GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 724923
why do we need Location in system menu?
Last modified: 2016-12-08 10:17:11 UTC
Created attachment 269963 [details] Location item in the menu is not useful for most gnome-shell users. other than just a 1 time thing to enable/disable location, do we really need to have "Location" submenu in the system menu. It looks more like a clutter and the proper place IMHO would be "Privacy" in gnome-control-center. It's not like we have to frequently, enable/disable the location settings, may be it's required when we run a GPS software on a tab or lappy. Then again it makes sense when a GPS or maps or Date/Time software needs it, which can be prompted and granted access using a dialog. thanks.
(In reply to comment #0) > Created an attachment (id=269963) [details] > Location item in the menu is not useful for most gnome-shell users. Ironically, we put it there because we were afraid people will want to have this control in place now that we should an indicator in the shell notifying people of geolocation in action. > other than just a 1 time thing to enable/disable location, do we really need to > have "Location" submenu in the system menu. It is a simple enable/disable toggle, maybe we can have a better way to show toggle items such as these. Feel free to provide a mockup for that. Keep in mind that we'd want to add at least one item under this menu in future (read below). > It looks more like a clutter and > the proper place IMHO would be "Privacy" in gnome-control-center. You are entitled to your opinion but I dont agree. We do intend to add controls for per-app authorizations in privacy control-center and have a button to take you straight there under the "location" menu. > It's not like we have to frequently, enable/disable the location settings, may > be it's required when we run a GPS software on a tab or lappy. You might have a point there but then again wifi-geolocation is pretty damn accurate (we can locate you within 500 meters) so if one is ok with that, I don't see why would the mind GPS? > Then again it > makes sense when a GPS or maps or Date/Time software needs it, which can be > prompted and granted access using a dialog. We actually tried to implement that but it turned out not be a good idea with current infrastructure where we have no reliable means of identifying apps: bug#721887.
What about only doing it if location services are in active use? I also think it's bit weird to have it as a permanent mainstay (after all, what's the difference between On/Off if nobody is using it?), but if somebody is using Maps, I think it makes sense to have a toggle to turn it off. For system-level usage ("automatically adapt my timezone when I arrive in Europe", etc.), I think that can be a separate setting in the Privacy panel. So, turning Location services off in through the menu shouldn't turn off timezone adjustment.
(In reply to comment #2) > What about only doing it if location services are in active use? I also think > it's bit weird to have it as a permanent mainstay (after all, what's the > difference between On/Off if nobody is using it?), but if somebody is using > Maps, I think it makes sense to have a toggle to turn it off. How would that work exactly? App ask for location and geoclue blocks the request until user goes to the system menu to turn geolocation on? Or you want app to get the location and keep getting location change events unless user disables through system menu? The former sounds very much like a messed up version of bug#721887. The latter missed the whole point by allowing the app to get your location. > For system-level usage ("automatically adapt my timezone when I arrive in > Europe", etc.), I think that can be a separate setting in the Privacy panel. > So, turning Location services off in through the menu shouldn't turn off > timezone adjustment. That makes sense, yeah but if you recall we currently have no means to reliably identify apps so geoclue can be easily fooled into giving location to other apps too.
(In reply to comment #3) > How would that work exactly? App ask for location and geoclue blocks the > request until user goes to the system menu to turn geolocation on? Or you want > app to get the location and keep getting location change events unless user > disables through system menu? Well, how does this work right now?
(In reply to comment #4) > (In reply to comment #3) > > How would that work exactly? App ask for location and geoclue blocks the > > request until user goes to the system menu to turn geolocation on? Or you want > > app to get the location and keep getting location change events unless user > > disables through system menu? > > Well, how does this work right now? Right now its a simple off/on. If its 'off', apps are denied access to location. If its 'on, apps are allowed access.
Created attachment 269968 [details] Show/Hide Accesibility icon in gnome-control-center Just like Universal Access' "Always show universal access menu" we could have "Always Show Location" in system-menu, the option to set it on/off can be put wherever you want to put this "Location" switch (Privacy or Region or Language or Date/Time) in gnome-control-center; which is rather ok. Accessibility menu is also not used frequently, so is this Location item.
I take the points made in the report, but... A menu item is needed to mirror the presence of the icon in the top bar - if an icon appears up there, there needs to be a way to 1. get more information about what it is, and 2. control it. Often location services are only used momentarily, so it isn't clear to me how you would only show the menu when they are in use. I agree that there should be a section in the privacy settings for this, and that the Location submenu should link to this - that should make it seem less erroneous.
(In reply to comment #7) > I take the points made in the report, but... > > A menu item is needed to mirror the presence of the icon in the top bar - if an > icon appears up there, there needs to be a way to 1. get more information about > what it is, and 2. control it. Hm, we don't do that for taking recordings. We only have an indicator.
(In reply to comment #8) > (In reply to comment #7) > > I take the points made in the report, but... > > > > A menu item is needed to mirror the presence of the icon in the top bar - if an > > icon appears up there, there needs to be a way to 1. get more information about > > what it is, and 2. control it. > > Hm, we don't do that for taking recordings. We only have an indicator. True but its an advanced feature that is explicitly enabled/disabled by user.
How about using the "Welcome Screen" or gnome-initial-setup to show this option Share location with the world; Location [on/off] along with other already existing options like Date / Time, online accounts etc., accessibility should also be there in welcome screen as some people do need accessibility like large text size (large fonts), etc. Location fits the bill nicely here as it is introduced and user can choose to enable or disable it. Thanks.
(In reply to comment #10) > How about using the "Welcome Screen" or gnome-initial-setup to show this option Its not a one-time thing. Just because user is fine with apps geolocating them in a particular place at a particular time, doesn't mean they will always do. Also people should be able to change their mind about this.
(In reply to comment #7) > I agree that there should be a section in the privacy settings for this, and > that the Location submenu should link to this - that should make it seem less > erroneous. What would we have in there? If its the same on/off, that would just be duplication and having to go to another view just to push a switch seems wrong to me. Once we have means to do app-authorization, we'll have that in privacy settings but for now I don't think we need/want it unless we decide to remove this control from shell menu.
My take on this is: get the controls in the control center first. I don't think it makes sense to have in the shell menu before that
(In reply to comment #13) > My take on this is: get the controls in the control center first. I don't think > it makes sense to have in the shell menu before that Why not?
it goes against the pattern we have for all the other items in the system status: there's a simple control in the menu, and a way to open the related system settings panel. You can perhaps argue that it is ok to accept this break in the pattern temporarily, but it is a clear break from the established practice.
While we can continue the discussion of where it belongs, its very late to write the code to put it in control-center right now. Since its not going to be in there, it would be a very bad idea to remove it from shell right now. Lets look into this for 3.14.
After reading a few bug reports about the location menu and the location icon I am really confused about what it all means. What I would expect: the system will determine and apps can use location when location=on, the system will not determine and apps can not use location when location=off. In the second case I would also expect the location icon to disappear from the top bar... having the menu item to turn it on again is fine, though. The problem seems to be that even when setting location=off, the icon does not appear and apps can still use the last determined location which seems to be the real problem here?
(In reply to comment #17) ... > The problem seems to be that even when setting location=off, the icon does not > appear and apps can still use the last determined location which seems to be > the real problem here? Sounds like bug 723932.
I'd like to bring your attention to the Android notification tray: where Icon View is used instead of List View, which gives more items to be included in the menu: http://img.wonderhowto.com/img/97/31/63514186828569/0/add-quick-settings-toggles-notification-tray-your-htc-one.w654.jpg in the menu, the Volume, Brightnesss, Wi-Fi and Location takes a lot of horizontal space, which can be used better if "Icon view" is used like Android does... http://img.wonderhowto.com/img/18/85/63514111000721/0/add-quick-settings-toggles-notification-tray-your-htc-one.w654.jpg http://static.androidnext.de/cyanogenmod-10-1-quick-settings.png thanks.
(In reply to comment #19) Yes, we're aware of that design. :)
Just upgraded to 3.12 and I have the "Location" in the menu on my desktop (with no Wifi/GPS). Is there any point in displaying it when only a wired connection is available, i.e. is some IP to location mapping done even without Wifi?
(In reply to comment #21) > Just upgraded to 3.12 and I have the "Location" in the menu on my desktop (with > no Wifi/GPS). Is there any point in displaying it when only a wired connection > is available, i.e. is some IP to location mapping done even without Wifi? There is.
As far as I can tell, this bug was filed when the location item was always shown in the system status menu. We now only show it when location services are in use. I think that's the correct solution and can't think of any changes we need to make, so closing as resolved. Free free to shout if I missed something.