Merge status applets together

clefebvre commented 11 years ago

GNOME did very good work on this: http://afaikblog.wordpress.com/2013/08/31/feature-focus-gnome-3s-new-system-status-area/

corbin-auriti commented 11 years ago

So you want sound, Internet, brightness, battery, and others into one applet? Would this be to replace the current ones, or as an option?

ghost commented 11 years ago

That kind of applet doesn´t feel right in cinnamons panel at all :/

anandrkris commented 11 years ago

It would be useful, in my opinion. If not everything, it is meaningful to club certain interlinked features. Blue-tooth, Wi-fi and N/w can all be clubbed under Connectivity. All of them should have expand options which show advanced options. In KDE, Battery , brightness and an option to open power management are all available in same widget and it makes much sense to me.

corbin-auriti commented 11 years ago

I don't know, it feels OKish in gnome, in Cinnamon, it would feel weird, I don't see including it as a default applet, maybe just as an option

collinss commented 11 years ago

After considering this idea for a while now, I'm of two minds about it, myself. The way I see it, there are major pros and cons to doing something like this.

The pros I have seen are:

It would potentially avoid clutter as all of the 'status' applets would be in one neat location.
It would provide a more integrated feel.
All status-related information and controls would be in the same place.
Fewer applets on the panel.
You would have a clearly defined 'status area'.

The cons:

Users wouldn't be able to separate their status applets on the panel(s) if they want to.
Users who want to use a third party applet (such as Sound with Apps Volume) that provides similar functionality to one of the built-in applets but with added features, would not be able to do so without redundancy.
Unless it's done really well, status and settings would be much more difficult to find.
Users who use a particular status applet often (eg sound) would probably find it frustrating not to have dedicated functionality.
It would potentially 'break' certain themes (This isn't a huge issue, as this seems to happen with every release of Cinnamon anyway :P )

I feel that these cons, if unaddressed, would be a show-stopper. However, there are a couple of things that could be done to mitigate some of them, at least. The first is to implement a system by which a stand-alone status applet could override one particular part (or module?) of the applet. The second is to allow users to manually disable certain modules. Also, I think it would be a good idea to leave the current status applets as part of Cinnamon, at least for now, so that users can still use them if they don't like the all-in-one status applet.

I think all of these ideas would help to apply the principle that makes Cinnamon such a great DE - the perfect blend of usability and customizability, packaged in an attractive and satisfying interface.

collinss commented 11 years ago

I'm not sure how feasible this would be, but it would be really great to be able to add custom modules to the status applet. For example, say you have your favorite email or IM client and want to be able to see status updates in the panel, you (or the program itself) could just add a module to the applet, and it would add it.

imarkskinner commented 11 years ago

I think as long as everything is optional then it cant hurt to experiment, the thing we all love about Cinnamon is that it doesn't make decisions for you. Don't force users to be stuck with a unified system applet and I think you can't go wrong.

Perhaps having all the current applets optional alongside a more general systems applet would be a good way forward

ghost commented 10 years ago

Just keep all the individual status applets and add in a unified status applet as well. As far as which to have as the default, I'm not sure.

s3lph commented 10 years ago

I'd support the idea by @anandrkris. It would be more intuitive to group certain status applets together, but not all of them. E.g. I prefer to put the Session applet right from the clock and the rest left of it.

highwindmx commented 10 years ago

how about make this applet multi-session + multi-module so if I want all I have all, if I want sound and wifi separately, I can add two and select one show sound only, and one with wifi only? or finally like this: https://github.com/linuxmint/Cinnamon/issues/1614 , some sidebar-style applets.

anandrkris commented 9 years ago

@clefebvre Any plans for this?

brownsr commented 9 years ago

backlight in with brightness too ?

linuxmint / cinnamon

Merge status applets together #2432