Keep the toggle pane on the left?

Should we keep the toggle pane on the left or come up with some other idea to configure the panes?

I'm loving it the way it is, but I'm sure there gonna be other opinions. Why dont you start a poll?

You just posted in it ;)

chanders said: You just posted in it ;)

lol, it wasn't there a minute ago...

there should be another option for the poll

leave it as it is but also come up with a better interface that can be toggled with an option...

I happen to think it's fairly clean and simple the way it is. It's sort of like having the accessibility of the std gnome menu in one menu and, if you only need one section at any given time, simple toggle. I also love being able to pin the menu. I can't think of how many times I've gotten annoyed by having to work my way through a menu repeatedly because I wanted to open a couple different apps on startup or something.

delfick said: there should be another option for the poll

leave it as it is but also come up with a better interface that can be toggled with an option...

Looks like thats what I'll have to do ;)

gruvsyco said: I happen to think it's fairly clean and simple the way it is. It's sort of like having the accessibility of the std gnome menu in one menu and, if you only need one section at any given time, simple toggle. I also love being able to pin the menu. I can't think of how many times I've gotten annoyed by having to work my way through a menu repeatedly because I wanted to open a couple different apps on startup or something.

You do know you can do this by middle clicking right ;) Without pinning the menu...

I'd rather see some other solution for displaying/hiding panels than having three buttons always visible, stealing screen real estate.

Ok, my solution would be...

Replace the pin button with a small picture of a pin.

Replace the text "Places", "Applications" and "Settings" with icons. They could stay on the left but icons would look neater.

Excuse the poor mockup but this gives you an idea.

NOTE - I couldn't find a pin to use so haven't touched the pin button yet.

[[IMG]http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b96/snewberry1980/Ideas/th_uspmockup2.png[/IMG]](http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b96/snewberry1980/Ideas/uspmockup2.png)

Also I'd suggest to make the toggle panel togglable with a small arrow at the side, the way Opera does with their side panel.

Chander, first of all: thanks for all the work you put in usp =D> , I like it better than the novell one (hate their combo box thingy) and they are getting paid for it

About this poll: I've voted to move the functionality of the toggle pane to a seperate configuration window.

I have played with the toggle buttons for some time to discover my preferred layout of the panes (applications and places shown, settings hidden). But after that, I haven't used them anymore. I think toggling the visibility of a pane often would just slow a user down because he has to search for the new locations of the items. A familiar interface is quicker to work with because one can remember where every item is located. Also, I don't like to use toggle buttons to access an item in a hidden pane. The next time I open the menu, it's a bit confusing because the menu has changed and I have to click the toggle button again to have the menu reverted to my preferred layout. Finally, I think the menu could do without the pin button, as soon as there is another way to add places. Adding places by pinning the menu isn't all too discoverable anyway (even if the button would have an icon). Adding places could be done by having the menu expand upon dragging a folder over it, or by using the same places system which nautilus uses, or both.

i want to replace the pane togglers with my places (as in just the icons)