Re: [Ayatana] Thoughts on Unity design

[Ed Lin <edlin280@xxxxxxxxx>]

 On Fri, Apr 29, 2011 at 9:06 AM, Phong Cao <phngcv@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>
>> Gnome3 is, in almost every way, a usability regression.  It simply takes many times more work (clicks, drags, gestures, etc. etc.) to perform almost any given action (opening an app, closing an app, finding an app, etc. etc.) in G3 than it does in either Unity or G2.
>> By way of example, window management in particular is a nightmare.  Consider the following task: I want to, for a moment, get a window out of my way (to see the window behind it) and then put it back.  In G2 or Unity I would:
>> - minimize the app (one click)
>> - restore the app (one click in G2, one or two clicks in Unity, depending on the number of open windows)
>> In Gnome3, I can do this several ways, but the easiest involves:
>> - moving mouse to a hot corner, or using the keyboard shortcut to trigger the expose-like feature
>> - pick the window I want to raise to the top
>> - go again to hot corner or use keyboard combination
>> - pick the original window
>> Well I think using the amount of "clicks" to compare which desktop is faster or more efficient is not a good way of doing it.
>> Let's compare it this way:
>> - Open 3 maxmimized windows of Chrome, 2 maximized OpenOffice windows, 2 terminals and 1 file manager (this is what I usually do for my work).
>> - Now try to switch between these windows and count how LONG does it take in GNOME Shell and Unity. This is exactly what I meant "easier"
>> Now after doing this you will see three things:
>> - Although GNOME Shell takes more clicks to work on rather than Unity, it is easier and faster to manage windows.
>> + In Unity, if using the default configuration (the left bar automatically hidden), when in the Chrome windows, I will have to "guess" the position of Chrome icon or Workspace icon if I want to switch to another window.
>> + In GNOME Shell I just hover the mouse and choose the windows from the list of windows. I think it is a lot easier this way.
>> When comparing the two desktop what I do is not trying to count "How many clicks to do this... ?". Rather, I count "How many seconds faster and how confusing each of them is...". And at least in default GNOME Shell I do not have to "guess" the position of my icons.

This is a good point, but you omitted us the analysis for G2. I'd
argue for many both G3 and Unity are a regression when it comes to
*window* switching.
Let me also add in favor of Unity: You can use super+number and
super+w or middle click on a title bar which in terms of speed is
faster than your GNOME 3 gestures. This is somewhat hidden and for
power users (keyboard junkies as I called them) but these are probably
the kind of users who care about speedy multitasking the most.
Secondly the default hidden launcher could and should be changeable.
It makes no sense on large monitors to hide it. In this configuration
Unity should at least achieve parity in your user case.

(sorry about the direct email)

Ed