unity-design team mailing list archive

[Matthew Paul Thomas <mpt@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

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Dylan McCall wrote on 13/08/12 03:38:
> 
> On Thu, Aug 9, 2012 at 12:10 PM, Jonathan Meek 
> <shrouded.cloud@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> 
>> Nautilus is just the latest thing the eyes have fallen on. It's 
>> really indicative of the bigger picture... Take what I wrote 
>> here, for instance: 
>> http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2012/03/ubuntu-design-micro-vs-macro

(I've just read that article twice, and regret to say I don't
understand it. Specific examples might have helped.)

>> NONE of the next generation GNOME applications are going to fit 
>> in with Ubuntu. We can keep the discussion on Nautilus, but 
>> Empathy feels out of place now. So do the games. Are we going to 
>> "fix" one because it axed a few features that they didn't feel 
>> were being/could be maintained well and leave the rest to stick 
>> out like sore thumbs? They have their own design language just 
>> like Mozilla or elementary. This is the time to push for 
>> first-party default applications. At the very least to replace 
>> divergent GNOME applications. But that requires an HIG first, 
>> which Ubuntu doesn't have.

Since 2004, Ubuntu has integrated and delivered the best open-source
application available for each user goal we wanted to satisfy.

Up till now, many of those applications came from the Gnome project.
Many, but never all: we always shipped Firefox instead of Epiphany,
always OpenOffice.org/LibreOffice instead of Gnome Office, Pidgin for
a few years instead of Empathy, and Gimp and Shotwell at various times.

There has always been a tradeoff of not choosing the Gnome application
for every task: less consistency between applications. We've made that
tradeoff since 2004, too.

Now we're approaching a time when Gnome applications, because of their
design changes, will less and less often be the best open-source
applications. That's unfortunate for those applications, because it
means their user base will plummet. And it's unfortunate for us,
because it means we need to make that tradeoff more often.

Would Ubuntu interface guidelines help people develop better
applications? Yes, and I'd love to work on those someday. And if they
existed, our definition of "best" would change a bit. But we'd still
be doing what we've always done: shipping the best open-source
applications available.

> ...
> 
> Here's my two cents: If an upstream only fits with amazing 
> quantities of ongoing maintenance at the distro level, it is the 
> wrong upstream. If GNOME no longer suits Unity's vision, I think 
> it's better for everyone to think about finding something else. It 
> would get rid of a lot of theatrics.

Sure. Sometimes the best open-source application for a task will,
despite its design, still be the Gnome one. Sometimes it might be a
fork of a Gnome one. Sometimes it might be an Elementary one.
Sometimes it might be an independent one.

> On the other hand, if that upstream is really important, there 
> should be a serious, directed effort to at least _think_ about 
> fitting these two together, in a binary-compatible way, without 
> patching or forking. How about some high level API so an 
> application can support both a menu bar _and_ an Application menu +
> toolbar menu button? There's similar activity going on for Android
> with the jump between Gingerbread and ICS (where we lose hidden
> menus and gain a common Action Bar component), so it isn't unheard
> of.
> 
> ...

As I understand it, that particular menu API already exists. But it's
hard to remember to check that your application makes sense in two
different environments. Developers may decide it's a better use of
their time just to target the environment that has massively more users.

- -- 
mpt

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