unity-design team mailing list archive

[matt <m.richardson.1990@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

The idea of moving the BFB to the bottom left has been raised a few
times and it has certain advantages:

1. It's where users migrating from windows will expect it to be
2. As Stefanos said, it allows us to use screen corners for BFB, window
controls and panel menus.

However, a major advantage of the current implementation, which for me
personally outweighs the two advantages above (especially since 1 is a
short term advantage and does nothing for mac users) is that all of my
regularly used controls (Dash, launcher, window controls and window
menu) are in the top left quarter of my screen, reducing the amount I
have to move the mouse and speeding up working.

On Wed, 2011-09-07 at 10:45 +0300, Stefanos A. wrote:
> 2011/9/6 Eylem Koca <eylemkoca@xxxxxxxxx>
>         Thank you for your comments! I too hope the design team will
>         consider
>         this for 12.04, even if it's not accepted as it is...
>         
>         @Stefanos
>         I know what you're saying about the maximized-window control
>         buttons,
>         and the problem is partly because they're hidden when cursor
>         is not on
>         top panel.
> 
> 
> No, not really. Hiding the window controls along with the menu makes
> sense (although I don't really agree with hiding anything at all, but
> that's another discussion entirely).
>  
>         That is
>         why in my proposal, I bring the buttons back. This way, they
>         should be
>         just as easy to hit as they are for un-maximized windows.
> 
> 
> My point was that closing maximized windows should be easier than
> unmaximized windows (why? Because we can, given the current design).
> 
> 
>         I know you can invoke the Dash with the Super (Meta) key but
>         you can
>         close a window with Alt-F4 as well :) My intention is not to
>         throw
>         back a key combination to you. The main reason I keep coming
>         back with
>         design ideas like this is because the screen corner is
>         extremely
>         important and from a design perspective, you have to match
>         that
>         strategic location with an equally important functionality. Is
>         Unity,
>         and thus Ubuntu, about "closing maximized windows". I hope
>         not. It
>         should be about "starting applications, opening up to the rest
>         of the
>         world, etc. etc."
> 
> 
> Just to throw more oil into the fire, Windows (XP, Vista, 7) manage to
> make both the launcher ('start menu'), window controls *and* menu for
> maximized windows and the "show desktop" action equally usable, by
> distributing each action to a different corner of the screen. Unity
> has a similar core idea but uses a slightly different arrengement:
> 
> 
> - in Natty, it distributed the system menu, the BFB and the trash icon
> to the corners.
> - in Oneiric, it distributes the system menu, the window controls and
> the trash icon to the corners.
> 
> 
> Note that (unlike windows) we still have an unused corner (bottom
> right on the default desktop).
> 
> 
> Personally, I believe that the trash icon is given undue attention in
> this design. It offers three-fold functionality: drag&drop to delete
> items, drag&drop to eject usb sticks, right click to empty trash. The
> first two can be performed in simpler ways (e.g. right click the item
> in question and select 'delete' or 'eject'). The latter requires the
> trash icon but does not really require a whole hot corner to perform
> (how often do you empty trash, compared to launching applications or
> closing windows)?
> 
> 
> What could be done? Two suggestions:
> 1. relegate the trash icon to a regular icon in the launcher, or
> 2. show the trash icon on demand at the bottom-right corner. In other
> words, when the user drags a deletable/ejectable item, the trash icons
> appears automatically as a drop target. (I like this idea, since it's
> symmetric with the current behavior of the launcher).
> 
> 
> In both cases, the bottom-left corner can be reused for more important
> functionality, such as a BFB or a 'show desktop' icon.
> 
> 
> Of course, moving the BFB to the bottom-left corner would bring up
> questions regarding the layout of the launcher (i.e. all items on top
> and the BFB at the bottom?) This is something that merits discussion.
> _______________________________________________
> Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~ayatana
> Post to     : ayatana@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~ayatana
> More help   : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp