How you will access applications in Unity – Meet Applications Place

By , Published June 17, 2010

In a discussion on the Ayatana mailing list about implementing a simpler-way to view and install applications, Ubuntu UX member David Siegel shared a frustratingly tantalising tid-bit: -

€œThis looks very similar to the Applications Place, coming to an Ubuntu Netbook near you in 10.10 ;)€

Attached was the following mock-up: -Applications Place

The mock-up shows 'Applications Place' on the Unity desktop and demonstrates how users of Unity will access installed applications. For anyone testing Unity as of now will be aware that a method for doing so isn't currently implemented.

It looks exciting from the mock-up (if a bit overly-complex) but for my first glimpse of Unity's 'Dash', I am expecting great things. Thoughts?

Article originally appeared on omgubuntu.co.uk

Related posts:

  1. Meet Dash – DanRabbits awesome new project: an entirely new file browser!
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  • Anonymous

    Wow! is the DX team currently working on this?

    • http://omgubuntu.co.uk/ d0od

      It’s part of Dash and Dash is being worked on – so yeah!

      • Anonymous

        I see that’s great!
        On another note, how is this related to DanRabbit’s “Dash” file browser? Coincidence, no? :-)

        • Anonymous

          It’s absolutely completely unrelated. I talked to an un-named member of the design team and said that the name might cause some confusion, but he assured me it was a non-issue ;)

          Having said that, we’ve decided that we would like to avoid confusion and we’re dropping that name for our file browser project.

  • http://twitter.com/KyleClarkeNZ Kyle Clarke

    This is good, but has anyone created a “real world” mock-up, it’s a little hard to envision at this stage.

  • lunamystry

    Hope they use Zeitgeist with it.

    • http://twitter.com/seiflotfy Seif Lotfy

      They are :)

      • http://omgubuntu.co.uk/ d0od

        +1! Excellent news.

        Zeitgeist should be used everywhere. Literally everywhere. I want Zeitgeist in my fridge.

        • http://openid-provider.appspot.com/Julian.Held@googlemail.com murrayy

          Oh yes! I always fail to remember what I ate 2 days ago…

  • insanelyapple

    Uh, uninstalling apps by dragging them to the trash?

    • http://www.trav1sty.com Trav1sty

      Sure, why not? The window controls have already been moved to the left. This would put us one step closer to OSX.

    • Andy

      Please no, I dont mind the change of window control buttons but uninstalling applications by drag an drop is too far lol

      • Anonymous

        Really? You would really be opposed to such a simple an obvious method to remove software for the sole reason that Apple does it?

        • Dante

          I personally don’t think that ANY usability improvement should be thrown aside just because one company did it first. Do you have any idea how many times my computer-idiot friends come up and give me CD’s and USB’s that havent got burnt files to them, they mearly assumed that placing .iso and .img files on said devices would work?

          Like it or hate it, Apple is considered king of usability. Ignoring their work just because it is their work will mean we’ll end up walking around in circles trying to reinvent the obvious and easy.

        • http://cldx.blogspot.com/ Joern Konopka

          Seconded, lets scrap all the OSX hatred and look at what they are doing right, removing an App via the Trashbin is a very good example of such a case and instead of bashing it only for being cultivated by Apple we should look into the Idea and see what potential it has for improvement (like will dragging an App really PURGE my App? Or just delete the Packages and keep UserData in my Home Folder)

  • http://olympusdigitalpen.blogspot.com/ dr. watson

    Personally I think filling the screen with applications is the wrong approach unless they are going for a iPhone/iPAD type of interface. With more and more people leaving the desktop for laptops and netbooks, screen real-estate is key. Less is more. Every time I download a distro that uses the whole screen i.e. Netbook Remix, Jolicloud, Moblin, etc it feels very claustrophobic and cannot wait to return to a traditional desktop. I think what they really need is a very well designed launcher like Docky. Keep resource usage very low (something that docks fail to do now), make the dock encapsulate the ability to manage every element of the system. Add some of the best features found in Mac OSX and the Window 7 taskbar – incorporate Compiz to make the most of window management and I think you will in all honesty have a great interface.

    • http://twitter.com/Sephiroth_VII Sephiroth_VII

      Right now, analysts predict(Yes, I know) that laptops(Not netbooks) and tablets will be the most used PC-combo in the future, so it seems like a good idea.

      Besides, with less screen real estate, wouldn’t you want to fill it with functionality/icons to use it more efficiently? That is especially true for a touch interface.

    • http://cldx.blogspot.com/ Joern Konopka

      Claustrophobic is just the right word to describe it. The reason i don’t like ( “like” as in “would use it on my Production Machine”, they mostly look really nice visually ) all the Netbook Interfaces is not their heavy use on real estate (which is a good thing) but the feeling that you’re always inside of an Application which you can never escape. Youre always i a state of “Ok, now how do i just CLOSE this crap?”

  • Anonymous

    hmmam liking unity more and more, maybe they should make it the default ubuntu :)

    i mean it has a great looking and original UI that people would want to copy

  • http://www.google.com/profiles/105818069612511054258 Mirek2

    Nice.
    It’d be also nice to see some access from the search bar (which now only pertains to the web). You know, if it became sort of an omnibar, gained Do’s functionality: could search through applications, files, folders, bookmarks, …

  • http://www.expatsinksa.com/ Bilal Akhtar

    hehe, Windoze, what will you do to catch up? We are miles ahead of you :)
    Ubuntu devs,
    Continue on with such great apps. Never mind what Uncle Bill says you.

    • http://twitter.com/chuche17 Jesus Galvan

      It’s spelled “Windows” and I think we are not miles ahead of them, at least not when it comes to UI design and implementation. I had a lot of friends ask me to install Windows 7 simply because they loved its default look and feel. If their card supports it they would be able to run Aero and it looks fantastic with the windows blur effect. On a similar but slightly different topic in Linux/Ubuntu I get frustrated by the fact that there currently isn’t any “out-of-the-box” automatic mechanism for Compiz, Mutter, or KWin with desktop effects to detect if an OpenGL app is running or not so then it can revert to a non-composited state. These window managers simply stay on unless they are told to turn off for a bit (e.g. metacity –replace in default Ubuntu). That’s not the case in Windows. It is seamless, automatic, and (at least for me) problem-free. Application backwards compatibility is superb. My Warcraft III: Frozen Throne runs faster than it ever did in Windows XP or Vista (especially Vista) and this game was made circa 2002. The constant change of libraries and their default locations from one version of Ubuntu to another is just… lol. In another unrelated note I get why most Linux folks advocate keeping a very small footprint when it comes to HD usage an OS takes but it becomes a little ridiculous when a game, for example, is looking for a certain version of libSDL.xx.so and a major distribution doesn’t come with at least 2 years worth of libSDL or “insert-your-library-name-here” libraries from previous releases. The same can be said about other apps that use the system’s installed libraries and expect every release to keep them. Well, they are right. If the devs feel like the game or program works optimally with a certain library they have all the right to use that library unless a major bug is found in said library and they are forced to upgrade it to the next release. Then, and only then, it becomes their responsibility to keep it compatible with another library. I’m not trying to advocate Windows because everyone who knows me knows that I love Linux more but if we are to make Linux a mainstream desktop OS we have to learn from the other OSes mistakes and we should improve on their qualities. That’s all. At this point it seems a lot of distros are still in the Windows 98/ME phase of dependency hell. Sometimes all it takes is a little symbolic link to a new library, headers, etc… Use case scenario: a new user tries to install a program from the internet using GDebi; GDebi then looks for dependencies based on package name, except these packages seem to have been altered by a new Ubuntu release (unknowingly to the user, that is), the program installs fine; the user tries to run it and gets nothing. A more experienced user will then open up a terminal and see if she/he can troubleshoot the problem only to find that “xxlibrary.so.2: Cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory”.

      • Anonymous

        You would be so much more of an effective writer if you mastered the paragraph. When you complete a thought, its okay to start a new paragraph.

        For example, I’m going to start a new paragraph right now. It’s usually the package maintainer’s responsibility to specify that a certain version of a certain package is needed.

        You do make a really good point that it’d be great if the window manager was smart enough to tone it down for fullscreen apps. But you’re point is lost in the massive tl;dr block of text.

  • Anonymous

    I;m in “wait and see” mode.

  • daas88

    I’ve seen this before. Unless it’s a deja vu

    • http://dieki.myopenid.com/ Dieki

      You saw it on Mark Shuttleworth’s blog when he announced Unity a month ago. This isn’t new at all. :(

  • Nir

    Below the “installed” section, there should be the “uninstalled” section.
    (double/single) click on an app in the uninstalled section should bring up the dialog from the Software center that gives info and suggests to install.
    After installing, the application will move to the installed section (but be marked for easy finding, like the new apps in Windows).