New theme: Battery/Trash

[Øivind Hoel]

On 3/13/06, Armand CORBEAUX <acorbeaux at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> One other thing I just noticed is the network applet for wireless
> >> networks. The signal strenght indicator is a little unintuitive. First
> >> of all its horizonatal, which by itself wouldnt be too bad (but not
> >> great) but it marks signal strength in one of four positions instead
> >> of including the previous positions. That is to say like this:
>
> >> - - - + -  (for strength of 3)
>
> >> instead of
>
> >> + + + -
>
> >> which, IMHO would be much more intuitive.
>
> More intuitive? And the same for battery state too?
>
> To be honest what is called common user "fucks up" signal streght. He wishs
> only to be connected, not to know how strengh is the signal. And that's the
> same for all satellite systems.

This isn't relevant, but I look at mine whenever I'm on top of some
mountain snowboarding to get an idea of the coverage and what my
options are if a mate gets taken by an avalanche, I look at it before
I call - not worth calling if the signal is going to be NATO-standard
(if you've ever been on the receiving end of a nato-encrypted radio
call, you know what I'm on about).

>
> Do people all the time look at the quality of signal for the parabolas? No.
> When do we take a look on signal strengh on cellphones? When the discussion
> cuts.
>
> That's the same for wireless connection, a user doesn't need to know what's
> the signal quality, he wishes just to know if he's connected to the network
> or not. The indicator through tooltip allows to know enough about wireless
> connection.

Actually, most wireless networks need a certain signal strength to set
you up via dhcp - so having an indicator for the strength is
absolutely _very_ useful if you're in an area with low connectivity.
Signal strength also influences the speed you can get out of a
network, ofcourse.

> To know that you use a wired or wireless network is largely enough for a
> classic use.
> To know the signal strengh is just a gadget, because 95% of the time you
> can't increase the signal strengh (or perhaps if you break some walls or
> smash people from their places...but that's an another problem).

Ever thried shifting your laptops position? Where I'm typing this
right now, I get disconnected if I shift my laptop slightly to the
left, whereas if I shift it slightly to the right (still on my lap), I
get 56% and a decent connection. The signal strength indicator is how
I found out I could actually use the wireless coverage in my street.

>
> When only one icon will be displayed to notify user that he is connected to
> wired or wireless network we could say that we have an improvement in term
> of effectiveness.