Comment 3 for bug 657449

I have a suggestion that might help improve how this is presented.

A little ASCII diagram of the panel when the window is maximized:

CoF | X _ + File Edit Vie | Window Title | Indicators

CoF | - circle of friends button with the separator

X _ + - window controls

File Edit Vie | - applications menu. Note the " Vie | " part. It's the menu item named View but it was cut with the | which isn't a separator here (at least not like the one right of CoF). It is a fade effect (similar to the one that is/was above the Trash icon when you have lots of icons in the launcher) that nicely cuts the rest of the menu after which the Window Title follows.

Window Title - the windows title but in bold as is now.

| Indicators - separator like the one right of CoF (so a vertical line) followed by the indicators

My suggestion would improve discoverability of the menus while retaining plenty of the Window Title. This would help with people wondering where the menus went.

This could tie into accessibility via keyboard shortcuts. I liked the keyboard shortcuts on the launcher in Unity 10.10/2.x and I think that this should be expanded on the entire launcher + panel interface. Similar how Office 2007+ displays them (http://officeimg.vo.msecnd.net/en-us/files/029/222/ZA010167826.gif). When the user presses the Windows (or Alt) key they get an overlay that has every item mapped to a key. So pressing [0-9] keys interacts with the launcher. Pressing F (or what ever is assigned to it by the app) selects the File menu item etc.
When the user presses Win/Alt key another thing should happen. The fade effect should consume the Window Title and show the entire menu options with the corresponding keyboard shortcuts.