unity-design team mailing list archive

[Mikkel Kamstrup Erlandsen <mikkel.kamstrup@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, 2011-04-06 at 07:05 -0600, Ian Santopietro wrote:
> If you're having trouble seeing the animations, you might try setting
> a slow keybpard shortcut in the composite plugin settings. 
> 
> Actually, I really like the speed of the Ubuntu animations. The
> windows animations are definitely too slow, and sometimes I feel like
> I have to wait for the animation. 
> 
> That said, I don't think there is an open animation by default. This
> could definitely be changed. Just make sure it's fast. 120 Ms is a
> great speed.

There is an open animation. Fading in for 80ms. And I guess what I see
in my system - that accounting for a pretty massive frame dropping then
a 80ms animation might never hit the screen. Or worse, be a 1-2 frame
flicker.

Other people interested in playing with this can hit alt-f2 and type
"about:config". Then find the Animation plugin and tune your animation
times to 300ms or something where you can definitely perceive the
animations.

I am totally with you - animations must be very quick subtle hints. What
needs consideration is why we drop frames.

Cheers,
Mikkel

> On Apr 6, 2011 1:55 AM, "Mikkel Kamstrup Erlandsen"
> <mikkel.kamstrup@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > On Wed, 2011-04-06 at 01:25 -0400, Melvin Garcia wrote:
> >> Hi guys/gals. My name is Melvin Garcia, and I'm new to the list.
> >> 
> >> I was comparing Mac's Quartz and Windows' Aero animations to
> Ubuntu's
> >> default animation settings and noticed a few things. First of all
> >> Ubuntu's animations are too fast, to the point of being almost
> >> invisible and in some cases totally invisible. 
> >> 
> >> Quartz and Aero both feature elegant, smooth animations. They catch
> >> the eye in a pleasant way, but are unobtrusive at the same time. I
> >> believe the current Unity experience, which is very elegant could
> be
> >> enhanced by slower, smoother animations. Glide 2 is not meant for
> >> "open animation", the window doesn't fade in, it just appears and
> >> animates very quickly. Glide 1, fade or zoom are better suited for
> >> this event. These animations feature a nice "fade in" effect
> enhancing
> >> the experience.
> >> 
> >> "Close animation" should have animations which feature "fade out",
> >> Glide 2, fade and zoom all work well here. 
> >> 
> >> I know having faster animations can make the system feel faster,
> but
> >> what's the point in having animations when the user can't
> appreciate
> >> them? Windows has smooth open, close and minimize animations and
> yet,
> >> the system feels fast. Desktop animations shouldn't be too slow nor
> >> too fast, they have to walk right in between.
> > 
> > Interesting. I didn't even know we had window animations; I don't
> see
> > any.
> > 
> > Or actually now that you point it out - if I focus very hard I think
> I
> > can see the fade in when mapping them. But I may be imagining that.
> > 
> > This could just be an effect of frame dropping (I have i945 which is
> > renowned for spectacularly bad performance :-)). But still; this
> used to
> > work with the 0.8 series of Compiz. I guess we need some graphics
> > experts to weigh in.
> > 
> > Cheers,
> > Mikkel
> > 
> > 
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