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Re: [Ayatana] Awesome critical review of Unity



Christian, you were right, the message went only to you, thanks to my negligence of the contents of the To box. And just so the other Ayatana mailing list subscribers know, I said "I think the masses has already the sense to find the titlebar in the window they're interacting in, so that doesn't count..." in reply to Greg's last message.

The points you described are valid, but with the increasing of screen sizes and the use of laptops, it's very annoying to move the mouse all the way over to the panel using the touchpad. On the other hand, users are already accustomed to have the menu bars in the window, so I don't see any valid reason to move the menu bar of all the applications to the panel. Having many small windows opened at a given moment will only increase the frustration - go to panel do something, again drag mouse to next window, drag it back up, do something, and it goes on and on...

In any case, I am in agreement with your solutions, and the only think I want to add is to change the complete hidden nature of the current menu bars. Users new to Unity would be totally clueless as to where the menu bar is, regardless of it's position on the panel or title bar. If the menus are slightly faded out and fades in on mouse over would look good on top of being functional.

On 16 April 2011 14:12, Christian Mackintosh <christian.mackintosh@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Toki,

What Greg was saying, I think, was that throwing the mouse up to the top edge of the screen is a very easy thing to do, in that you don't have to aim for any target. The way menu bars normally are, and the way both he and I, amongst others, have proposed, means that you are aiming for a smaller target in the middle of the screen, which may be slightly slower. However, I don't actually think that that is really a valid concern because currently when I try to use the global menu it often works like this:

1) Throw mouse to top of screen
2) Notice that this is the wrong menu (if I'm lucky! A few times I've started searching in vain through a menu, only to realise after a few seconds that it's not the one I want)
3) Move mouse to application, click to focus
4) Move mouse back to top of screen
5) Use menu

Whereas if the menubars were integrated into the restored window's titlebar, the process would be thus:

1) Move mouse to application
2) Use menu, even if the window wasn't focused.

Furthermore, as I said earlier, at the very least it won't be any slower than the previous behaviour of having separate menu bars.

Christian

P.S. I think(?) you forgot to CC this message to ayatana, so it just went to me.


On Sat, Apr 16, 2011 at 1:46 PM, Toki Tahmid <oxwivi@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I think the masses has already the sense to find the titlebar in the window they're interacting in, so that doesn't count...


On 16 April 2011 13:37, Christian Mackintosh <christian.mackintosh@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Greg,

You are absolutely right IMHO. Nothing more to add, just lending my support!


On Sat, Apr 16, 2011 at 1:29 PM, Greg K Nicholson <greg@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> However, Greg, is the downside you are describing for the current layout
> with menu bar indiscriminately in title bar or the layout you're describing?

The disadvantage I described was for the layout I described.

Having the menu always in the panel makes it quicker to acquire and
click, which is good, but it appears connected to the wrong window. In
my view, having the menu appear to be connected to the right window is
more important than speed.

Put another way, the problem with the current layout is this: even
though the menu is in a consistent place all the time, it doesn't
*feel* consistent, and that's confusing.
--
☮♥☯
Greg K Nicholson
http://gkn.me.uk

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