You might have noticed me writing a lot about some quite fundamental interface paradigms in Unity in the last days. I've limited myself to rising questions and coming up with arguments against certain aspects of Unity. Here I'll try to hint at some possible solutions both to my own criticisms and several issues brought up here, in launchpad and other places (reddit r/linux and r/ubuntu) by others.
I'll concentrate on following: 1) moving the menubar back into windows 2) the launcher in the user case of switching and managing individual windows 3) removing the top panel all together - what happens to the info area in the top right? 1) I'll spare you any more words on the whys but what if we moved the menubar back - what problems would arise? It's all about screen real estate and a bit Fitts's Law again. About hiding the menubar within windows see "[Ayatana] Ideas for Unity Design Tweaks", the post by Anthony Scire and replies. For maximized windows I've written about Haiku in my first reply there. Here's a mockup for a possible solution: http://i.imgur.com/KonSp.jpg The window title would behave exactly the same as an ordinary title bar: you can double click, you can drag to another workplace, you can right click to access the context menu where you can send to another workplace, set "always on visible workspace" and so on. The title bar needs to have a maximum length after which it should fade out (see latest Chromium builds for an inspiration) so there's room left for the menu. The window controls and the menu itself must align with the screen edge. The color would depend on the chosen theme, when using Clearlooks for example the active maximized window would have a blue title but the menu would be light grey (i.e. just as if title and menu were separate bars like in non-minimized windows. 2) I've written a mail titled "What are the advantages of an application-centric interface?" One paragraph was "Window Management". Here's an idea how to improve switching windows when you have more than one window per application open. The current approach is to present all windows in a scale view. Worst case scenario: You have a large wide-screen display (or even worse, two...) and you work in a window tiled to the right side of the screen. Now you need to switch to anther window. You move your mouse all across the display, hit the launcher. In the scale view you find the window you need is the outer right one. So back across the display once more. http://i.imgur.com/0CLGC.jpg A user clicks (or only hovers?) on a launcher icon. Semi-transparent thumbnails, fading out to the right hint that 2 windows are open and that the user might want to move the mouse to the right to reveal them. http://i.imgur.com/ZbYZ6.jpg The user drags the mouse into the direction of thumbnail windows. They become larger (but still smaller than the full scale view) and more solid. They are arranged in such a way that the mouse can be dragged in one straight line (pie menu). This is to some parts inspired by this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8s8tZYihps&sns=em It makes sense both for mouse and touch control and should answer some of the complaints about how in Unity switching windows is slower than in GNOME (2,3). Only one click is necessary, the mouse doesn't have to travel over the desktop, the arrangement of windows can be more predictable (e.g. chronologically) and it gives a better indication over what and how many windows are open per application. Somewhat related: https://bugs.launchpad.net/unity/+bug/733349 my comment is at #49 3) If we get rid of the global menu, where should we put the information applets from the upper left corner? Two ideas: We keep the top panel. It could be made slimmer because those items are less frequently accessed and easy to hit anyways. But it still would result in wasted space and a full screen edge that could be put to better use by 3rd party application developers. It also would again result in some hackery and interface inconsistency with maximized windows: There is no clear separation between window elements (title, window controls and menu) and OS level elements (clock, battery, network, status). The remaining obvious option is to move it into the launcher, bottom left corner (this also means no autohide anymore). I guess this doesn't sound very popular in part due to the completely broken nature of other panels that can optionally be moved to the side (GNOME panels and most prominently, the windows task bar). I do however think that there isn't necessarily any trade-off involved. It could be an revolutionary improvement over the info areas of all other DEs and OSs currently in use. Basically my idea is to make a more dynamic, more intelligent and better integrated info area. It could be minimalistic and more powerful at the same time. The only static element is the clock, it's the only element every user really needs visible and wants visible all the time. Other elements such a battery, Bluetooth and network don't have to be visible on an Ethernet connected desktop (unless your router crashes, then it should notify the user). On the other hand, a user might want to have the play back controls for banshee visible all the time and someone looking for an open wifi network on his portable tablet might want to a list of all APs visible. The current pop menus are very limited, you can't have open more than one at a time and you can't even keep a single one open while using applications. My info area draws inspiration from desktop widgets, Chromium OS "panels" *, Growl and other notifications and the GNOME 3 messaging tray. *http://dev.chromium.org/chromium-os/user-experience/panels This is draft 0.1... http://i.imgur.com/6xpGj.jpg Clicking (or a hot corner like Activities in G3) the lower left corner reveals a full info-bar with an array of different widgets which can be rearranged or even pinned to the desktop. Whenever some currently hidden task needs your attention it would indicate so below/above/overlay the clock and/or give a partial visible hint akin the previously discussed window pie menu. It could show the number of new emails or the remaining time on your battery. But it would only do so if it's really necessary and the user wants to be kept informed. It would mean less distraction and more relevant information at a single glance. Hope you like it, let me know! _______________________________________________ Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~ayatana Post to : ayatana@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~ayatana More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
