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I have always been a big fan of Unity. The only changes I don't like are the ones introduced under pressure from users. Namely, removing the "dodge" option for

I have always been a big fan of Unity. The only changes I don't like are the ones introduced under pressure from users. Namely, removing the "dodge" option for the launcher and disabling the scroll on it[1][2]. It now allows you to switch between windows of the same application on the same desktop which has to be in the running for the most useless UI function ever devised. I haven't really noticed HUD for quite a while but a few days ago I tried it frustrated with GIMP's cleverly hidden sub-menus and was blown away by how easy it is to jump straight to the desired function if you know (or can guess) the name. Invoking "Arbitrary Rotation..." doesn't even take a second. I was like a magician, I wasn't using the system, it was an extension of my being. [1] https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/unity/+bug/1173623 https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/unity/+bug/1173623 [2] https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/unity/+bug/1149092 https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/unity/+bug/1149092

kunai 13y ago
I actually like the window switcher, but it would have been far, far better if Canonical had made it so that alt-scrolling on the appicons would have had that effect. Scrolling the launcher should have been standard.
wslh 13y ago
I quitted Ubuntu because the latest versions of Unity uses 3D acceleration that consumes a lot of battery in a VM. I didn't find a solution for it (except using it natively). I followed some solutions that didn't work or turned the windows manager very unstable. I really liked Unity.
- broodbucket 13y ago
  I believe Unity is getting a lighter rewrite for 14.04 (at the latest) so there's that. I don't think they should have canned Unity2D like they did.
  - freehunter 13y ago
    Running Ubuntu in a VM, I've been unable to update to 13.04 due to them dropping Unity2D. My VM doesn't have enough video memory to run Unity 3D, and that's not going to be changing anytime soon, so I'm stuck on an old version.
    - fdr_cs 13y ago
      why dont you install another WM? I do use a ubuntu vm for coding at work, bit I use i3 instead of unity.
    - fein 13y ago
      I install 13.04 server, lay xorg over it, then install fluxbox. With chrome running about 40 tabs, pgadmin open, and the WM up I'm using about 2gb ram. Chrome closes and I drop to about 300M. This is a single core althon 64, 3gb ddr1 ram, 70gb ATA HD, AGP Radeon 9600 that I built around 8 years ago.
    - e12e 13y ago
      Any particular reason you need to run the X display on the vm, rather than forward it? Last I checked Xming worked reasonably well from windows (with putty doing X11 forwarding) - and OS X still has an X server? (Now if you're doing GUI-testing across systems, I guess running "everything" in the VM makes more sense...).
    - mmgutz 13y ago
      If you're not too attached to Unity, try Lubuntu or Xubuntu. Both work rather well in a VirtualBox. The last Ubuntu that worked lightning fast in a VM was 11.04. I moved on to Crunchbang. It's noticeably faster than even Lubuntu in a VM. I don't think even the older Ubuntu's were this fast. I dedicate 32M of video to Crunchbang and have had no problems.
- weland 13y ago
  > I quitted Ubuntu because the latest versions of Unity uses 3D acceleration that consumes a lot of battery in a VM. I didn't find a solution for it (except using it natively). I don't use Ubuntu, but I have to ask -- why did you quit it because of Unity? You can install anything else you want.
  - icebraining 13y ago
    That's true; I use Awesome on my Ubuntu work machine. That said, if you're not going to use the spiffy UI, you're better off using a simpler distro, in my opinion, without all the crap that Ubuntu insists on putting on top of Debian.
    - weland 13y ago
      Fair enough :-). Can you install Unity on anything else other than Ubuntu though? I'm really not flaimbaiting, I swear. I actually used Ubunt 4.10 a long time ago (come to think of it, hell, I can't bleieve it's been almost nine years), but I long switched on to Debian and Arch. I kindda went out of touch with the Ubuntu status quo.
      - Spittie 13y ago
        You can install Unity on Arch[1], but you also need to install several libraries with many Ubuntu-specific patch[2], since Ubuntu loves to patch stuff downstream. I'm also not sure if it will work flawlessly, as I haven't tested it. But, for example, Ubuntu ship with also a patched Mesa, that it's missing for that project and it's supposed to contain some Unity-specific patches. There were some projects to include Unity in OpenSUSE and Fedora[3], but it seems a dead project now and it's not available for the latest versions of those distro (last version supported: OpenSUSE 12.2 and Fedora 17). [1] https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Unity https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Unity [2] https://github.com/chenxiaolong/Unity-for-Arch https://github.com/chenxiaolong/Unity-for-Arch (See "order to compile/install") [3] http://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:GNOME_Ayatana http://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:GNOME_Ayatana
nnq 13y ago
> It now allows you to switch between windows of the same application on the same desktop which has to be in the running for the most useless UI function ever devised. Simply asking... WHY on earth would you find this useless?! Agree, you wouldn't need it if you just had the ability to select a "don't combine taskbar buttons" option (last time I checked Unity didn't have this) - the first option that I select on Windows 7/8. To me different windows of the same application are technically "different apps/task" and I want them to show separately on the taskbar or at least have an easy way of switching between them. The whole "task based interface" current is the biggest UI/X fail in recent history imho, and a misnomer on top of it - applications aren't task, if I have two different web apps in two different windows (or simply two different sets of task specific tabs), they are two completely different tasks to me, I don't want them grouped by application goddamit! Even philosophically, in the "UNIX way" tasks emerge when one combines the use of a number of small applications to get a particular task done, while in the "Mac/Windows way" of "big feature-full applications" an application can be used to work on multiple task simultaneously in different windows. 1 to 1 mapping of apps to tasks and the "combine windows on taskbar" philosophy only apply to very naive and inexperienced users that don't understand even 10% of the potential of the "tool" sitting in front of them, and they should not be catered for, they should be pushed and stressed to learn more whether they like it or not, because they can learn more, and they will inevitably get better at whatever they do by learning more - even Microsoft gets this (they know that if you are forced to learn more about their products and by learning more about them you become more productive with them, you will grow more dependent on them, whereas if something is "very easy" but limited, you'll be able to switch to a competing product that could give you even a minor increase in productivity at any time), even if would be suicide for them to admit it and put it in any marketing material since they market themselves as "easiest to use" :) ...overall, I feel like Unity simply cherry picked the worst features from Windows 7 and Mac OS GUIs. At least the Windows GUI can be very easily customized in all relevant aspects and allows me to be very productive with it, while the Mac OS one is well polished and tested and after I get used to it has a nice "flow". If you want to build an "opinionated" GUI, first make sure you are at least as competent as Apple's UI guys are, if not, just drop it make something clean and easily customizable with a Right Click -> Properties on any element so I don't have to hunt down a controll panel that, for Unity, doesn't even have the options I care about! ...thank god for KDE and XFCE! EDIT+: added a couple paragraphs
seclorum 13y ago
I'm curious - as a long-time Ubuntu user who is totally resisting any effort to switch to Unity - how does one 'learn' the menu functions available for a new app with the HUD? I don't know anything about it, but is it possible still to see all the menus/submenus with the HUD somehow, or does one have to poke with the app to see the menus? As a naive outsider looking at Unity, I'm not sure I find the appeal of the HUD to be applicable .. maybe as an experienced user you could bridge this gap for me?
- lvillani 13y ago
  For exploration, I still play with the app. Personally, I find the HUD useful in those situation where there is no keyboard shortcut associated with a particular menu item and one can't be configured either. Plus I find it easier to just write a few characters than having my finger perform a meaningless dance involving multiple modifier keys..
- kenny_r 13y ago
  The HUD is activated with the alt key (by default). Holding down the alt key for a while reveals the classical menu. That's what you would do to discover the options available to you.
- takluyver 13y ago
  As others have said, you can look through the normal menus - the HUD is an addition, not a replacement. You can also guess: e.g. in GIMP, if I want to crop an image, I can just hit Alt, 'crop' to see what's available. In most applications, I don't use the HUD very often, but for editor applications with complex menus - like GIMP or Scribus, it's very useful, and it works well.
Zecc 13y ago
> It now allows you to switch between windows of the same application on the same desktop which has to be in the running for the most useless UI function ever devised. You don't use file managers much, do you? Or work with more than one spreadsheet or written document at a time. Or have remote sessions into different machines. Or...

kunai 13y ago

I actually like the window switcher, but it would have been far, far better if Canonical had made it so that alt-scrolling on the appicons would have had that effect. Scrolling the launcher should have been standard.

wslh 13y ago

I quitted Ubuntu because the latest versions of Unity uses 3D acceleration that consumes a lot of battery in a VM. I didn't find a solution for it (except using it natively). I followed some solutions that didn't work or turned the windows manager very unstable. I really liked Unity.

broodbucket 13y ago
I believe Unity is getting a lighter rewrite for 14.04 (at the latest) so there's that. I don't think they should have canned Unity2D like they did.
- freehunter 13y ago
  Running Ubuntu in a VM, I've been unable to update to 13.04 due to them dropping Unity2D. My VM doesn't have enough video memory to run Unity 3D, and that's not going to be changing anytime soon, so I'm stuck on an old version.
  - fdr_cs 13y ago
    why dont you install another WM? I do use a ubuntu vm for coding at work, bit I use i3 instead of unity.
  - fein 13y ago
    I install 13.04 server, lay xorg over it, then install fluxbox. With chrome running about 40 tabs, pgadmin open, and the WM up I'm using about 2gb ram. Chrome closes and I drop to about 300M. This is a single core althon 64, 3gb ddr1 ram, 70gb ATA HD, AGP Radeon 9600 that I built around 8 years ago.
  - e12e 13y ago
    Any particular reason you need to run the X display on the vm, rather than forward it? Last I checked Xming worked reasonably well from windows (with putty doing X11 forwarding) - and OS X still has an X server? (Now if you're doing GUI-testing across systems, I guess running "everything" in the VM makes more sense...).
  - mmgutz 13y ago
    If you're not too attached to Unity, try Lubuntu or Xubuntu. Both work rather well in a VirtualBox. The last Ubuntu that worked lightning fast in a VM was 11.04. I moved on to Crunchbang. It's noticeably faster than even Lubuntu in a VM. I don't think even the older Ubuntu's were this fast. I dedicate 32M of video to Crunchbang and have had no problems.
weland 13y ago
> I quitted Ubuntu because the latest versions of Unity uses 3D acceleration that consumes a lot of battery in a VM. I didn't find a solution for it (except using it natively). I don't use Ubuntu, but I have to ask -- why did you quit it because of Unity? You can install anything else you want.
- icebraining 13y ago
  That's true; I use Awesome on my Ubuntu work machine. That said, if you're not going to use the spiffy UI, you're better off using a simpler distro, in my opinion, without all the crap that Ubuntu insists on putting on top of Debian.
  - weland 13y ago
    Fair enough :-). Can you install Unity on anything else other than Ubuntu though? I'm really not flaimbaiting, I swear. I actually used Ubunt 4.10 a long time ago (come to think of it, hell, I can't bleieve it's been almost nine years), but I long switched on to Debian and Arch. I kindda went out of touch with the Ubuntu status quo.
    - Spittie 13y ago
      You can install Unity on Arch[1], but you also need to install several libraries with many Ubuntu-specific patch[2], since Ubuntu loves to patch stuff downstream. I'm also not sure if it will work flawlessly, as I haven't tested it. But, for example, Ubuntu ship with also a patched Mesa, that it's missing for that project and it's supposed to contain some Unity-specific patches. There were some projects to include Unity in OpenSUSE and Fedora[3], but it seems a dead project now and it's not available for the latest versions of those distro (last version supported: OpenSUSE 12.2 and Fedora 17). [1] https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Unity https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Unity [2] https://github.com/chenxiaolong/Unity-for-Arch https://github.com/chenxiaolong/Unity-for-Arch (See "order to compile/install") [3] http://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:GNOME_Ayatana http://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:GNOME_Ayatana

nnq 13y ago

> It now allows you to switch between windows of the same application on the same desktop which has to be in the running for the most useless UI function ever devised. Simply asking... WHY on earth would you find this useless?! Agree, you wouldn't need it if you just had the ability to select a "don't combine taskbar buttons" option (last time I checked Unity didn't have this) - the first option that I select on Windows 7/8. To me different windows of the same application are technically "different apps/task" and I want them to show separately on the taskbar or at least have an easy way of switching between them. The whole "task based interface" current is the biggest UI/X fail in recent history imho, and a misnomer on top of it - applications aren't task, if I have two different web apps in two different windows (or simply two different sets of task specific tabs), they are two completely different tasks to me, I don't want them grouped by application goddamit! Even philosophically, in the "UNIX way" tasks emerge when one combines the use of a number of small applications to get a particular task done, while in the "Mac/Windows way" of "big feature-full applications" an application can be used to work on multiple task simultaneously in different windows. 1 to 1 mapping of apps to tasks and the "combine windows on taskbar" philosophy only apply to very naive and inexperienced users that don't understand even 10% of the potential of the "tool" sitting in front of them, and they should not be catered for, they should be pushed and stressed to learn more whether they like it or not, because they can learn more, and they will inevitably get better at whatever they do by learning more - even Microsoft gets this (they know that if you are forced to learn more about their products and by learning more about them you become more productive with them, you will grow more dependent on them, whereas if something is "very easy" but limited, you'll be able to switch to a competing product that could give you even a minor increase in productivity at any time), even if would be suicide for them to admit it and put it in any marketing material since they market themselves as "easiest to use" :) ...overall, I feel like Unity simply cherry picked the worst features from Windows 7 and Mac OS GUIs. At least the Windows GUI can be very easily customized in all relevant aspects and allows me to be very productive with it, while the Mac OS one is well polished and tested and after I get used to it has a nice "flow". If you want to build an "opinionated" GUI, first make sure you are at least as competent as Apple's UI guys are, if not, just drop it make something clean and easily customizable with a Right Click -> Properties on any element so I don't have to hunt down a controll panel that, for Unity, doesn't even have the options I care about! ...thank god for KDE and XFCE! EDIT+: added a couple paragraphs

seclorum 13y ago

I'm curious - as a long-time Ubuntu user who is totally resisting any effort to switch to Unity - how does one 'learn' the menu functions available for a new app with the HUD? I don't know anything about it, but is it possible still to see all the menus/submenus with the HUD somehow, or does one have to poke with the app to see the menus? As a naive outsider looking at Unity, I'm not sure I find the appeal of the HUD to be applicable .. maybe as an experienced user you could bridge this gap for me?

lvillani 13y ago
For exploration, I still play with the app. Personally, I find the HUD useful in those situation where there is no keyboard shortcut associated with a particular menu item and one can't be configured either. Plus I find it easier to just write a few characters than having my finger perform a meaningless dance involving multiple modifier keys..
kenny_r 13y ago
The HUD is activated with the alt key (by default). Holding down the alt key for a while reveals the classical menu. That's what you would do to discover the options available to you.
takluyver 13y ago
As others have said, you can look through the normal menus - the HUD is an addition, not a replacement. You can also guess: e.g. in GIMP, if I want to crop an image, I can just hit Alt, 'crop' to see what's available. In most applications, I don't use the HUD very often, but for editor applications with complex menus - like GIMP or Scribus, it's very useful, and it works well.

Zecc 13y ago

> It now allows you to switch between windows of the same application on the same desktop which has to be in the running for the most useless UI function ever devised. You don't use file managers much, do you? Or work with more than one spreadsheet or written document at a time. Or have remote sessions into different machines. Or...