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kef writes "According to a blog post from the Unity desktop team, Ubuntu 14.04 will move the application menus back into the application windows, starting in Unity 7. Spread improvements, HighDPI support, new decorations, and the usual bug-fixes are also making it into the new LTS release. Is Unity starting to grow up?"
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Locally Integrated Menus Arriving in Ubuntu 14.04
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I'm not a robot like you. I don't like having disks crammed into me... unless they're Oreos, and then only in the mouth.
-- Fry
(Score: 5, Insightful) by keplr on Sunday February 23 2014, @02:16AM
I like Ubuntu because it's as close to my preferred OS (OS X) as I can get with Linux. There won't be anything keeping me there any more after this release. I might as well use Fedora or Debian with XFCE. If my DE can't be functional it might as well be lightweight.
I wish they'd stop changing UI paradigms with every release. I actually like the global menu. It saves vertical space, and is always accessible in the same place. It's also not possible to overshoot because it exists along a screen edge. I just wish they hadn't made a lot of stupid changes just to make sure it didn't look *exactly* like OS X; hiding the menu until you hover over it, putting the close max and min buttons in the menu bar. Apple did it right. Just copy that.
They're just making changes to make sure that it's unique, ignoring the fact that sometimes your competitors have hit on the one objectively correct way to do a certain thing. There's nothing wrong in copying sufficiently basic UI elements.
(Score: 4, Funny) by mrbluze on Sunday February 23 2014, @02:43AM
Apple did some things really badly, like their task switching *puke* or their file manager *puke*, but otherwise yeah apple stuff is shiny.
Do it yourself, 'cause no one else will do it yourself.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by dacut on Sunday February 23 2014, @02:43AM
I'm typing this on a MacBook running Mint in a VM under Mac OS, so I get a bit of exposure to both constantly. I'm mixed on the global menu; it worked quite well on smaller screens, but has become a pain on larger ones (constantly mousing around to get to the menu).
That said, the constant UI change in Ubuntu releases is damn annoying. It's like the Office group at Microsoft: they've got nothing left to innovate, so they just throw a new, experimental UI into each release. For a power user, it's annoying -- giving up on muscle memory whenever I have to work at a different workstation, for instance. For novice users in a business environment, it's often work-stopping: the training/howto/help documents others have written up are now obsolete because you can't figure out where the menu the docs are talking about have moved off to.
If all of our documents were controlled and synced in step with OS/application release cycles, this wouldn't be an issue. however, I don't work for the DoD/Boeing/NASA, we have tens of thousands of users in hundreds of business units, each with their own schedules, priorities, etc., and the internal Wiki is often the best guidance one can get. I suspect our "model" is hardly unique.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by forkazoo on Sunday February 23 2014, @07:24PM
So much this. Personally, I don't have a very strong feeling about where the menus belong. I've used both systems to good effect, but the meandering decision making process at Ubuntu seems to be the more interesting part of the story than where the menue goes on screen. It is, in a sense, the anti-Steve-Jobs method of design. Which is to say, the Steve Jobs method of design is to have somebody at the top who has a clear, firm vision in his head of exactly what he wants. He will then keep a project under wraps for as long as it takes to implement his idea, or to disprove his idea and implement another one. All the while, not even admitting the thr project even exists.
To the contrary, the Ubuntu method seems almost intentionally focused on churn of things that users see. Utterly lacking in a Fearless Leader, Ubuntu's goal is to throw as many ideas out into the universe as possible, and then see what sticks, and how people react. In effect, the whole user base is one giant design testing lab. Which is infuriating to the users, but theoretically means that more resources are brought to bear on the idea of iterating the design, which could result in a better product in the long term.
I've always said that you really need a Fearless Leader to drive things like UI design, but I am starting to wonder if the Ubuntu model of Try Everything really might eventually work. Unfortunately, I really don't get the sense that Ubuntu *understands* that this is what they are doing, and in each case just seems convinced that the new version is better than the old version, thanks to some sort of internal echo chamber effect. If they really wanted to take advantage of the ultimate version of this, I feel like they would be randomising some settings on each release, tracking metrics on common tasks and uploading UX data back to the mothership. If they had data as a result of confusing the users, it might actually be worth it...
(Score: 1) by Geotti on Sunday February 23 2014, @08:10PM
Why use the mouse? CTRL + F2 for the left part of the menu, CTRL + F8 for the menubar, then arrow keys to navigate (if you switched the Fn key to the proper mode, i.e. "Use all F1, F2, etc. keys as standard function keys" in "System Preferences -> Keyboard -> Keyboard" is checked).
(Score: 5, Informative) by sharky on Sunday February 23 2014, @03:00AM
Did you watch the video in TFA? It's an option to turn global menus back to local menus. I imagine you can still keep it like you like...
(Score: 4, Interesting) by hubie on Sunday February 23 2014, @03:05AM
Why switch your whole distro? Can't you just install a new desktop/WM?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by keplr on Sunday February 23 2014, @03:12AM
I might as well clean house and get rid of all the extra cruft a vanilla Ubuntu install pulls in. I don't need Ubuntu One or any of that Amazon crap, for example. I've been considering switching to a more technically "correct" distro like Debian for a while anyway. I just liked how Ubuntu had everything working by default (Flash, AV codecs, proper font rendering, compositing, et al).
(Score: 4, Informative) by Koen on Sunday February 23 2014, @09:41AM
Since you're considering going for XFCE, you might like Xubuntu: it does not have Ubuntu One (but it can be installed) nor the Amazon crap, but it still has what you liked about Ubuntu.
/. refugees on Usenet: comp.misc [comp.misc]
(Score: 1) by useless on Sunday February 23 2014, @12:38PM
I would highly recommend cleaning house, just from personal experience. I had gotten lazy and just installed Ubuntu, thinking that I didn't want to spend all the extra time installing/configuring crap to get my laptop features working. After a while, the Ubuntu-y things started to annoy me more and more, my battery life/system response was shit, and that damn orange color they use everywhere is just ugly. It got to the point where I stopped using the damn thing and switched to an Android tablet w/ keyboard dock.
Then I found myself with a free weekend, so I blew everything away and started over with a light weight Debian derivative that included non-free packages on install (I picked SparkyLinux because I have a long love affair with E, but any should work). To my surprise, not only did everything "just work" out of the box, battery life went up drastically (roughly by half), workflow improved, and I'm generally more happy. All that, and it took much less time (a couple hours) to install/setup than with Ubuntu. Haven't touched the tablet since.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by akinliat on Sunday February 23 2014, @02:58PM
Of course, the really sad part of it all is that you used to be able (with Gnome 1 and sawfish) to simply check a box and switch between global or local menus. Not to mention a whole host of other choices (like virtual desktop layouts and edge-flipping) that have been taken away for your own good.
I sometimes wonder if being a jerk is a prerequisite to coding for the Gnome project.
(Score: 1) by NickM on Sunday February 23 2014, @04:25PM