GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 792354
panel: center date entry with workarea
Last modified: 2018-02-07 19:07:56 UTC
Align and center the date entry with the workspace's workarea. This way, maximized applications have their window aligned with the top date entry. This doesn't change anything for desktops with no docks or when left/right workareas are aligned with the monitor. We can make it conditional via an option if desired, but it would be great to have that feature in as requested by some of our users so that it's not limited to the ubuntu session.
Created attachment 366531 [details] [review] panel: center date entry with workarea Align and center the date entry with the workspace's workarea. This way, maximized applications have their window aligned with the top date entry. This doesn't change anything for desktops with no docks or when left/right workareas are aligned with the monitor.
Review of attachment 366531 [details] [review]: Code and patch looks sane to me, I just didn't like the idea of adding the idle... However, it looks like that it's also unneeded in current stack (probably you tested that against 3.26 where some signaling were not correct), so please resubmit without that.
(In reply to Marco Trevisan (Treviño) from comment #2) > Code and patch looks sane to me The design team disagrees though: <fmuellner> aday[m], jimmac: (hopefully) quick question - should the date/time in the top bar be centered with regard to the monitor, or aligned with the center of maximized windows (that is, should the date move if the user runs cairo-dock or installs the dash-to-dock extension or similar) <aday[m]> fmuellner: my instinct says the monitor - if your display has a camera or a badge top middle, it would look really off if the time isn't aligned with it
(In reply to Florian Müllner from comment #3) > (In reply to Marco Trevisan (Treviño) from comment #2) > > Code and patch looks sane to me > > The design team disagrees though: > > <fmuellner> aday[m], jimmac: (hopefully) quick question - should the > date/time in the top bar be centered with regard to the monitor, or aligned > with the center of maximized windows > (that is, should the date move if the user runs cairo-dock or installs the > dash-to-dock extension or similar) > <aday[m]> fmuellner: my instinct says the monitor - if your display has a > camera or a badge top middle, it would look really off if the time isn't > aligned with it When I wrote that, the full implication of having the clock out of alignment with the window title wasn't apparent to me. Someone has subsequently pointed me to a screenshot [1], which certainly sheds some light. There's no perfect solution - you're either going to have the clock and the window out of alignment, or the clock and window misaligned with the monitor's camera/badge, if it has one. :/ [1] https://imgur.com/a/5cJ47
Hey Allan, Indeed, as you can see in the screenshot, it's quite annoying when the dates and window are misaligned. We got a ton of feedbacks (comments, bug reports) after shipping 17.10 due to that, as our default is to have ubuntu-dock always displayed, and so a reduced work area. I understand as well that there is no perfect solution. Note that monitor's camera aren't always centered. Even on those which look like they are (like my good thinkpad x220), the camera area is (approx) 20px left compared to the centered date. I never noticed this until this thread. I feel it's better to try to align the date and windows than aligning with some physical components we don't have control of, but that's really IMHO. Tell me what's your thoughts!
I've a camera in the center, and indeed it won't look centered... At the same time I think that users normally look more at the screen content than to what there's around, so IMHO having a window title hcenter matching the clock look nicer.
I find it more feasible to move the clock and the notifications to the right side, aesthetic mind gets pretty maso.
I find it more feasible to move the clock and notifications to the right side.
(In reply to Didier Roche from comment #5) ... > Tell me what's your thoughts! It's hard for me to say without doing some more serious testing. One thing that's unclear is what it would look like with an non-centered clock and no maximized windows, or windows that don't have a titlebar in the centre.
(In reply to Allan Day from comment #9) > It's hard for me to say without doing some more serious testing. One thing > that's unclear is what it would look like with an non-centered clock and no > maximized windows, or windows that don't have a titlebar in the centre. That's true that without experiencing it daily, it's hard to grasp. Here is a set of 5 screenshots to illustrate the current and after state: Current state (no centering): - application with centered titlebar: https://i.imgur.com/3vbXmrj.png - application no titlebar in the center: https://i.imgur.com/GSfDt3S.png With the patch (relative date centering): - application with centered titlebar: https://i.imgur.com/vbktayK.png - application no titlebar in the center: https://i.imgur.com/v30jCYU.png - no maximized application: https://i.imgur.com/HzMuFMi.png I hope that helps!
(In reply to Didier Roche from comment #10) ... > I hope that helps! Thanks Didier, it does. If you have a dash on the left I agree that it's probably a better experience to move the clock. While it's not an ideal solution, we do encourage window maximization and many of our apps have centered elements at the top. In contrast, not all displays have a camera or logo top-middle, and in the case of cameras they tend to fade into the background. Whether GNOME carries the patch is another question, which I'll leave to the shell maintainers.
Attachment 366531 [details] pushed as cd0af33 - panel: center date entry with workarea