Unity's top panel's size

[Nicholas Shatokhin]

Binary package hint: unity

Unity has a good interface for finger oriented touch screen devices, but top panel is too small (not comfortable to touch it by finger). How can I increase panel and icons size for comfort using it on tablets?

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.04
Package: unity 3.8.12-0ubuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.38-8.42-generic-pae 2.6.38.2
Uname: Linux 2.6.38-8-generic-pae i686
Architecture: i386
CompizPlugins: [core,bailer,detection,composite,opengl,decor,compiztoolbox,snap,colorfilter,text,workarounds,neg,copytex,annotate,clone,commands,gnomecompat,move,place,regex,resize,rotate,screenshot,imgpng,water,zoom,grid,imgsvg,unitymtgrabhandles,winrules,kdecompat,session,vpswitch,mousepoll,titleinfo,shift,resizeinfo,mag,thumbnail,wall,wobbly,expo,ezoom,switcher,staticswitcher,fade,scale,unityshell,ring,scaleaddon,opacify]
Date: Sat May 7 18:09:13 2011
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 10.10 "Maverick Meerkat" - Release i386 (20101007)
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=uk_UA:en
 PATH=(custom, user)
 LANG=uk_UA.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: unity
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to natty on 2011-04-29 (8 days ago)

[Nicholas Shatokhin (robotex)]

It's important, because Ubuntu is not comfortable on tablets now.

[Alex (chewytree)]

Thanks Robotex for reporting this. As of now, I don't think the top panel and icons are re-sizable yet. I could be mistaken, but i think it is being worked on, and once more stable, will be customizable in a future release. As of now, I think you can use Comfity to re-size the panel, but im not sure about re-sizing the indicators.

[Nicholas Shatokhin (robotex)]

And on touchscreens don't work hover on top panel. So, maybe good idea to create alternate method to show menu.

[Omer Akram (om26er)]

These bugs should be set as incomplete as we wait for design feedback from the people involved in Unity design.

[Nicholas Shatokhin (robotex)]

I think it's a good idea to create some additional options in Unity Plugin Config.

[role (role)]

For me is important to decrease top panel size. I am trying to change some variables in unity source code and resizing manually images in /usr/share/unity/themes/ but with no success. I hope so Canonical guys will figure out something and enable this functionality.

[Tin Tvrtkovic (tinchester)]

According to http://askubuntu.com/questions/88031/how-to-resize-the-top-panel-in-unity, the top panel height is hard coded in Unity's source.

I propose that the panel height be, at least, proportional to the font used if not configurable by hand outright. I prefer slightly larger font sizes which make it look cramped. Also, the text size settings in Universal Access should have an effect on it too.

Maybe scale the indicators/icons as well?

[Tin Tvrtkovic (tinchester)]

Also, if someone were to undertake this task, don't forget to make sure the window controls are scaled and well placed. In past versions of Unity, when the panel would increase its size with the font the close button would drift slightly out of alignment and not touch the top left corner, so it wasn't possible to close the current window by throwing the cursor into the top left corner and clicking.

[Aleve Sicofante (sicofante)]

This is needed for using Ubuntu on high dpi screens. I have a 15,6" 1920x1200 screen and almost everything has been scaled properly, so more or less, everything looks like the same size of a standard 96 ppi screen, just more detailed. But the panel won't resize with the fonts and that looks VERY ugly.

I've heard Unity Next will have some sort of resolution independence. Is that true? That might solve the issue. Until then, I support Tin Tvrtkovic's proposal (#8): make the height of the panel and icon size dependent on the panel's font size.

[markus haider (markus.haider)]

I agree, working on a Macbook with Retina display, the panel and the indicators are too small, there should be a way to change that.