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Locally Integrated Menus Arriving in Ubuntu 14.04

posted by Dopefish on Sunday February 23 2014, @02:00AM   Printer-friendly
from the community-feedback-at-work dept.
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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  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by dacut on Sunday February 23 2014, @02:43AM

    by dacut (1766) on Sunday February 23 2014, @02:43AM (#5101) Homepage

    I wish they'd stop changing UI paradigms with every release. I actually like the global menu. [...]

    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.

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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by forkazoo on Sunday February 23 2014, @07:24PM

    by forkazoo (2561) on Sunday February 23 2014, @07:24PM (#5365)

    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.

    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

    by Geotti (1146) on Sunday February 23 2014, @08:10PM (#5388)

    it worked quite well on smaller screens, but has become a pain on larger ones (constantly mousing around to get to the menu).

    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).