14.04 Unity pips (white dots in bar) are now too small.

[JaSauders]

On all 14.04 installs I've tinkered with so far they've all exhibited this behavior. The pips (white dots) next to the icons in the Unity bar are too small. I never noticed this before, so I went back to a 13.10 install to compare. The pips on 14.04 are so small that they, quite frankly, feel useless. They need to be of adequate size in an effort to be easily seen by the user, regardless of the actual icon size.

Take note of the size of the white pips on the Unity launcher in the following screenshots.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/mc4k4yyjm5nbbzk/4t6SgqVN8H

Here's an alternative 'direct download' link to the images just in case: http://skynetcore.org/shared/pips.tar.gz

In an effort to present an accurate comparison I included the following screenshots
(note that 48 px on both 13.10 and 14.04 seem identical, it's just the smaller sizes that down-scale too far)
13.10 - 32 px
14.04 - 32 px

13.10 - 48 px
14.04 - 48 px

I also included a 5th screenshot of 26 px in 14.04 in case it helps further show what I'm referencing.

While scaling the size of the pips makes sense to a certain degree, the current behavior scales them far too small. I feel as though they should have (at minimal) a 13.10 oriented type of scaling so they are more easily viewable, and therefore, more useful. If they could be adjusted in size, that would be a monumental bonus as well, but I have a feeling that might be a stretch for the given time frame. :)

Thank you for your time!

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 14.04
Package: unity 7.2.0+14.04.20140403-0ubuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.13.0-23.45-generic 3.13.8
Uname: Linux 3.13.0-23-generic x86_64
.tmp.unity.support.test.0:

ApportVersion: 2.14.1-0ubuntu1
Architecture: amd64
CompizPlugins: No value set for `/apps/compiz-1/general/screen0/options/active_plugins'
CompositorRunning: compiz
CompositorUnredirectDriverBlacklist: '(nouveau|Intel).*Mesa 8.0'
CompositorUnredirectFSW: true
CurrentDesktop: Unity
Date: Mon Apr 7 17:41:39 2014
DistUpgraded: Fresh install
DistroCodename: trusty
DistroVariant: ubuntu
GraphicsCard:
 Intel Corporation 2nd Generation Core Processor Family Integrated Graphics Controller [8086:0116] (rev 09) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
   Subsystem: Toshiba America Info Systems Device [1179:0009]
InstallationDate: Installed on 2014-04-01 (6 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 14.04 LTS "Trusty Tahr" - Daily amd64 (20140330)
MachineType: TOSHIBA PORTEGE Z835
ProcKernelCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-3.13.0-23-generic root=UUID=5d7f7158-1b5b-4946-9916-b8a0c2f59525 ro quiet splash vt.handoff=7
SourcePackage: unity
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
dmi.bios.date: 02/08/2012
dmi.bios.vendor: TOSHIBA
dmi.bios.version: Version 1.60
dmi.board.asset.tag: 0000000000
dmi.board.name: Portable PC
dmi.board.vendor: TOSHIBA
dmi.board.version: Version A0
dmi.chassis.asset.tag: 0000000000
dmi.chassis.type: 10
dmi.chassis.vendor: TOSHIBA
dmi.chassis.version: Version 1.0
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnTOSHIBA:bvrVersion1.60:bd02/08/2012:svnTOSHIBA:pnPORTEGEZ835:pvrPT224U-013021:rvnTOSHIBA:rnPortablePC:rvrVersionA0:cvnTOSHIBA:ct10:cvrVersion1.0:
dmi.product.name: PORTEGE Z835
dmi.product.version: PT224U-013021
dmi.sys.vendor: TOSHIBA
version.compiz: compiz 1:0.9.11+14.04.20140328-0ubuntu1
version.ia32-libs: ia32-libs N/A
version.libdrm2: libdrm2 2.4.52-1
version.libgl1-mesa-dri: libgl1-mesa-dri 10.1.0-4ubuntu1
version.libgl1-mesa-dri-experimental: libgl1-mesa-dri-experimental N/A
version.libgl1-mesa-glx: libgl1-mesa-glx 10.1.0-4ubuntu1
version.xserver-xorg-core: xserver-xorg-core 2:1.15.0-1ubuntu7
version.xserver-xorg-input-evdev: xserver-xorg-input-evdev 1:2.8.2-1ubuntu2
version.xserver-xorg-video-ati: xserver-xorg-video-ati 1:7.3.0-1ubuntu3
version.xserver-xorg-video-intel: xserver-xorg-video-intel 2:2.99.910-0ubuntu1
version.xserver-xorg-video-nouveau: xserver-xorg-video-nouveau 1:1.0.10-1ubuntu2
xserver.bootTime: Mon Apr 7 17:24:40 2014
xserver.configfile: default
xserver.errors:

xserver.logfile: /var/log/Xorg.0.log
xserver.outputs:

xserver.version: 2:1.15.0-1ubuntu7

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[JaSauders (jasauders)]

I believe it's also worth noting that the way the icons get highlighted when they need attention has changed as well. In 13.10 and prior, all four sides of the icon highlighted. In 14.04, it's just two of the four sides (left + top sides). In some cases it seems that only the top edge of the icon when highlighted shows any difference, and even then it looks nearly identical when I click on the icon, thereby removing the highlight. Meanwhile, the left side of the icon that also gets highlighted seems to not change.

I understand that these items were changed as part of the conversion process to SVG, allowing them to scale up and look great on HiDPI screens. While I support this very much, it really does feel like a usability regression as it is now more difficult to tell when an application needs attention. If *everything* supported the Message Tray, this would be less of an issue as a user could just look there and see what took place. To be quite frank, the Message Tray certainly isn't supported by all applications, so you might see my angle on this now.

Take into consideration that somebody may get up from their computer for a moment and come back several moments later. If the icons do not clearly depict that they received a message, or somebody highlighted them on IRC, etc., they wouldn't otherwise know. Given the fact that the current highlight is less obvious and the pips are smaller (making it more difficult to tell if a pip is blue or white to signify the difference), suddenly it becomes a burden to the user.

Thinking it was the fact that I had selected "colored edges" for the "icon backgrounds" feature, I set everything back to default, just as it comes out of the box in 14.04, so then the icons had a solid color background without any colored edges. Sadly, this was no change (if anything, it was slightly worse since I didn't even have two of the four highlighted edges). In that case, I had to rely entirely on the color of the now smaller pips, which is cumbersome and quite a hassle. I still believe that having the ability to scale the pips independently would be a wildly effective method so the user may choose based on their preference, but with how close we are to release, at the very least I would favor seeing a more 13.10-ish size of pips on my 14.04 installs.

Based on my conversations with users, it sounds like a lot of people don't notice this change. That said, I certainly notice when my messages go missed until I happen to message them again when they are in front of their system, thanks to the notification in the upper right corner on their display. :)

Again, thank you for your time and efforts. Have a great day!

[JaSauders (jasauders)]

As I re-read my bug report I decided that I needed to have an easier way for developers to quickly see what I'm referencing. I made some animated gif's which makes this far easier to quickly tell the difference. There are two animated gif's. One is with the "backgrounds on open applications only" as well as "colored edges." That way you can see how different options look similar or different.

In both scenarios I was using Skype as an example. One slide shows Skype with no unread messages, the next shows Skype with an unread message (aka, needing attention).

You can clearly see how crazy similar each gif is with both no unread messages vs unread messages available (aka application needs attention). This is extremely difficult for users to quickly decipher, did I get a message? Do I need to check that application? It was far, far easier in 13.10 and below to quickly tell the difference.

Examples:

http://oi62.tinypic.com/nxjgh3.jpg

http://oi59.tinypic.com/21mi1w0.jpg

Of course, this would be less of an issue if all applications that are built on any sort of messaging platform (whether it be email, instant messaging applications, webapps such as gmail, twitter, etc) would properly utilize the numbering system for alerts. What I'm referencing is when you get a new message on, say, Empathy, and a "1" shows up overtop of the Empathy icon on the Unity bar. Unfortunately this seems to be broken in 14.04, as I reported here (take note of the Pidgin icon with the "2" on the icon within the included screenshot of this report):

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/unity/+bug/1304186

But as it stands now, that integration isn't working and the highlighting differences are too similar to tell if an application has a highlight without having the Unity icons absolutely huge.

Again, thank you very much for your time and dedication. I just wanted to make sure that my report was as accurate and easy to understand as possible. :)

[Cavia Porcellus (caviaporcellus)]

For the edge illumination issue, see: https://bugs.launchpad.net/unity/+bug/1309739

[Alex Baggott (alex-baggott)]

As part of the big bug review for 16.04 LTS I have tested this on 15.10 and the bug is still there. I think this is a feature request rather than a bug.