GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 571034
Add transparency to panel run dialog
Last modified: 2009-02-12 03:47:36 UTC
Media keys use a different look in case xorg supports compositing, showing a nicer dialog, transparent and round bordered. Perhaps panel-run-dialog could do the same.
Created attachment 128282 [details] preview after the patch panel-run-dialog can look like this, in case of composite enabled Xserver
Created attachment 128283 [details] [review] Patch This patch should add the behavior explained above, and looks like the image attached.
This kind of things should not be done for usability reason. Your preview could look good on the wallpaper, but have you thought about what will happen when the dialog is placed over firefox or a text? The text won't be readable, because you will see both the text of the applet and the black text of firefox/oopenoffice. You can do those things only when the compositing manager adds some kind of blur effects to the alpha channel. Closing
I'm reopening the bug, I'm still on my own opinion (that patch introduces a lot of usability issues, it does not follow the HIG, and should NOT be part of GNOME), but the italian community is angry because I'm not the maintainer and they don't want me to close bugs... so that's it. Vuntz? Do you really want that thing inside the panel? :)
Let's see a screenshot with this window and firefox in background. To be honest, that's not the first thing I'd do to fix the UI of this dialog. I'd remove the button "Add a file", hide the "Launch in terminal check box" (and make it work only with some magic keypress), kill the list of apps the way it is and instead do something more like deskbar/do/whatever where you start with nothing but results are displayed.
Created attachment 128466 [details] medium alpha level It's the same issue of the terminal, this with a medium alpha level
Created attachment 128467 [details] This with a high alpha level, but a different text color I can read this, but will my father or my grandfather read?
Created attachment 128480 [details] Panel run dialog patched with alpha level setted at 0.70 Panel run dialog patched with alpha level setted at 0.70
Created attachment 128481 [details] Panel run dialog patched with alpha level setted at 0.75 Panel run dialog patched with alpha level setted at 0.75
Created attachment 128482 [details] Panel run dialog patched with alpha level setted at 0.80 Panel run dialog patched with alpha level setted at 0.80
The previous comments provide the patch displayed above some text lines. Ok, it makes read labels more hard with 0.70 alpha. But I want to remember that this dialog runs only for a few seconds, in most of cases directly on the wallpaper. I would make you understand that these shots are extremes cases of use it. By the way, do you believe that labels are unuseful?
(In reply to comment #11) > The previous comments provide the patch displayed above some text lines. > > Ok, it makes read labels more hard with 0.70 alpha. But I want to remember that > this dialog runs only for a few seconds, in most of cases directly on the > wallpaper. > > I would make you understand that these shots are extremes cases of use it. > > By the way, do you believe that labels are unuseful? > I disagree on that... I don't know why you're saying that the dialog is usually launched without any application running or with every application minimized... that's a lie! :P Well, it is the opposite. I think it is more common that at least one application is running, and firefox/openoffice/evolution/gedit/pidgin/xchat (with a lot of text) are maybe the most used. Having no application running occures maybe the first time you login, but after that usually there are more than one application on the desktop.
Okay. I'm not convinced with the screenshots. If you guys want transparency, the first step is to fix the dialog :-) In its current version, it's just not appropriate for transparency. See comment #5 for some ideas on how to fix the dialog. Closing the bug for now. I'll be happy to review a new patch if we get a better dialog. Did I mention we should fix the dialog?