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Natty Narwhal with Unity: Worst Ubuntu beta ever

theregister.co.uk

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Re: Natty Narwhal with Unity: Worst Ubuntu beta ever

#11

Post by ch0wn »

metabrew wrote: post #5

I'm running unity since yesterday - feels like they compromised massively on the full desktop experience for the sake of compatibility with touch-based and netbook devices. I'll give it a week or so though; no-one likes change, and it's impossible to make any significant UI change without hoares of angry and confused users foaming at the mouth until they get their bearings.

Well, I like change. I would even like Unity and I don't feel it's too much focused on on touch screen devices. After all, there are a lot of useful shortcuts. However, the article is right that Unity in its current state is far from being an improvement. It crashes very frequently and lacks important configuration options.

When those issues are fixed, I'll certainly use it.

Re: Natty Narwhal with Unity: Worst Ubuntu beta ever

#12

Post by elehack »

tomjen3 wrote: post #10

A good thing I am on the LTS release then. Unfortunately if they keep the main menu is separate from the window it belongs to (a huge break with the standard usability rule which says that things which belong together should be physically together) I will have to find a new distro. It's the worst move Apple made, why did they copy that?

Because by some other standards, such as Fitts' Law, it's a good move - it gives the menu infinite vertical size.

Also, it is an effective way of conserving vertical screen real estate. With the increasing prevalance of widescreen displays, vertical space is (relatively) scarce. This is particularly true on netbooks, and even on full-size laptops. Merging the menu with the top dock gives you an extra 24 pixels or so of vertical space.

Re: Natty Narwhal with Unity: Worst Ubuntu beta ever

#13

Post by andybak »

elehack wrote: post #12
tomjen3 wrote: post #10

A good thing I am on the LTS release then. Unfortunately if they keep the main menu is separate from the window it belongs to (a huge break with the standard usability rule which says that things which belong together should be physically together) I will have to find a new distro. It's the worst move Apple made, why did they copy that?

Because by some other standards, such as Fitts' Law, it's a good move - it gives the menu infinite vertical size. Also, it is an effective way of conserving vertical screen real estate. With the increasing prevalance of widescreen displays, vertical space is (relatively) scarce. This is particularly true on netbooks, and even on full-size laptops. Merging the menu with the top dock gives you an extra 24 pixels or so…

A couple of years back I switched from Windows to Mac and I can't say I really noticed any downside to the single fixed application menu. The gains due to Fitt's Law however are noticable and I when using a Windows box I find the menus to be annoyingly small click targets.

I do miss the discoverability of Windows ALT+letter menu accelerator key presses though.

Re: Natty Narwhal with Unity: Worst Ubuntu beta ever

#14

Post by csulok »

ch0wn wrote: post #11
metabrew wrote: post #5

I'm running unity since yesterday - feels like they compromised massively on the full desktop experience for the sake of compatibility with touch-based and netbook devices. I'll give it a week or so though; no-one likes change, and it's impossible to make any significant UI change without hoares of angry and confused users foaming at the mouth until they get their bearings.

Well, I like change. I would even like Unity and I don't feel it's too much focused on on touch screen devices. After all, there are a lot of useful shortcuts. However, the article is right that Unity in its current state is far from being an improvement. It crashes very frequently and lacks important configuration options. When those issues are fixed, I'll certainly use it.

people said the same thing when they realized unity lacks stability, config options and key features (like supporting drag & drop files between windows), but they never came. I don't think canonical considers it a high priority, if it's not there now, it won't be there at all for this release of ubuntu

Re: Natty Narwhal with Unity: Worst Ubuntu beta ever

#15

Post by [deleted] »

metabrew wrote: post #5

I'm running unity since yesterday - feels like they compromised massively on the full desktop experience for the sake of compatibility with touch-based and netbook devices. I'll give it a week or so though; no-one likes change, and it's impossible to make any significant UI change without hoares of angry and confused users foaming at the mouth until they get their bearings.

[deleted]

Re: Natty Narwhal with Unity: Worst Ubuntu beta ever

#16

Post by hasenj »

Completely disagree.

I've been using Unity for a while now, it's pretty awesome and much much better than anything (classical) gnome could ever be.

This article sounds like "I've just used OS X for the first time and there's no start menu, instead it has a weird thing that's like a dock or something."

So, no more gnome-panel applets. What's the big deal? Most of them were useless and ugly anyway. And yes, there is a weather indicator application that you can install.

On the other hand, you have a global menu that becomes also a title bar when the window is maximized.

So in Ubuntu 10.10 if you maximize Firefox, you have the following taking up vertical space:

- The top gnome panel

- The title bar

- The menu bar

- (by default) a bottom gnome panel.

With unity, there's only one thing:

- The Unity panel.

It's the panel, title bar, and the menu bar combined into one panel. (there's no bottom panel).

I would never want to go back to the classical gnome desktop.

The Ubuntu button at the top-left is like gnome-do[0] on steroids.

There's honestly nothing from classical gnome that I miss.

Btw, you can drag and drops applications onto the launcher. At least it works when you drag them from the desktop. He's right though, the lense view[1] doesn't let you drag/drop. You've gotta keep in mind though that's not a finished product yet.

Having said that, dealing with application icons in (classical) gnome was never a pleasant experience, so in this sense, Unity doesn't really lose you anything.

[0] gnome-do is a quicksilver clone

[1] That's the new fancy thing that pops up when you click the Ubuntu button on the top-left

Re: Natty Narwhal with Unity: Worst Ubuntu beta ever

#17

Post by marchdown »

andybak wrote: post #13
elehack wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because by some other standards, such as Fitts' Law, it's a good move - it gives the menu infinite vertical size. Also, it is an effective way of conserving vertical screen real estate. With the increasing prevalance of widescreen displays, vertical space is (relatively) scarce. This is particularly true on netbooks, and even on full-size laptops. Merging the menu with the top dock gives you an extra 24 pixels or so…

A couple of years back I switched from Windows to Mac and I can't say I really noticed any downside to the single fixed application menu. The gains due to Fitt's Law however are noticable and I when using a Windows box I find the menus to be annoyingly small click targets. I do miss the discoverability of Windows ALT+letter menu accelerator key presses though.

You might find Cmd+Shift+/ useful then. It allows you type menu commands on keyboard, see where they are in the menu, and discover new functionality.

Re: Natty Narwhal with Unity: Worst Ubuntu beta ever

#19

Post by sid0 »

elehack wrote: post #12
tomjen3 wrote: post #10

A good thing I am on the LTS release then. Unfortunately if they keep the main menu is separate from the window it belongs to (a huge break with the standard usability rule which says that things which belong together should be physically together) I will have to find a new distro. It's the worst move Apple made, why did they copy that?

Because by some other standards, such as Fitts' Law, it's a good move - it gives the menu infinite vertical size. Also, it is an effective way of conserving vertical screen real estate. With the increasing prevalance of widescreen displays, vertical space is (relatively) scarce. This is particularly true on netbooks, and even on full-size laptops. Merging the menu with the top dock gives you an extra 24 pixels or so…

What about applications like Firefox 4 that don't require full-blown menu bars? What about applications that want to try out alternative user interfaces (ribbon etc)? What about multi-monitor setups? What about high-resolution (1080p or higher) monitor setups? What about high-res multi-monitor setups, where you might have to move the mouse over 4000 pixels to get to the menu you're looking for?

Re: Natty Narwhal with Unity: Worst Ubuntu beta ever

#20

Post by owaislone »

metabrew wrote: post #5

I'm running unity since yesterday - feels like they compromised massively on the full desktop experience for the sake of compatibility with touch-based and netbook devices. I'll give it a week or so though; no-one likes change, and it's impossible to make any significant UI change without hoares of angry and confused users foaming at the mouth until they get their bearings.

Yes, they made it very easy to work with touch and small screen devices but I don't see where it limits a full-desktop-experience. Example?
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