Bug#564879: gnome-panel: shutdown dialog is unintuitive, ugly and confusing

[Fabian Greffrath]

Package: gnome-panel
Version: 2.28.0-3
Severity: minor

Hi,

clicking on System -> Shutdown in gnome-panel opens the shutdown dialog window that presents the following choices: Hibernate, Suspend, Reboot, Cancel and Shutdown.

The first problem I see here is, most users can't tell what Hibernate and Suspend are, not to mention the difference between both.

The second problem is the alignment of the buttons. Reboot and Shutdown are the most common options, so IMHO they should ge grouped together and stand a bit separated from the others. Suspend and Hibernate are also similar, so they should be grouped together as well. Cancel is really different, since clicking it does have no effect on the power state, so this button should be really separate (and not appear among the the other four choices as if there was no difference between them).

The third problem is that there are neither describtions nor icons near the buttons that could possibly help distinguish the options from each other. I know that it has been decided to drop icons on buttons in GNOME altogether, but in the case of the shutdown dialogue (at least in its current form) they would really help. And there are so many nice icons in gnome-power-manager...

Cheers,
Fabian


-- System Information:
Debian Release: squeeze/sid
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (550, 'unstable'), (400, 'experimental')
Architecture: i386 (i686)

Kernel: Linux 2.6.32-trunk-686 (SMP w/2 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=de_DE.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=de_DE.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash

Versions of packages gnome-panel depends on:
ii  gnome-about                  2.28.2-1    The GNOME about box
ii  gnome-control-center         1:2.28.1-2  utilities to configure the GNOME d
ii  gnome-desktop-data           2.28.2-1    Common files for GNOME desktop app
ii  gnome-menus                  2.28.0.1-2  an implementation of the freedeskt
ii  gnome-panel-data             2.28.0-3    common files for the GNOME Panel
ii  libatk1.0-0                  1.29.4-1    The ATK accessibility toolkit
ii  libbonobo2-0                 2.24.2-1    Bonobo CORBA interfaces library
ii  libbonoboui2-0               2.24.2-1    The Bonobo UI library
ii  libc6                        2.10.2-5    Embedded GNU C Library: Shared lib
ii  libcairo2                    1.8.8-2     The Cairo 2D vector graphics libra
ii  libdbus-1-3                  1.2.16-2    simple interprocess messaging syst
ii  libdbus-glib-1-2             0.82-2      simple interprocess messaging syst
ii  libecal1.2-7                 2.28.2-1    Client library for evolution calen
ii  libedataserver1.2-11         2.28.2-1    Utility library for evolution data
ii  libedataserverui1.2-8        2.28.2-1    GUI utility library for evolution 
ii  libgconf2-4                  2.28.0-1    GNOME configuration database syste
ii  libglib2.0-0                 2.22.3-2    The GLib library of C routines
ii  libgnome-desktop-2-11        2.28.2-1    Utility library for loading .deskt
ii  libgnome-menu2               2.28.0.1-2  an implementation of the freedeskt
ii  libgnome2-0                  2.28.0-1    The GNOME library - runtime files
ii  libgnomeui-0                 2.24.2-1    The GNOME libraries (User Interfac
ii  libgtk2.0-0                  2.18.5-1    The GTK+ graphical user interface 
ii  libgweather1                 2.28.0-1    GWeather shared library
ii  libical0                     0.44-1      iCalendar library implementation i
ii  liborbit2                    1:2.14.17-2 libraries for ORBit2 - a CORBA ORB
ii  libpanel-applet2-0           2.28.0-3    library for GNOME Panel applets
ii  libpango1.0-0                1.26.2-1    Layout and rendering of internatio
ii  libpolkit-gobject-1-0        0.95-1      PolicyKit Authorization API
ii  librsvg2-2                   2.26.0-1    SAX-based renderer library for SVG
ii  libwnck22                    2.28.0-1    Window Navigator Construction Kit 
ii  libx11-6                     2:1.3.2-1   X11 client-side library
ii  libxau6                      1:1.0.5-1   X11 authorisation library
ii  libxrandr2                   2:1.3.0-2   X11 RandR extension library
ii  menu-xdg                     0.4         freedesktop.org menu compliant win
ii  policykit-1-gnome            0.95-1      GNOME authentication agent for Pol
ii  python                       2.5.4-5     An interactive high-level object-o
ii  python-gconf                 2.28.0-1    Python bindings for the GConf conf
ii  python-gnome2                2.28.0-1    Python bindings for the GNOME desk

Versions of packages gnome-panel recommends:
ii  alacarte                      0.12.4-1   easy GNOME menu editing tool
ii  evolution-data-server         2.28.2-1   evolution database backend server
ii  gnome-applets                 2.28.0-3   Various applets for the GNOME pane
ii  gnome-icon-theme              2.28.0-1   GNOME Desktop icon theme
ii  gnome-session                 2.28.0-4   The GNOME Session Manager
ii  gvfs                          1.4.3-1    userspace virtual filesystem - ser

Versions of packages gnome-panel suggests:
ii  epiphany-browser         2.29.3-1        Intuitive GNOME web browser
ii  evolution                2.28.2-1        groupware suite with mail client a
ii  gdm                      2.20.10-1       GNOME Display Manager
ii  gnome-session            2.28.0-4        The GNOME Session Manager
ii  gnome-terminal [x-termin 2.28.2-1        The GNOME terminal emulator applic
ii  gnome-user-guide [gnome2 2.28.2-1        GNOME user's guide
ii  nautilus                 2.28.4-1        file manager and graphical shell f
ii  xterm [x-terminal-emulat 253-1           X terminal emulator
ii  yelp                     2.28.0+webkit-2 Help browser for GNOME

-- no debconf information