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Subjects Author Language Messages Last message
[Locked] Ambiance Theme meets bugs
jesuisbenjamin English 13 jesuisbenjamin [Read]
24 December 2010 à 14:35

jesuisbenjamin, Sunday 27 June 2010 à 19:40


Subscription date : 28 October 2009
Messages : 415
    • The version of Cairo-Dock 2.2.0-0beta1
    • GNU/Linux distribution Ubuntu 10.04 Kernel 2.6.32-22-generic
    • OpenGL : yes
    • Window manager Compiz
    • Desktop Environment Gnome 2.30.0

Hello there

I recently installed Ubuntu 10.04 and wanted to achieve few things with Cairo. Fab told me to use the latest beta, which i did.
My aim is to re-create the gnome-panel environment, whilst improving it in my own way. I am particularly concerned with the latest changes made in Ubuntu as well as the upcoming developments stemming from the Ayatana project (esp. status indicator, system tray aka notification area). cf. http://design.canonical.com/2010/04/notification-area/comment-page-4/

So far i did some arrangements with Cairo and ran into few issues which can either be considered as bugs, opportunities for enhancement or simple misunderstanding from my part. You can tell me.

What have i done so far?

  • keep the top gnome-panel
  • remove all applets from the panel (except date/time/weather applet)
  • run cairo-dock -o --keep-above
  • place the main dock on top of the panel with launchers
  • make icons fit within breadth of panel (24 x 24)
  • make another main dock on the left-hand side with Application Menu applet (24x24)
  • make another dock on the right-hand side with Applets (MusicPlayer, Power Manager, Network-Monitor, AlsaMixer, Status Notifier, Log-out)
  • maintain the default "Ambiance" theme of Ubuntu as much as possible (need to create more white icons for what Ubuntu does not provide)

Issues i ran into:

  • Network Monitor Applet displays a numeric value on top of the icon although the option is set as "NO".
This can be worked around by opening the applet-configuration and "apply" and "OK", then the icon displays fine again.
  • Power Manager adds a "flash/electricity" icon on top of the icon i chose to display for battery status. It also seems to affect the size of that icon which sometimes appear smaller, but i can't really tell what conditions make it happen, at the moment the size is fine.
No work-around found so far.
  • Dialog Boxes of the following applets: MusicPlayer, Power Manager, Network-Monitor, AlsaMixer, Status Notifier, and perhaps other applets who provide information about the system behave oddly. For one i have to click to get information from them whilst it seems more logical and efficient to me that hovering the applet-icon should be enough. Second the dialog boxes should disappear again after few seconds after i removed my cursor from the icon or dialog box, rather than have to click it again. (i realise some people may prefer to click, so perhaps the options should be offered, my aim is to make it as easy and intuitive as possible).
  • I do not have Gnome-Panel Notification Area (or systray) and in general the Systray of Cairo is not very intuitive either, the icons of the tray pop-out in a dialog box and not all applications are detected by the applet. I would love to have a Systray which simply adds another icon to the row (without dialog box), on the condition that it is customisable (i would not want to have twice the Network-Monitor or other apps in the Systray i do not care for. The one affecting my usage the most is Skype, so alternatively i would love to see a Skype Applet which helps me to find my window once it is shut. This applet could just as well be a launcher, for instance if i click on the Banshee icon, the main window of the already running Banshee is opening, whilst when clicking on the Skype launcher it opens a new window conflicting with the already running Skype application. In short something is needed to hide/show the windows of those programs people don't have to have in the way all the time (messengers, Skype, Museeq, Transmission etc.)
  • Alsa-Mixer Applet shows the "broken" icon at all time, and i can't seem to be able to chance the volume with the mouse-wheel at all. This is perhaps due to the fact that i do not have Alsa but Pulse-Audio (unless i am mistaken the former was replaced by the latter since Ubuntu 9.4). How could i make this work?
  • Icon Opacity when icons are at rest apply to the entire dock. I didn't like this, so what i did is create an alternative to my theme where there are as many docks as applets, allowing each icon to react individually to the opacity/transparency effect. It looks very neat, but it's cumbersome. Any possibility to add a per-icon-at-rest-opacity option?
  • The Log-out Applet should have dynamic icon in my view, which would change when the system needs a restart (new icon or special effect), that too would be neat.
  • The Application Menu. It would be more intuitive if an open menu would shut down when the mouse does not hover the menu or icon. Else it stay open there and one needs to click the icon again or select something in the menu.
  • I also have removed the zoom-effect on hovering icons. This was due to the fact my docs also are placed on the left-most and right-most of the screen. When hovering an icon the zoom-effect either replaces the dock inwards to avoid icons to be zoomed off the screen or (if i am stubborn and replace the dock) they indeed are zoomed out of the screen. Is there any way for block zooming out of the screen? That is forcing the zoom-effect to push icons inwards?


That's about it really. I'd like to share what i have done so far, and i will continue to edit some icons to make them "Ambiance"-like.

Thanks for your help and feedback, but mostly for putting efforts in making Cairo.

Benjamin

jesuisbenjamin, Sunday 27 June 2010 à 19:57


Subscription date : 28 October 2009
Messages : 415
PS: with regard to the Systray question. It seems the simplest way to deal with it would be to allow a launcher to EITHER hide/show the existing window of the application OR open a new instance of the application. The former case would be applicable to Skype, Museeq etc. whilst the latter would be applicable to Firefox, OpenOffice Word etc.

B.

fabounet, Monday 28 June 2010 à 00:45


Subscription date : 30 November 2007
Messages : 17118
Thanks for the feedback !

the Network Monitor Applet is not yet stable, I have to finish it

Power Manager adds a "flash/electricity" icon on top of the icon i chose to display for battery status. It also seems to affect the size of that icon which sometimes appear smaller, but i can't really tell what conditions make it happen, at the moment the size is fine.

does it depend on the charge level ?
do you use a gauge ?
is it possible to have a screenshot ?

* Dialog Boxes of the following applets: MusicPlayer, Power Manager, Network-Monitor, AlsaMixer, Status Notifier, and perhaps other applets who provide information about the system behave oddly. For one i have to click to get information from them whilst it seems more logical and efficient to me that hovering the applet-icon should be enough. Second the dialog boxes should disappear again after few seconds after i removed my cursor from the icon or dialog box, rather than have to click it again. (i realise some people may prefer to click, so perhaps the options should be offered, my aim is to make it as easy and intuitive as possible).


for many applet you can have some information in the icon's label.
for instance the date with Clock, the charge with Powermanager, the sound card or the sound volume with Alsamixer, etc
which kind of information do you lack exactly ?

when clicking on the Skype launcher it opens a new window conflicting with the already running Skype application

the problem is that the Skype window is really destroyed.
so the dock has no idea it's already running
even if we tested the presence of the process, we couldn't do anything else than launch the sae command.
The faulty guy is Skype here, I don't know a sinle program that would launch itself twice if it's in the systray (empathy, pidgin, transmission, etc)
since Skype has recently opened there interface, we can expect a real client that will respect the common Linux desktop rules.

About the systray, it's probably better to use it detached from the dock. Transparency has just been added, so you won't have it in the beta1

#
  1. Alsa-Mixer Applet shows the "broken" icon at all time, and i can't seem to be able to chance the volume with the mouse-wheel at all. This is perhaps due to the fact that i do not have Alsa but Pulse-Audio (unless i am mistaken the former was replaced by the latter since Ubuntu 9.4). How could i make this work?
Pulseaudio uses alsa if it's available, but it can also use some other ways. maybe you can check that.
also, did you try to select the appropriate sound channel in the applet's config ?

# Icon Opacity when icons are at rest apply to the entire dock. I didn't like this, so what i did is create an alternative to my theme where there are as many docks as applets, allowing each icon to react individually to the opacity/transparency effect. It looks very neat, but it's cumbersome. Any possibility to add a per-icon-at-rest-opacity option?


this option makes the icon transparent when at rest.
It's an old option and now I think it's better to use for instance the "semi-transparent" hiding effect. but I'm not sure what you want to achieve here.

#
  1. The Log-out Applet should have dynamic icon in my view, which would change when the system needs a restart (new icon or special effect), that too would be neat.

if there is a way to know that, yes. But I'm not sure (usually it's the update-manager that knows the state of the system, and it has virtually no Dbus interface)

Is there any way for block zooming out of the screen

I don't see how they could zoom out of the screen
unless you placed the dock by movigng it manually, which is not a correct way to do (there is a drop menu to select the screen border where it should be placed)

jesuisbenjamin, Monday 28 June 2010 à 10:23


Subscription date : 28 October 2009
Messages : 415
hi there!

With regard to Power-Managment: it happens when on charge. The icon below is that of a full battery, but you can see the black flash-like icon on top of it. I use the icon-view. cf. screenshot http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/BOSh9oEobB-LR1DsyxTR2CNlbEFajhsfaXwocAUQ1ns?feat=directlink

With regard to Dialog-Boxes, it is not so much the content but the behaviour that it the issue. To see for instance the charge-level of my battery i need to click to show the dialog-box and click again to remove it. Same with Music-Player, Network etc. It'd be more simple if hovering the applet-icon were enough to get this info and if the dialog box would move away after a sec. Right?

With regard to Skype, i reckon it's a matter of patience.

With regard to Alsa-Mixer i'll have to take more time to look into it and come back.

The Visibility option of hiding the dock by transparency is not as efficient as the default transparency at rest (in my opinion), the delay is faster in the former and i get to decide the level of opacity. But this was not so much the issue. The issue is that the effect applies to the entire dock rather than to a single launcher or applet. I have set up several docks with one applet each so when hovering them they each, in turn, lose their transparency. It looks neater than when affecting all icons of the entire dock. Creating several docks is more cumbersome than having a per-icon effect (at least at the user level). Wouldn't it be possible to make the effect applicable to the dock AND allow an override per icon? I'll make a desktop recording and post it for you to see what i mean.

I am not sure i understand the difficulty of the power-off applet, but that's perhaps because my programming skills are very poor

As for zooming, yes i moved the dock in question manually. I want my Application Menu at the far left of the screen and the Power-Off at the far right (see screenshot) so indeed if i add the zoom option, the docks will move inwards automatically (great thing by the way) but for those who want the icons at rest on the far end, it's not a solution. If on zooming however, the dock would be prevented to move outside of the screen, i.e. move inwards only, then there would be no problem in that regard.

I will try to make a desktop record to show you what i mean with transparency and zooming.
Thanks for your response.

fabounet, Monday 28 June 2010 à 11:01


Subscription date : 30 November 2007
Messages : 17118
ok thanks for the records
about the information, I think you can already have the charge directly on the icon (there is an option for that), either in the icon's label, or on the icon.

about the zoom effect, the panel view doesn't have a it, so why not using it ?

jesuisbenjamin, Monday 28 June 2010 à 11:27


Subscription date : 28 October 2009
Messages : 415
Hi there,


See how the opacity changes for the entire dock in the middle and how it changes for each icon individually on the right and left docks. On the right hand side i did this by creating 6 docks with 1 applet respectively.


I want to keep my Application Menu on the left-most corner, so if i activate the zooming effect, it is zoomed out of the screen. If there was a rule to prevent it to do so and bounce on the screen-edge so to speak, then it would be neater and efficient.


matttbe, Monday 28 June 2010 à 12:28


Subscription date : 24 January 2009
Messages : 12573
Hello!

Thank you for this long bug report, it's very helpful!





http://uppix.net/d/b/9/ee4b5f8c573abac4c93ccd7896763.png


PS: the weekly ppa has been updated

fabounet, Monday 28 June 2010 à 23:52


Subscription date : 30 November 2007
Messages : 17118
I see, what you want is more like an opacity effect on hovering an icon.

again, why not using the panel view instead of the classic 2D one ?

jesuisbenjamin, Tuesday 29 June 2010 à 08:36


Subscription date : 28 October 2009
Messages : 415
Hello,

I think you can already have the charge directly on the icon (there is an option for that), either in the icon's label, or on the icon.


Yes, the icon is so small though that i doesn't make much sense to have it there, it cover the icon and smaller would be unreadable. Well i just think a on-hover-dialog-box would be neater. That's all really.

I see, what you want is more like an opacity effect on hovering an icon.


Yes

why not using the panel view instead of the classic 2D one ?


Because i do want the zoom effect (preferably). What does the panel add to the current setting really? (all i see is that the icons are piled up leftwards.)

This said i have some idea of development for a new style of launcher. I guess it has something Cairo has, but i think it is so different it will have to be done from scratches. I am new to programming--i learnt some Python--and i'd like to know what programming language is best suited according to you guys to make interactive, animated launching/docking programs (i.e. not in a framed window but with a transparent background as it is possible for Cairo).

But i still do like using Cairo though.

fabounet, Tuesday 29 June 2010 à 12:12


Subscription date : 30 November 2007
Messages : 17118
what about having the information in the icon's label ?

all i see is that the icons are piled up leftwards.

if you add a separator, it will separate icons in different blocks.
so it's not just a lack of zoom.
I was suggesting it cause you seemed to want to reproduce a gnome-panel-like behavior.

I guess it has something Cairo has, but i think it is so different it will have to be done from scratches

maybe it could be a view ?
anyway C and python are my favorites

jesuisbenjamin, Tuesday 29 June 2010 à 12:19


Subscription date : 28 October 2009
Messages : 415
well the idea i have is to make a menu/launcher based on a wheel system.

The nave would be either docked on the screen or appear at mouse-position. Menu/icons appear in an external ring, sub-menus in a further ring etc. Using mouse scroll would spin the ring so you don't have to move, but the menu moves for you.

Does it sound like a view? or like a totally different program?

(i am playing around with the panel view, not bad indeed)

fabounet, Tuesday 29 June 2010 à 15:40


Subscription date : 30 November 2007
Messages : 17118
it can be a view for sure
something like the Rainbow view, but with a complete circle.

there is already a visibility mode that would make appear the dock under the mouse on a shortcut.
but then it's C (python (or other languages) applets are limited to the DBus API)

matttbe, Friday 24 December 2010 à 13:43


Subscription date : 24 January 2009
Messages : 12573
I don't understand why they post these spams without any ads...

jesuisbenjamin, Friday 24 December 2010 à 14:35


Subscription date : 28 October 2009
Messages : 415
matttbe :
I don't understand why they post these spams without any ads...

spamming for spamming

Ideas | Propositions

Subjects Author Language Messages Last message
[Locked] Ambiance Theme meets bugs
jesuisbenjamin English 13 jesuisbenjamin [Read]
24 December 2010 à 14:35


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