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[Chris <iforce2d@xxxxxxxxx>]

I don't know what all the fuss is about, it's great not being able to
see where things are that you need to click on. I heard that for 15.04
the next phase of this brilliant plan will go into effect - entire
windows will be invisible until you mouse over them. Just imagine how
slick and stylish your deskop will look, it's gonna be awesome! And
that's not all... for 16.04, rumor has it that the whole screen will
remain black until you move your mouse. Can you imagine how much space
that will save on small screens? I just can't wait, the innovative-
thinking of Ubuntu UI designers blows my mind!

But seriously now, this is the worst idea ever (and I've seen many bad
ideas since this whole Unity nonsense started). It boggles my mind that
menus used to actually be shown all the time, and then somebody sat down
and spent the time, going out of their way to implement the auto-hide.
It would be fine if we could just agree to disagree by selecting the
behavior we prefer (given that the old behavior already existed, my mind
boggles even more that such an option was not added at the time this
genius made the change).

fwiw I'm still happily using Fedora14, which may seem ancient by many
measurements, but when it comes to getting things done efficiently I
have no complaints at all. Every now and then I take a look at Ubuntu,
but it usually only lasts about 20 minutes before I get sick of having
to go along with epic fail decisions like this. In fact right now I am
typing this on 14.04, probably the last thing I'll be doing on Ubuntu
until next year :-)

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/732653

Title:
  Menus are hidden by default

Status in Ayatana Design:
  Confirmed
Status in Unity:
  Confirmed
Status in “unity” package in Ubuntu:
  Triaged
Status in “unity-2d” package in Ubuntu:
  Triaged

Bug description:
  Ubuntu 11.04, Ubuntu 11.10, Ubuntu 12.04

  1. Log in to Unity, and try to connect to a server: "File" > "Connect to Server".
  2. Launch Firefox, and try to select an item from the "Bookmarks" menu.

  What happens:

  1. The "File" menu, and the rest of Nautilus's menus, are hidden by default.
  - Unless you mouse over it, the menu bar is blank.
  - When you mouse over it, the menus appear.

  2. The "Bookmarks" menu, and the rest of Firefox's menus, are hidden by default.
  - Unless you mouse over it, the menu bar contains only the text "Firefox Web Browser", which isn't useful at all (especially, but not only, since the real name of the application -- "Mozilla Firefox" -- is already present in the window title bar).
  - When you mouse over it, the menus appear, partly but not completely replacing the previous text: "Firefox W File Edit View…".

  What should happen: Menus should be visible by default, so that you
  can know that they exist without scrubbing the screen, and so that you
  can see where a menu is each time you aim for it.

  The current behavior has led some people (including, this week, one of
  my design colleagues) to conclude that Ubuntu applications don't have
  menus when they do. For example
  <http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/opensource/gnome-shell-vs-ubuntu-
  unity-which-desktop-wins/2291>: "One of the most handy menu entries in
  GNOME (for me at least) is the Connect to Server entry in the Places
  menu. This allows the user to connect to nearly any type of server
  quickly and easily. The user can even connect to a Windows Share from
  here. In Unity - you won’t find that. In fact, you will be hard
  pressed to find any means to connect to a server in Ubuntu Unity."

  In bug 720424, Jono Bacon reported that "when we did some developer
  tools usability testing last week and on some other occasions when I
  have had someone use Unity, I have noticed that some folks don't
  realize there is a menu there as it is not visible."

  This was confirmed by usability testing of Ubuntu 11.04, where 2 out
  of the 10 people who needed to use a menu item could not find the
  menus at all -- and of the 8 who did find them, 7 did so only when the
  window was maximized. https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-
  desktop/2011-April/002970.html (Usability testing results of Ubuntu
  11.10 or 12.04 have never been published, but this part of the design
  did not change.)

  Do not confuse this bug with bug 682788, which is about adding an
  option for visibility. Adding any options would not fix this bug,
  which is about menus being hidden *by default*.

  -------------------------------------
  Desired change:

  Implement the 'Enhanced Menu' project for 12.10. This project will
  address the issues described in this bug and also issues described in
  the duplicates of this bus. Note the 'official' bug that tracks the
  implementation of this project is bug #682788

  The following options will be added to 'System Settings/Appearance':

  -------
  Menus
  Location: Global/Local
  Visibility: Hidden/Always displayed
  -------

  More details to follow during the 12.10 cycle... ;-)

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