unity-design team mailing list archive

[giff g <giffgilll@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

> From: conscioususer@xxxxxxx
> To: ayatana@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Date: Mon, 4 Apr 2011 14:53:45 -0300
> Subject: Re: [Ayatana] why global menubar/application menu isn't such a great idea
> 

> While I disagree with Mitja's tone (as usual), I agree with
> his main point. Most of giff's points were based on general
> assumptions backed up by little more than anecdotal evidence.
> And anecdotal evidence is easily countered: less than a week
> ago a user in this list mentioned how he had no problems with
> using OSX in a large HD monitor, for example.

I said as much and hoped I made it pretty clear that thepoints I rise are only opinions that matter to me and how I use computer interfaces.I also hinted at criticising how everything the Unity team is doing is based on personal experiences, anectotes, preference etc. instead of how it should be done: scientifically, with hard data and a largedata set. Mozilla and Google know this and that's why I emphasizedtheir browser UI and the testing that went into that.
So in turn I'd expect that my opinions are accepted for what they areand well, pot and kettle (@Mitja)
> The existence of things like DejaMenu is hardly convincing
> evidence either, specially in the Linux ecosystem where there
> are hacks for anything and everything.

I agree but I also provided a reason why I'm bothering about this particular "hack": The defaults should be the best possiblecompromise, I provided some reasons why the defaults now aren't the best default - for large screens.
> Also, giff mistakenly uses an old post about the original
> Unity as an argument, ignoring the fact that netbooks are not
> the primary target anymore, effectively invalidating some of
> his points from the very beginning.

I disagree. First of all I know that Unity is intended for all sorts of devices and form factors (hence the point 2 about Desktops). Secondly, that change in my eyes only aids my arguments:On small screens conflating titlebar and menubar and decreasing windowhight is a worth trade-offs like multitasking and the eye focus problemdoesn't exist. The fact that the global menu is seen as the best possible choice for 30 inch displays is what I argued against.
Does that change invalidate the articles quoted?Netbooks are still an important target and so are other form-factorslike tablets. More important than desktops simply because of marketshare and growth rate.
Anyway the "net" centric computing will only increase, no matterwhat device you use.
> The rest of the text is mostly questionable, with some apparent
> contradictions, both internal (ex: emphasizing how unnecessary
> the menu is, while complaining about the global menu making it
> slow)
Some parts of my post are probably a bit unstructured and could needsome editing to clear up some points...
In response to that apparent contradiction:When I talk about how the text menu is becoming obsolete I have native OS X applications in mind, modern "apps" written in Cocoa.Not "legacy" gtk2 programs that haven't seen an interface change in years or I have Windows 7 in mind, where IE, Office, built in programslike Wordpad and Paint switched to a menubar-less interface.KDE is toying with going into that direction as well I heard. Then Firefox and Chrome. Point 1) is my primary concern and that's why I filled a bug against it.
Now, for those programs that really do need the menu and the menu has to be accessed frequently it's a different matter. In full screen application the menu should be at the top like Unity does.
Generally, the valuable screen estate at the screen edges should be reserved for the most frequently accessed interface elements andnot wasted with a large title bar for example (The office ribbondoesn't get this right).
The lower screen edge is equally important and with Unity freeing it,it's up to the application developers to make clever use of it insteadof for example waisting it with a statusbar nobody needs (becauseyou always put a statusbar there, right? The statusbar is a goodexample. Up until Chrome ALL browsers had one, now they are all replacing it with temporary url previews. Just because it's old and tried doesn't mean it's "the best possible solution". I extend that to the concept of global menubars.)
The problem with the global menu is that it's static, so even for thoseapps that don't need one it's there. It's taking up space and wastingthe preciouse screen edge area. For those apps it is "unnecessary".
The problem with "slowness" really only comes into play when talking about multi-tasking.
> and external (ex: complaining how prominent it is, while
> a lot of people are complaining about not being prominent
> enough due to the show-on-hover).

I didn't go into that and I think it's a separate issue altogether.But I don't see how that contradicts anything I said.
Just take look at my Chromium and Firefox example: You don't need the window title and you don't need the menu.In either cases this is lost screen estate and tabs are harder toaccess than on Windows, KDE and Chrome OS.Hover or not changes nothing.
But if you want my opinion on that specific issue:show-on-hover is a bad design, period. Most HIGs will agree withmy opinion here...It's a noisy interface, not exactly discoverable and the mainadvantage of the menubar (items are in predictable places, use muscle memory) is lost. For full screen applications the window title isn't very necessary and for tabbed applications (which are numerous and probably growing, browsers, text editors, photo editors, file managers)and windows with an address/location bar it's not needed at all.
> Overall, the points are not clear from a realistic point of
> view. At the end of the day, it seems the main point of the
> text is "menus will die someday, so let's pretend this day has
> already arrived and move from there", which kinda... doesn't
> work in real life. :)
My main point is bug #749335Firefox and Chrome are not some day, they are now.For me the browser is the most frequently used applicationsand I deeply care about getting the best possible user experience there.
Google who best know about hard data as opposed to opinionsis writing a whole OS without a menubar. They do get UX.The way Ubuntu is positioning itself today and the way I predicthow the OS landscape is going to be in the coming year I think Chrome OS is going to be replace a certain someone in bug #1.