unity-design team mailing list archive

[huff <huffylinux@xxxxxxxxx>]

This conversation seems to be getting out of hand, but
I will try to respond to the points that I have input on.  Which in
the end are fundamentally few in number.

I started out commenting on having all the buttons hidden until the
mouse was near them.   If I misunderstood that or miscommunicated,
then my mistake.

I have not tested them, because I disliked how unity broke ffm and
turned it off.  So I am simply commenting on the *idea* of hidden
buttons that show up when you get near them.  That's it.  I really
hated the hidden menu names for the same reason, so I don't feel
the need to try out the same thing on the buttons to discuss it.

If it is just impossible to discuss this topic without installing it and
trying it, then I'll just stop posting and let others argue about it.

Anyway, some more comments below:


On Sun, 28 Aug 2011 03:28:12 +0200 Jo-Erlend Schinstad wrote:

> > The reason I like them is because I look at them before I move
> > the mouse and aim the mouse at the one I want to click.
> That's what I'm trying to understand. I have been using a mouse
> since I was about nine, and that means 22 years of experience.
> I have never been able to hit those buttons directly without
> slowing down from a distance greater than a few centimeters.
> And now that it has become so very much easier to hit those
> buttons... Why are you complaining now? 

I have never had any trouble hitting the three buttons on any OS I
have used regardless of placement (after a brief time getting used
to the general location).  I am not sure where you got the idea I
that I was complaining about them being in the corner.


> I also did a test with my eyes closed, just to see how much it
> affected me not being able to see the buttons as all. I was
> able to hit the close button 8 of 10 times when I had my eyes
> closed. I'd say the speed was about the same.

What about the maximize button?  Or the minimize button?  Why the
focus on the close button?  That's the easiest one anyway (if it's
in the corner and the others are next to it).


> Wait for the buttons? Then you must have super-human eyes
> and brain, or an extremely very slow computer.  I cannot tell
> how quickly it happens, because I don't have super-human
> eyes. Does it matter if you "wait" 5 or 30ms? That's obviously
> not a valid argument.

That's the part that I think you are are missing.  I aim at
things I can see, not locations I have learned.  The wait after the
corner for me would not be waiting for the buttons, but waiting
for me to identify where the one i want is.  Normally I do that
step while moving the mouse, so it takes no extra time.


> Well. If it's such  great concern, then there's always other
> shells or even operating systems. 

I may have to do that, but I will be sad about it.  I
liked Ubuntu a lot up until I tried Unity for awhile.  I went back
to Classic, and am just hoping that the next version of Unity works
for me.  Which is why I signed up for this list in the first place.


> But I haven't been able to find any real, unbiased, person who
> has any complaints about it. I haven't found any arguments here
> either, except for yours; "I don't like it."

I most certainly am biased by what works for me.  Part of my job is
designing interfaces, and I am quite familiar with what causes me
to stumble.  So if "everyone" else "should" do it a different way
than I (and some of them) prefer, and Ubuntu forces us to do it that
other way, then so be it.  I will switch.


> Yes, but from what you're saying I don't think you've tested
> it yourself, much less tested it on others. For instance, we've
> never before had the buttons in the corner.

I may have missed something in this thread, since the posts
are so long, but being in the corner is not really helpful to me.
If I can see them, it hardly matters to me where they are.