No visual response when clicking 'Apps'

[Antonio Camargo]

When we click the 'Apps' button there's no visual response at all (change of color, glow...)

[Danielle Foré (danrabbit)]

My assumption would be that this could be solved by making Slingshot an indicator, which we would special case like the clock in order to align it.

In this way, it's also possible that third parties could extend wingpanel with other app launcher indicators, meaning that in solving this problem we could also add a feature.

[Antonio Camargo (antoniop-camargo)]

Slingshots aesthetic is very different from the indicators. Turning wingpanel into an indicator will create inconsistency.

[Lee Hyde (anubeon)]

I like the idea of 'launcher as an indicator' in wingpanel, it would certainly give other launchers such as cardapio, gnomenu and synapse an in to using wingpanel to summon them. It the very least, it would be nice if the visual response of the applications meny was in-line with the date/time indicator (i.e. blue background until released).

[Danielle Foré (danrabbit)]

Unassigning from Giulio and marking as "confirmed" since there's been no progress since September.

[Andrea Basso (voluntatefaber)]

After some looking at Wingpanel code, this is caused by "Applications" being a EventBox and IIRC EventBox doesn't support background.

[Victor Martinez (victored)]

Okay, some thoughts:

Making slingshot an indicator: this is not necessary. Also, by doing so we'd need to deal with the obscure (and constantly evolving) Indicator library and all that stuff. Also, I'm not sure about having the whole thing as an indicator or if it'd nicely support all the stuff already implemented in Slingshot using popovers (Yes, I've had bad experiences with packing stuff inside MenuItems before) .

In my opinion, the easiest fix is implementing "Applications" as a GtkMenuItem, pack it in wingpanel and keep it always in sync with slingshot's "visible" property. We would need to have slingshot export that property over DBus and have wingpanel listen to it. I can do that if you agree.

The wingpanel-side solution is 90% finished: https://code.launchpad.net/~victored/wingpanel/applications-menuitem

I'd only need to implement the DBus service on slingshot, modify wingpanel to be a client of the service, and that's it.

[Victor Martinez (victored)]

BTW, since that solution would break modularity, it would be better to make a dedicated branch and never merge into trunk.

[Andrea Basso (voluntatefaber)]

Victor, we really gain much by making Slingshot an indicator: it tries to mimic a indicator, but it often fails. For example, its hide-on-lose-focus behavior is far away from being optimal, it has different spacing from the top and "Application" doesn't turn blue. Nothing that can't be fixed, but it would be better to make it a REAL indicator.

Obviously this is Luna+1 work. But we already tried something, but stuffing it into a menuitem for a indicator is not possible. So, I'm talking about things I don't really know very well, but can't we write our own indicator library that support every Gtk widget, like Popover already do? This would also be needed because IIRC some of Dan's mockups for indicators can't/aren't easy to make with a simple Gtk.Menu.

For this cycle I'd really like if you could do that. Netherblood came up with a solution, but didn't work that well. About modularity a separate branch could work, or you could have it in trunk and use the new code only if Slingshot is set as launcher.

[Victor Martinez (victored)]

Andrea, I certainly doubt that approach would work based on previous experiences with GtkMenuItem and the nature of that widget. Although it's a container, it doesn't support all the widgets I've tried to pack into it, and I doubt it wouldn't provoke focus issues if we packed the entire SlingshotView widget into one of those :P

I've linked some branches here. They are both working fine. I would appreciate if you test and review the implementation :)

[Andrea Basso (voluntatefaber)]

This doesn't seem to work for me: I've never seen Applications turn blue.

[Victor Martinez (victored)]

Many have not been able to test my branch because are being affected by lp:1013836
Due to that bug, the old slingshot is being executed during startup, owning the org.pantheon.slingshot session and preventing the new binary (slingshot-launcher) from starting. Please make sure you run the following commands before testing:
1) sudo rm -f /usr/bin/slingshot
2) killall slingshot

[Andrea Basso (voluntatefaber)]

Oh, sorry, now it works fine.
It's slightly slower to Show/Hide slingshot when clicking Applications, but it could be just an impression.
And I found a wingpanel regression, but I checked the regression with rev 77 since it was what I already had installed. Tonight or tomorrow I'll check with a more up to date wingpanel revision. If I open Slingshot and then hide it, I need to double click on the time indicator to make it show up, at first it doesn't.

[Victor Martinez (victored)]

Hey Andrea, thanks for testing! Some replies:

> It's slightly slower to Show/Hide slingshot when clicking Applications, but it could be just an impression.
Definitely just an impression, considering there's been no visual response during all this time and that DBus latency is negligible.

> And I found a wingpanel regression, but I checked the regression with rev 77 since it was what I already had installed. Tonight or tomorrow I'll check with a more up to date wingpanel revision.
I (hopefully) have not introduced any regression. If there were any, it'd probably be present in trunk as well.

> If I open Slingshot and then hide it, I need to double click on the time indicator to make it show up, at first it doesn't.
I don't think this is related to my branch either. You can reproduce the same issue by clicking over any right-side indicator and then clicking on the time indicator. That's normal since all these menu items (Applications, time, etc.) are packed inside different menu bars.

[slmb (fqa101)]

هاي انا فطوم
بتاريخ 2012 2 13 01:50، كتبها "Lee Hyde" <email address hidden>:
>
> I like the idea of 'launcher as an indicator' in wingpanel, it would
> certainly give other launchers such as cardapio, gnomenu and synapse an
> in to using wingpanel to summon them. It the very least, it would be
> nice if the visual response of the applications meny was in-line with
> the date/time indicator (i.e. blue background until released).
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to
> Wingpanel.
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/852521
>
> Title:
> No visual response when clicking 'Apps'
>
> Status in Slingshot:
> Confirmed
> Status in WingPanel:
> In Progress
>
> Bug description:
> When we click the 'Apps' button there's no visual response at all
> (change of color, glow...)
>
> To manage notifications about this bug go to:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/slingshot/+bug/852521/+subscriptions

[Cody Garver (codygarver)]

Is there anything preventing the transition to indicator?

[David Gomes (davidgomes)]

What about just making the "Applications" text bold?

[ainq (ainq)]

In beta1, there is no visual response for ANY of the indicators. Would this restore the response for all of the indicators?