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A thing I don't like about Unity are the context-menus. When your application is fullscreen they are ok, but when your window is smaller it's strange to have th

by tintin 15y ago

A thing I don't like about Unity are the context-menus. When your application is fullscreen they are ok, but when your window is smaller it's strange to have the context menu still on top of your screen. I also never understood why Apple is doing this. To me it just feels out of context. But overall I think Unity is great. People don't like changes so there will be a lot of boo-ing and bah-ing, but I think in the end this is a great step forward.

jamesgeck0 15y ago
The menubar is at the top of the screen because it's easier to click them. Fitt's Law[1] says that the larger something is, the easier it is to target. When something is against the edge of the screen, you can't move the mouse past it, so it has infinite width or height (or both; corners are nifty). By placing the menu at the top of the screen, you go from a clickable area with a height of about 20px to a clickable area with infinite height. 1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitts_law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitts_law
- igouy 15y ago
  Even on my smaller than average 1280x1080 monitor, the top of the screen can be a long way from the current mouse position - notice that Fitts Law factors in that Distance. (And as you've brought up Fitts Law, think about what that says about the very much smaller target provided by those Unity overlay scroll thumbs compared to a window size scrollbar.)
  - jamesgeck0 15y ago
    The scroll thumbs actually have about the same area as the scrollbar. Maybe larger, because the little tab pops up under wherever the mouse is, so you don't need to seek for it vertically like with a normal scrollbar. In theory. In practice, they're too fiddly, sometimes appearing on the inside, sometimes on the outside, and requiring you to move your mouse in and out of the window frame. If they get that sorted, they'll be on par with (if not better than) normal scrollbars, imho.

by tintin 15y ago

jamesgeck0 15y ago

The menubar is at the top of the screen because it's easier to click them. Fitt's Law[1] says that the larger something is, the easier it is to target. When something is against the edge of the screen, you can't move the mouse past it, so it has infinite width or height (or both; corners are nifty). By placing the menu at the top of the screen, you go from a clickable area with a height of about 20px to a clickable area with infinite height. 1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitts_law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitts_law

igouy 15y ago
Even on my smaller than average 1280x1080 monitor, the top of the screen can be a long way from the current mouse position - notice that Fitts Law factors in that Distance. (And as you've brought up Fitts Law, think about what that says about the very much smaller target provided by those Unity overlay scroll thumbs compared to a window size scrollbar.)
- jamesgeck0 15y ago
  The scroll thumbs actually have about the same area as the scrollbar. Maybe larger, because the little tab pops up under wherever the mouse is, so you don't need to seek for it vertically like with a normal scrollbar. In theory. In practice, they're too fiddly, sometimes appearing on the inside, sometimes on the outside, and requiring you to move your mouse in and out of the window frame. If they get that sorted, they'll be on par with (if not better than) normal scrollbars, imho.