Ubuntu rips up drop-down menus
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Ubuntu rips up drop-down menus
1–10 of 69 posts
Re: Ubuntu rips up drop-down menus
#2Assuming this is what is in the latest Ubuntu 11 The thing I found the worst about this interface was how slow it was in operation.
I don't know if it's iterating a directory of softlinks or an SQLite database but it was slowww on two computers I use that run Windows 7 well.
And before in case you question my love of Linux.. my solution was to boot into Fluxbox.
Re: Ubuntu rips up drop-down menus
#3I haven't tried this myself but it definitely sounds like a great idea. Very similar to the purposes of Quicksilver, Alfred, or Launchy. Only instead of searching for applications, you're searching for functions within an application.
Re: Ubuntu rips up drop-down menus
#4Assuming this is what is in the latest Ubuntu 11 The thing I found the worst about this interface was how slow it was in operation. I don't know if it's iterating a directory of softlinks or an SQLite database but it was slowww on two computers I use that run Windows 7 well. And before in case you question my love of Linux.. my solution was to boot into Fluxbox.
This feature will be new for Ubuntu 12.04 (it is not in 11.10).
Re: Ubuntu rips up drop-down menus
#5This is a great start, but I hope it goes so much further. I always liked the (now defunct) Ubiquity project. Here's the first video they made, it's so ambitious! http://vimeo.com/1561578 You could bring up a browser command-line and start typing the name of a command, say "map" to look something up on Google Maps. As soon as you type 'm' it would give a list of autocomplete options. The internationalized parser had a concept of subjects, verbs, and objects, and could autocomplete or even guess some of them.
But the coolest part was how you could add functionality. The framework let you write new commands that interacted well with the parser and gave hints to the autocomplete, and even custom UI with HTML & JS. And then users could subscribe to your commands. Ubiquity would cache the code and periodically, seamlessly upgrade your browser with new versions of the commands you subscribed to.
I was very sad when they discontinued development, and Unity looks like an excellent place to put these ideas to work again.
Re: Ubuntu rips up drop-down menus
#6"Instead of hunting through drop-down menus to find application commands, Ubuntu’s Head-Up Display lets users type what they want to do into a search box."
Do I detect a touch of Jef Raskin's idea of typeable commands here as well? I'll have to re-vist his The Humane Interface
Bring it on I say
Re: Ubuntu rips up drop-down menus
#7I like the idea of an intelligent command line interface. Hopefully it is intuitive enough as well.
Re: Ubuntu rips up drop-down menus
#8I always wished the kind of mouse+command line interface found in AutoCAD existed for more applications. This seems like an nice step in that direction.
Re: Ubuntu rips up drop-down menus
#9Allowing searching of context menus is a great idea, hopefully this extends to all parts of the UI and will work with Java applications as well (I'm always getting lost in the eclipse settings menus).
Removing context menus altogether though? Navigating around the application using ALT + is much quicker than bringing up a search and typing a full word in and then navigating to the second or third option down.
The only other alternative would be to add keyboard shortcuts to absolutely every feature in every application.
Re: Ubuntu rips up drop-down menus
#10This sounds a lot like the 'Help' menu in OS X 10.5+, one of the best "details" of Mac OS ever. I apply radial blurs in Photoshop exactly that way. Click 'Help', type "radi", enter.
Also great to find your way around after an upgrade to Xcode 4. I even used it in TextMate until I found out about cmd+ctrl+T. Only Eclipse had (has?) broke it, of course...
It doesn't learn, though.