8 ms·

With wide screens, there is a scarcity of vertical screen space, especially on netbooks. Windows 7 actually solves this problem best; I can move the task bar o

by drblast 16y ago

With wide screens, there is a scarcity of vertical screen space, especially on netbooks. Windows 7 actually solves this problem best; I can move the task bar over to the right and have the full screen height for applications. Windows XP had the nice benefit of the application buttons' text being horizontal so a wide start bar on the left or right could list about 15-20 open applications without cropping the application name. Even though they're going to a side bar, moving the top bar in Ubuntu out of the way results in ugly, buggy wierdness. I'd imagine it's impossible to move the menu bar in Mac OS X, but since there's no Mac netbook, it's probably not a problem.

tommorris 16y ago
You can have the Mac dock on the bottom, left or right. And you can have it so it slides away when not in use. And the new MacBook Air 11" is close to a netbook...
- hogu 16y ago
  yes, but you still loose the top to that menu bar
  - rbanffy 16y ago
    Doesn't Windows 7 have menu bars on every window?
    - vito 16y ago
      This is one thing that I'm very glad Unity does - it removes those menubars and has a global menu like OS X. Saves so much screen space.
      - rbanffy 16y ago
        I think the global menu would be a huge nuisance on a multihead setting.
        bilban 16y ago
        I was looking at the notification-osd guidelines yesterday. And in it there was an idea of your notifications moving to the screen that is selected. The way they determined this was a bit odd. I'd certainly want to change where they appeared. And I'd like a CLI equivalent, but I digress. I abandoned multi-monitors in the end, because I got sick to death of the lack of keyboard control and the unpredictable nature of applications in that environment. Too many assumptions, like me having both monitors turned on. I'd rather think in workspaces, and be able to group apps to a workspace, or shift the menus easily to the one I was using. I'm sure there are ways around it.
        calloc 16y ago
        Personally the amount of times I need to use a menu and thus need to go up to the top menu bar are slim to none. Mostly when hunting for some option in Preview. Ultimately I am a command line user overall, so keyboard shortcuts and commands are my bread and butter. I can't remember the last time I really needed the menu bar for something, so even on my dual monitor (laptop, and external screen) MacBook Pro I really don't care where the menu bar is located.
      - bilban 16y ago
        I prefer the way Apple does the UI. I tried the netbook release 10.04 for a week on older hardware; in the end, I felt like I had to jump through another hurdle to get to an application - what I mean is that it was a two step process through the global menu. Dialogues end up a bit messy. It felt half way there - I'm glad though that Ubuntu are at least trying something different. I removed my top panel by accident in Gnome yesterday, and was thinking about abandoning it, but I placed it back, mainly for the date and time and system resources widget thing - that I like to keep an eye on in case XYZ app gets out of control. Notification icons are useful, but they should complement proper applications. How do you select wireless networks in Gnome without the wireless icon thing? I'm one of those that starts to flail if I can't do it on the command line, let alone some system menu.
      - pyre 16y ago
        IIRC, it's long been possible to patch GNOME/Gtk to do this (and such patches exist).
    - sid0 16y ago
      No. Explorer, IE, Firefox (4), Chrome, Office, Windows Live foo... none of them have menu bars.
    - hogu 16y ago
      I don't know, I use XP at work and linux for everything else. My complaint is that there's the menu bar AND there's the dock the combination really takes up alot of screen real estate I personally use awesome WM one status bar at the top, no window decorators, maximum screen real estate for apps ( I'm also using an 11.6'' laptop)
  - rimantas 16y ago
    Apple started to push for full screen apps as shown in OS X 10.7 "Lion" preview.
    - bilban 16y ago
      That's interesting, but for me a web browser only needs a width of about 80 characters! Apple owners probably have high resolution large monitors, so it would just look silly.
      - thenduks 16y ago
        Indeed. They are pushing full screen apps where it makes sense for them to be full screen (iPhoto, video editing stuff, etc) not everywhere. Web browsers, like you pointed out, along with stuff like: iTunes, terminals, text editors, ftp clients, cd burning apps, etc all would be pretty silly full screen.
        runjake 16y ago
        iTunes and Terminal are the top apps that come to mind that I wish I could full screen ala Lion. Outlook 2011 and the iWorks apps, too.
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
akent 16y ago
"results in ugly, buggy weirdness" <--- care to elaborate? I've happily been removing the top bar in Gnome for many consecutive Ubuntu releases without problems?
- Tichy 16y ago
  Same here, removing the top bar is always the first thing I do on a fresh install.
- drblast 16y ago
  Sure I'll elaborate. By the way, if you have any way to fix these problems via configuration, please let me know. Minor complaint: the default theme is a fixed-pixel gradient that doesn't rotate when you move the bar to the right, so the vertical bar looks like closed venetian blinds. I can change the theme, but the default should be better. Bigger complaints: The status icons and notification area don't rotate and/or crop themselves so you can't access most of the important icons. The application buttons DO rotate the text 90 degrees, but (my preference at least) they should be the only thing that doesn't rotate. The problem with horizontal application buttons is you quickly run out of space; I move the task bar vertical to eliminate that problem -- this is a problem with Gnome's implementation, not Ubuntu. I'd be happy to remove the top bar, but a lot of functionality (wireless configuration menus) is difficult or impossible to access without it. I normally have the terminal, browser, and emacs set to hotkeys as F1, F2, and F3, so I don't need an application menu other than to start apps I use infrequently. A context menu would be sufficient. Perfect world: What I'd really like is a blank screen with some method of seeing running applications that remains hidden most of the time, and a way to easily start applications, see wireless config, and log out. The last desktop I had that worked exactly the way I wanted it was FVWM, where everything was accessed via hotkeys and root window context menus. Unfortunately a lot of the niceness of Gnome, like the wireless config stuff, battery notifications, auto-mounting of USB Drives, and status icons you'd typically expect are dependent on using the Gnome/Nautilus interface. (At least I think that's the case.) I'd probably be happy with FVWM again if using it didn't mean abandoning all the configuration apps and automation that Gnome provides. Right now, I'd have to log in to FVWM, and start a bunch of scripts to configure wireless, start the 50,000 daemons that make Gnome run like a modern UI, etc. It's a lot of work to go through to reclaim 42 pixels from the top of my screen.
prakashk 16y ago
> Windows 7 actually solves this problem best; I can move the task bar over to the right and have the full screen height for applications. I have done this -- moving the taskbar (in my case Gnome Panel) -- to the right for many years. I don't think this is not something of a Windows 7 innovation. > [...] moving the top bar in Ubuntu out of the way results in ugly, buggy wierdness. Please explain what you mean. As I said, I have done this for many years in Gnome, and it's just fine.
- llogiq 16y ago
  On my netbook I set the menu bar to hide and set it up to have the same height as the window title bar. This solves both problems (at least for me): a) no vertical screen clutter, b) no unfamilar menubar on the right screen border. I used to run gentoo w/ ratpoison which had an even better solution and dispersed with the panel altogether...
rbanffy 16y ago
> Windows 7 actually solves this problem best; I can move the task bar over to the right and have the full screen height for applications. IIRC, Windows 95 allowed you to drag the taskbar anywhere you wanted it. On Windows, every app has a menu, so you still have some screen real estate devoted to a menu, negating the advantage of not having a top menu bar.
- sid0 16y ago
  On Windows, every app has a menu No. Lots of applications don't have menus.
calloc 16y ago
You may not be able to move the top bar, but that is not an issue since that is the menu bar, doesn't matter where on the screen it is located it is going to take up space, might as well be in a central location. That being said, the Dock in OS X can also be positioned on either the left or the right side of the screen as well as at the bottom where it has always been. Not being able to move the menu bar is not an issue.

by drblast 16y ago

tommorris 16y ago

You can have the Mac dock on the bottom, left or right. And you can have it so it slides away when not in use. And the new MacBook Air 11" is close to a netbook...

hogu 16y ago
yes, but you still loose the top to that menu bar
- rbanffy 16y ago
  Doesn't Windows 7 have menu bars on every window?
  - vito 16y ago
    This is one thing that I'm very glad Unity does - it removes those menubars and has a global menu like OS X. Saves so much screen space.
    - rbanffy 16y ago
      I think the global menu would be a huge nuisance on a multihead setting.
      - bilban 16y ago
        I was looking at the notification-osd guidelines yesterday. And in it there was an idea of your notifications moving to the screen that is selected. The way they determined this was a bit odd. I'd certainly want to change where they appeared. And I'd like a CLI equivalent, but I digress. I abandoned multi-monitors in the end, because I got sick to death of the lack of keyboard control and the unpredictable nature of applications in that environment. Too many assumptions, like me having both monitors turned on. I'd rather think in workspaces, and be able to group apps to a workspace, or shift the menus easily to the one I was using. I'm sure there are ways around it.
      - calloc 16y ago
        Personally the amount of times I need to use a menu and thus need to go up to the top menu bar are slim to none. Mostly when hunting for some option in Preview. Ultimately I am a command line user overall, so keyboard shortcuts and commands are my bread and butter. I can't remember the last time I really needed the menu bar for something, so even on my dual monitor (laptop, and external screen) MacBook Pro I really don't care where the menu bar is located.
    - bilban 16y ago
      I prefer the way Apple does the UI. I tried the netbook release 10.04 for a week on older hardware; in the end, I felt like I had to jump through another hurdle to get to an application - what I mean is that it was a two step process through the global menu. Dialogues end up a bit messy. It felt half way there - I'm glad though that Ubuntu are at least trying something different. I removed my top panel by accident in Gnome yesterday, and was thinking about abandoning it, but I placed it back, mainly for the date and time and system resources widget thing - that I like to keep an eye on in case XYZ app gets out of control. Notification icons are useful, but they should complement proper applications. How do you select wireless networks in Gnome without the wireless icon thing? I'm one of those that starts to flail if I can't do it on the command line, let alone some system menu.
    - pyre 16y ago
      IIRC, it's long been possible to patch GNOME/Gtk to do this (and such patches exist).
  - sid0 16y ago
    No. Explorer, IE, Firefox (4), Chrome, Office, Windows Live foo... none of them have menu bars.
  - hogu 16y ago
    I don't know, I use XP at work and linux for everything else. My complaint is that there's the menu bar AND there's the dock the combination really takes up alot of screen real estate I personally use awesome WM one status bar at the top, no window decorators, maximum screen real estate for apps ( I'm also using an 11.6'' laptop)
- rimantas 16y ago
  Apple started to push for full screen apps as shown in OS X 10.7 "Lion" preview.
  - bilban 16y ago
    That's interesting, but for me a web browser only needs a width of about 80 characters! Apple owners probably have high resolution large monitors, so it would just look silly.
    - thenduks 16y ago
      Indeed. They are pushing full screen apps where it makes sense for them to be full screen (iPhoto, video editing stuff, etc) not everywhere. Web browsers, like you pointed out, along with stuff like: iTunes, terminals, text editors, ftp clients, cd burning apps, etc all would be pretty silly full screen.
      - runjake 16y ago
        iTunes and Terminal are the top apps that come to mind that I wish I could full screen ala Lion. Outlook 2011 and the iWorks apps, too.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]

akent 16y ago

"results in ugly, buggy weirdness" <--- care to elaborate? I've happily been removing the top bar in Gnome for many consecutive Ubuntu releases without problems?

Tichy 16y ago
Same here, removing the top bar is always the first thing I do on a fresh install.
drblast 16y ago
Sure I'll elaborate. By the way, if you have any way to fix these problems via configuration, please let me know. Minor complaint: the default theme is a fixed-pixel gradient that doesn't rotate when you move the bar to the right, so the vertical bar looks like closed venetian blinds. I can change the theme, but the default should be better. Bigger complaints: The status icons and notification area don't rotate and/or crop themselves so you can't access most of the important icons. The application buttons DO rotate the text 90 degrees, but (my preference at least) they should be the only thing that doesn't rotate. The problem with horizontal application buttons is you quickly run out of space; I move the task bar vertical to eliminate that problem -- this is a problem with Gnome's implementation, not Ubuntu. I'd be happy to remove the top bar, but a lot of functionality (wireless configuration menus) is difficult or impossible to access without it. I normally have the terminal, browser, and emacs set to hotkeys as F1, F2, and F3, so I don't need an application menu other than to start apps I use infrequently. A context menu would be sufficient. Perfect world: What I'd really like is a blank screen with some method of seeing running applications that remains hidden most of the time, and a way to easily start applications, see wireless config, and log out. The last desktop I had that worked exactly the way I wanted it was FVWM, where everything was accessed via hotkeys and root window context menus. Unfortunately a lot of the niceness of Gnome, like the wireless config stuff, battery notifications, auto-mounting of USB Drives, and status icons you'd typically expect are dependent on using the Gnome/Nautilus interface. (At least I think that's the case.) I'd probably be happy with FVWM again if using it didn't mean abandoning all the configuration apps and automation that Gnome provides. Right now, I'd have to log in to FVWM, and start a bunch of scripts to configure wireless, start the 50,000 daemons that make Gnome run like a modern UI, etc. It's a lot of work to go through to reclaim 42 pixels from the top of my screen.

prakashk 16y ago

> Windows 7 actually solves this problem best; I can move the task bar over to the right and have the full screen height for applications. I have done this -- moving the taskbar (in my case Gnome Panel) -- to the right for many years. I don't think this is not something of a Windows 7 innovation. > [...] moving the top bar in Ubuntu out of the way results in ugly, buggy wierdness. Please explain what you mean. As I said, I have done this for many years in Gnome, and it's just fine.

llogiq 16y ago
On my netbook I set the menu bar to hide and set it up to have the same height as the window title bar. This solves both problems (at least for me): a) no vertical screen clutter, b) no unfamilar menubar on the right screen border. I used to run gentoo w/ ratpoison which had an even better solution and dispersed with the panel altogether...

rbanffy 16y ago

> Windows 7 actually solves this problem best; I can move the task bar over to the right and have the full screen height for applications. IIRC, Windows 95 allowed you to drag the taskbar anywhere you wanted it. On Windows, every app has a menu, so you still have some screen real estate devoted to a menu, negating the advantage of not having a top menu bar.

sid0 16y ago
On Windows, every app has a menu No. Lots of applications don't have menus.

calloc 16y ago

You may not be able to move the top bar, but that is not an issue since that is the menu bar, doesn't matter where on the screen it is located it is going to take up space, might as well be in a central location. That being said, the Dock in OS X can also be positioned on either the left or the right side of the screen as well as at the bottom where it has always been. Not being able to move the menu bar is not an issue.