As the OP mentioned - it flushes the menus - kinda Macish, and makes them quite visible.

I currently have it on the bottom, and am liking it there. On the side is be problematic as is (although it would be nice to get that vertical space back and trade it for horizontal)

The bottom looks quite good to me except the rounded edges of the title bars - but hey, I'm not *that* picky.