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Bug 631553 - Minimize differences between 3.0 panel and gnome-shell
Minimize differences between 3.0 panel and gnome-shell
Status: RESOLVED FIXED
Product: gnome-panel
Classification: Other
Component: panel
unspecified
Other Linux
: Normal normal
: ---
Assigned To: Panel Maintainers
Panel Maintainers
[gnome3-important]
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
 
Reported: 2010-10-06 19:02 UTC by William Jon McCann
Modified: 2011-04-01 11:52 UTC
See Also:
GNOME target: ---
GNOME version: ---


Attachments
Drop icon from Applications menu item (2.94 KB, patch)
2011-02-16 23:06 UTC, William Jon McCann
committed Details | Review
Remove launchers from top panel by default (5.95 KB, patch)
2011-02-16 23:06 UTC, William Jon McCann
committed Details | Review
Remove the the window menu from top panel by default (3.49 KB, patch)
2011-02-16 23:06 UTC, William Jon McCann
committed Details | Review
Remove show desktop applet from bottom panel (3.66 KB, patch)
2011-02-16 23:06 UTC, William Jon McCann
committed Details | Review
Boldify menubar labels in top panel (2.48 KB, patch)
2011-02-16 23:06 UTC, William Jon McCann
committed Details | Review
Remove help and about from notification area (4.79 KB, patch)
2011-02-16 23:06 UTC, William Jon McCann
committed Details | Review
Remove help and about from clock applet (3.92 KB, patch)
2011-02-16 23:06 UTC, William Jon McCann
committed Details | Review
Remove help and about from wncklet applets (10.86 KB, patch)
2011-02-16 23:06 UTC, William Jon McCann
committed Details | Review
Make clock bold (1.48 KB, patch)
2011-02-16 23:06 UTC, William Jon McCann
committed Details | Review
Don't show handles on locked and unmovable applets (4.22 KB, patch)
2011-02-16 23:06 UTC, William Jon McCann
rejected Details | Review
Remove help and about from panel context menus (6.76 KB, patch)
2011-02-16 23:06 UTC, William Jon McCann
committed Details | Review
Lockdown the panels by default (966 bytes, patch)
2011-02-16 23:06 UTC, William Jon McCann
rejected Details | Review
Make bottom panel autohide by default (2.13 KB, patch)
2011-02-16 23:06 UTC, William Jon McCann
rejected Details | Review
Pass the style colors along to the notification tray (7.02 KB, patch)
2011-02-17 17:55 UTC, William Jon McCann
committed Details | Review
wip: center clock, add user menu (16.23 KB, patch)
2011-03-03 21:00 UTC, Colin Walters
needs-work Details | Review

Description William Jon McCann 2010-10-06 19:02:49 UTC
In GNOME 3.0 we'll be using gnome-panel only as part a fallback ux shell for when accelerated 3D is not available.  I think it makes sense to try to minimize the differences between the gnome-shell ux and the gnome-panel ux (where reasonable).  Things like placement of functionality and stuff.

For starters, I think we should:

 * move the user-switch-applet from GDM to gnome-panel
 * make it functionally similar to the gnome-shell version
 * move functionality out of the System menu and remove it
 * consider splitting the notification area into a systray and notification area?
 * consider redesign of the places menu?
 * consider using something like gnome-main-menu instead of the current app menu?
 * etc
Comment 1 Giacomo Perale 2010-11-01 01:26:50 UTC
You're really going to force your obnoxious redesing down all your users throats, aren't you?

I had hope that I could've forgiven gnome-shell for a few more months after 3.0 release, and here I see that you're going to deface the old panel too. This is really sad.
Comment 2 Olav Vitters 2010-11-01 04:17:41 UTC
Giacomo: Please see http://live.gnome.org/CodeOfConduct. Disagreeing is ok (you've made your point), but please do so argue respectfully.
Comment 3 Giacomo Perale 2010-11-01 11:44:40 UTC
(In reply to comment #2)
> Giacomo: Please see http://live.gnome.org/CodeOfConduct. Disagreeing is ok
> (you've made your point), but please do so argue respectfully.

Sorry for the noise. I should know better than leaving rambling and not-fully-comprehensible messages late at night.
Comment 4 William Jon McCann 2011-02-16 23:06:04 UTC
Created attachment 181076 [details] [review]
Drop icon from Applications menu item
Comment 5 William Jon McCann 2011-02-16 23:06:07 UTC
Created attachment 181077 [details] [review]
Remove launchers from top panel by default
Comment 6 William Jon McCann 2011-02-16 23:06:10 UTC
Created attachment 181078 [details] [review]
Remove the the window menu from top panel by default
Comment 7 William Jon McCann 2011-02-16 23:06:13 UTC
Created attachment 181079 [details] [review]
Remove show desktop applet from bottom panel
Comment 8 William Jon McCann 2011-02-16 23:06:16 UTC
Created attachment 181080 [details] [review]
Boldify menubar labels in top panel
Comment 9 William Jon McCann 2011-02-16 23:06:19 UTC
Created attachment 181081 [details] [review]
Remove help and about from notification area
Comment 10 William Jon McCann 2011-02-16 23:06:22 UTC
Created attachment 181082 [details] [review]
Remove help and about from clock applet
Comment 11 William Jon McCann 2011-02-16 23:06:25 UTC
Created attachment 181083 [details] [review]
Remove help and about from wncklet applets
Comment 12 William Jon McCann 2011-02-16 23:06:28 UTC
Created attachment 181084 [details] [review]
Make clock bold
Comment 13 William Jon McCann 2011-02-16 23:06:31 UTC
Created attachment 181085 [details] [review]
Don't show handles on locked and unmovable applets
Comment 14 William Jon McCann 2011-02-16 23:06:34 UTC
Created attachment 181086 [details] [review]
Remove help and about from panel context menus
Comment 15 William Jon McCann 2011-02-16 23:06:37 UTC
Created attachment 181087 [details] [review]
Lockdown the panels by default
Comment 16 William Jon McCann 2011-02-16 23:06:40 UTC
Created attachment 181088 [details] [review]
Make bottom panel autohide by default
Comment 17 Christian Persch 2011-02-16 23:34:31 UTC
Removing About from the context menu is an affront to the authors of the applets; they deserve to have the credits dialogues shown. 

Locking down the panel by default serves no purpose. For users not wanting to add/remove/reorder applets, it changes nothing; but if they do, they now need to set a gconf key that's not exposed in any UI, before doing so. This clearly is an _antifeature_, which has no place in gnome.
Comment 18 William Jon McCann 2011-02-17 12:15:11 UTC
(In reply to comment #17)
> Removing About from the context menu is an affront to the authors of the
> applets; they deserve to have the credits dialogues shown. 

That's nonsense.  The fact that they are applets is only an implementation detail.  They are standard fallback shell components and live in the gnome-panel module.  They are *part* of the panel in every practical sense.  And they are certainly do not have separate identities to the typical end user.

The equivalent components in the default GNOME 3 session do not have separate about dialogs on each them and there is no affront to the authors of those.  Authors lists in GNOME core components are, if anything, an affront to the hundreds of folks that contributed to the product that aren't listed.

> Locking down the panel by default serves no purpose. For users not wanting to
> add/remove/reorder applets, it changes nothing; but if they do, they now need
> to set a gconf key that's not exposed in any UI, before doing so. This clearly
> is an _antifeature_, which has no place in gnome.

Having a visible and easily triggered option to delete the entire top panel, without the possibility of undo, in a fail-safe fallback mode isn't a good idea.  Removing essential items from the core fallback UI isn't a good idea.  Showing move handles for items that really are part of the core UI isn't a good idea.

It is important to minimize the differences between the two GNOME 3 modes.  Locking down the standard fallback panel components goes a long way toward this.
Comment 19 William Jon McCann 2011-02-17 17:55:11 UTC
Created attachment 181155 [details] [review]
Pass the style colors along to the notification tray
Comment 20 Vincent Untz 2011-02-22 22:27:19 UTC
Comment on attachment 181080 [details] [review]
Boldify menubar labels in top panel

Should be done in the theme, but I can't make that work right now, so using this solution...
Comment 21 Vincent Untz 2011-02-22 22:27:36 UTC
Comment on attachment 181084 [details] [review]
Make clock bold

Should be done in the theme, but I can't make that work right now, so using this solution...
Comment 22 Vincent Untz 2011-02-22 22:28:36 UTC
Comment on attachment 181085 [details] [review]
Don't show handles on locked and unmovable applets

As discussed on IRC, we want to go there, but it's not possible yet as this blocks the access to the applet popup menu.
Comment 23 Vincent Untz 2011-02-22 22:29:34 UTC
Comment on attachment 181087 [details] [review]
Lockdown the panels by default

As discussed on IRC, this is wrong as this makes everything locked down, including applet settings.

I've pushed another solution that makes things good enough, IMHO (you need to press alt to "edit" the panel)
Comment 24 Vincent Untz 2011-02-22 22:30:50 UTC
Comment on attachment 181088 [details] [review]
Make bottom panel autohide by default

I'm not happy with that: a lot of users just can't know there's an autohidden panel. I understand the goal, but we first need a way to make a autohidden by default panel discoverable.
Comment 25 Vincent Untz 2011-02-22 22:31:14 UTC
Comment on attachment 181155 [details] [review]
Pass the style colors along to the notification tray

This was diverging from the code in gnome-shell, so I rewrote this to not diverge.
Comment 26 Nirbheek Chauhan 2011-02-23 13:57:55 UTC
There is currently a problem with gnome-panel using the old settings from gconf for top/bottom panel background/color/opacity. I think those should be ignored, otherwise you get weirdness like white font (new default) on white background (old setting).
Comment 27 Vincent Untz 2011-02-23 14:18:08 UTC
I'm still working on the story for 2.x=>3.0 panel migration.
Comment 28 William Jon McCann 2011-02-25 20:38:14 UTC
One thing we lost with the lockdown patch being reverted is a way to disable "Delete panel".  Adding and deleting panels in the fallback mode is undesirable.
Comment 29 Vincent Untz 2011-02-25 21:28:55 UTC
(In reply to comment #28)
> One thing we lost with the lockdown patch being reverted is a way to disable
> "Delete panel".  Adding and deleting panels in the fallback mode is
> undesirable.

Sorry, I'm not going to change that. I consider that the add/remove part is hidden enough.
Comment 30 William Jon McCann 2011-02-25 21:33:31 UTC
Why on earth would you want to allow that by default?  That's totally broken man.
Comment 31 Hussam Al-Tayeb 2011-02-25 21:47:34 UTC
Please don't diverge too much from how gnome-panel 2.32 works/looks. A lot of the people who will be using the gtk3 port are interested in it because it is a familiar setup, look and feel and not because of concerns over whether gnome-shell will work on their machines or not.
In my setup for example, I have deleted one of the two panels (the top one).
Comment 32 William Jon McCann 2011-02-25 21:50:06 UTC
Sorry, that is not what the fallback mode is designed for.
Comment 33 Christian Persch 2011-02-25 23:55:07 UTC
Well, there's the core of the matter: for you, gnome-panel etc. is just the 'fallback' mode for when your gnome-shell code breaks. For the rest of us, gnome-panel is an integral part of the full-featured gnome "2" desktop that we intend to continue to use, _instead_of_ gnome-shell.

As far as you wanting to constrain gnome-panel to look like gnome-shell, you could just create the necessary gconf settings (gnome-panel still uses gconf, not gsettings) (e.g. via sabayon) to layer above the gnome-panel default settings using the mechanism that gconf provides for this.
Comment 34 Matthias Clasen 2011-02-25 23:58:41 UTC
The panel you want is the one in the gnome-2-32 branch...
Comment 35 Vincent Untz 2011-02-26 16:17:07 UTC
(In reply to comment #30)
> Why on earth would you want to allow that by default?  That's totally broken
> man.

Because you didn't give any argument I buy about the "delete panel/new panel" items. I would agree with you about the way gnome-panel works in 2.32, but in 2.91, I've changed things. Right-clicking on the panel does nothing. You need to press an additional key; I consider that's enough.

Also, I don't think gnome-panel as fallback is incompatible with providing something not too far away from GNOME 2. And yes, my primary goal is making sure it works well as fallback.

That's my word as a maintainer.
Comment 36 Colin Walters 2011-03-03 21:00:19 UTC
Created attachment 182403 [details] [review]
wip: center clock, add user menu

This is some work stubbing out changes moving us closer to Shell
design.

* Clock is "centered": Not really; I just expand it, which obviously
  isn't right, but it was easy to do temporarily.
* Add a stub user menu
Comment 37 Pacho Ramos 2011-03-05 14:52:43 UTC
(In reply to comment #7)
> Created an attachment (id=181079) [details] [review]
> Remove show desktop applet from bottom panel

This doesn't have much sense on fallback mode as gnome-shell is not used there and, then, "show desktop" is still useful in that mode.


(In reply to comment #16)
> Created an attachment (id=181088) [details] [review]
> Make bottom panel autohide by default

I would also reconsider this for fallback mode as, without gnome-shell, it's still useful to be able to access quickly to minimized apps (maybe the same reason as this wasn't the default on Gnome2)

I am sure I will need fallback mode on, at least, one of the machines I maintain and I would prefer to be able to use fallback mode instead of keeping Gnome 2.32 until it's unmaintainable and, then, switch to other desktop and, then, even understanding that fallback mode must be similar to gnome-shell, I also think its usability must be preserved if possible.


Thanks a lot for taking care :-)
Comment 38 Petr Tomasek 2011-03-06 19:52:04 UTC
It's very sad that GNOME developers have so little respect to their users.

Is it really so hard to understand that there are many users who dislike this Gnome-Shell nonsense and want to continue the GNOME Destkop in the old good fasion - but at the same time of course use the newest libraries and applications?

Why - if You are so bad developers who are unable to make Gnome-Shell work without 3D - You at least don't fork and rename gnome-panel into something like "gnome-shell-without-3d"?
Comment 39 André Klapper 2011-03-06 19:59:46 UTC
@Petr Tomasek: GNOME Bugzilla is not a general discussion forum. Either comment on specific bugs and be on-topic, or please refrain from posting here. Thank you.
Comment 40 Vincent Untz 2011-03-06 20:52:08 UTC
(In reply to comment #37)
> (In reply to comment #7)
> > Created an attachment (id=181079) [details] [review] [details] [review]
> > Remove show desktop applet from bottom panel
> 
> This doesn't have much sense on fallback mode as gnome-shell is not used there
> and, then, "show desktop" is still useful in that mode.

You can still add it to the panel. I don't think I've ever seen someone actively using this applet, so even in GNOME 2.x, I would consider removing it from the default layout...

> (In reply to comment #16)
> > Created an attachment (id=181088) [details] [review] [details] [review]
> > Make bottom panel autohide by default
> 
> I would also reconsider this for fallback mode as, without gnome-shell, it's
> still useful to be able to access quickly to minimized apps (maybe the same
> reason as this wasn't the default on Gnome2)

Check the status of the patch (hint: rejected).
Comment 41 John Stowers 2011-03-06 21:10:10 UTC
(In reply to comment #40)
> (In reply to comment #37)
> > (In reply to comment #7)
> > > Created an attachment (id=181079) [details] [review] [details] [review] [details] [review]
> > > Remove show desktop applet from bottom panel
> > 
> > This doesn't have much sense on fallback mode as gnome-shell is not used there
> > and, then, "show desktop" is still useful in that mode.
> 
> You can still add it to the panel. I don't think I've ever seen someone
> actively using this applet, so even in GNOME 2.x, I would consider removing it
> from the default layout...

I use it very frequently in GNOME classic mode - it is helpful when one wants to drag something (usually copying files from nautilus / file-roller) onto the desktop that is otherwise obscured by windows. Hovering over the applet shows the desktop.

Similar to how one can drag and drop between windows via the overview in the new shell.
Comment 42 Pacho Ramos 2011-03-07 09:06:28 UTC
(In reply to comment #40)
> > (In reply to comment #16)
> > > Created an attachment (id=181088) [details] [review] [details] [review] [details] [review]
> > > Make bottom panel autohide by default
> > 
> > I would also reconsider this for fallback mode as, without gnome-shell, it's
> > still useful to be able to access quickly to minimized apps (maybe the same
> > reason as this wasn't the default on Gnome2)
> 
> Check the status of the patch (hint: rejected).

Ups, sorry for the noise
Comment 43 André Klapper 2011-03-17 13:26:43 UTC
Only outstanding issue seems to be the patch in comment 36 currently.
vuntz, could you review it so we can get this off the blockers list?
Comment 44 Colin Walters 2011-03-17 13:36:17 UTC
Comment on attachment 182403 [details] [review]
wip: center clock, add user menu

Not going to work on this patch further - it'd be a lot of complex code, and we have higher priority issues.
Comment 45 André Klapper 2011-03-17 13:52:06 UTC
So if everybody agrees that the main issues are solved, feel free to remove the GNOME Target field. Thanks!
Comment 46 André Klapper 2011-03-17 20:18:45 UTC
[Removing gnome-target and adding whitespace entry [gnome3-important] as decided in today's release team meeting]
Comment 47 Vincent Untz 2011-04-01 11:52:30 UTC
With my latest branch merged, we now have a centered clock and a user menu. I think that's enough to close this bug. (There are certainly a few things that are still a bit different, but that won't  change for 3.0.0)