unity-design team mailing list archive

[Phong Cao <phngcv@xxxxxxxxx>]

I am too have been for a long time a Ubuntu's fan. However, I am not trying
to be negative but... I would say that Unity's design is way far behind
GNOME Shell in Fedora 15. I recommend anybody in this email list try out
Fedora 15 & GNOME Shell and learn from their simplicity. (Just my thought,
no offense). After couple days get along with Fedora 15 & GNOME Shell I feel
that GNOME Shell is more newbie-friendly and productive than Unity. I think
Ubuntu should reconsider going back to GNOME...

On Thu, Apr 28, 2011 at 5:31 PM, Niklas Rosenqvist <
niklas.s.rosenqvist@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> 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? :)
>
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