launcher icons are folded when launcher first starts

I think this may be deliberate, as part of the subliminal cue to users
that icons *can* fold. I agree the current implementation is jarring (it
all seems to happen haphazardly rather than smoothly). David S should
comment on the desired entry and exit behaviour, and we should make sure
it feels slick, with a flash mockup if needed.

At a minimum, nothing should appear till we can render it fully (no
white placeholder) nor should things feel jaggy or laggy, so we need to
be confident the animation can be smooth if it's specified.

Mark

This is a bug caused by a race in the animation system, it's sometimes apparent with Maverick's Clutter but more so with the latest Clutter. The launcher has an initial animation to unfold the icons (a visual cue that they can be folded), however it's just getting stuck sometimes.

The Launcher should never appear folded when there is enough room to show all icons unfolded, even when the session starts. The visual cue that the Launcher icons can fold is that they do fold when necessary; no need to fold them prematurely.

If a stopgap session startup experience is needed, I recommend pre-calculating the eventual static state of the Launcher given the number of tiles it contains, then serially fading those tiles into position from the top. Tiles should fade in at a constant rate (e.g. 20 tiles per second) and not feel jerky, so hide IO wait from the user by sleeping if necessary.

This bug was fixed in the package unity - 0.2.22-0ubuntu1

---------------
unity (0.2.22-0ubuntu1) maverick; urgency=low

  * New upstream release.
    - Add support for window control buttons on the panel (LP: #610014)
    - Create a files group model for downloads (LP: #610370)
    - Fix odd representation of (partially) off-screen windows (LP: #594221)
    - Fix selected category doesn't match the displayed one after a place
      switch (LP: #604949)
    - Move places shortcuts to the launcher (LP: #610015)
    - Fix wrong arrow location in place views (LP: #604800)
    - Launcher icons no more folded when launcher first starts (LP: #601107)
  * debian/control:
    - bump clutk build-dep
  * debian/patches/02_disable_expandable_menu.patch,
    debian/patches/03_strip_underscore_on_quicklist.patch,
    debian/patches/04_fix_scroller_focus_issue.patch,
    debian/patches/05_fix_ws_switching.patch:
    - removed
  * debian/patches/02_i18n_launcher.patch:
    - from trunk, support use localized apps name (LP: #612494)
 -- Didier Roche <email address hidden> Mon, 02 Aug 2010 15:55:16 +0200

This is not fixed for me.

confirmed

I think there are serious problems with the code responsible for
deciding the layout of the launcher based on the position of the mouse.
This is just one example. David, can you do a review of the work there?

Mark

Same here. Unity 2.28 on Maverick.

Gord is going to add some code to guard against this. Basically animation timers aren't completing on startup.

As of now, this no longer seems to be a problem. Thanks for the fix!

Is this supposed to be fixed in Maverick? I'm still seeing the icons folded (and white) on session start.

Attaching a short clip showing:

1. Desktop background after GDM
2. White screen (mutter bug 601088)
3. COF button + window buttons
4. Launcher bar with folded white launchers + desktop background
5. Desktop the way I expect it to show up

it's fixed. The icons are folded on purpose at start, the bug was having them sticking as folded at start. The other bugs are already reported. Thanks.

Oh, thanks for clearing this up!