Improving Cinnamon

[Jix]

I love Cinnamon. I'm starting to see how it can be the future of Mint. It looks like the old Gnome desktop while adding some of the pizazz people expect today. A few things still need improving, though, most of which you're probably aware of and working on.

• 1) The menu panel is missing setting options, like the ability to increase icon size, transparency, etc.
  2) The bottom panel also needs more settings, like custom images for the entire panel.
  3) Needs an easier way to add new GTK window themes and icon sets (none of my old icon sets work now).
  4) I don't see why Cinnamon settings can't be put in the regular Settings menu - too many menus is messy and confusing.
  5) A startup sound, but not the old Mint sound that startles people nearby.
  6) A nicer main navigation menu. It always takes me a few seconds to find the Forward and Back arrows next to the directory path. It's so small and unintuitively positioned.

These are just some of things that bugged me. I'm sure I could get used to them with time since I'm probably going to stick with Cinnamon from now on. Even in its unfinished state Cinnamon is better than MATE.

[Condorman]

Good post and I agree with your points. I suspect the team are looking for this type of constructive feedback so they can now build on what they have.

I'd like to see a way to make the panel a little bigger

A nice dock available from the get-go.

Improvements to how it handles adding an extra panel (currently when you add an extra one it plops a completely empty panel on you with no easy way to configure it)

I'll probably think of more as I go.

[Cycledoc]

Panel size is a huge issue for those of us with vision problems. Ultimately, I can forsee a time when I won't be able to use Mint Cinnamon, though I like the set-up.

It would seem a relatively simple fix, for other distributions (Ubuntu), as well as microsoft's, and apples have this convenience.

[bimsebasse]

You guys should get familiar with your theme's cinnamon.css file, it's extremely configurable and easy to learn and you can get you desktop to look almost any way you like.

[Oscar799]

Moved here by moderator

[Jix]

Speaking of CSS, I'm starting to think I need to change a file or something to make custom icons work properly... I put them in /usr/share/icons (I open icons as admin), but it doesn't work like in previous versions. I can see the new icon themes in Cinnamon Settings, but switching to them only changes the icons in the /usr/share/icons folder. They don't change anywhere else. Everywhere else icons switch to the bland fallback set. I made sure to give the new icons the same Permissions as the default sets, figuring it was a permissions thing, to no avail. Surely there's got to be an easier way to add icons besides the ppa repository? Rebooting or logging off doesn't help. Here's a pic of what happens:

[Rehdon]

Here's a quick list of things I would like to happen to improve future versions of Cinnamon:

- a complete redesign of the main menu to solve its current problems:
* not fully localized (at least in my fresh LM 13 install)
* cumbersome design: get rid of the favorites in favor of a well configured dock (cairo-dock for instance), simpler layout (there must be a reason why there are so simpler/better/custom menu applets for cinnamon), more sensible layout (categories are nor in alphabetic order nor in "thematic" order, three different "system" categories, many items in the wrong place etc.)
* fix the slow first pop up bug

- an integration of all the configuration tools, (very) minimal approach would be to at least have the Cinnamon Settings included in the System Settings window

- an integration of all theme aspects management

- a better theme for MDM, or reverting back to LightDM

- better integration of Zeitgeist, the only thing I miss from Gnome Shell is the search overview

- a better music player/organizer software (wrt Banshee)

That's about it for now, I wanted to make a more detailed thread but will save time by piggybacking to this one

Rehdon

[Rehdon]

Another needed improvement coming to mind is applet/extension localization: I know this is not a responsibility of the LM devs, but perhaps they could encourage applet/extension writers towards it? Because having half your desktop in your own language, and half of it in English seriously detracts from its professional look (and, even more important, might be a problem for those who don't know English that well).

I wonder if it could be possible to host not only the "ready for use" versions of applets/extensions, but also all the code in a central repository offering the chance to contribute with translations of the English locale files; I'd sure be willing to spend a few minutes to localize in my language all the applets that I use.

Rehdon

[henrydubb]

My List

1. Freezing, crashing issue is central right now. Applets are always a hit or miss if they will work. Often requires "dependencies".

2. I would like Expo and Scale combined. In overview I want to move windows across desktops, add desktops, but also close windows. I don't want to have two overviews to do this.

3. I want more options in the Cinnamon Menu. Install and remove apps a must.

[matthew 123]

Adding mdm login manager theme on cinnamon ui as default. It is the best theme i have ever seen (and also it will be more complete impression of os). http://www.linuxmint.com/pictures/scree ... ya/mdm.png imagine that ui on cinnamon panel and menues.. no one done this so far..