Re: Panel menu [was Re: [Usability] 'Capplets' ]

[Havoc Pennington <hp redhat com>]

Bill Haneman <bill haneman sun com> writes: 
> Is there a strong objection to adding a "Panel" menu item to
> every panel? 

Only the one kind of panel has menu items - most panels don't.

> I know it takes up real estate, but it would
> let us circumvent some current issues around focussing the
> panel (as opposed to a panel child). 

Before doing really obtrusive stuff, what if we just had a keybinding
that popped up the right-click menu on the currently focused panel,
even if a panel child has focus. So then you can get the right click
without focusing the panel.

i.e. a keybinding similar to Alt+space on normal windows (that
opens the window menu in Windows/Metacity).
 
> I would however lobby for prelighting panel children (i.e. launchers
> and, if possible, applets) rather than just drawing a focus rectangle,
> much as the GNOME1.4 panel did, to enhance the visibility of the 
> panel focus indication.

I still don't understand why we are making panel focus indication
inconsistent with other focus indication.

The launchers are clearly buttons; they should draw focus like
buttons. Otherwise it confuses everyone. I can sort of see doing the
whole panel differently (not really, but sort of), but doing the
buttons differently seems gratuitous. If button focus indicators are
invisible, let's make the line wider or something. (Didn't we already
make this possible in themes?)

Trying Windows XP, they display start menu focus as a nearly invisible
1-pixel focus outline, and then if you tab to a tasklist button they
use prelight for it. So their indication is a) invisible and b)
inconsistent for two buttons that are right next to each other - I
think we should not copy either of those things.

Anyway, the fundamental question I have is if focus indication isn't
visible why don't we make it visible, instead of trying to use
something else inconsistent to mean focus.

Havoc