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Ask HN: What would you like to see in Ubuntu 11.10, Oneiric Ocelot?

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Re: Ask HN: What would you like to see in Ubuntu 11.10, Oneiric Ocelot?

#111

Post by mhw »

In portable systems (laptops and netbooks) the system should be able to work out its location from things like visible WiFi SSIDs and other onboard hardware. This would enable a few cool things:

* Tell the user that their normal WiFi router is probably turned off if it's SSID is not visible while others previously observed in the same location are present.

* Adjust settings based on location: When my laptop is in the office at work, I typically want the sound muted and the lockscreen active. When it's at home I want the sound turned up and the lockscreen disabled.

Re: Ask HN: What would you like to see in Ubuntu 11.10, Oneiric Ocelot?

#112

Post by rubergly »

tejota wrote: post #94
bluedanieru wrote: post #23

How about increasing the width at the edge of a window where it allows you to resize it to something other than a single pixel? That's one of my biggest usability gripes, at least for something that seems so obvious and easy to fix. It's possible it's already been fixed (I use Lucid), in which case disregard. But I would upgrade for that alone.

I feel your pain. While they fix it I found that doing 'ALT+SPACE' and then pressing 'R' helped me a bit. But yeah, three keys for something that should be intuitive..

I've always had to resort to right-clicking the title bar and hitting "Resize"; this shortcut to do the same thing is very helpful.

But I agree with everyone else in that it shouldn't be necessary to go through this just to resize windows, but I've always blamed myself for not learning awesome.

Re: Ask HN: What would you like to see in Ubuntu 11.10, Oneiric Ocelot?

#113

Post by recoiledsnake »

seabee wrote: post #91
phatbyte wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please, not the windows guidelines..pleaseeeee :X

What is wrong with the Windows guidelines?

I guess some people last Windows exposure was Windows ME. That would explain a lot of comments in these parts.

Re: Ask HN: What would you like to see in Ubuntu 11.10, Oneiric Ocelot?

#114

Post by nekoZonbi »

I use ubuntu as my main OS, for development and 2D/3D graphics design.

Really like what I have seen of unity.

A small detail: I don't like the drums and the jungle default sound effects, when starting ubuntu. Windows & apple are far better in this regard.

In applications, I don't like plain text menus. I think it would be a great idea, to add a some by default way, in wich all the applications plain text menus could be collapsed inside an icon, like in firefox4 or google chrome.

As always, make the default theme to look brilliant.

Ubuntu is great, just keep the awesome work.

Re: Ask HN: What would you like to see in Ubuntu 11.10, Oneiric Ocelot?

#115

Post by woodson »

scrrr wrote: post #43

ok some quick thoughts, theres probably more but im not currently on ubuntu: Please fix small annoyances in the GUI: - make window movement and (more importantly) _resizing_ easier. - add some sort of window-snapping-feature (like win7 or osx) - fix colors in context menus (if i open the skype context menu in 10.10 i see black font on black bg, or brown whatever) - make widgets generally better looking. they are look…

> - make window movement and (more importantly) _resizing_ easier.

Alt+left (move)/middle (resize) mouse button. I'm not aware of any easier/more comfortable alternative in other distros/OSs.

Re: Ask HN: What would you like to see in Ubuntu 11.10, Oneiric Ocelot?

#116

Post by Sindisil »

I use Ubuntu (10.10) almost full time on my personal machines, and am part of a movement toward Ubuntu at my day job (from RHEL5.1), where I use Linux between 25 & 100 percent of the time, depending upon the projects I'm working on in a given period.

10.10 is most of the way there, and, if all the panels and launchers properly auto-hide in 11.4, I have hope that it will only add polish. Great job so far!

That said, I have a gripes and wishes (which I may post about later, if I have time), but my single greatest annoyance is quite simple really: the window manager has no option to keep focus from being stolen.

I know that both Gnome and Canonical are allergic to options, which is indeed the best default stance from a UX standpoint. However, this is right up there with mouse activated window focus behavior, which you do have an option for.

Especially on my netbook, where I'm running many apps full screen and process startup is relatively slow, I rage every time I start a couple programs, start working in the first that comes up, then get pulled away to some f'ing trivial dialog in the next, losing keystrokes. Worse, occasionally dismissing a dialog I didn't intend to.

I know that apps can be written to be less rude, but part of the beauty of *nix windowing is that the window manager gets the final say, so even rude apps can, at best, whine a bit (i.e. blink their window header and/or their button in the window list panel widget.

Re: Ask HN: What would you like to see in Ubuntu 11.10, Oneiric Ocelot?

#117

Post by h00k »

I use Ubuntu every day, both at home on my laptop, netbook, and at work for an IT consulting company.

I have family using Ubuntu (it makes support a hell of a lot easier), and yes, I'm one of those, "My grandma uses Ubuntu," guys.

I have a small, spattered list of some things:

At the office, I am familiar with our Microsoft Exchange 2007 settings. I am still unable to get Exchange support using Evolution outside of our work network. I forget what the exact (incorrect) version error was, haven't played with that since Maverick's release, but is holding me back from true Exchange support. I think Evolution needs a little love. I saw that some bugs were reported upstream, but it didn't seem like they were being taken care of.

Consistent Quit/Close/Applications-that-minimize-to-tray is something, from my understanding, that has to be taken care of per-application, but it would be nice to have it consistent with what minimized to where. Currently, on Unity, closing Skype sends it to the tray, which isn't visible in the indicators. I have to either remember to minimize it and not close it, or throw it on a different workspace.

Of course, Windicators are something I'm looking forward to.

Also, I don't know that a Terminal Server Client (currently TSClient, but I read somewhere Remmina was going to take over, wooo!) is completely necessary on a default install. For an everyday user, they might not need to connect to a Windows RDP or anything else via VNC. No, it's not a large package to have on a default install, but I'm not certain that it's required for mainstream, everyday use (You know, similar to reasoning behind Gimp).

Perhaps there's something of substance here that may help.

Thanks for the hard work, and I'm excited to see the next release, and I'll (as always) be sure to run the bleeding-edge and report bugs as necessary.

Re: Ask HN: What would you like to see in Ubuntu 11.10, Oneiric Ocelot?

#118

Post by [deleted] »

h00k wrote: post #117

I use Ubuntu every day, both at home on my laptop, netbook, and at work for an IT consulting company. I have family using Ubuntu (it makes support a hell of a lot easier), and yes, I'm one of those, "My grandma uses Ubuntu," guys. I have a small, spattered list of some things: At the office, I am familiar with our Microsoft Exchange 2007 settings. I am still unable to get Exchange support using Evolution outside of o…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: What would you like to see in Ubuntu 11.10, Oneiric Ocelot?

#119

Post by recoiledsnake »

kolektiv wrote: post #15

At the risk of being horribly down-voted, I'm going to say that I'd like it to "not look like crap". Unfair with no information, so here's some (of opinion form). If I look at the screenshots for 10.10 (let's take a tiny example, I could pick on many - http://www.howtogeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/sshot23.... ), the general quality of finish on UI chrome and layout is shocking. The inconsistencies, poor spacing…

I agree... there's a jarring effect everytime I run Gnome. Especially due to the fonts and the excessive spacing(on things like buttons) around text.. feeling like a lot of screen space wasted without gaining anything in return.

Maybe I am too used to the other OSes but font rendering always seem weird. Eg. See the screenshot here http://lh5.ggpht.com/mihaiolimpiu/SQh2WqXOQaI/AAAAAAAAASQ/mH...

The fonts seem stretched horizontally. I always get the feeling, even in the new versions. Maybe it's just me. As a sidenote see how the column headings are cut off in the Deluge windows.

I was told a few years ago that this was because of patents on TrueType fonts etc and copyrighted fonts. Is this still the case?

Re: Ask HN: What would you like to see in Ubuntu 11.10, Oneiric Ocelot?

#120

Post by rufugee »

Desktop sharing with Compiz enabled. Currently you can share an Ubuntu desktop (System->Preferences->Remote Desktop) easily, but viewing these shared desktops doesn't work with any of the regular VNC clients (vinagre, xtightvncviewer, etc) if Compiz is enabled...which on most Ubuntu desktops is true by default. This leads to a confusing experience for the non-technical user.
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