6 ms·

I think Ubuntu first needs to brush up on its desktop-ui. There's still many little annoyances. For my use-case (dev + web) it's superior to Windows, but it's

by scrrr 16y ago

I think Ubuntu first needs to brush up on its desktop-ui. There's still many little annoyances. For my use-case (dev + web) it's superior to Windows, but it's no OSX yet. And it wouldn't take that much to make it awesome. Example from 10 Seconds ago: Resizing the browser-window. I had to use ALT + Middle Mousebutton, because otherwise the resize-area in the corner is too small.

ch0wn 16y ago
This seems to be getting worse with each release. I installed Maverick beta yesterday and the resize corner is almost unusable.
patrickaljord 16y ago
> I think Ubuntu first needs to brush up on its desktop-ui. You know a company can work on more than one thing at the time. To stay on topic, this demo looks pretty cool to me.
- antileet 16y ago
  > You know a company can work on more than one thing at the time. I too feel that they need to experiment and push the envelope forward. But Canonical doesn't seem to have _that_ many developers that they can focus on too many items. Of course it's run by some very experienced people, and I'm not one to complain. This seems more like a cool hack which can spawn off an independent community project which might eventually become part of the desktop.
  - pavs 16y ago
    They have a group of designer/developers specifically dedicated to UI development. I remember mark saying that the changes will be incremental over some time as they experiment and get feedback from community not drastic. If you look back in the last 2 Ubuntu releases you will see there has quite a bit of changes here and there, they all add up over time.
ZeroGravitas 16y ago
Is it Chrome? I don't seem to have a resize corner at all in Chrome on Windows. The Firefox/Vimperator on Ubuntu has one, though it's small and not called out clearly.
eitally 16y ago
Agreed, but they also need to work with independent app developers to encourage/ensure consistency. Consider what happened to me yesterday: I was unplugged and wanted to see how my battery was doing. You don't do that via the Power Management console, although that is where you change all of the battery/AC settings. You have to left click the battery icon in the top panel and go to Preferences. Arrrgh.
daflip 16y ago
I find it's actually quicker and easier to move a window this way, compared to the regular "locate right hand corner, drag and release". Although the combo I use is a little easier than yours (I have resizes mapped to super key+left mouse button). I was a solid windows user for many many years and now find myself getting frustrated using it when I have to hunt for the edge of a window. Maybe it's just me ...
thomas11 16y ago
Awesome, I didn't know about Alt-middlemouse to resize, and now I love it :-) Thanks.
acabal 16y ago
If I remember correctly corner resizing has been a bug for something like years (no time to look it up now). It's especially annoying when using a trackpad, but nobody wants to bother to fix it I guess. I can't believe this is something that doesn't annoy a single Canonical developer enough. Edit: November 2007: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/metacity/+bug/160311 https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/metacity/+bug/1603...
- davidw 16y ago
  > I can't believe this is something that doesn't annoy a single Canonical developer enough. The cool thing about open source is that anyone can fix this bug. That said, it's pretty annoying and I wish Canonical would devote some developer time to fixing it. Edit: I don't get the downvote. It really is a beautiful aspect of it: if you need something fixed in a certain way, you can, you are no longer beholden to anyone.
  - acabal 16y ago
    I didn't downvote you, but my perspective on the 'if you want it fixed, do it yourself' thing is this: I've been tinkering with computers for a really long time. I've had some fun times messing around with Linux, tweaking it, getting it set up, etc. But I'm at the time in my life right now where it's no longer fun jumping through 100 hoops to get something working at an acceptable level. I just don't have time to fix it myself. I have my own codebase and business to take care of, and I want my OS to work with minimum fuss without me having to dig into the Metacity codebase and patch things myself. It's very true that anyone can fix it themselves, and it is indeed a beautiful aspect of Linux and OSS. But things like resizing windows should just work at this point, because I don't have the time to mess around anymore.
    - davidw 16y ago
      Things like 'focus follows mouse' that I want will never work on Mac OS, because I cannot tinker with the OS. Clearly, things are better if stuff 'just works', but if you have a critical need that isn't being met, open source at least gives you the possibility to fix it, even if it's "expensive".
duairc 16y ago
Why is that bad though? I find OS X unusable because it doesn't have alt + middleclick to resize.
Pewpewarrows 16y ago
I agree that there are parts of the UI that could use some fixes (I think papercuts is the term people are throwing around these days). But are you kidding me? The Alt+MouseKey combos for moving and resizing windows around is probably one of my favorite features of their desktop interface. The moment a coworker or friend sees me do it they immediately start telling me how "awesome" it is and plead for me to "make it work" on their Windows or Mac PC.

by scrrr 16y ago

ch0wn 16y ago

This seems to be getting worse with each release. I installed Maverick beta yesterday and the resize corner is almost unusable.

patrickaljord 16y ago

> I think Ubuntu first needs to brush up on its desktop-ui. You know a company can work on more than one thing at the time. To stay on topic, this demo looks pretty cool to me.

antileet 16y ago
> You know a company can work on more than one thing at the time. I too feel that they need to experiment and push the envelope forward. But Canonical doesn't seem to have _that_ many developers that they can focus on too many items. Of course it's run by some very experienced people, and I'm not one to complain. This seems more like a cool hack which can spawn off an independent community project which might eventually become part of the desktop.
- pavs 16y ago
  They have a group of designer/developers specifically dedicated to UI development. I remember mark saying that the changes will be incremental over some time as they experiment and get feedback from community not drastic. If you look back in the last 2 Ubuntu releases you will see there has quite a bit of changes here and there, they all add up over time.

ZeroGravitas 16y ago

Is it Chrome? I don't seem to have a resize corner at all in Chrome on Windows. The Firefox/Vimperator on Ubuntu has one, though it's small and not called out clearly.

eitally 16y ago

Agreed, but they also need to work with independent app developers to encourage/ensure consistency. Consider what happened to me yesterday: I was unplugged and wanted to see how my battery was doing. You don't do that via the Power Management console, although that is where you change all of the battery/AC settings. You have to left click the battery icon in the top panel and go to Preferences. Arrrgh.

daflip 16y ago

I find it's actually quicker and easier to move a window this way, compared to the regular "locate right hand corner, drag and release". Although the combo I use is a little easier than yours (I have resizes mapped to super key+left mouse button). I was a solid windows user for many many years and now find myself getting frustrated using it when I have to hunt for the edge of a window. Maybe it's just me ...

thomas11 16y ago

Awesome, I didn't know about Alt-middlemouse to resize, and now I love it :-) Thanks.

acabal 16y ago

If I remember correctly corner resizing has been a bug for something like years (no time to look it up now). It's especially annoying when using a trackpad, but nobody wants to bother to fix it I guess. I can't believe this is something that doesn't annoy a single Canonical developer enough. Edit: November 2007: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/metacity/+bug/160311 https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/metacity/+bug/1603...

davidw 16y ago
> I can't believe this is something that doesn't annoy a single Canonical developer enough. The cool thing about open source is that anyone can fix this bug. That said, it's pretty annoying and I wish Canonical would devote some developer time to fixing it. Edit: I don't get the downvote. It really is a beautiful aspect of it: if you need something fixed in a certain way, you can, you are no longer beholden to anyone.
- acabal 16y ago
  I didn't downvote you, but my perspective on the 'if you want it fixed, do it yourself' thing is this: I've been tinkering with computers for a really long time. I've had some fun times messing around with Linux, tweaking it, getting it set up, etc. But I'm at the time in my life right now where it's no longer fun jumping through 100 hoops to get something working at an acceptable level. I just don't have time to fix it myself. I have my own codebase and business to take care of, and I want my OS to work with minimum fuss without me having to dig into the Metacity codebase and patch things myself. It's very true that anyone can fix it themselves, and it is indeed a beautiful aspect of Linux and OSS. But things like resizing windows should just work at this point, because I don't have the time to mess around anymore.
  - davidw 16y ago
    Things like 'focus follows mouse' that I want will never work on Mac OS, because I cannot tinker with the OS. Clearly, things are better if stuff 'just works', but if you have a critical need that isn't being met, open source at least gives you the possibility to fix it, even if it's "expensive".

duairc 16y ago

Why is that bad though? I find OS X unusable because it doesn't have alt + middleclick to resize.

Pewpewarrows 16y ago

I agree that there are parts of the UI that could use some fixes (I think papercuts is the term people are throwing around these days). But are you kidding me? The Alt+MouseKey combos for moving and resizing windows around is probably one of my favorite features of their desktop interface. The moment a coworker or friend sees me do it they immediately start telling me how "awesome" it is and plead for me to "make it work" on their Windows or Mac PC.