unity-design team mailing list archive

[GonzO <gonzo@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, Jun 6, 2011 at 4:46 PM, Ed Lin <edlin280@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> In full screen apps there is no "information area" (clock and hardware
> stats).
*snip*

> No title bar, no controls, nothing but
> the content unless you move your mouse and actually want to interact
> with controls.
*snip*

> 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.

-- BEGIN RANT --

This is my single biggest complaint against all of the new-wave GUI
paradigms out there, hands down.

Some information is important and should be on the screen at all times.

Sometimes this is simply because of convenience - like knowing what
time it is just by looking at the screen.

Sometimes this is to avoid annoyance.  It is nice to have a dock
there, telling me which programs are open, and of the ones that are,
how many windows they have open.  Again, all I need to do is *look at
the screen* to get this information - not go to some other part of the
OS, separate from the desktop, and only accessible if i hit the magic
keyboard combination or accidentally touch a "hot" corner.

Most importantly, though, some bits of information are useless
*unless* they are always visible.  I won't know if my inbox is
populated unless I can see the envelope icon.  I won't know that
something is very wrong, and taking up 100% of my CPU, if I have to
move something or go to another screen to see my CPU indicator.  The
whole point of these sorts of indicators is specifically TO get in the
way of whatever I'm doing, because there are some instances where I
have deemed it *important to interrupt me*.

I should not have to be forced to go figure out where and how to do
something as simple as see which apps have open windows and how many.
The zoom effect is really quite lovely (OS X Lion), but its just
adding visual pizzazz to what is essentially a usability regression.
WRT that quicktime horror: I shouldn't have to aimlessly "shake" the
mouse to find out where the pause/play button is, and *then* go click
it; having to discover the location of my target first is exactly the
complaint I have against Unity's Global Menu implementation.

I am tired of playing these silly hide-and-seek games with my OS.  We
all knew a decade ago that designing a "discovery"-based
mouseover-heavy web site was poor design; why, then, is it all of a
sudden OK to do with an OS's main Graphical interface?  I do not want
a GUI that essentially mimics the worst behaviors of the CLI, or web
design from 1996.  I don't want important information removed from
sight because some people think it's "Ugly" or "too chromey" or
whatever; that's like removing the speedometer from a car's dashboard
because it "breaks the line".  The machine becomes more infuriating
and less useful in these new paradigms, *especially since none of
these shenanigans were necessary before*.

Before all this new-wave, touchscreen-friendly kerfuffle, if I wanted
to know anything about my computer from the important to the trivial,
all I had to do was *look at the screen*.  Every single click target
and status indicator was right there, in a fairly unobtrusive manner;
the Dock/Docky in particular is actually fairly elegant in this
regard.  There is no usability-based reason to remove all of this
data, or confine it to a new corner of the OS a la "Mission Control".
I didn't *need* a mission control before, I had a desktop.

I think these moves are all a huge step back, and I really hate
working in those environments.

I certainly support giving the user the OPTION to hide any bits of UI
he or she wants; by making the user turn this on him/herself, you
force him/her to accept responsibility for those actions without
making everyone else drive blind by default.

-- END RANT --

> Apps can make of all
> four scree edges and completely adjust the visual experience.

A word about this: the whole paradigm kind of falls apart when you
have more than one screen.  It's currently why I can't use hot corners
very well, if at all; I use Synergy between four monitors at work.


> Opening and switching apps is the same, closing and hiding apps is the same.

A dangerous thing to do, IMO, especially if I want to shut down a
server (like, say, I want to stop seeding something on Bittorrent).


> if they only weren't hidden and were more flexible to allow
> _something_ like the ribbon as well.

The day Linux starts using a Ribbon is the day I stop using Linux.
That thing is a horror.  It manages to take up 150px and does
essentially the same job of something that only took up 24 previously.

Thanks for letting me get that all off my chest.  I don't know if I'm
going to be participating in any more of these discussions in the
future.  I've packed my things up and moved to KDE for the moment (not
because of Unity hate, but because Unity's as-yet-unfixed
pixmap/memory leaks leave it unsuitable for a production environment);
and though I'll be trying out the next Unity, I have to admit that KDE
has none of the flaws that Unity, Lion, Gnome3 and Win8 have.  Over
here, I can see and interact with everything, and don't find myself
endlessly zooming in and out of the "Activities" / "Launchpad" /
"Expose" / "Mission Control" section of the OS when all I really
wanted to so is bring a window to the foreground.

Over here, I just touch a button that I can always see, and its done.
That's so refreshing, I might not leave.

--G