Replacing network-offline (old version 2xmonitor) with NM wlan 0% signal strength icon

[Martin Owens]

Hello Matthew,

> As a couple of small corrections to this, it's not a metaphor, and it's
> not what OS X does.
> 
> The Design team has just discussed this and we agree it's confusing. The
> two-monitors icon sucked, but our first try at a replacement wasn't so
> hot. :-) We will have another go, considering the cross and slash
> possibilities proposed here, and we'll seek a UI freeze exception for
> 9.04 for a replacement icon. Thanks for raising the issue.

Part of the problem is that your trying to merge two concepts into one.
On the one hand you have "Network Connection" and on the other you have
"Online Status"

The first is what we use to connect to eth0 (a label that needs
replacing) or connect to a wifi network, it's what you get with a
physical connection. So an ethernet connection should show a filled plug
icon (just like mac osx) and a wifi connection shows the signal
strength. the disconnected icon can show the unplugged icon or the no
wifi connection icon (on mac I thought it has a black line through it)

The second concept is Online Status, a completely under served status.
Are we online? Would the lay person grok that they are online from this
icon or would it show that they are in fact sitting behind a paywall?

I don't think it's as useful to equate network connectivity to online
status. I think we may need two separate icons, or one of these
newfangled status widgets and more robust NM APIs for giving that status
to apps.

Regards, Martin Owens

PS, My ideal table of Statuses:

0:Offline
1:Network Connection
2:Router Visible
3:DNS Visible
4:HTTP redirects to router address
5:Search Domains Visible (i.e google.com) (assume your fully online)