This looks like a cool idea, but a search-centric menu system doesn't allow for "discovery" of the item you might be looking for. Sometimes at the end of a long day I might be burnt out and not have in my head exactly what the item I need is called, but my fingers remember how to get to it. This system kind of makes that scenario a bit more difficult.
Ubuntu rips up drop-down menus
21–30 of 69 posts
Re: Ubuntu rips up drop-down menus
#22I got news for you ubuntu, CLIs have been doing that since ever. I wonder how people decide to do things like these: the purpose of a GUI is to do the work faster. Did anyone ever try to measure how much longer it takes to perform something by typing it instead of searching through menus? CLIs make sense when you have thousands of commands available, but a typical application has less than 50 commands available and it makes perfect sense to have them in menus (BTW it's the same reason why restaurants have menus and google doesn't).
How about an alternative: Leave the menus as is, and introduce a global keyboard shortcut that searches menus, a per-application Alt-F2
Re: Ubuntu rips up drop-down menus
#23"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
Yup, immediately reminded me of Jef's son Aza's work on the Enso and Ubiquity projects.
Appears to work well. I think it might be adaptive to some extent in the same way that the Dash is for program names. For instance, typing 'new window' at first produced a list of odd commands, but then after several invocations, the File -> New Window option was listed first.
Trivial example obviously. The activation key is 'alt' at present and appears to be hard wired.
Re: Ubuntu rips up drop-down menus
#24So without a browsable menu, how do I discover what features a program has? Normally that's done by browsing through the menus.
This is what I was thinking too. How would I know it's called "blur"? of course I know now because I've seen it before.
Re: Ubuntu rips up drop-down menus
#25Two things: 1. OS X already does this in the 'Search' option of the Help menu. 2. Menus are a useful way to discover the main features of a program. That is, the user can be in 'browsing' mode, not just 'searching' mode.
I haven't seen the OSX Help menu but I've seen this feature implemented in several other program on Windows and Linux years ago. They don't seem to catch on but I'm not sure why. Maybe it's habit or the fact search seems like more effort or the need to know the exact name for something or that people prefer the 'presence' that menus give to options. Personally I think it's great, as long as there's an option to restore menus so you can 'browse' like you suggest.
Re: Ubuntu rips up drop-down menus
#26So without a browsable menu, how do I discover what features a program has? Normally that's done by browsing through the menus.
I'm hoping by final release that the HUD will include a drill-down menu (like the iPod) or something similar if the search box is blank.
Re: Ubuntu rips up drop-down menus
#27Menus, shortcuts, and command search each have their place. One of the goals should be reducing the frequency of keyboard mouse switches. If I'm using Paint, it would be annoying to type to search for commands; it would be the only time I had to let go of the mouse. It works the other way, too, and such "keyboard-centric" applications will benefit from a fast and easy command search. And no matter what, as many comma…
An interesting thing is that Unity is also trying to be a tablet-friendly interface. Using the keyboard on a tablet is rather cumbersome. HUD looks like a partly desktop-optimized, partly tablet-optimized interface that sits awkwardly in-between.
I'm curious why Canonical thinks it's a good idea to train users to rely on the keyboard to find things. (Ever tried to find a program in Dash?) Despite the rise of the "search" paradigm, keyboard shortcuts, and typing in general, have always been the domain of experienced users and programmers. Ordinary users tend to rely much more on the mouse; they type only when absolutely necessary. In fact, unless the new interface gives them plenty of hints, they'll probably no idea what to type. Wasn't Ubuntu trying to make things easier for ordinary users, even at the expense of power users? Or does the benefit outweigh the potential disadvantages in this case?
Re: Ubuntu rips up drop-down menus
#28> The HUD will be introduced with the next version of Ubuntu, 12.04
> Shuttleworth: "It will be interesting to see how users react to the changes."
Please... this is an LTS release and your users aren't guinea pigs. I would hate to see another potentially promising feature get bad-mouthed all over the place due to premature release. Something like this needs months of usability testing. Couldn't they just wait until 12.10?
Re: Ubuntu rips up drop-down menus
#29As an emacs user with experience with a keyboard based 'hud' system, might I recommend an 'apropos' system for discoverability. =)
Re: Ubuntu rips up drop-down menus
#30As an emacs user with experience with a keyboard based 'hud' system, might I recommend an 'apropos' system for discoverability. =)
Yes, sounds like a re-invention of the shell. No problem with that, but it doesn't really sound all that new, imho.
I mash the tab key in bash all the time for completion when looking for a command, perhaps not as advanced as the 'fuzzing', but handy nonetheless.