9 ms·

Ubuntu desktop moving application menus back into application windows

116 points by pedrocr 13y ago

sethammons 13y ago
Unlike many others, I really liked most of Unity. However, I never liked the menu bar always being at the top of the screen. I think that changing the menues to being attached again is a good thing, and I like how they integrated it to hide in the title bar.
d0 13y ago
Looking at that screenshot, one question: What do we drag stuff with now without setting off a menu?
- dave809 13y ago
  I think the assumption is that the menu won't take up the entire bar
  - d0 13y ago
    That's a pretty poor assumption then.
- AhtiK 13y ago
  Not sure about Unity but in quite a few Linux desktops you can press Alt and move window by clicking anywhere in the region. That's how I've always moved windows and been surprised when Windows or OS X have behaved differently. But the question is great! For a regular user dragging window without setting off a menu can become a serious usability issue. Yes, menu won't take the whole bar but still the size of the movable area becomes substantially smaller. One solution to detect dragging could be to use mouse release event for menu, instead of press and filter out shaky hand who actually wanted menu, not drag. But then again it's still bad because user expects menu system to react ASAP/mouse press, not release.
  - krakensden 13y ago
    Unity and Gnome have that disabled by default :(
    - dethstar 13y ago
      in GNOME you can do it by pressing the windows(super) key.
- CyberShadow 13y ago
  Watch the video in the article. At 0:48, they drag the titlebar as usual, even though there are menu entries directly under the mouse cursor. I guess they have replaced the "pull down" mouse gesture with initiating a window drag, so the only way to open a menu with the mouse is to click it.
  - d0 13y ago
    There goes 20 years of muscle memory...again.
  - dagurp 13y ago
    I'm used to maximising and resizing windows by double clicking on the title bar. I wonder if it will be possible now.
- vinkelhake 13y ago
  Holding the button down for longer than some threshold or moving the mouse more than some distance starts a drag.
- hrkristian 13y ago
  Relevant image: http://i.imgur.com/Ppp12vB.png http://i.imgur.com/Ppp12vB.png GNOME leaves a small portion of the top bar free for dragging purposes (about an inch on my 17'' monitor)... more than ample space to suit anyone's dragging needs.
  - d0 13y ago
    Thanks for posting this - your efforts are appreciated :)
- yxhuvud 13y ago
  Hold alt. Drag anywhere. In general, these kinds of questions are best answered by holding down the windows-button until the help shows up.
RyanZAG 13y ago
Great move, the single menu bar thing is just terrible design. It just moves common application actions further away from their context in order to give more room for.. more application actions? Whoever designed the single menu bar was clearly not thinking in terms of functional design principals.
- nfoz 13y ago
  One of the nice thing about menus being at the top of the screen is an adherence to Fitt's law: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitt%27s_law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitt%27s_law > Edges and corners of the computer monitor (...) are particularly easy to acquire with a mouse, touchpad or trackball. Because the pointer remains at the screen edge regardless of how much further the mouse is moved, they can be considered as having infinite width. This doesn't apply to touchscreens, though. But there's an argument to be made for the spatial-locality as well, as you say. I think it's an interesting trade-off / difference of design philosophy.
  - RyanZAG 13y ago
    This tradeoff is best left to the user's specific task and is handled in a very intuitive and usable fashion: maximizable windows.
    - nzp 13y ago
      No, it's actually best handled the way they are about to handle it: let the user choose the alternative themselves.
    - pekk 13y ago
      This has its own problems, which are part of why tiling WMs are a thing
  - Avshalom 13y ago
    Well there's two things: -A UI can't/can't-not adhere to Fitt's Law; Fitt's law tells you where to put things to make them easy to hit* it says nothing about what you should put there. -The entire edge is infinite but if your mouse has any horizontal velocity (which is extremely common now with wide screen monitors) a top menu item is only as deep as it is long. It's still easier for being 2D but it isn't infinite. *more accurately it's a mathematical model that tells you how long it takes to acquire a target with a mouse. I have no actual proof that speedy = easy.
selmnoo 13y ago
Very slightly-off topic: So, I have this theory. The theory is that Microsoft and/or Apple somehow infiltrated the Ubuntu organization and got their men in as developers and made big changes to sabotage and undermine the Ubuntu project. And they've done great. Let me tell you about the Unity Launcher: http://www.bomski.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/screenshot.jpg http://www.bomski.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/screenshot.... The awesome thing about it is the microscale indicator that is supposed to tell you what window is open. Yeah, that small little triangle on right/left side of icons. It gets even better when you have many windows open (the icon menu folds) or have more than one window open of a certain application (the triangle becomes an elongated thin icon which is now twice as difficult to make out in full-view): http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-36ZlfS5qyI0/TZREYHuo56I/AAAAAAAAArw/oGdahPyxiNQ/s1600/Screenshot-11.png http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-36ZlfS5qyI0/TZREYHuo56I/AAAAAAAAAr.... Basically, the most perfect applications panel design to get my mom to stop using Ubuntu (it worked, too!) When on a high resolution screen, I can't quite make them out either (so it got me to stop using Ubuntu as well)! Also, changing windows (e.g., if you have two or three document processing files open), how do you quickly and efficiently switch to the right one? I don't know! Give Ubuntu a chance yourself to see more gems like this. Man, I really have to give kudos to whoever is behind this, to have convinced their 'dedicated UI team' that this shit is anything less than a joke. Bravo Apple/Microsoft/whoever you are, I'm impressed!
- d0 13y ago
  It's probably like our dedicated UI team: cheap. Our head UI designer sent SPAM for a living before working for us.
  - vanderZwan 13y ago
    Also, it's open source and design related. I imagine that means that as the project grows, the bike shedding scales O(n^2).
- streptomycin 13y ago
  My conspiracy theory is that it was all a practical joke by Shuttleworth, bringing us so close to the ideal of a usable Linux desktop that everyone could get behind, and then randomly moving shit around and creating division within the Linux community. We went from Ubuntu clearly being the market leader and providing a consistent UI, to a clusterfuck of different distributions and DEs.
nfoz 13y ago
The "application context" vs. "window context" UI dichotomy is certainly interesting; I think both mechanisms can be fine and implemented well or poorly. Ubuntu's was always extremely poor. Unless the toolkit and, to some extent, the applications are designed for that use-case, trying to hack their menus to appear at the top when they were expected to be part of the window is just a disaster. It's unfortunate that we just don't have the resources to make a sane desktop-level application menu on the desktop-linux stack, even with all the might of Ubuntu. But that seems to be the case, so I'm glad they're moving to something more feasible. Even if it's a little disappointing.
mark_l_watson 13y ago
I don't use my Ubuntu laptop nearly as often as my MacBook Air, so not a huge deal for me. That said, when I just work on a laptop's screen I like the menus on top but when I plug into a huge monitor being able to flip to the menus on window mode is excellent. Off topic, but I need to find a nice way to do the same for OS X when I plug my Air into a huge monitor. Any suggestions?
mistercow 13y ago
This actually is the thing keeping me from using Unity right now. A permanent menu bar made since on a 4:3 screen. But in 16:9, I just don't want to lose my precious vertical screen real estate to a menu bar.
- mindstab 13y ago
  you can remove it already, and it's about the first thing I don on all my new computers: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7282659 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7282659
  - mistercow 13y ago
    That doesn't solve the real estate problem - in fact it makes it worse in some apps. The top bar is still there after you do that. It just moves the menu items back into the window. I don't really care where the menu items are. If the top bar would auto-hide, I'd be fine with it. I just don't want to give up the space. Apparently there's a modified Unity called "Unity Revamped" which adds autohide as an option to CCSM, but it's a slightly older version of Unity, and for whatever reason I can't downgrade to it.
- reirob 13y ago
  Absolutely agree! I would like to know how to get rid of the horizontal bar all-together.
- sampo 13y ago
  But since the windows won't have menu bars, won't that balance your loss of vertical screen real estate? Or if you have 2 or more windows vertically above each other, you even gain some vertical screen real estate.
nzp 13y ago
Reading the title made my blood pressure start slightly rising as it gives an impression this is not configurable. Fortunately this is not the case. I like the menu bar where it is now, that space is wasted anyway. If Unity didn't have the HUD then the current solution would be problematic with focus follows mouse, but with the HUD it's a non issue. Doesn't anyone else find it a bit weird how they pretend they invented the top bar menu and are like: "Yeah, we had this really cool and innovative idea, but, um, yeah as it was used in the real world for the past couple of years we gathered some data and we have second thoughts... You know how it is when you're the first and only product with an original feature..." Right... Because it's not like there's a certain other operating system GUI which has had this feature since the '80s.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
bliti 13y ago
I just wished that Canonical would sell an Ubuntu laptop. Not a namebrand laptop with Ubuntu installed in it, but a machine made for them exclusively. Then they can integrate the OS to perfectly work with the machine. I'd buy that in a heartbeat.
- mistercow 13y ago
  System76 is kind of like that. Obviously it isn't Canonical choosing hardware and tweaking software to match it, but they do make good choices to make sure everything works well. In my experience, it's not quite as seamless as a Mac, but it's damned close.
  - willismichael 13y ago
    Agreed (posted using a System76 laptop)
- justin_vanw 13y ago
  Ubuntu doesn't make an OS. The put their sticker on, just like how your local dealer doesn't make cars. Also, what does it mean integrate it to work perfectly? Don't say "like osx", because Apple makes the hardware and they make the OS, they aren't integrating them so much as building a single product from those pieces (hardware and software)
- daemonburrito 13y ago
  I second System76; I think it's exactly what you're looking for. I don't understand why Canonical doesn't have closer ties to them. System76 even maintains an apt repo for their machines. I've bought 3 machines from them so far; all worked perfectly out of the box.
- plumeria 13y ago
  I second this. I have a Dell XPS 13 Ultrabook with Project Sputnik and it is very buggy, specially the wireless connections. But I think this is, in part, fault of Dell's cheap components.
- wpietri 13y ago
forgottenpass 13y ago
Even when I don't like the changes, I still like the idea they're experimenting with the UI. But I really wish they had added a "just turn this nonsense off" option in the configuration too. The tweaks never play nice with software from outside of the ubuntu repos. A few commercial products running on Linux are important to our workflow. If they have a GUI, chances are high that there is a visual bug that makes the program unusable and that the root cause is a Unity feature. For example, the thing that moves the menu to the top bar meant no menu at all. Something else meant 1 quadrant of the application window just wouldn't paint at all, still no idea why on that one. Wasting half a day implementing a workaroud here and there isn't the worst thing in the world, but it's a low enough number of special purpose machines that I always threaten the next time I'll just migrate them to another DE.
fps 13y ago
I'm an Ubuntu + Gnome 3 user, but this seems a little pointless. None of the applications I use these days even have the 90's style File/Edit/View/Tools/Help style menus. Everything is in a right click menu, a function bar, or a much smaller all purpose "more" icon. File/Edit/View always made for a frustrating treasure hunt tracking down which of the properties/preferences/settings dialog box a certain setting was buried in; I don't understand why those menus lasted as long as they did.
- Avshalom 13y ago
  moving everything into a right click or more icon doesn't get rid of the menu it just adds one more step to the treasure hunt.
  - fps 13y ago
    Not really. Some applications I use (like Gnome terminal) only have a right click menu. Everything is there, or in the "profile preferences" dialog accessible from within right click. Other applications (like Chrome) have a very sensible hierarchy: - If I want to do something to an object within a page (copy link, open image, translate text), I right click on that thing. - If I want to do something to the active document/page, there's a button for it at the top. - If I want to make a change to the application, I go to the singular settings dialog accessible through the "more functions" button. Hierarchical menus are a mess, and I'm glad they appear to be dying.
- keithpeter 13y ago
  LibreOffice? Accelerator keys? AKA Mnemonics? ALT-iof is wired into my fingers like C-maj on the piano. I use ALT-iof 50 times an hour when writing handouts. I've had to stop using versions of Unity after 12.04 because of the way later menu programming breaks this. See https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/libreoffice/+bug/739184 https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/libreoffice/+bug/7... I don't use the mouse much.
justin_vanw 13y ago
Who even notices silly things like this? It's gnu/Linux. Ubuntu isn't doing much, they do a string replace and change "Debian" to "Ubuntu", force everybody to use a half baked semi optimized for tablet even though nobody anywhere runs Ubuntu on a tablet UI layer, Unity is just garbage, but none of that matters. Ubuntu hasn't made any decisions, they are just setting some defaults. Who cares what the default menu location is when it takes 5 minutes to get everything back to the way you like it? (10 seconds if you are clever enough to rsync your home directory from another machine)
- antihero 13y ago
  What an utterly worthless comment. Ubuntu has lots of developers that produce a great deal of patches. I'm not a fan of Ubuntu but you don't have to be to understand that they do indeed contribute to the FOSS ecosystem, and saying that they don't is disingenuous and frankly offensive. Furthermore discussions about "little things like this" are what people have been pushing for - Linux on the desktop taking user experience as seriously as technical supremacy - for years, and is one of the main reasons people still cling to OSX and Windows.
japhyr 13y ago
> The intent of moving application-specific menus into the global menu bar was to leave more room for content in applications. But even for people who liked the design, it has grown more problematic over time with the proliferation of bigger monitors... This matches my experience. I usually work from a laptop, but when I've used ubuntu on a larger monitor it's been annoying to have to go all the way to the top left of the screen for a menu. I use keyboard shortcuts for most actions, but I do notice the issue when I need to access a menu.
edtechdev 13y ago
I know the argument about Fitt's law and having the menu up on the top (as was the custom since the first Macintosh). That was in the 1980s, with tiny monitors and usually only running one single window application at a time. When you have larger monitors and multiple windows open, a single menu bar runs into two new usability problems, one being mode errors. Is that menu for the application I am trying to use it for? What mode is the menu bar in right now? (vi/vim users know this one, too) The other issue is that with large monitors it takes more effort to reach the menu bar with your mouse. It's not a simple quick flick of the mouse up to the top like before with small screens. This is part of a larger class of problems I see with open source in particular. They copy some feature that made perfect sense in the time, context, and constraints under which it was designed, but don't factor in how things have changed or they don't have knowledge of the original problem that feature was designed to solve (which may no longer apply). I'm thinking of common programming language features in particular. That said, the spike in usability and stability and compatibility problems of Ubuntu (like not being able to even see the last item in a list of files because the bottom status bar was removed and replaced with a floating box) just finally pushed me off Ubuntu as my primary OS this past fall, after using it as my primary OS for 7 years. I know it's free and a lot of the compatibility problems are more the fault of Microsoft/Nvidia (dual graphics, uefi, etc.), I shouldn't complain, but to me it's not a good sign when you won't even use something that's free. But maybe this article is a sign that Ubuntu will improve in the future.
- bztzt 13y ago
  Good post (even if I'm not sure how much I agree with the mouse travel argument - I find moving to the edge still quick even on largish monitors, but it probably depends on your mouse/speed acceleration settings) but I'm not sure there's anything specific to open source here - understanding how and when to apply lessons from the past is tricky everywhere in software. I think design understanding is probably reasonably well dispersed by now and open source not at a marked disadvantage from the rest of the software world, unlike the 90s/early 00s.
- modeless 13y ago
  This is a great point. I've hated the top menu bar for years, but I never considered that it was actually a good fit for the original Macintosh, and has only become bad since screens became larger and multitasking more common. I don't think it's fair to blame Open Source for this kind of problem, though. After all, Apple had a chance to fix this when they redid the UI for OS X and they didn't do it either. To this day they continue to copy the menu design from the original Macintosh even though it no longer makes sense. They also copied the Dock from NeXT into OS X, which I think was a bad decision too.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
LarryMade2 13y ago
Meh Whenever I upgrade Ubuntu, first thing I do is change the desktop manager. Unity or whatever they call it just isn't productive for me. Just like Windows 8 (Metro) adding a button saying Start doesn't fix the problem that people have about using the thing in general. Same goes with adding menus on the top of windows for me. For me, it's the issue of just trying to locate the program I want without having to go to more effort than just selecting it from a list. Canonical thinks I want to search for it (which includes being able to remember it's name) and also be delighted at the opportunity to always download or buy something other than what's already on my computer... no thanks.
mindstab 13y ago
"But even for people who liked the design, it has grown more problematic over time with the proliferation of bigger monitors" Yes, this. I think in everyone's rush for "convergence" they just forgot about the desktop. I think the final winning solution will be more the Ubuntu/Canonical approach (and that they are a bit ahead of Windows now) in that we will have both options available and with a bit more time, you can easily choose from "interface profiles" On a big multiscreen desktop, I love and have for a long time loved, "in app menus" and Focus-Follow-Mouse. But on my 10" netbook? I'm actually pretty happy with global menu and click-focus because usually I'm just alt-tabing between full screen apps. Different situations call for different solutions. The real winner will be the solution that provides all options and the flexibility to seamlessly move between them, and as I said, I think Ubuntu is much closer. Windows with their entire new set of "Metro" apps and bigger "classic desktop"/metro separation I think has gone down the wrong path.
- orangecat 13y ago
  I think in everyone's rush for "convergence" they just forgot about the desktop. Exactly. "Desktops are dead" has become a self-fulfilling prophecy. For most users a new desktop computer wouldn't give them any significant benefits over the 5 year old one that they already have, so of course they're not going to buy one. Meanwhile, if hardware and software manufacturers had actually come up with ways to take advantage of their massive CPU and GPU power, we could have 50" displays at 8000x5000 pixels, eye tracking, gesture control, and who knows what else. Basically what this guy says: http://tiamat.tsotech.com/displays-are-the-key http://tiamat.tsotech.com/displays-are-the-key
mindstab 13y ago
Already right now you can remove Unity's global menu, it just takes some work $ sudo apt-get autoremove appmenu-gtk appmenu-gtk3 appmenu-qt firefox-globalmenu
usablebytes 13y ago
I trust, that's a good decision. The context of a component should always be carried with the component. I myself, found the global menus a lot troublesome, although the design intention to provide more room was successful.
virtualritz 13y ago
The main problem I have with the menu in Ubuntu is that the items are hidden until you move the mouse. That is just a design mistake of epic proportions because I can't acquire and aim for the target menu before the mouse has reached the bar. I never heard any Mac user complain about the global menu bar. Even on huge screens. Perhaps that is reason.
- Brakenshire 13y ago
  It's also bad from the perspective of discoverability. Any inexperienced user will really struggle with menus that completely disappear.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- walden42 13y ago
  Would be nice to have an option to keep them permanently visible.
skywhopper 13y ago
I would be happy, but Ubuntu managed to drive me away from their default UI with Unity long ago. This is only one of many things I didn't care for in Unity.
realrocker 13y ago
O elusive menu bar, where art thee, My fingers cry for a chance unity, Though I travel edge from edge looking, No fear, My Love, the trackpad is never ending.
higherpurpose 13y ago
Now if they can only let users to switch the sidebar to the bottom, the way it is in Windows, that would be perfect. Even a change like that for a user that comes from Windows can turn him away from Ubuntu.
- NateDad 13y ago
  Monitors are almost always wider than they are tall... using horizontal space makes a ton more sense. If such a small thing turns off a user, they're not seriously considering a different OS anyway.
eklavya 13y ago
Okay, I get it Ubuntu bashing is the new fad. But cmon, they are providing more choice here. For small screens global menu and close button on the system panel save a lot of vertical space. Now they are providing an option to the guys with big screens to have local menus so they don't have to keep on selecting windows to access their menus. What's wrong in it? I have come to like unity the way it is, though I didn't in the beginning. I support Ubuntu in the spirit of open source and to be free to do things you want to do and in the way you like. It's very strange indeed to hear complaints about making new stuff from hackers. Don't we all do it? Sometimes for nothing else but for our heart's desire?
- wpietri 13y ago
  Making new stuff for your heart's desire is excellent. Art is a vital part of life. Inflicting something upon millions of people should, however, be about what they need. I did not volunteer to be a participant in somebody's half-assed art project, and if I did, it wouldn't be using my work laptop.
  - eklavya 13y ago
    Nothing is being inflicted, Nobody forces users to use Ubuntu, they do it because they like it. That is not to say that they should be deaf to community feedback. If it's so bad it is going to lose market share but Ubuntu really is popular and people seem to still like it. The people who dislike it are just way more vocal that's all. Why bitch about something that's free AND when you have plenty of choices?
yason 13y ago
I wonder if they already allow binding commands and window manager functions to super key? They didn't and that kind of put me off Unity right from the start. Good keyboard controls are a must for any desktop environment and the super key is perfect for activating those while leaving all three of control, alt, and shift for applications (such as Emacs).
robomartin 13y ago
I am surprised nobody has mentioned multi-monitor setups. This is where you really experience how bad the concept of a single unified menu bar for EVERYTHING that is running on the machine can be. Connect four 1920 x 1200 (or larger) monitors to your machine and you'll be cursing in no time at all. Even a simpler dual screen setup suffers from this concept. I don't care if it is under osx Or Ubuntu/Unity, this UI is inferior to one where the application and the relevant menu exist in a self contained window. Now, that does not mean that an application cannot spawn multiple windows at all. For example, Altium Designer --a high-end electronics circuit design package-- can make use of one or more monitors quite effectively. You can, for example, have the schematic editor running in a window on one monitor while you design the PCB on the second and the documentation is open on the third. Each window houses the relevant menus and toolbars. This would be an absolute nightmare on OSX or Ubuntu style single menu systems. It doesn't end there. If I am working on a web project i might have my IDE open front and center while supporting tools are open on the other monitors. I usually run several virtual machines on the monitor immediately to the left. Each machine runs a different browser for testing purposes. I found this to be far easier than other options and I can keep those virtual machines and browsers clean of extraneous stuff that might otherwise modify behavior. I then keep a terminal window or two logged into whatever remote server I might be working on. This can also be on a separate monitor if needed. I usually keep the terminal on the left with the VM's. On my right monitor I usually run Chrome and Firefox for reference (PDF's, manuals, SO, etc.) and technical debugging purposes. If needed other tools such as email and the too-important music player go on the right as well. If I need photoshop, excel or some other tool it usually goes in the center monitor. I tend to keep several open file browsers on the fourth monitor (although Only one of my systems has four large monitors). Again, dedicated and context-appropriate menus make it easy to deal with such a setup without having to mouse all over the universe of available pixels. If I had to do this on OSX or Ubuntu I'd probably throw the computer out the window. In fact our Mac systems all have dual monitors but I still use the Windows systems for almost anything other than iOS development because OSX continues to evolve into a royal pain in the ass. I can run Ubuntu 12.04 LTS server in a virtual machine on the PC with a shared drive and have the best of all worlds. BTW, running Vista and 7.
- nknighthb 13y ago
robomartin 13y ago
I am surprised nobody has mentioned multi-monitor setups. This is where you really experience how bad the concept of a single unified menu bar for EVERYTHING that is running on the machine can be. Connect four 1920 x 1200 (or larger) monitors to your machine and you'll be cursing in no time at all. Even a simpler dual screen setup suffers from this concept. I don't care if it is under osx Or Ubuntu/Unity, this UI is inferior to one where the application and the relevant menu exist in a self contained window. Now, that does not mean that an application cannot spawn multiple windows at all. For example, Altium Designer --a high-end electronics circuit design package-- can make use of one or more monitors quite effectively. You can, for example, have the schematic editor running in a window on one monitor while you design the PCB on the second and the documentation is open on the third. Each window houses the relevant menus and toolbars. This would be an absolute nightmare on OSX or Ubuntu style single menu systems. It doesn't end there. If I am working on a web project i might have my IDE open front and center while supporting tools are open on the other monitors. I usually run several virtual machines on the monitor immediately to the left. Each machine runs a different browser for testing purposes. I found this to be far easier than other options and I can keep those virtual machines and browsers clean of extraneous stuff that might otherwise modify behavior. I then keep a terminal window or two logged into whatever remote server I might be working on. This can also be on a separate monitor if needed. I usually keep the terminal on the left with the VM's. On my right monitor I usually run Chrome and Firefox for reference (PDF's, manuals, SO, etc.) and technical debugging purposes. If needed other tools such as email and the too-important music player go on the right as well. If I need photoshop, excel or some other tool it usually goes in the center monitor. I tend to keep several open file browsers on the fourth monitor (although Only one of my systems has four large monitors). Again, dedicated and context-appropriate menus make it easy to deal with such a setup without having to mouse all over the universe of available pixels. If I had to do this on OSX or Ubuntu I'd probably throw the computer out the window. In fact our Mac systems all have dual monitors but I still use the Windows systems for almost anything other than iOS development because OSX continues to evolve into a royal pain in the ass. I can run Ubuntu 12.04 LTS server in a virtual machine on the PC with a shared drive and have the best of all worlds. BTW, running Vista and 7.
mavhc 13y ago
Why is there a menu bar at all? Just use the menu button anywhere in the window to open the menu, ultimate Fitts law.
runn1ng 13y ago
I, for one, love it when the menus are on top. What I don't like, however, is that they are on the top bar sometimes, but not always. Java Swing applications usually have their own bar. evince, Ubuntu's default PDF reader, has just some useless "About" menu on top, and everything important is under the gear icon in the window (which took me about 15 minutes to discover). And it's a default GNOME application!
- smithzvk 13y ago
  That is really weird. For me evince has no gear icon and has its menus in the global menu like every other GTK application.
  - theintern 13y ago
    On my Ubuntu 13.10 I have what runn1ng describes, one menu item that just contains help. Everything else is in the gear.
    - smithzvk 13y ago
      Oh, I'm still on 12.04. Guess I have that to look forward to.
dhughes 13y ago
Years ago when Ubuntu Netbook Edition remix first came out I actually liked Unity on a netbook and put it on a desktop PC but then realized I hated it on a full size desktop PC. It's the same with Win 8 Metro I thought it looked great on mobile phones and on a desktop PC or laptop PC but looks versus using are two different things!
Mikeb85 13y ago
Bah, I loved the menus being in the global bar. Made so much more sense, and makes the screen feel larger.
gpvos 13y ago
I'm still in favour of how Acorn's RiscOS did it: the main menu is under the middle mouse button[0]. It's always nearby, because it's always at your cursor location. And it can optionally be context-sensitive, like today's "right-click" context menus. [0] which should be a real button, not a dinky scroll wheel.
shirro 13y ago
Get rid of the menu bars altogether. They made sense in 1984 when people who had never seen a mouse needed to discover how to use things. How often do you use a menu in an app today? Anything commonly done has a keyboard shortcut. Anything graphical has palettes. Menus are often contextual or being hidden behind three bar buttons these days.

116 points by pedrocr 13y ago

Unlike many others, I really liked most of Unity. However, I never liked the menu bar always being at the top of the screen. I think that changing the menues to being attached again is a good thing, and I like how they integrated it to hide in the title bar.

d0 13y ago

Looking at that screenshot, one question: What do we drag stuff with now without setting off a menu?

dave809 13y ago
I think the assumption is that the menu won't take up the entire bar
- d0 13y ago
  That's a pretty poor assumption then.
AhtiK 13y ago
Not sure about Unity but in quite a few Linux desktops you can press Alt and move window by clicking anywhere in the region. That's how I've always moved windows and been surprised when Windows or OS X have behaved differently. But the question is great! For a regular user dragging window without setting off a menu can become a serious usability issue. Yes, menu won't take the whole bar but still the size of the movable area becomes substantially smaller. One solution to detect dragging could be to use mouse release event for menu, instead of press and filter out shaky hand who actually wanted menu, not drag. But then again it's still bad because user expects menu system to react ASAP/mouse press, not release.
- krakensden 13y ago
  Unity and Gnome have that disabled by default :(
  - dethstar 13y ago
    in GNOME you can do it by pressing the windows(super) key.
CyberShadow 13y ago
Watch the video in the article. At 0:48, they drag the titlebar as usual, even though there are menu entries directly under the mouse cursor. I guess they have replaced the "pull down" mouse gesture with initiating a window drag, so the only way to open a menu with the mouse is to click it.
- d0 13y ago
  There goes 20 years of muscle memory...again.
- dagurp 13y ago
  I'm used to maximising and resizing windows by double clicking on the title bar. I wonder if it will be possible now.
vinkelhake 13y ago
Holding the button down for longer than some threshold or moving the mouse more than some distance starts a drag.
hrkristian 13y ago
Relevant image: http://i.imgur.com/Ppp12vB.png http://i.imgur.com/Ppp12vB.png GNOME leaves a small portion of the top bar free for dragging purposes (about an inch on my 17'' monitor)... more than ample space to suit anyone's dragging needs.
- d0 13y ago
  Thanks for posting this - your efforts are appreciated :)
yxhuvud 13y ago
Hold alt. Drag anywhere. In general, these kinds of questions are best answered by holding down the windows-button until the help shows up.

RyanZAG 13y ago

Great move, the single menu bar thing is just terrible design. It just moves common application actions further away from their context in order to give more room for.. more application actions? Whoever designed the single menu bar was clearly not thinking in terms of functional design principals.

nfoz 13y ago
One of the nice thing about menus being at the top of the screen is an adherence to Fitt's law: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitt%27s_law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitt%27s_law > Edges and corners of the computer monitor (...) are particularly easy to acquire with a mouse, touchpad or trackball. Because the pointer remains at the screen edge regardless of how much further the mouse is moved, they can be considered as having infinite width. This doesn't apply to touchscreens, though. But there's an argument to be made for the spatial-locality as well, as you say. I think it's an interesting trade-off / difference of design philosophy.
- RyanZAG 13y ago
  This tradeoff is best left to the user's specific task and is handled in a very intuitive and usable fashion: maximizable windows.
  - nzp 13y ago
    No, it's actually best handled the way they are about to handle it: let the user choose the alternative themselves.
  - pekk 13y ago
    This has its own problems, which are part of why tiling WMs are a thing
- Avshalom 13y ago
  Well there's two things: -A UI can't/can't-not adhere to Fitt's Law; Fitt's law tells you where to put things to make them easy to hit* it says nothing about what you should put there. -The entire edge is infinite but if your mouse has any horizontal velocity (which is extremely common now with wide screen monitors) a top menu item is only as deep as it is long. It's still easier for being 2D but it isn't infinite. *more accurately it's a mathematical model that tells you how long it takes to acquire a target with a mouse. I have no actual proof that speedy = easy.

selmnoo 13y ago

Very slightly-off topic: So, I have this theory. The theory is that Microsoft and/or Apple somehow infiltrated the Ubuntu organization and got their men in as developers and made big changes to sabotage and undermine the Ubuntu project. And they've done great. Let me tell you about the Unity Launcher: http://www.bomski.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/screenshot.jpg http://www.bomski.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/screenshot.... The awesome thing about it is the microscale indicator that is supposed to tell you what window is open. Yeah, that small little triangle on right/left side of icons. It gets even better when you have many windows open (the icon menu folds) or have more than one window open of a certain application (the triangle becomes an elongated thin icon which is now twice as difficult to make out in full-view): http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-36ZlfS5qyI0/TZREYHuo56I/AAAAAAAAArw/oGdahPyxiNQ/s1600/Screenshot-11.png http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-36ZlfS5qyI0/TZREYHuo56I/AAAAAAAAAr.... Basically, the most perfect applications panel design to get my mom to stop using Ubuntu (it worked, too!) When on a high resolution screen, I can't quite make them out either (so it got me to stop using Ubuntu as well)! Also, changing windows (e.g., if you have two or three document processing files open), how do you quickly and efficiently switch to the right one? I don't know! Give Ubuntu a chance yourself to see more gems like this. Man, I really have to give kudos to whoever is behind this, to have convinced their 'dedicated UI team' that this shit is anything less than a joke. Bravo Apple/Microsoft/whoever you are, I'm impressed!

d0 13y ago
It's probably like our dedicated UI team: cheap. Our head UI designer sent SPAM for a living before working for us.
- vanderZwan 13y ago
  Also, it's open source and design related. I imagine that means that as the project grows, the bike shedding scales O(n^2).
streptomycin 13y ago
My conspiracy theory is that it was all a practical joke by Shuttleworth, bringing us so close to the ideal of a usable Linux desktop that everyone could get behind, and then randomly moving shit around and creating division within the Linux community. We went from Ubuntu clearly being the market leader and providing a consistent UI, to a clusterfuck of different distributions and DEs.

nfoz 13y ago

The "application context" vs. "window context" UI dichotomy is certainly interesting; I think both mechanisms can be fine and implemented well or poorly. Ubuntu's was always extremely poor. Unless the toolkit and, to some extent, the applications are designed for that use-case, trying to hack their menus to appear at the top when they were expected to be part of the window is just a disaster. It's unfortunate that we just don't have the resources to make a sane desktop-level application menu on the desktop-linux stack, even with all the might of Ubuntu. But that seems to be the case, so I'm glad they're moving to something more feasible. Even if it's a little disappointing.

mark_l_watson 13y ago

I don't use my Ubuntu laptop nearly as often as my MacBook Air, so not a huge deal for me. That said, when I just work on a laptop's screen I like the menus on top but when I plug into a huge monitor being able to flip to the menus on window mode is excellent. Off topic, but I need to find a nice way to do the same for OS X when I plug my Air into a huge monitor. Any suggestions?

mistercow 13y ago

This actually is the thing keeping me from using Unity right now. A permanent menu bar made since on a 4:3 screen. But in 16:9, I just don't want to lose my precious vertical screen real estate to a menu bar.

mindstab 13y ago
you can remove it already, and it's about the first thing I don on all my new computers: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7282659 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7282659
- mistercow 13y ago
  That doesn't solve the real estate problem - in fact it makes it worse in some apps. The top bar is still there after you do that. It just moves the menu items back into the window. I don't really care where the menu items are. If the top bar would auto-hide, I'd be fine with it. I just don't want to give up the space. Apparently there's a modified Unity called "Unity Revamped" which adds autohide as an option to CCSM, but it's a slightly older version of Unity, and for whatever reason I can't downgrade to it.
reirob 13y ago
Absolutely agree! I would like to know how to get rid of the horizontal bar all-together.
sampo 13y ago
But since the windows won't have menu bars, won't that balance your loss of vertical screen real estate? Or if you have 2 or more windows vertically above each other, you even gain some vertical screen real estate.

nzp 13y ago

Reading the title made my blood pressure start slightly rising as it gives an impression this is not configurable. Fortunately this is not the case. I like the menu bar where it is now, that space is wasted anyway. If Unity didn't have the HUD then the current solution would be problematic with focus follows mouse, but with the HUD it's a non issue. Doesn't anyone else find it a bit weird how they pretend they invented the top bar menu and are like: "Yeah, we had this really cool and innovative idea, but, um, yeah as it was used in the real world for the past couple of years we gathered some data and we have second thoughts... You know how it is when you're the first and only product with an original feature..." Right... Because it's not like there's a certain other operating system GUI which has had this feature since the '80s.

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bliti 13y ago

I just wished that Canonical would sell an Ubuntu laptop. Not a namebrand laptop with Ubuntu installed in it, but a machine made for them exclusively. Then they can integrate the OS to perfectly work with the machine. I'd buy that in a heartbeat.

mistercow 13y ago
System76 is kind of like that. Obviously it isn't Canonical choosing hardware and tweaking software to match it, but they do make good choices to make sure everything works well. In my experience, it's not quite as seamless as a Mac, but it's damned close.
- willismichael 13y ago
  Agreed (posted using a System76 laptop)
justin_vanw 13y ago
Ubuntu doesn't make an OS. The put their sticker on, just like how your local dealer doesn't make cars. Also, what does it mean integrate it to work perfectly? Don't say "like osx", because Apple makes the hardware and they make the OS, they aren't integrating them so much as building a single product from those pieces (hardware and software)
daemonburrito 13y ago
I second System76; I think it's exactly what you're looking for. I don't understand why Canonical doesn't have closer ties to them. System76 even maintains an apt repo for their machines. I've bought 3 machines from them so far; all worked perfectly out of the box.
plumeria 13y ago
I second this. I have a Dell XPS 13 Ultrabook with Project Sputnik and it is very buggy, specially the wireless connections. But I think this is, in part, fault of Dell's cheap components.
wpietri 13y ago

forgottenpass 13y ago

Even when I don't like the changes, I still like the idea they're experimenting with the UI. But I really wish they had added a "just turn this nonsense off" option in the configuration too. The tweaks never play nice with software from outside of the ubuntu repos. A few commercial products running on Linux are important to our workflow. If they have a GUI, chances are high that there is a visual bug that makes the program unusable and that the root cause is a Unity feature. For example, the thing that moves the menu to the top bar meant no menu at all. Something else meant 1 quadrant of the application window just wouldn't paint at all, still no idea why on that one. Wasting half a day implementing a workaroud here and there isn't the worst thing in the world, but it's a low enough number of special purpose machines that I always threaten the next time I'll just migrate them to another DE.

fps 13y ago

I'm an Ubuntu + Gnome 3 user, but this seems a little pointless. None of the applications I use these days even have the 90's style File/Edit/View/Tools/Help style menus. Everything is in a right click menu, a function bar, or a much smaller all purpose "more" icon. File/Edit/View always made for a frustrating treasure hunt tracking down which of the properties/preferences/settings dialog box a certain setting was buried in; I don't understand why those menus lasted as long as they did.

Avshalom 13y ago
moving everything into a right click or more icon doesn't get rid of the menu it just adds one more step to the treasure hunt.
- fps 13y ago
  Not really. Some applications I use (like Gnome terminal) only have a right click menu. Everything is there, or in the "profile preferences" dialog accessible from within right click. Other applications (like Chrome) have a very sensible hierarchy: - If I want to do something to an object within a page (copy link, open image, translate text), I right click on that thing. - If I want to do something to the active document/page, there's a button for it at the top. - If I want to make a change to the application, I go to the singular settings dialog accessible through the "more functions" button. Hierarchical menus are a mess, and I'm glad they appear to be dying.
keithpeter 13y ago
LibreOffice? Accelerator keys? AKA Mnemonics? ALT-iof is wired into my fingers like C-maj on the piano. I use ALT-iof 50 times an hour when writing handouts. I've had to stop using versions of Unity after 12.04 because of the way later menu programming breaks this. See https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/libreoffice/+bug/739184 https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/libreoffice/+bug/7... I don't use the mouse much.

justin_vanw 13y ago

Who even notices silly things like this? It's gnu/Linux. Ubuntu isn't doing much, they do a string replace and change "Debian" to "Ubuntu", force everybody to use a half baked semi optimized for tablet even though nobody anywhere runs Ubuntu on a tablet UI layer, Unity is just garbage, but none of that matters. Ubuntu hasn't made any decisions, they are just setting some defaults. Who cares what the default menu location is when it takes 5 minutes to get everything back to the way you like it? (10 seconds if you are clever enough to rsync your home directory from another machine)

antihero 13y ago
What an utterly worthless comment. Ubuntu has lots of developers that produce a great deal of patches. I'm not a fan of Ubuntu but you don't have to be to understand that they do indeed contribute to the FOSS ecosystem, and saying that they don't is disingenuous and frankly offensive. Furthermore discussions about "little things like this" are what people have been pushing for - Linux on the desktop taking user experience as seriously as technical supremacy - for years, and is one of the main reasons people still cling to OSX and Windows.

japhyr 13y ago

> The intent of moving application-specific menus into the global menu bar was to leave more room for content in applications. But even for people who liked the design, it has grown more problematic over time with the proliferation of bigger monitors... This matches my experience. I usually work from a laptop, but when I've used ubuntu on a larger monitor it's been annoying to have to go all the way to the top left of the screen for a menu. I use keyboard shortcuts for most actions, but I do notice the issue when I need to access a menu.

edtechdev 13y ago

I know the argument about Fitt's law and having the menu up on the top (as was the custom since the first Macintosh). That was in the 1980s, with tiny monitors and usually only running one single window application at a time. When you have larger monitors and multiple windows open, a single menu bar runs into two new usability problems, one being mode errors. Is that menu for the application I am trying to use it for? What mode is the menu bar in right now? (vi/vim users know this one, too) The other issue is that with large monitors it takes more effort to reach the menu bar with your mouse. It's not a simple quick flick of the mouse up to the top like before with small screens. This is part of a larger class of problems I see with open source in particular. They copy some feature that made perfect sense in the time, context, and constraints under which it was designed, but don't factor in how things have changed or they don't have knowledge of the original problem that feature was designed to solve (which may no longer apply). I'm thinking of common programming language features in particular. That said, the spike in usability and stability and compatibility problems of Ubuntu (like not being able to even see the last item in a list of files because the bottom status bar was removed and replaced with a floating box) just finally pushed me off Ubuntu as my primary OS this past fall, after using it as my primary OS for 7 years. I know it's free and a lot of the compatibility problems are more the fault of Microsoft/Nvidia (dual graphics, uefi, etc.), I shouldn't complain, but to me it's not a good sign when you won't even use something that's free. But maybe this article is a sign that Ubuntu will improve in the future.

bztzt 13y ago
Good post (even if I'm not sure how much I agree with the mouse travel argument - I find moving to the edge still quick even on largish monitors, but it probably depends on your mouse/speed acceleration settings) but I'm not sure there's anything specific to open source here - understanding how and when to apply lessons from the past is tricky everywhere in software. I think design understanding is probably reasonably well dispersed by now and open source not at a marked disadvantage from the rest of the software world, unlike the 90s/early 00s.
modeless 13y ago
This is a great point. I've hated the top menu bar for years, but I never considered that it was actually a good fit for the original Macintosh, and has only become bad since screens became larger and multitasking more common. I don't think it's fair to blame Open Source for this kind of problem, though. After all, Apple had a chance to fix this when they redid the UI for OS X and they didn't do it either. To this day they continue to copy the menu design from the original Macintosh even though it no longer makes sense. They also copied the Dock from NeXT into OS X, which I think was a bad decision too.

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LarryMade2 13y ago

Meh Whenever I upgrade Ubuntu, first thing I do is change the desktop manager. Unity or whatever they call it just isn't productive for me. Just like Windows 8 (Metro) adding a button saying Start doesn't fix the problem that people have about using the thing in general. Same goes with adding menus on the top of windows for me. For me, it's the issue of just trying to locate the program I want without having to go to more effort than just selecting it from a list. Canonical thinks I want to search for it (which includes being able to remember it's name) and also be delighted at the opportunity to always download or buy something other than what's already on my computer... no thanks.

mindstab 13y ago

"But even for people who liked the design, it has grown more problematic over time with the proliferation of bigger monitors" Yes, this. I think in everyone's rush for "convergence" they just forgot about the desktop. I think the final winning solution will be more the Ubuntu/Canonical approach (and that they are a bit ahead of Windows now) in that we will have both options available and with a bit more time, you can easily choose from "interface profiles" On a big multiscreen desktop, I love and have for a long time loved, "in app menus" and Focus-Follow-Mouse. But on my 10" netbook? I'm actually pretty happy with global menu and click-focus because usually I'm just alt-tabing between full screen apps. Different situations call for different solutions. The real winner will be the solution that provides all options and the flexibility to seamlessly move between them, and as I said, I think Ubuntu is much closer. Windows with their entire new set of "Metro" apps and bigger "classic desktop"/metro separation I think has gone down the wrong path.

orangecat 13y ago
I think in everyone's rush for "convergence" they just forgot about the desktop. Exactly. "Desktops are dead" has become a self-fulfilling prophecy. For most users a new desktop computer wouldn't give them any significant benefits over the 5 year old one that they already have, so of course they're not going to buy one. Meanwhile, if hardware and software manufacturers had actually come up with ways to take advantage of their massive CPU and GPU power, we could have 50" displays at 8000x5000 pixels, eye tracking, gesture control, and who knows what else. Basically what this guy says: http://tiamat.tsotech.com/displays-are-the-key http://tiamat.tsotech.com/displays-are-the-key

mindstab 13y ago

Already right now you can remove Unity's global menu, it just takes some work $ sudo apt-get autoremove appmenu-gtk appmenu-gtk3 appmenu-qt firefox-globalmenu

usablebytes 13y ago

I trust, that's a good decision. The context of a component should always be carried with the component. I myself, found the global menus a lot troublesome, although the design intention to provide more room was successful.

virtualritz 13y ago

The main problem I have with the menu in Ubuntu is that the items are hidden until you move the mouse. That is just a design mistake of epic proportions because I can't acquire and aim for the target menu before the mouse has reached the bar. I never heard any Mac user complain about the global menu bar. Even on huge screens. Perhaps that is reason.

Brakenshire 13y ago
It's also bad from the perspective of discoverability. Any inexperienced user will really struggle with menus that completely disappear.
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walden42 13y ago
Would be nice to have an option to keep them permanently visible.

skywhopper 13y ago

I would be happy, but Ubuntu managed to drive me away from their default UI with Unity long ago. This is only one of many things I didn't care for in Unity.

realrocker 13y ago

O elusive menu bar, where art thee, My fingers cry for a chance unity, Though I travel edge from edge looking, No fear, My Love, the trackpad is never ending.

higherpurpose 13y ago

Now if they can only let users to switch the sidebar to the bottom, the way it is in Windows, that would be perfect. Even a change like that for a user that comes from Windows can turn him away from Ubuntu.

NateDad 13y ago
Monitors are almost always wider than they are tall... using horizontal space makes a ton more sense. If such a small thing turns off a user, they're not seriously considering a different OS anyway.

eklavya 13y ago

Okay, I get it Ubuntu bashing is the new fad. But cmon, they are providing more choice here. For small screens global menu and close button on the system panel save a lot of vertical space. Now they are providing an option to the guys with big screens to have local menus so they don't have to keep on selecting windows to access their menus. What's wrong in it? I have come to like unity the way it is, though I didn't in the beginning. I support Ubuntu in the spirit of open source and to be free to do things you want to do and in the way you like. It's very strange indeed to hear complaints about making new stuff from hackers. Don't we all do it? Sometimes for nothing else but for our heart's desire?

wpietri 13y ago
Making new stuff for your heart's desire is excellent. Art is a vital part of life. Inflicting something upon millions of people should, however, be about what they need. I did not volunteer to be a participant in somebody's half-assed art project, and if I did, it wouldn't be using my work laptop.
- eklavya 13y ago
  Nothing is being inflicted, Nobody forces users to use Ubuntu, they do it because they like it. That is not to say that they should be deaf to community feedback. If it's so bad it is going to lose market share but Ubuntu really is popular and people seem to still like it. The people who dislike it are just way more vocal that's all. Why bitch about something that's free AND when you have plenty of choices?

yason 13y ago

I wonder if they already allow binding commands and window manager functions to super key? They didn't and that kind of put me off Unity right from the start. Good keyboard controls are a must for any desktop environment and the super key is perfect for activating those while leaving all three of control, alt, and shift for applications (such as Emacs).

robomartin 13y ago

I am surprised nobody has mentioned multi-monitor setups. This is where you really experience how bad the concept of a single unified menu bar for EVERYTHING that is running on the machine can be. Connect four 1920 x 1200 (or larger) monitors to your machine and you'll be cursing in no time at all. Even a simpler dual screen setup suffers from this concept. I don't care if it is under osx Or Ubuntu/Unity, this UI is inferior to one where the application and the relevant menu exist in a self contained window. Now, that does not mean that an application cannot spawn multiple windows at all. For example, Altium Designer --a high-end electronics circuit design package-- can make use of one or more monitors quite effectively. You can, for example, have the schematic editor running in a window on one monitor while you design the PCB on the second and the documentation is open on the third. Each window houses the relevant menus and toolbars. This would be an absolute nightmare on OSX or Ubuntu style single menu systems. It doesn't end there. If I am working on a web project i might have my IDE open front and center while supporting tools are open on the other monitors. I usually run several virtual machines on the monitor immediately to the left. Each machine runs a different browser for testing purposes. I found this to be far easier than other options and I can keep those virtual machines and browsers clean of extraneous stuff that might otherwise modify behavior. I then keep a terminal window or two logged into whatever remote server I might be working on. This can also be on a separate monitor if needed. I usually keep the terminal on the left with the VM's. On my right monitor I usually run Chrome and Firefox for reference (PDF's, manuals, SO, etc.) and technical debugging purposes. If needed other tools such as email and the too-important music player go on the right as well. If I need photoshop, excel or some other tool it usually goes in the center monitor. I tend to keep several open file browsers on the fourth monitor (although Only one of my systems has four large monitors). Again, dedicated and context-appropriate menus make it easy to deal with such a setup without having to mouse all over the universe of available pixels. If I had to do this on OSX or Ubuntu I'd probably throw the computer out the window. In fact our Mac systems all have dual monitors but I still use the Windows systems for almost anything other than iOS development because OSX continues to evolve into a royal pain in the ass. I can run Ubuntu 12.04 LTS server in a virtual machine on the PC with a shared drive and have the best of all worlds. BTW, running Vista and 7.

nknighthb 13y ago

robomartin 13y ago

mavhc 13y ago

Why is there a menu bar at all? Just use the menu button anywhere in the window to open the menu, ultimate Fitts law.

runn1ng 13y ago

I, for one, love it when the menus are on top. What I don't like, however, is that they are on the top bar sometimes, but not always. Java Swing applications usually have their own bar. evince, Ubuntu's default PDF reader, has just some useless "About" menu on top, and everything important is under the gear icon in the window (which took me about 15 minutes to discover). And it's a default GNOME application!

smithzvk 13y ago
That is really weird. For me evince has no gear icon and has its menus in the global menu like every other GTK application.
- theintern 13y ago
  On my Ubuntu 13.10 I have what runn1ng describes, one menu item that just contains help. Everything else is in the gear.
  - smithzvk 13y ago
    Oh, I'm still on 12.04. Guess I have that to look forward to.

dhughes 13y ago

Years ago when Ubuntu Netbook Edition remix first came out I actually liked Unity on a netbook and put it on a desktop PC but then realized I hated it on a full size desktop PC. It's the same with Win 8 Metro I thought it looked great on mobile phones and on a desktop PC or laptop PC but looks versus using are two different things!

Mikeb85 13y ago

Bah, I loved the menus being in the global bar. Made so much more sense, and makes the screen feel larger.

gpvos 13y ago

I'm still in favour of how Acorn's RiscOS did it: the main menu is under the middle mouse button[0]. It's always nearby, because it's always at your cursor location. And it can optionally be context-sensitive, like today's "right-click" context menus. [0] which should be a real button, not a dinky scroll wheel.

shirro 13y ago

Get rid of the menu bars altogether. They made sense in 1984 when people who had never seen a mouse needed to discover how to use things. How often do you use a menu in an app today? Anything commonly done has a keyboard shortcut. Anything graphical has palettes. Menus are often contextual or being hidden behind three bar buttons these days.