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Ideas | Propositions

Subjects Author Language Messages Last message
[Locked] 2.4.0, how do I disable forced menu icons?
Guest English 18 matttbe [Read]
29 March 2012 à 11:44

Guest, Sunday 18 March 2012 à 16:11

% cairo-dock -v
2.4.0~2

ArchLinux that hasn't been updated roughly since mid-summer 2011.
OpenGL
Compiz
GNOME 3 (fallback mode)

So, I've had a discussion about this with matttbe, and it's just beyond me why you guys would force menu icons in an app that utilizes GTK2+ interface. Not only that, CD dock changes preferences of entire DE, which is soo wrong I'm actually puzzled how you could make a decision like that!

My argument is that GNOME usability guidelines make it imperative that programs let a user decide whether they want to have menu icons or not. This IS the right way to do it. I do realize that some people like menu icons, that's fine, I don't and that's fine too. What is wrong is when an app forces certain aspect of an otherwise configurable behavior upon a user.

Have you ever thought about folks who theme their desktops? There's just no way to create a unified look if each project decides to hardcode certain aspects of behavior that are actually expected in GNOME environment to be managed via gconf/dconf.

It's not even some fancy functionality like dock animation, it's a bloody context menu, and the very fact we're having a discussion about this is quite alarming

I have immediate question, how do I undo the hardcoded icons for menus?

My request would be to teach CD honor GNOME settings and follow them so that people who don't like menus with icons will never see them, and those who DO love them could see them, but ONLY as long as gconf/dconf preference tells CD to do so.

Thank you for your hard work and an amazing piece of software. I've been using it for quite some time and can't imagine a modern Linux desktop without it! I'd love CD to become better and I hope my input will help resolve this issue.

fabounet, Wednesday 21 March 2012 à 12:39


Subscription date : 30 November 2007
Messages : 17118
Hi,
well I mostly agree (although I can't imagine using menus without icons), the only problem is that menus are forced to have no icons by default, and I find this decision terribly wrong.
at the time we did this, it was not easy to set icons back in menus (not everyone knows how to use gconf).
I don't know the current situation, maybe it has become easy enough to switch so that we can remove our hack

matttbe, Wednesday 21 March 2012 à 12:53


Subscription date : 24 January 2009
Messages : 12573
I don't know the current situation, maybe it has become easy enough to switch so that we can remove our hack
Currently, we have to modify a gsettings key... It's still not easy for all users

Maybe we can add an option (disabled by default) to not force the displaying of these icons on our menu except for GMenu applet.

Guest, Wednesday 21 March 2012 à 20:38

fabounet :
Hi,
well I mostly agree (although I can't imagine using menus without icons), the only problem is that menus are forced to have no icons by default, and I find this decision terribly wrong.
at the time we did this, it was not easy to set icons back in menus (not everyone knows how to use gconf).
I don't know the current situation, maybe it has become easy enough to switch so that we can remove our hack


When you say that menus are forced to have no icons by default what exactly do you mean by that?

Guest, Wednesday 21 March 2012 à 20:40

matttbe :
I don't know the current situation, maybe it has become easy enough to switch so that we can remove our hack
Currently, we have to modify a gsettings key... It's still not easy for all users

Maybe we can add an option (disabled by default) to not force the displaying of these icons on our menu except for GMenu applet.


If you're into pleasing-all business you're bound to fail.

Adding an option to let user decide whether they want to override default gconf/dconf settings is the best way to go about this. Just let a user decide whether they want menu icons or not.

SQP, Wednesday 21 March 2012 à 22:21


Subscription date : 03 July 2010
Messages : 1081
Invité :
If you're into pleasing-all business you're bound to fail.

= you can't add options for everything

Invité :
Adding an option to let user decide whether they want to override default gconf/dconf settings is the best way to go about this. Just let a user decide whether they want menu icons or not.

= add my option to hide icons

as you said, it's not easy to please everybody, but don't forget some things :
This is an open source (libre) project and we're trying to do our best.
I don't think that cairo-dock is forced to follow Gnome guidelines (and happy of that).

But help is welcome to fix problems or find an acceptable behaviour for most users.

How cairo-dock affects other programs ? icons are forced on programs launched by the dock ?

Guest, Thursday 22 March 2012 à 20:24

SQP :
Invité :
If you're into pleasing-all business you're bound to fail.

= you can't add options for everything

Invité :
Adding an option to let user decide whether they want to override default gconf/dconf settings is the best way to go about this. Just let a user decide whether they want menu icons or not.

= add my option to hide icons




Right, it would be much better if CD simply honored GTK+ theme's settings. No need for an option, just abide by the policy defined by the DE. That's what a user expects from a program anyway. Think about it. That's exactly the idea behind DE and centralized settings management.

If you for whatever reason think that's not a good practice to follow, alas, I must say you're a rebel without a cause. If we had all these hundreds of projects each being too unique we'd shot ourselves in the head because of need to learn peculiarities of each program. Don't you like it when your DE is consistent in accordance with your settings? I mean there's always a room for creativeness and uniqueness, but menus isn't the area where this should happen. Even more so if you never designed CD for GNOME specifically. If you want it to fit in with various DEs CD must be able to blend in so to say easily. Having just one look (menus with or without icons) just isn't going to cut it.

as you said, it's not easy to please everybody, but don't forget some things :
This is an open source (libre) project and we're trying to do our best.
I don't think that cairo-dock is forced to follow Gnome guidelines (and happy of that).

But help is welcome to fix problems or find an acceptable behaviour for most users.

How cairo-dock affects other programs ? icons are forced on programs launched by the dock ?


2.4.0 simply changed my GNOME's settings and enabled menu icons for ALL of the programs. Ouch! That should've never happened.

Guest, Thursday 22 March 2012 à 20:25

As much as I enjoy this discussion can someone please tell me how I can disable menu icons before and if this ever happens in upstream code?

SQP, Thursday 22 March 2012 à 20:42


Subscription date : 03 July 2010
Messages : 1081
Right, it would be much better if days had 48 hours.
Thx for the lesson anyway.

(PS : it would also be better and easier to follow if the mentionned DE didn't changed such basic settings and behaviour every year.)

Guest, Friday 23 March 2012 à 06:23

SQP :
Right, it would be much better if days had 48 hours.
Thx for the lesson anyway.

(PS : it would also be better and easier to follow if the mentionned DE didn't changed such basic settings and behaviour every year.)


LOL

Are you serious?

matttbe, Saturday 24 March 2012 à 13:47


Subscription date : 24 January 2009
Messages : 12573
@all: do you have an idea where we can add this option in the advanced mode of the config panel?

SQP, Saturday 24 March 2012 à 14:42


Subscription date : 03 July 2010
Messages : 1081
In the Gnome Integration applet

matttbe, Saturday 24 March 2012 à 15:39


Subscription date : 24 January 2009
Messages : 12573
This is not an option only for Gnome users

Guest, Saturday 24 March 2012 à 21:30

matttbe :
This is not an option only for Gnome users ;)


matttbe has a point.

fabounet, Monday 26 March 2012 à 17:54


Subscription date : 30 November 2007
Messages : 17118

Right, it would be much better if CD simply honored GTK+ theme's settings

for sure, but as Matttbe said, modifying this option is still requiring a gconf/dconf tweak, which is a shame.

This is not an option only for Gnome users ;)

indeed, it's a GTK option IIRC
but if the major desktop environments would allow to easily switch on/off this option (XFCE does), this would be enough for us to not care it any more.

I'm not for adding more options to the config, especially when it's a hack to work around a bad design decision, but we can think think of another way
for instance, adding a compilation flag would allow the power users that care to recompile the dock with the correct behavior.
or an option on startup, but again it's a hack that will hopefuly eventually disappear.

Don't you like it when your DE is consistent in accordance with your settings?

I do but I prefer when they don't force bad behavior on people (icons were suddenly removed from menus, with no easy way to undo that, and I just think that most people expect menus to have icons; so we took the decision to revert their change at our level, temporarily).

Guest, Monday 26 March 2012 à 21:58

fabounet :

Right, it would be much better if CD simply honored GTK+ theme's settings

for sure, but as Matttbe said, modifying this option is still requiring a gconf/dconf tweak, which is a shame.

This is not an option only for Gnome users ;)

indeed, it's a GTK option IIRC
but if the major desktop environments would allow to easily switch on/off this option (XFCE does), this would be enough for us to not care it any more.

I'm not for adding more options to the config, especially when it's a hack to work around a bad design decision, but we can think think of another way
for instance, adding a compilation flag would allow the power users that care to recompile the dock with the correct behavior.
or an option on startup, but again it's a hack that will hopefuly eventually disappear.

Don't you like it when your DE is consistent in accordance with your settings?

I do but I prefer when they don't force bad behavior on people (icons were suddenly removed from menus, with no easy way to undo that, and I just think that most people expect menus to have icons; so we took the decision to revert their change at our level, temporarily).


Uhm, I'm having a very hard time grasping why you seem to think that changing this 'Show icons in menus' option is an unsurmountable task for a user to do? As you pointed out yourself, XFCE gives the controls to a user, so does GNOME. These two alone account for MOST of the desktops in Linux. And for those running less popular DE/Window Managers compile time switch would be THE best decision.

So, I personally think CD should honor a GTK+ theme's options (that means users can have CD behave like any other GTK app in their DE), and for those who want to disregard usability guidelines, they can always recompile the program and either have icons for menus no matter what, OR never see them again should they want to do so. Sounds like a perfect strategy to me.

!!! Don't forget the Anti-spam filter !!!

fabounet, Wednesday 28 March 2012 à 16:44


Subscription date : 30 November 2007
Messages : 17118

Uhm, I'm having a very hard time grasping why you seem to think that changing this 'Show icons in menus' option is an unsurmountable task for a user to do?

1 word: gconf

As you pointed out yourself, XFCE gives the controls to a user, so does GNOME

I'm not aware of such a graphic tool for Gnome, does it exist ? (gconf-editor is not a valid answer )

These two alone account for MOST of the desktops in Linux

absolutely and I'm ok to remove the hack definitely once those 2 provide an easy way to put icons back in menus

Guest, Wednesday 28 March 2012 à 20:21

fabounet :

Uhm, I'm having a very hard time grasping why you seem to think that changing this 'Show icons in menus' option is an unsurmountable task for a user to do?

1 word: gconf

As you pointed out yourself, XFCE gives the controls to a user, so does GNOME

I'm not aware of such a graphic tool for Gnome, does it exist ? (gconf-editor is not a valid answer )

These two alone account for MOST of the desktops in Linux

absolutely and I'm ok to remove the hack definitely once those 2 provide an easy way to put icons back in menus :)


Well, that IS an easy way lol

matttbe, Thursday 29 March 2012 à 11:44


Subscription date : 24 January 2009
Messages : 12573
@fabounet: But we can also add an option only on the .conf file

Ideas | Propositions

Subjects Author Language Messages Last message
[Locked] 2.4.0, how do I disable forced menu icons?
Guest English 18 matttbe [Read]
29 March 2012 à 11:44


Glx-Dock / Cairo-Dock List of forums Ideas | Propositions 2.4.0, how do I disable forced menu icons? Top

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