The dialog window for the launcher configuration on the Panel needs to be reworked to include missing functionality. First, the icons shown on the main menu are often not found in the icons selector window. For instance, I installed LibreOffice, which has distinct and attractive icons that show up on the main menu. However, when creating a panel entry, those are not available. The same for ScreenShooter. Fine program, but no icon. Worse is that there are no known locations to look elsewhere for the proper icon. Second, the icon windows is odd in that it defaults to a small subset of the total icons by only listing the "Program" icons, so-called. Most of the time, the needed one is not in that display group. It should default to all icons. Third, the category selector at the top of the screen should have been a drop-down list, rather than the unattractive and inconvenient pop-up list that is often forcing the desired item to be hidden behing an unnecessary and limited scroll mechanism, especially considering the parent window's size. Fourth, the launcher dialog ties up all other applications, making work on things like this bug report impossible without continually closing and reopening of it, as it remains on top all of the time and will not allow another window to acquire the focus.
(In reply to comment #0) > First, the icons shown on the main menu are often not found in the icons > selector window. For instance, I installed LibreOffice, which has distinct and > attractive icons that show up on the main menu. However, when creating a panel > entry, those are not available. The same for ScreenShooter. Fine program, but > no icon. Worse is that there are no known locations to look elsewhere for the > proper icon. To be honest, there is not much we can do about that (ie. better searching for icons). It applications install icons in a 'hidden' place or give it weird names, it makes them impossible or hard to find. And before I forget, 4.8 icon chooser dialog has a search filter below the category selector. However the 4.8 panel will improve things tho, it allows to dnd launchers from the menu on the panel to create a new launcher (or from xfce4-appfinder or a .desktop file from a file manager) and the launcher itself has a build-in application finder with completion, so it will be less needed to do all the typing unless you need something custom. > Second, the icon windows is odd in that it defaults to a small subset of the > total icons by only listing the "Program" icons, so-called. Most of the time, > the needed one is not in that display group. It should default to all icons. I kinda agree here, but on the other hand, if application respect the icon specs and you (normally) only add new application launchers on the panel, this is the category to be. Downside of making the 'all' category default, is that it will increase the load time of the dialog and scrolling all the icons (and also symlink for mimetypes, thus lots of dups of the same icon) is not very efficient. > Third, the category selector at the top of the screen should have been a > drop-down list, rather than the unattractive and inconvenient pop-up list that > is often forcing the desired item to be hidden behing an unnecessary and > limited scroll mechanism, especially considering the parent window's size. What exactly do you mean here? The category selector in the icon chooser dialog? Not seeing any problems here... > Fourth, the launcher dialog ties up all other applications, making work on > things like this bug report impossible without continually closing and > reopening of it, as it remains on top all of the time and will not allow > another window to acquire the focus. That's been fixed in 4.8 too, the dialog work like normal windows and have a tasklist button so you can focus them again. So, hopefully you see in 4.8 we've tried to make thinks easier, but the mess in icons applications sometimes have it not really in our hands.
Thanks so much,Nick, for the fine reply. You gotta know that I am waiting anxiously for the 4.8 release. Looks like it is going to fix a lot of things in a good way. Good comments as well. The first one is understood, but it doesn't make sense with major, well-known apps such as OpenOffice/LibreOffice, or for ScreenShooter (which I believe is part of Xfce?). I can't imagine why they'd get lost. But you are right; who can say. Next, one thing I would suggest is that the number of icons is not important, since the need to use that selection window is used rarely, and therefore all of the icons in one group would be fine. And it would likely become a non-issue on faster processors. Also, why not just have a search function somewhere that finds all icon files, similarly to programs that search for fonts, and just add them to the list. Would that work? Re. the icon dialog window, where it says "Select an icon for .....", we see a selection at the top that is begun with the words "Select icon from:". That is the pop-up selection list to which I was referring. I'd make it a drop-down list. Thanks again.
(In reply to comment #2) > The first one is understood, but it doesn't make sense with major, well-known > apps such as OpenOffice/LibreOffice, or for ScreenShooter (which I believe is > part of Xfce?). I can't imagine why they'd get lost. But you are right; who > can say. Well we look for icons in common places, like /usr/share/icons /usr/local/share/icons, etc. If some application decides to store its icons in /usr/share/someapp/pixmaps, we cannot find it, however they can still use this location in the desktop file by providing a full path to the png file. Its a bug in the application and iI'm not putting time in fixing that; they should fix the code, fixed locations is terrible (different panel sizes load different files, that match the requested size closely). > Next, one thing I would suggest is that the number of icons is not important, > since the need to use that selection window is used rarely, and therefore all > of the icons in one group would be fine. And it would likely become a > non-issue on faster processors. Xfce is also popular on netbooks, we need to keep that in mind. > Also, why not just have a search function somewhere that finds all icon files, > similarly to programs that search for fonts, and just add them to the list. > Would that work? Then we need to index the whole filesystem, because other developers refuse to follow the specs.... Nah, not something for the launcher. More places on the system depend on the executable name -> icon name in $datadir/icons relation.
Oh. I'm beginning to get it. I would have to agree with most of your conclusions on this, although I will need to think thru that last bit. In any case, the basic problem comes back to a foundational Linux issue of standardizing program component locations. (Perhaps the good folks at LSB are working on this. I hope.) Programmers have got to get on board with this. Not doing so causes a ripple effect of problems, and their ramifications can not all be seen clearly. (Its that hidden flaw that causes the biggest problem in computers.) What's still surprising is that it would seem that some Xfce component programmers don't comply. I believe you can see why I am so focused on intuitive usage design, since I believe that forces the programmer into being consistent and standardized in his or her work. Thanks for your good help in explaining this and for the excellent discussion. Fixing what little can be done at this stage will perhaps show us the next step. Hopefully.
The Xfce core modules follow the spec closely and so do most of the application we supply, so I think most of Xfce is fine (but if you find a flaw, you can/should always report it ;-). Anyway, since I think I've tackled the issues in the first comment, I'm closing this bug. If you still experience problems with the 4.8 panel (once you have it), you can open fresh (individual bugs).