unity-design team mailing list archive

[Ed Lin <edlin280@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, May 9, 2011 at 2:19 AM, James Jenner <james.g.jenner@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> However, unfortunately there is one issue, which may be specific to my
> circumstances. I have a large monitor (30 inches) running at a high
> resolution. I am always opening multiple apps and positioning them on the
> screen in various positions (which the new shortcuts for window positioning
> make real simple).

...
> Personally I'm not a big fan of menus due to the cost of use (mouse clicks,
> travel, etc). To me button bars, ribbon bars, etc are far more efficient. I
> just don't see the current Unity approach as working on large screens, until
> applications migrate away from their dependency on menus. Even then I would
> rather see menus activated by a border decoration.


This is a reoccurring theme here on the list and I completely agree with you.
You could turn the "global menu" off (so it gets put back into each
window) by executing this command:
echo "export UBUNTU_MENUPROXY=0" >> ~/.bashrc
You'll have to log out for it to take effect.

Hope you don't mind the now useless panel at the top taking up your
screen estate ;-)

For alternatives to the global and "classic" menus please see this discussion:
[Ayatana] Ideas for Unity Design Tweaks