Users are forced to wade through unknown networks to single out the network/s they have previously connected to in the past

[Greg Williams]

The summary pretty much tells the tale: users are forced to wade through unknown networks to single out the network/s they have previously connected to in the past.

I go to a location. Twenty some networks are available. Most of them appear in the "More Networks" folder. Five networks appear outside the "More Networks" folder. Despite the fact that I ONLY EVER connect maybe two networks, other networks that I never ever connect to are always displayed.

Why are networks that I have never connected to (and never will connect to) ALWAYS displayed in the menu? Why aren't they confined to the "More Networks" folder until connected to at least one time.

Previously, I proposed a solution: confine networks that have NEVER been connected to in the "More Networks" folder. Once a connection has been established, move it out of the "More Networks" folder. I'm told most users allow automatic wifi connections: so users only have to look ONE TIME, the first time they connect to a foreign (never before seen) network.

the current system presents two usability problems. If automatic connection is turned on and more than one network has been connected to in the past, the system does not know which network the user wants THIS TIME. And yet the user has to wade through networks they have never connected to and will never connect to to locate the networks they have to connected to in the past (there has to be a better way to organize this). Second, if the user does not allow automatic connections for security/privacy/battery reasons, the user is forced to wade through networks he/she has never connected to and will never connect every time he/she wants to make a wifi connection.

Since my previous proposal was shot down, can ubuntu engineers please come up with a solution to this usability problem (as Matthew Paul Thomas has you are more capable of doing). Matthew Paul Thomas has invalidated my "simple" solution that would inconvenience no one: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/indicator-network/+bug/1425991

I'm told most users autoconnect. So they want to see the networks right away, but this is nonsense. There are often so many networks, they HAVE to look in "More Networks" anyways.

[Greg Williams (greg2lapa)]

This would be a much more efficient and clean network-indicator design arrangement:

Wi-Fi Networks
-currently connected network
Disconnect

-previously connected network
-previously connected network

More Networks
-never before connected network
-never before connected network
-never before connected network
-never before connected network
-never before connected network

[Matthew Paul Thomas (mpt)]

indicator-network does not have a "More networks" submenu; that string does not appear in the code at all. So you are almost certainly not running indicator-network. This is a design flaw in network-manager-applet, that will most likely be addressed in Ubuntu by replacing it with indicator-network.