Comments on: How you will access applications in Unity – Meet Applications Place

By: Joern Konopka

Joern Konopka — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 19:13:00 +0000

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)

By: Joern Konopka

Joern Konopka — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 19:08:00 +0000

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?”

By: Dante

Dante — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 12:14:00 +0000

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.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 07:48:00 +0000

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.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 07:45:00 +0000

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.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 07:36:00 +0000

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

By: Dieki

Dieki — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 14:39:00 +0000

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

By: Nir

Nir — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 06:33:00 +0000

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).

By: Andy

Andy — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 22:13:00 +0000

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

By: Sephiroth_VII

Sephiroth_VII — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 20:31:00 +0000

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.

By: daas88

daas88 — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 17:49:00 +0000

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

By: Jesus Galvan

Jesus Galvan — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 17:47:00 +0000

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”.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 16:47:00 +0000

I;m in “wait and see” mode.

By: Bilal Akhtar

Bilal Akhtar — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 15:29:00 +0000

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.

By: murrayy

murrayy — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 14:44:00 +0000

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

By: Mirek2

Mirek2 — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 14:38:00 +0000

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, …

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 14:05:00 +0000

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

By: dr. watson

dr. watson — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 13:57:00 +0000

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.

By: Trav1sty

Trav1sty — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 13:45:00 +0000

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

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 13:42:00 +0000

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