unity-design team mailing list archive

[Toki Tahmid <oxwivi@xxxxxxxxx>]

@Anthony, great idea, though I don't see removing panel when no maximised
windows doing much, and instead of a list on hover, I'd prefer a menu bar
appear vertically on the title bar. Oh, and other system icons like mounted
USB/partition smaller and statically fixed at the bottom would be great.

@Ed, wondering for a while now, but what the hell is Fitts's Law? Menus on
title bar, period.

On 29 April 2011 09:15, Toki Tahmid <oxwivi@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> @Anthony, great idea, though I don't see removing panel when no maximised
> windows doing much, and instead of a list on hover, I'd prefer a menu bar
> appear vertically on the title bar. Oh, and other system icons like mounted
> USB/partition smaller and statically fixed at the bottom would be great.
>
> @Ed, wondering for a while now, but what the hell is Fitts's Law? Menus on
> title bar, period.
>
>
> On 29 April 2011 07:07, Ed Lin <edlin280@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>> On Fri, Apr 29, 2011 at 12:10 AM, Evan Huus <eapache@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> > On Thu, Apr 28, 2011 at 4:27 PM, Anthony Scire <aaaantoine@xxxxxxxxx>
>> wrote:
>>
>> >> 2. The menu bar should, in some way, still be built into its window.
>> >> The way I propose is to have a button appear on the title bar, a-la
>> >> Firefox 4.  Hovering the mouse over this button will reveal the menu.
>> >> Mouse actions on the "button" should be the same as any other part of
>> >> the title bar, just that the mouse-over event will reveal the
>> >> drop-down menus stacked vertically.  The label on the button should be
>> >> the same as currently appears in the global menu bar, i.e. "Firefox
>> >> Web Browser".  Then next to that, if the text is any different, the
>> >> regular window title will appear.
>> >>
>> >> Hitting Alt should drop down this menu, as well.
>> >
>> > I'm not convinced about this. I know several people who aren't happy
>> > with the FF4-style menus because it requires an extra click to access
>> > anything (confused about the hover you mention - would the user have
>> > to hover, wait, then move sideways without leaving the window to
>> > access menus? seems finicky). Also, this would presumably face the
>> > same discovery issues as the global menu does now, as documented in
>> > the usability study.
>> >
>> > The current system is definitely a problem though.
>> >
>> Ah, the menubar again.
>>
>> Let me quickly outline the problem:
>>
>> There are very different kinds of users:
>>
>> #1 -the keyboard junkie:
>> Never uses the mouse unless he has to, menubar must be accessible via
>> keyboard. Most important function: It severs as a lookup table for all
>> available combinations. After having used a particular application for
>> a while and having memorized all relevant functions he'll prefer to
>> keep the menubar hidden entirely. The placement of the menubar doesn't
>> much matter that much to him. Making it optionally hidden and only
>> showing it when pressing the alt key would be the perfect solution for
>> this kind of user.
>>
>> #2-the eternal noob
>> He loves nothing more than simple, predictable, repeatable and
>> consistent. He doesn't care about speed and probably less about
>> maximising screen estate. He'll use the menubar to cut and paste even
>> though friends and family repeatedly explain how ctrl+x/v and even
>> toolbar icons or the right-click context menu is so much faster. No,
>> edit->paste is what he learned in his Windows Office 97 or earlier
>> days and that's what he'll keep using till they rip the mouse from his
>> cold, dead hands.
>> The clear, simple, textual hierarchy gives him confidence and safety.
>> So, don't mess with it! This includes replacing the menubar with a
>> single menu button as proposed above.
>>
>> These are the two extremes I guess, there are many shades in between:
>>
>> #3-the hip
>> he wants nice, flashy and modern. Usability comes second as longs the
>> look is right He'll long for modern interfaces like he's used to from
>> his smartphone and the modern browser he uses for facebook and youtube
>> (there isn't much else he uses the computer for). He won't even notice
>> if the menubar moves or is gone entirely as longs as the remaining
>> interface is fun to use and exposes all required controls via nice
>> buttons and icons.
>>
>> #4-the workaholic
>> The OS and it's GUI are just another thing in the way of getting
>> things done. Don't nag him while he's working! He'll work with a very
>> few selected applications, email, word and a browser. On his portable
>> device he wants to use all the screen estate for his work, not for
>> fancy interface controls. Menubar or other interface elements, it
>> doesn't really matter as longs as it gets the job done in the most
>> efficient way. He'll complain loudly about any change but if it's for
>> the better he'll soon calm down again and actually be very grateful.
>> Give him a maximised Writer and Browser, no unnecessary bar and titles
>> and he's happy.
>> In his case the Firefox style menu button is a bad idea. It adds a
>> whole additional hierarchy thereby increasing complexity and time to
>> access typically by about one third, example: Edit->Paste would become
>> Menu->Edit->Paste.
>>
>> Now let's see how we stack up.
>> Unity improved things for the "hip" and the "workaholic". A new
>> interface with Compiz effects and a certain Mac/iOS inspired look and
>> feel is a win for the hipster. Compared to GNOME 2 Unity gets rid of
>> three panels (60 pixels or so?) vertical space which results in more
>> text/content visible for our workaholic.
>> The keyboard junkie will appreciate the new keyboard friendly launcher
>> and furthermore stay out of the menubar discussion that largely
>> focuses on Fitts's Law and counting mouse clicks. Nothing he ever
>> cared about. But why is it so prominently on the top of the screen if
>> he never intends to make much use of it, why can't it be hidden as an
>> option to maximise the rows visible in vim/emacs?
>> As for our second guy: Doesn't look so good. Where is the menu gone? I
>> can't find it! Up there you say? I still don't see anything.
>> Also, if he uses a larger monitor he will no appreciate the longer
>> traveling distance.
>> Let me add here, the concept of a global menubar isn't only 20 odd
>> years old and from a time where there was no multi-tasking! Back then
>> monitors had less pixel than the average smartphone today!  Sorry, but
>> that's how I feel about the global menubar.
>>
>> I believe with a menubar-in-windows we can make happy every one of our
>> four friends here. Let's see:
>>
>> #1: If it's in the window it can be hidden on a per application basis.
>> The average cli user likely doesn't need a graphical menu in his
>> terminals, but he'll probably want on in GIMP which he fires up every
>> other month. A global menubar doesn't give him that flexibility. Well,
>> he could ignore it's there but then it takes up screen estate and
>> takes up a valuable screen edge as pointed out here:
>> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/chromium-browser/+bug/749335
>> Such "power user" also is a likely candidate for using multiple
>> high-res monitors, virtual desktops and multiple windows on each of
>> them. As it's been pointed out repeatedly the global menubar together
>> with the app-centric launcher slows multi-tasking at that level down.
>>
>> #2: If the global menubar was an exact copy of OS X he'd be happy.
>> After a year relearning where to look for the menu :P
>> Sure, it's even more consistent and predictable to have the menu
>> visible at the same spot all the time. But such users (going by my
>> field tests on OS X) are typical examples of clicking the menubar
>> while having the wrong window in focus. If you take this into account
>> the advantage becomes less. First you alienate these creatures of
>> habit and then the advantage is tarnished by introducing new
>> "instability" and dynamic into the interface and thereby a source of
>> error and frustration.
>>
>> #3: Frankly, this is 2011 and people don't care so much about what OS
>> everyone is running anymore, they want to get on the internet as fast
>> as possible and use their favorite web services. Having fluid
>> animations, nice color schemes, good support for web standards and
>> social media they already use and finally well designed applications
>> for frequent multimedia and work related tasks is much more important
>> than such changes in the OS design.
>>
>> The global menu is only going to be a hindrance when going further and
>> getting Unity onto touch devices or at least further merging tablet
>> and computer interface design and more importantly what applications
>> are going to run on them. Having no menubar dictated from the OS means
>> each app developer has full freedom over how his app will behave. It
>> can be "hybrid", suited for both touch and keyboard/mouse, it can make
>> use of all screen edges in full screen mode and no unnecessary legacy
>> menus need to be coded specifically for Unity (the only Linux DE with
>> a global menubar).
>>
>> #4: There is no reason why having the menu in the windows needs to
>> take up more screen estate. A good example, less known, is WebPositive
>> in Haiku (give it a try, it's a small download and runs nicely in
>> Virtualbox - just change the NIC to Intel 82540EM). Haiku is based on
>> BeOS and I think BeOS in parts was inspired by Mac may also have
>> inspired some parts of OS X.
>> The Haiku desktop on a high level is very similar to Unity in several
>> aspects: the main menu is in an upper corner, the launcher is on a
>> side, and application-centric, windows can hide (in the case of Haiku:
>> overlap) the launcher to maximize the available screen estate and the
>> close botton is on the left side.
>>
>> But each window has it's own menu and titlebar (which is only as large
>> as it needs to be, a bit like a tab). If you click on maximize in
>> WebPositive, the browser, it will maximize the main window, overlap
>> the launcher and remove the the titlebar. Window controls are moved
>> into the same bar as the menubar and the menu itself obeys Fitts's law
>> (or could, I didn't check that).
>> Basically it's exactly the same as Firefox maximized in Unity without
>> the title in the panel which is redundant in a tabbed browser.
>>
>> To sum it up:
>> Menubar hover is bad, without it no screen estate is saved (in usual
>> window arrangements) leaving only Fitts's Law as an argument for it
>> (which you can only bring into play once made the targets visible all
>> the time). I counter with a range of four distinct user cases that
>> should squarely cover the whole Ubuntu userbase where each of them
>> ultimately benefits more from moving the menu back into the window.
>> Additionally this fixes the awkward case of having a non-maximized
>> window on top of a maximized one, resolves the mouse hover discussion,
>> reduces Unity specific patches for 3rd party software, eases the
>> transition from GNOME to Unity (still relevant for the next LTS
>> upgrade, those guys care about stable in terms of GUI and interface
>> changes too, especially when it comes to enterprise workstations) and
>> a host of other complaints and issues that I missed, forgot or that
>> are yet to be discovered.
>>
>> Please let me know what you think. I hope you are still open to
>> discussions about such a pervasive changes to Unity.
>>
>> Regards,
>> Ed Lin
>>
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