GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 73074
Applets should be triggerable by clicking on the screen edges
Last modified: 2015-03-24 13:00:38 UTC
Currently applets don't have a mechanism for expanding their event region. This means that, for example, the menu applet can't be triggered when the user mouses to the extreme top of the screen, and similarly with the tasklist. We want to allow this behavior somehow.
Calling this API is a /bit/ of a stretch but I presume it would require an API change of some sort.
Yes, but it'd be a "non-public" API, i.e. not one in the official platform.
Does the panel still have the padding option? If so and if it is kept, then there need to be a UI decision for whether such added (and, IMO, worthless) padding should be anything other than like panel free space. (I.e., should it be like the blank area that in GNOME 1.4 would allow movement of the panel or a right-click menu.) If the edge can be padded and the padding should act like the applet instead of free space, then this should be a trivial matter of sending events to the appropriate applet. If there is no padding, then the applet writer should be taking the necessary steps to extend the event receiving region. For the panel-menu applet in gnome-applets, this should merely require adding to gtk_rc_parse_string circa line 185: GtkMenuBar::internal_padding = 0 xthickness = 0 ythickness = 0 Of course, that wouldn't be necessary if Gtk didn't add so many dead pixels to the menubar.
Could this be fixed by reinstating the "Make buttons flush with panel edge" option from Gnome1.x ? Note that this is very similar to bug 72796 . Perhaps one of them should be marked as a duplicate?
*** Bug 72796 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
I'm going to mark this as a high priority enhancement so that when we do look at enhancements again immediately post-2.0 this will get looked at hard.
*** Bug 83617 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
*** Bug 92895 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
I know 72796 is a dup but here are some comments I added "i'm not seeing this in sun's build11 - cvs oct 1st. i created an edge panel and added the window list applet - i don't see any padding between applet and panel edges - will attach a screenshot - can you tell me if i am correct in my assessment or is the bug something else (steps to reproduce with expected result at each step would be cool)" I've added a screenshot to 72796 showing the window list applet on the edge panel. Can I get some more specific details on what bug is & how to recreate - I'm not sure exatly where that is - I've tried activating the Applications menu and can do this by clicking in very top left corner of menu panel.
Shane, Note that this bug does not affect the menu panel. If you look carefully at the task list from the menu panel, you can see that the tasklist is flush with the edge of the screen. On your bottom edge panel, though, there are 2 extra pixels separating the tasklist from the screen edge. This can be verified by opening you screen cap in the Gimp and zooming in on the bottom panel. Here is another way to test: try to click on a task on the menu panel when the mouse is moved all the way to the top of the screen. It works fine. Then try to click on a task on the edge panel when the mouse is all the way on the bottom of the screen. Nothing happens. It's good to see someone looking into this, by the way. For a high priority bug, this has gotten surprisingly little attention.
*** Bug 97259 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
*** Bug 97419 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
This really should be done now that the menu panel has been replaced by an edge panel with a menubar and a window menu.
Yes please, I really don't want any more regressions in this particular area. :-)
Sure - I agree - but I'd prefer to have the regression than have the special cased menu panel still around.
From a usability standpoint I'd rather have the special-cased panel... :)
I thought a special-cased panel was one of the most confusing things "from a usability standpoint" .... ?
Only if you customize the panels, but that's a comparatively obscure operation. That is to say, yes the special cased menu panel was confusing but it was only confusing if you tried to do something that most of the people who would find it confusing wouldn't try to do. Eventually we'd like for everyone to be able to customize panel layout, but for now its even hidden in a right click menu where many many people won't even see it. By contrast, having the menus follow Fitt's law affects almost everyone's efficiency. Its a subtle thing but it makes a pretty big difference (most people don't notice it, because its not the sort of thing people notice, but if you watch how fast Mac users access menus vs. versions of Windows where the start menu is broken this way, the difference is substantial). Actually, probably even more important is getting the task list to the very edge in terms of frequency of use.
I would not want GNOME 2.4 released until this is fixed.
Right, this is perfectly possible to do with gnome-panel HEAD (as proven by the fact that I got the pager to do this right). Each applet that doesn't do it just needs a bit of work. We need bugs opened against individual applets that don't work properly on HEAD.