Feature request: Fading of inactive icons on the launcher when hovered

[Niklas Rosenqvist]

This feature request is a result of an Ayatana mailing list discussion.

The problem we believe to have a solution for is when certain icon sets are used (e.g. Faenza) it's really hard to distinguish what applications are running or not. This might not be a problem with the default set but it exists for some people. So the solution we propose is that as a configurable option the launcher's inactive applications icons fade to grey so that the active ones really stick out when the cursor hovers the launcher. And to avoid confusion whether the inactive icons can be pressed or not they resaturate when hovered.

A mockup of this functionality is included as an attachment and as you can see it's really hard to distinguish which of the applications are running during a quick glance with the default setup.

What also would be good is a slider that allows setting how much the icons should fade when the launcher is hovered so that people still can distinguish applications by color and not only shape and position.

[Bartosz Kosiorek (gang65)]

My first idea was only implement the do not display background of the not active icon (the first screen on mockup).

Maybe we could start from that?
I think it is quite easy to implement this, and it will be a huge improvement for visibility.

[Niklas Rosenqvist (niklas-s-rosenqvist)]

That is already implemented and can be activated from CCSM, that is the setting I'm currently running. But it isn't enough to easily be able to see which application is running, that is why we suggested this feature :)

[Niklas Rosenqvist (niklas-s-rosenqvist)]

I apologise for this sounding as something the complete ayatana community agreed for this was certainly not the case. This is an ongoing discussion and we'll update when we have come to a definite conclusion of the subject. For the moment a preliminary HTML and JS mockup can be found at the following site:

http://unity-mockup.nsrosenqvist.com/