Location of indicators should be user configurable
Affects | Status | Importance | Assigned to | Milestone | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
unity (Ubuntu) |
Triaged
|
Wishlist
|
Unassigned |
Bug Description
One regression I've had since karmic, and it seem to continue with lucid is that in the past I used the upper right corner for the volume applet. This allowed me to use fitts law to change the volume (a frequent action) without looking away and distracting me from my current task.
Now that the volume applet is gone and its just the volume indicator in the indicator applet, there are two problems:
1) Volume indicator placement is not regular. It depends on application startup order, which is not constant from boot to boot. So even if I move the indicator applet to be the right most applet, there's no certainty that the volume notifier will be on the right.
2) Even if the volume indicator is the right-most icon in the indicator applet, the indicator applet has an invisible boarder, causing mouse-wheel scrolling to not land on the volume indicator so changes in the volume level do not occur.
I feel volume changes are a more frequent action then logging in and out of a session, it seems silly that a corner has been dedicated to the "power button" applet by default. I can of course handle this poorly chosen default if its something I can modify, but that doesn't seem to be the case here.
summary: |
- volume indicator should be "right-most" icon in indicator applet + Location of indicators should be user configurable |
Changed in indicator-applet: | |
importance: | Undecided → Wishlist |
status: | New → Triaged |
Changed in unity: | |
importance: | Undecided → Wishlist |
Changed in unity (Ubuntu): | |
importance: | Undecided → Wishlist |
status: | Confirmed → Triaged |
Changed in unity: | |
status: | Confirmed → Triaged |
no longer affects: | indicator-applet |
no longer affects: | unity |
Just updating this a bit since things in Lucid are slightly changed, but the core issue is still there.
1) With Lucid, the indicator applet (as opposed to the notification area - my terminology wasn't precise in the original bug) does keep a static order, which is an improvement over Karmic.
2) The indicator applet an the notification area no longer have the one-pixel border issue seen in Karmic. If either is in right most corner of the panel, the icon is click-able by throwing the mouse in the corner without having to target.
3) However, due to the messaging indicator being the fixed right-most indicator, I am still unable to configure my system to have the volume indicator be in the corner. This continues to be a frustration, because manipulating the volume of whatever I'm doing is one of my most frequent actions throughout the day. Instead of being able to just throw the mouse in the corner and scroll, as was possible prior to 9.10, I have to carefully target the 24x24 px icon. It's quite distracting from whatever task is at hand.
I do get the sense that with the new desktop design initiative, Ubuntu is less interested in this sort of feedback regarding non-default configurations, or requests for excessive customisation. So I'm not really expecting much to change here, but hopefully they'll take in consideration some actual usage stories (such as this one) in their future design reviews.