Ubuntu 10.04 Gets New Logout Dialogues

By , Published March 10, 2010

Did you ever get annoyed by the restart/logout/shutdown countdown timers that presented themselves in previous Ubuntu releases?

They looked like this: -

They were lacking in information – particularly for newer users who might not know the difference between restart and logging out.

All three main ‘session’ dialogues have been reworded thus allowing the user to make an informed choice as to whether the action selected it the one they want.

Thank to om26er
Article originally appeared on omgubuntu.co.uk

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  • Guest

    Slightly better but my question is, why do we also need the “close window” button? isn’t the “cancel” one enough?

    • Mohan

      I think it would better if it didn’t have the close button and was a module popup looking.

    • Anonymous

      If people want to stop a process, be it counting down to restart, downloading updates or any other interruptible task, the user might not want to look for a cancel button no matter how much bigger it is than the close button – but just want to close whatever is going on before the timer runs out, etc.

  • Anonymous

    This is more clear !

  • http://www.1916home.net/ 1916home

    I’d like to use the “Suspend” feature more often, but every time I come back from a suspension, my wi-fi and hard line connection are grayed out and unavailable. Anyone else experience this problem?

    • http://twitter.com/Copitox Sebastián Rosende

      I do =/

    • http://dylantaylor.wordpress.com/ aliendude5300

      I somewhat experience the same problem — my Wired Internet icon turns into a black square, but still works, so I don’t mind. Properly restarting the computer makes the proper icon appear.

  • Anonymous

    is there anyone out there who doesn’t know what “restart” and “log out” are?
    my parents know, and they don’t even use a computer (!)

  • Simon

    I don’t really care but I really liked the timeout because I didn’t have to think about confirming the dialog, I could walk away knowing that the computer would shut down.
    Now it’s like “did I turn off the stove before leaving the house?”

    • http://dylanmccall.blogspot.com/ Dylan McCall

      Indeed. GNOME did a really good job with the timeout when it was added (2.24, I think?) by having a friendly explanation. They made sure the timer wasn’t distracting, too; it counted down in 10 second increments.

      Unfortunately, for some insane reason, Ubuntu has always had its own shutdown dialogues which go on top of the Gnome ones. (The Gnome shutdown dialog still appears if you press the hardware power button). Ubuntu’s dialogs have – being downstream additions – had a shorter history, and I think it shows.

      Oh well, at least the rest of the shutdown process has stayed intact.

  • Anonymous

    So have the countdown timers gone? I quite liked that little touch, it meant I could just click shutdown on the menu and walk away. Still the new dialogs look nicer.

    • http://twitter.com/James_Ink James_Ink

      I agree… I liked the timeout thing too. When I moved over from Windows, it was little touches like that which impressed me.

      • http://dylantaylor.wordpress.com/ aliendude5300

        I also liked the timeout thing. It was a great little feature.

    • http://ndrw.me AndrewNoNumbers

      I agree. Removing the countdown increases clicks to shut down from 2 to 3.

  • http://twitter.com/daltux Dalton Scavassa

    Where is the countdown timer? It is or was really a good thing!

    • peter

      Why good thing? People thought they must wait 60 sec to shutdown.

      • http://dylantaylor.wordpress.com/ aliendude5300

        No, most people had no trouble understanding this at all, and they knew clicking “Restart” would make it instant.

  • http://twitter.com/James_Ink James_Ink

    I do remember reading that some new users were confusing the countdown timer as something they thought they had to let run down to properly close down their computer… as if some sort of necessary process was happening during this countdown.

    Maybe they have removed it for this reason.

  • Just an Ubuntu user

    The new layout and messages are very good, but they shouldn’t remove the timers because it is a fundamental feature. With the timers I can just press the power button on my computer and it will turn off after 60 sec, without further actions (or I can cancel it if I kicked the button by accident).

    Requiring the user to use the mouse/keyboard to confirm a shut-down after pressing the power button, or shutting-down directly (without the timed dialogue and the option to cancel) are both unacceptable options.

    • Anonymous

      I expect Lucid will still have a timer on the dialog that appears when you press the power button – which is different from the dialogs that appear when you press restart/shut down/suspend from the panel menu.

  • Anonymous

    I lile.

  • http://dylantaylor.wordpress.com/ aliendude5300

    What was wrong with the old one? I liked it better… really, you have to be pretty clueless not to understand the old dialog.

  • http://www.astech.hu/ pali

    i want the countdown back! :)

  • http://dylantaylor.wordpress.com/ aliendude5300

    They should should add something like “Your computer will automatically _________ in X seconds” to the end of the dialog. Seeing as it was already implemented, a monkey could code that in… :P

  • Mirek2

    Hmph, I’m not sure how exactly it clears up the difference between log off and restart. And it sucks that the timer is gone: now a user might choose “Shut down” and leave, thinking that a single button will shut the computer down without confirmation and the computer stays on for… well, long. A better solution would have been to make the timer wait longer.
    But the “close all programs” is nice, I guess.
    P.S. The awkward close button needs to be fixed.

  • bhm

    sudo shutdown now

  • hugmyballs

    The only improvement that I can see is that the user is now informed that the currently running programs will be closed, whence information lost if not saved. But you’d have to be a retard to think that you could shutdown/restart/etc. without the programs being closed, so this is an improvement only for retards. For the rest of us these new dialog boxes are unnecessarily verbose and lack the timer information.

  • Anonymous

    It’s a shame the message is no longer coherent with the possible actions. “Are you sure …” should be answered “Yes”, “No” or perhaps “Cancel”. With the previous messages, it would perhaps have made sense to label the button for the restarting case “Restart now” to let users know it would skip the countdown, but apart from that the available options were more coherent with the message box text.

    • hugmyballs

      That’s right. Also, it’s not clear that answering “No” to “Are you SURE…” should cancel to the current operation. Maybe I’m just not SURE because I’m a radical skeptic and I believe I can’t be sure of anything. There’s not much one can be sure of!

  • TheNinthDegree

    Ok seriously. ANYONE who doesnt understand what “Shutdown, Restart, or Log Out” means should unplug their computer, pack everything into a box, and send it back to where ever they bought it. Period, end of discussion.

    This is by far, without a doubt, the most useless ‘addition’ Canonical has made .. and they’ve made ALOT of them.

  • daas88

    look at that fugly tomato metacity button xD

  • Anonymous

    Gee, all i see here is a dumbed down dialogue :/ “are you sure you’re dumb enough to not know that restarting the computer requires everything to be turned off?” No – Yes

  • MLC

    Yeah, I kinda’ like the countdown a lot better. It looks like they’re completing the “don’t do what I told you to do when I tell you to do it,” thing, so no one ‘accidentally’ shuts down when they just wanted to change their IM status. Still, I think a timeout was good enough. It’s good that they’re still revising the menus and including human phrases with everything.

    I’m pretty sure most users get this already, but it’s nice if you’re new to computers.

  • Anonymous

    Apart from the fact that it removes the timer, which some people obviously used, it’s a good change because it makes it more clearer what the computer is going to do.

    :)

  • http://www.ashwyn.net/ ashwyn

    I’m with everyone else. The timer is near essential, back in my windows days, where there is exactly this arrangement (computer asks if you want to shut down after you tell it you want to shut down) I wasted a fully charged battery on my laptop a few times because I clicked shut down and expected it to shut down.

    The timer was handy, if there’s to be an improvement it should be to explain to whoever these poor things are that think they have to wait through it that they don’t, I think that a message “If you do nothing, the system will shutdown in X seconds” should really suffice. For those who still can’t understand it, what’s better, having people leave their computers on all night accidentally, or having people wait 60 seconds to shutdown?

    Think about the power savings!

  • Anonymous

    timer was useful, I sometimes forget doing something before shutting down and it helped me not to reboot again. so… how about the boot time goal, is it anywhere close to 10 seconds?

  • http://dylantaylor.wordpress.com/ aliendude5300

    This really does seem like an anti-feature

  • zeke

    I have to be frank: this is beyond fugly
    Its drab and lifeless like some old Windows 95.

    Ive been using the default one from Kubuntu these past 1-2 years and I like the three choices they give along with color codes, I love the countdown clock and even the moon hasnt gotten stale.
    Throw in the new light fading effect from KDE4.4 when you are about to leave and youre set.
    .