unity-design team mailing list archive

[Niklas Rosenqvist <niklas.s.rosenqvist@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi, my name is Niklas Rosenqvist and I recently sent this message to
David Barth who forwarded it to a couple of people and I thought I
might post it here as well to see what reactions it might get. I'm
fairly new to the ubuntu community and I just joined the ayatana
mailing list so forgive me if I'm doing this the wrong way :)

This what I sent to David:

"(...) I've been following the development of Unity closely since the
project got announced and it truly is a revolution in many ways for
the Ubuntu/Linux desktop. I've been playing around with beta2 lately
and feel that there are quite a few areas which need further
improvement. Since I'm rather new to the Ubuntu community I don't
really know how to influence the development of Ubuntu. Therefore I
thought I might give a shot at contacting you and maybe you could
forward this or something. I would greatly appreciate if I got some
response to this, whether it's good ideas or why not.

Firstly I want to discuss lenses. Lenses are a really clever new
feature in Ubuntu though to me they feel way to bloaty to be a nice
integration to the shell. If I haven't mistakenly overlooked a
setting, the lenses are supposed to be launched from the launcher and
can not easily be found from anywhere else. So the lenses take up a
whole lot of room in the launcher, though the main (or only)
difference between the lenses is that they search for different
things, but they all search. If I would have an AskUbuntu lens, Reddit
lens, YouTube lens etc. it would take up a lot of room. Wouldn't it be
smarter to just have a Lenses application which you from there choose
which lens to search with? When you click the Ubuntu icon in the upper
left corner and get presented with the a couple of shortcuts, why not
present the lenses “Applications”, “Files and Folders”, “More apps” at
the top and then instead of the current fourth lens, or where the
below shortcuts are (“Browse the web” etc.) present the user with
”More lenses” where you can see all the currently installed lenses?

At the moment you can view all installed applications in the
”Applications”-lens. It's easy to search for a program but sometimes
maybe you don't know the name of the program or just want to know what
is installed on your system so it makes sense to have the ”Installed
applications” category. But if you have 100+ applications installed
then it gets really tedious to scroll through that list since they are
all sorted in a grid layout. The lenses should really benefit from
having an option to sort results as lists or other alternatives so
it's easy to scroll through the result and not having to scan both the
width and height of the screen.

Another feature which the lenses should benefit from is a
”back”-button where needed. Like in the lens which opens when you
click the Ubuntu icon.

The Ubuntu button separates from the launchers perfectly and you
understand that it has another function than the rest of the
launchers. But the launcher's trash icon looks exactly as a regular
launcher (which I guess it is, but it's function is more integrated
into the system). It would be better distinguished from the rest of
the launchers if it had a unique look, like the Ubuntu button. Why not
make a divided grey button down there with both the trashcan and the
now seemingly gone “show desktop“-button, with the same icon theme as
the Ubuntu button and the panel? I think that the workspace switcher
also should be down here if it can be added elegantly, it really feels
out of place to have it as a launcher.

That the settings applications have all been organized into the
“System settings” application is great. It's a nice and tidy way to
administrate your system. Although that it lacks an Unity
configuration application (like the CompizConfig Settings Manager
Unity plugin) is just wrong. Those kind of settings should be easy to
access and not require an extra application. Either include CCSM or
create a Unity specific app (I favor the second option).

The configurations in the CCSM Unity plugin lacks but one feature, to
be able to configure the launcher transparency and not only the panel
transparency. As default I think it has a too low opacity which can
make the icons hard to distinguish when viewed over a full screen web
page with the background light set to toggle or off. I also fully
understand the need to have a delay to open the launcher when it hides
for a window but the delay is far to long and pauses the work flow. I
suggest that half the time should be default (or make this time a
setting). It might also be useful to be able to handle the window
shadow size from the system settings, without installation of another
application.

The “aero-snap”-feature is really nice and makes it easier for
handling open windows. When you move a window to the edge of the
screen with normal speed the animation looks good as it expands over
the screen, but when you move it closer pixel by pixel then it just
looks buggy. Why make the animation relative to how close you are to
the edge when even if the animation shows just an inch of enlargement
it snaps to the full size. Make the animation smooth all the way when
you are at the edge of the screen instead to avoid misunderstandings.
This also applies to when opening the launcher by moving the mouse all
the way up in the left corner. When you move your mouse up there you
either want to open the menu lens or something on launcher. If you
open the menu lens, the launcher opens automatically. So why not show
it directly when you are hovering the button instead of when you reach
the corner?

The Ubuntu Software Center left hand menu looks cramped and could need
a redesign with some more white space. Also please include the Opera
browser and XBMC by default in the canonical partners or something
category.

Lastly I just want to say that the global menu bar works exceptionally
well and also the overlay scroll bars. Keep up the good job with
making Ubuntu the best PC operating system there is! If the above
features get looked at Ubuntu will be unstoppable!"

So what is your thoughts? :)