unity-design team mailing list archive

[Ed Lin <edlin280@xxxxxxxxx>]

It's always interesting to see with what solutions others come up to
exactly the same problems. In the last days both Microsoft and Apple
let us cast a closer look at their next OS versions.

If you missed them:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MnEndww2YQ and shorter
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p92QfWOw88I
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2aaduuWTvo

Windows 8:
They too struggle to come up with an interface that works both for
small touch screens and the more and more often as "legacy" labeled
desktop experience. Their solution for now doesn't strike me as very
elegant but one thing they did get right: There is one single OS for
every form factor and every architecture (though that doesn't say
anything about their licensing and version madness...)

There is a lot more to say about their hardware and partner
"strategies" which are interesting for Canonical but I'll just mention
two little interface details that are worth taking note of:
You know the windows snap feature, in Win8 you can resize both windows
with a single handler. A pretty obvious feature which would be nice
having.

In full screen apps there is no "information area" (clock and hardware
stats). If they can pull that off the "wing panel" that stays below
the maximized wind as discussed in "Global menu in Oneiric Ocelot
(11.10)" could be an interesting solution for with applications such
as Chromium/Firefox with tabs on top. A click in a screen corner for
example could bring it temporarily to the foreground. If you think
about it, hidden information that is very easy to unhide and that
doesn't have to be visible all the time (if you are working on
something it's often just distraction) seems sensible to me.

Note that IE 10 and other "native" Win 8 apps have no menu bar,
neither do apps in the "desktop view", the ribbon interface is now
extended to their file manager. I have my doubts but right now it
really looks like they want to push that IE 10 experience as the
default web browsing everywhere, 30" non-touch desktops included.

OS X Lion:
"less chrome": Have a look at the video player, Quicktime X, this is
already in the current 10.6: No title bar, no controls, nothing but
the content unless you move your mouse and actually want to interact
with controls.

Full screen apps: see how the top panel slides out? They too do
without a clock and other always on indicators, the desktop is just
one swipe away anyway, i.e. it's back as fast as you can move your
eyes from the current activity to the top right. Apps can make of all
four scree edges and completely adjust the visual experience. This is
for example a great feature in video and image editing, monotone and
natural interface and backgrounds don't distract or distort the visual
sense.

Dock: I haven't seen an HD version but it looks like even the subtle
hints of running apps are gone, together with auto save their desktop
behaves more closely to iOS. Opening and switching apps is the same,
closing and hiding apps is the same. For getting an overview over
running apps and open windows the dock was never the right interface
anyway, "mission control" is their solution. It's less cluttered than
Expose and yet provides more information.

Menu bar: Not only do full screen apps, launchpad, time
machine/versions and mission control view have no top menu bar, I
think it's telling that the menu bar wasn't used or mentioned in the
video a single time. Every day activities all can be accomplished by
gestures, obvious interface controls and universal drag and drop. It's
becoming apparent that the menu bar is "legacy" for Apple who too are
converging their desktop and touch experiences. It stays relevant for
their Pro line of apps, Adobe CS, Office suites (not including iWork?)
but for the usual consumer applications it's no longer needed. For
example I went through the small menu of the new App store, it's just
fall back entries, not a single function that isn't exposed more
logically and simple in the interface directly.

However their approach of hiding the menu bar where it makes sense and
the fact that the text menu in general is becoming less and less
important with the convergence of touch and desktop did change my view
on the menu bar discussion: I no longer think moving the menu back
into the window is a superior solution to the current approach of
Unity. The right solution is no menu at all for those apps that don't
need (or should need) one like default audio and video players,
picture and pdf viewers, file managers and web browsers. For other
applications however controls on the top screen edge can be the best
approach if they only weren't hidden and were more flexible to allow
_something_ like the ribbon as well.

In terms of individual features: auto save and versions is a must have
;) Windows has versioning too btw, it's only lacking a nice GUI (big
surprise). btrfs is already available for the adventurous, would be
nice to see some frontends with this level of integration and ease of
use as time machine in OS X (time machine works on the file manager
level but also works with individual files and even mail and iphoto
for example, all you have to do is click on the icon in the dock).

On another note: "Launchpad". Sue them! :P