Ubuntu 11.10 Adds Options to Change Launcher Opacity, Hide Mounted Drives, More

By , Published August 4, 2011

Further to Jorge and Ahmed’s excellent Unity and in-depth update on recent Unity developments here are a handful of screenshots showing off many of the visible changes and options that have appeared in Ubuntu 11.10 over the last few days.  

Mounted drives

Hate so many mounted drives cluttering up your Launcher? You can now specify when to hide mounted drives and partitions via the ‘Experimental’ tab in CCSM. (See screenshot below)

Change Launcher Opacity

Also present is an option to change the Opacity of the Unity launcher opacity: -

Opacity at 0, 35, default value and 100% are displayed below: -

Adjust edge reveal

A slider added to the ‘Behaviour’ tab lets you adjust the edge reveal “time out” (the duration at which you need to hold your cursor to the left before the launcher pops out)

Other notable changes

The “Aero-snap” animation has been made over, now displaying a rich pulsating gold: -

The ‘Trash can’ now wiggles/pulses to acknowledge that files have been deposited in it.

Sadly this update saw the Unity “modal dialogs” we so loved pulled due to performance issues. Here’s hoping they reappear at some point.

Related posts:

  1. [Video] How to change the size of the Unity launcher in Ubuntu 11.04
  2. Unity launcher behaviour to change
  3. Ubuntu 11.04 Unity update adds new look launcher, more effect options and scrollwheel indicator support
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  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_RATXYRO7VYOW5F5DC47NFQ4AZU JohnT

    Do we know if any of these features will be available for Unity 2D?

    • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_GE4EYP3QOQ246PLG2Y2DOD2NIQ Dr. Fly

      Unity 2D is different from Unity, in that the latter is a Compiz plugin while the former is not. If these features come to Unity 2D, if they’re even possible, then it would take additional work, I think.

  • Aeraj Rehman

    See now these changes alone makes me a happy Ubuntu user. Keep it up Unity!

  • Aeraj Rehman

    See now these changes alone makes me a happy Ubuntu user. Keep it up Unity!

  • Peter Moorhead

    The gold colour is slightly gaudy and awful, but then so too is Ubuntu’s colour scheme in general.

    To quote a comment I once read; “Orange, Purple and Brown, like the joker sat on my desk and took a crap on the screen”. And now we can add gold to that list of totally bizarre colour choices.

  • Peter Moorhead

    The gold colour is slightly gaudy and awful, but then so too is Ubuntu’s colour scheme in general.

    To quote a comment I once read; “Orange, Purple and Brown, like the joker sat on my desk and took a crap on the screen”. And now we can add gold to that list of totally bizarre colour choices.

    • http://omgubuntu.co.uk/ Joey-Elijah Sneddon

      It’s a lot nicer in “action” than it looks from the screenshot. It sort of throbs, and it’s only when you’re literally about to let go and ‘snap’ that it looks as gaudy as in the picture. 

      I’ll try to take a video again (having issues, bloddy development software :P)

      • Peter Moorhead

        I’m open to having my opinion changed, and I would certainly like to see the video. Colours however are still an ongoing pet hate for many Ubuntu Users.

      • Peter Moorhead

        I’m open to having my opinion changed, and I would certainly like to see the video. Colours however are still an ongoing pet hate for many Ubuntu Users.

      • Jamie Clifton

        agreed :P

      • Anonymous

        here is a video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5w5OapWK2Xo

        • http://tomslominski.net/ Tom Slominski

          I see the light! I’m too young to die!

          Seriously, it’s waaay too bright.

        • http://twitter.com/MarcCoquand Marc Coquand

          I can’t even see what’s written.

        • http://twitter.com/MarcCoquand Marc Coquand

          I can’t even see what’s written.

        • http://dmenounos.myopenid.com/ Dimitris

          The window is not resized properly, as it should. Check its bottom side.

        • J W

          There goes my night vision.  It looks like an atomic bomb test.  Can we have options to change the color and brightness please. I could take my monitor outside and use it as a flood light.

          • Anonymous

            in ccsm under “Grid” … there ya go buddy

          • Anonymous

            in ccsm under “Grid” … there ya go buddy

        • http://twitter.com/samhorne Samuel Horne

          It needs to be much less saturated, clearer, and slightly darker.

    • Anonymous

      The quote is funny, but the nerd in me is bothered by its inaccuracy. Brown is part of the previous scheme, not the current one. And most renditions of the joker (both the card joker and the Batman joker) do not have orange as a prominent color.

    • http://about.me/nlsthzn Neil Oosthuizen

      Guess I will have to wait and see it in action to make a true assessment… Pictures aren’t always flattering…

    • http://about.me/nlsthzn Neil Oosthuizen

      Guess I will have to wait and see it in action to make a true assessment… Pictures aren’t always flattering…

    • http://about.me/nlsthzn Neil Oosthuizen

      Guess I will have to wait and see it in action to make a true assessment… Pictures aren’t always flattering…

    • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=634270995 Jason Milot

      I used to be a fan of Ubuntu until crossed over to Linux Mint. Much better. I guess I prefer Gnome 2 shell. The look is cleaner and provides a similar feel to Ubuntu – no surprise considering that is what it is built on. I agree with you: the color scheme of Ubuntu is bunk. Moreover, Unity is an awful feature in Ubuntu.

      • http://twitter.com/me4oslav Georgi Karavasilev

        Ubuntu, Mint etc… are all switching to Gnome 3, so there goes the Classic Gnome interface. (Gnome 3 has a classic mode, but is is pretty awful). The closest think you will get to Classic Gnome 2 UI is XFCE. You can’t expect Ubuntu or any other distro to depend on obsolete Gnome 2 forever. 

        • Sashin Ranasinghe

          Mint might stay in the stone ages.

    • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=634270995 Jason Milot

      I used to be a fan of Ubuntu until crossed over to Linux Mint. Much better. I guess I prefer Gnome 2 shell. The look is cleaner and provides a similar feel to Ubuntu – no surprise considering that is what it is built on. I agree with you: the color scheme of Ubuntu is bunk. Moreover, Unity is an awful feature in Ubuntu.

    • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_LLFBBO3CDQUMGQXOQNGXDDDBPM Ladymecha

      As opposed to blue, blue, blue, blue, black, and gray the predictable colors.
      Still though I with this had the option to change the sidebar color as well as translucency.

    • http://www.facebook.com/jordan.badangayon Jordan M. Badangayon

      i like the colors… :)

    • http://www.facebook.com/jordan.badangayon Jordan M. Badangayon

      i like the colors… :)

  • Peter Moorhead

    The gold colour is slightly gaudy and awful, but then so too is Ubuntu’s colour scheme in general.

    To quote a comment I once read; “Orange, Purple and Brown, like the joker sat on my desk and took a crap on the screen”. And now we can add gold to that list of totally bizarre colour choices.

  • http://about.me/rangitha Rangitha Kuruppu

    Commendable and much needed UI tweaks. Cheers!

  • http://about.me/rangitha Rangitha Kuruppu

    Commendable and much needed UI tweaks. Cheers!

  • http://about.me/rangitha Rangitha Kuruppu

    Commendable and much needed UI tweaks. Cheers!

  • http://baszczewski.pl/ MarcinB

    Unity is awesome. This is the one of the best ubuntu projects…

  • Nicholos Tyler

    Unity just keeps getting better and better, and the more options for change grow and grow. As the usability goes up, the hates hopefully will go down.

    • http://twitter.com/josian_220 José Antonio

      There is one funny bug in unity that I don’t if much people are aware of it…

      Click on the workspace switcher and when the grid pups up click on any indicator in the unity panel then press in any of the desktops in the grid and try clicking in the same indicator you pressed (it should be highlighted). Is this going to be fixed?

      • http://twitter.com/Sephiroth_VII NCLI

        If it is reported, maybe.

        • Anonymous

          hint hint, report it if it isnt….

      • Anonymous

        Talking about bugs… When you open the workspace switcher while there is a legacy tray icon residing in your notification area, this icon disattaches itself from the panel and stays on your desktop, resulting in 4 mini icons on each of your desktops!

        • Anonymous

          wow what a weird but, i think you should report it because you might be one of the few that encounter it and they need your feedback

      • Anonymous

        if you vote on the bug report to increase its priority and follow the bug then you chances are it will

    • Rd05

      But its using ccsm. That thing is a MESS of options already. I would suggest putting the unity options in the system settings instead while using something other than ccsm. That would make it better imo.

      • https://launchpad.net/~stachowski-mateusz Mateusz Stachowski

        I think that there should be a Unity configuration utility instead of the CCSM. It should be in system settings and as well as standalone application. 

        That utility should only offer options that work good with Unity. Now if you enable some plugins of Compiz there will happen some very bad things. Unity will display many graphical artifacts or it will become unusable and the only thing that user can do is CTRL + ALT + BACKSPACE to reload it.

      • Anonymous

        define “MESS of options” ? I didn’t even notice how messy or not messy the options are :s

        • Jamie Clifton

          ccsm pretty much defines “mess of options”

        • Rd05

          In that there are many options, some of which are  redundant. Like I remember getting messages saying this plugin was already supplied by this, or something like that. Other than that, I’m not saying I don’t like ccsm, its just that its already full

        • Tom Stevens

          It’s very intimidating to new users that want to adjust their Unity launcher. 

          Not only do they get Unity options (if they somehow figure out the options are in ccsm), but they also get a million other options. That’s a MESS.

        • Tom Stevens

          It’s very intimidating to new users that want to adjust their Unity launcher. 

          Not only do they get Unity options (if they somehow figure out the options are in ccsm), but they also get a million other options. That’s a MESS.

        • Anonymous

          the problem with ccsm it can be dangerous and can break your desktop if you dont know what you are doing.

          they really should give warnings…

          anyway all unity options should be accessible without installing ccsm

      • Nicholos Tyler

        I do agree that a dedicated options program should be used instead of CCSM.

      • Nicholos Tyler

        I do agree that a dedicated options program should be used instead of CCSM.

    • http://twitter.com/__MsG__ Mathijs

      I do feel much love for the rising quality in every release, the only thing I hate about Unity is the bar itself, it works very unhandy to me. Every window switch I need to wait a milisec for that bar to appear, look up the application, double click if I need the other instance of an app, but I do like Unity without the bar. They should give the user a bit more options, like the traditional taskbar.

  • Nicholos Tyler

    Unity just keeps getting better and better, and the more options for change grow and grow. As the usability goes up, the hates hopefully will go down.

  • http://sammyie.wordpress.com/ dario

    The aero snap color is ugly, i liked the older one, sad it can’t be changed

    • Wyatt Kirby

      Wish it would just pull from the GTK, can’t imagine that this is so impossibly hard that no one has done it.

    • Wyatt Kirby

      Wish it would just pull from the GTK, can’t imagine that this is so impossibly hard that no one has done it.

    • Wyatt Kirby

      Wish it would just pull from the GTK, can’t imagine that this is so impossibly hard that no one has done it.

    • Wyatt Kirby

      Wish it would just pull from the GTK, can’t imagine that this is so impossibly hard that no one has done it.

    • Anonymous

      Ehm… It can and it’s called “Grid”!
      1. Open “CCSM”, if you don’t have it you can install it from the “Ubuntu Software Center”.2. Click “Window Management”: in the sidebar.

      3. Click “Grid”.

      3. Click the “Appearance” tab.

      4. Now click the colored box next to the the text “Fill Color”.

      5. In the box that pops up, click the color you want, if you want it to be brighter click and drag the “Opacity” slider. When you are happy with the color click “OK”.

      6. I recommend that you also click the colored box next to the text “Outline Color”, repeat step 5.

      • David Tigue

        Thanks for the tip. I’m sure many others haven’t noticed that option in CCSM. So those that are complaining about the color of the ‘Aero Snap’ type feature, you need to stop complaining now. Follow kirrwirr’s instructions and it can be any color and any opacity that you like. I personally went with a dark black/grey color. Anyway thanks again for the tip, I’ve been wanting to change that color for a long time now.

    • Anonymous

      Ehm… It can and it’s called “Grid”!
      1. Open “CCSM”, if you don’t have it you can install it from the “Ubuntu Software Center”.2. Click “Window Management”: in the sidebar.

      3. Click “Grid”.

      3. Click the “Appearance” tab.

      4. Now click the colored box next to the the text “Fill Color”.

      5. In the box that pops up, click the color you want, if you want it to be brighter click and drag the “Opacity” slider. When you are happy with the color click “OK”.

      6. I recommend that you also click the colored box next to the text “Outline Color”, repeat step 5.

  • http://sammyie.wordpress.com/ dario

    The aero snap color is ugly, i liked the older one, sad it can’t be changed

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1150263158 Rens Hamburger

    these are nearly all the things I’m missing only is:
    change color of the launcher and the dash. 
    Opacity of the dash.

    • Anonymous

      If I remember correctly, there is work in progress to make the launcher, the Dash and (finally) notification bubbles follow the background color. But I’m not sure if this will land in Oneiric.

      • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1150263158 Rens Hamburger

        That would be great
        It will make ubuntu for me the best ever.

      • http://twitter.com/om26er Omer Akram

        thats much close to land in Oneiric

    • Anonymous

      If I remember correctly, there is work in progress to make the launcher, the Dash and (finally) notification bubbles follow the background color. But I’m not sure if this will land in Oneiric.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1150263158 Rens Hamburger

    these are nearly all the things I’m missing only is:
    change color of the launcher and the dash. 
    Opacity of the dash.

  • Tornike Khomeriki

    Great visuals.

  • http://twitter.com/me4oslav Georgi Karavasilev

    The new “Grid” animations hurts me eyes, it is way too much bright.
    Bu there is hope: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ayatana-design/+bug/689792/+attachment/2161043/+files/semimaximise_gesture_preview.mov
    https://bugs.launchpad.net/ayatana-design/+bug/689792/+attachment/2161044/+files/maximise_gesture_preview.mov

    • Anonymous

      With all these blur problems I doubt it will be implemented that way soon. I think that the color is too bright too.

      • http://twitter.com/me4oslav Georgi Karavasilev

        It will be … eventually … I think :D

    • http://twitter.com/nlguve guve

      now THIS is nice

    • Anonymous

      Remember Ubuntu’s new new theme is based on light. So it makes perfect sense to me.

      • http://twitter.com/me4oslav Georgi Karavasilev

        Now that’s some strange logic. Ubuntu’s default theme Ambiance which happens to be part of the so called “Light Themes” is a dark theme. Also the “Light” Ubuntu came in 10.04 with a colour change – from light brown and orange to dark aubergine and orange. When Mark (sabdfl) announced the “Ubuntu Light” (I believe) he was talking philosophy, sensation and spirit-wise, but not so much colours-wise.
        Plus Unity might be the the “biggest” desktop shell that’s based on Compiz, but ain’t the only one – Compiz runs on KDE, XFCE, LXDE, Classis Gnome 3 etc… also.
        So Compiz != Ubuntu specific window manager :)

    • Stef Oostveen

      Wow! Much better than the goldish stuff!

    • http://www.facebook.com/skerit Jelle De Loecker

      That’s really nice! Was it a mockup video or for real? How do they get the faded-preview-screen to correctly render the page?

    • http://www.facebook.com/skerit Jelle De Loecker

      That’s really nice! Was it a mockup video or for real? How do they get the faded-preview-screen to correctly render the page?

    • Anonymous

      When I saw the bright overlay in earlier alphas, I was certain it was a bug. :(

      It just can’t stay as the default.

    • http://twitter.com/samhorne Samuel Horne

      This is awesome. I loved how it maximised after choosing to let it expand. It like flashes into that space… it’s crazy. I love it. But there’s so much that isn’t possible with Ubuntu. I wish we could seamlessly create and integrate animations of that quality.

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Resveda-Knežić/100000512684141 Resveda Knežić

      Perfection!!!!!!!

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Resveda-Knežić/100000512684141 Resveda Knežić

      Perfection!!!!!!!

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Resveda-Knežić/100000512684141 Resveda Knežić

      Perfection!!!!!!!

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_LBG4ZTSAI6ZWFZRYGJECQ74GDU Dv

    I’d LOVE to see an  “Aero-peek” feature in Unity.

    • http://twitter.com/me4oslav Georgi Karavasilev

      Compiz already has “Windows Previews” functionallity. Enable it via CCSM, through it is not exactly “Aero peek”.
      And reads this: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/unity/+bug/684693

  • http://slimshady91.myopenid.com/ Tarek

    Unity is getting better and better and better, Oneiric will rock!!!

    • http://twitter.com/onderbakirtas Önder Emre BAKIRTAŞ

      No, 12.04 LTS will rock.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_GE4EYP3QOQ246PLG2Y2DOD2NIQ Dr. Fly

    I like everything about this post, including the modal dialogs removal. GNOME Shell’s looked nice, but Unity’s were pretty ugly up to this point, and should not have the right to be considered part of Unity until they can look the part. One way to fix this: get rid of the huge amounts of unnecessary whitespace.

    • nrundy

      you don’t like modal dialogs? why not?

      • Anonymous

        I think he just meant that the unity modal dialogs were pretty darn bad up to this point and should not be put back in until some major design issues concerning them can be worked out.

        • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1150263158 Rens Hamburger

          I agree

        • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1150263158 Rens Hamburger

          I agree

  • https://launchpad.net/~cscarney ~cscarney

    I’ve probably said this before, but I still don’t understand why the semi-maximize (“Aero Snap”) doesn’t just go ahead and resize the window when you hit the edge of the screen and restore it to its old size if you back away before releasing the mouse button.

    That’s what happens when you un-maximize a window by dragging down on the panel: the window un-maximizes immediately, reverting to maximized if you move the pointer back towards the spot where you grabbed it.  That (to me) creates a much nicer feel, like you’re directly manipulating the window.

    • http://profiles.google.com/patrickscott52 Patrick Scott

      I’m not so sure, to me the animation looks nicer (and clearer) than the window snapping to half size as soon as you touch the edge (which I think would seem clunky). Also the animation shows the user that the resize is not complete until you release the mouse button, it’s like a state of transition that kind of says that some action is about to happen if you let go but the action is not complete. If the window snapped to half size instantly it would kind of say that some action has already happened even though the action isn’t really complete until the mouse button is released… This is a really small issue but it’s the little details that count and I think that the way it’s done in Oneric seems like it’s higher quality based on look and feel..

      • https://launchpad.net/~cscarney ~cscarney

        Moving windows in compiz is lazy anyway (it doesn’t update the window position on the X server until you release the mouse button), but it still draws the window in the place where it’s *going* to be if you stop dragging.  So the “resize instantly” behaviour would be consistent with the way dragging windows normally works.

        • Anonymous

          I think there is an option in ccsm for “realtime” updates or something … but it will eat up a few percent of your cpu (I have a quad-2.3ghz sandy i7 … so that would be around an extra 10-15% on a midrange cpu).

        • Anonymous

          I think there is an option in ccsm for “realtime” updates or something … but it will eat up a few percent of your cpu (I have a quad-2.3ghz sandy i7 … so that would be around an extra 10-15% on a midrange cpu).

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_GE4EYP3QOQ246PLG2Y2DOD2NIQ Dr. Fly

    File a bug?

  • Scott Rosenquist

    Ugh, why must aero-snap work on distance from edge of screen. That looks so clunky. Let it smooth maximize. Please. Who else shares this feeling?

    • http://twitter.com/NomadeWolf A B

      EVERYONE

      • Scott Rosenquist

        THANK YOU!

    • http://twitter.com/NomadeWolf A B

      EVERYONE

  • http://profiles.google.com/kai.behrends Kai Hendrik Behrends

    Really like seeing the progress in Unity. Just wished 11.10 would support multiple displays better that’s still a pain in the “behind”.

    • http://www.facebook.com/sagetarian Shannon Antonio Black

      +1

      Its the ONLY thing I miss about Win7 .. Multiple Displays work without too much fuss .. 

    • http://twitter.com/samhorne Samuel Horne

      Yes! External screens support needs major work! On my Sony laptop, in Windows, I press Fn + F7 and it comes up with a wide dialog that shows four icons. Normal, Extend, Mirror, or Switch (they aren’t the names, I just made them up) and it’s really helpful in terms of using an external screen.

  • Anonymous

    But why, oh why, can’t one make global menus always visible!

    • http://twitter.com/samhorne Samuel Horne

      At least for larger screens, yes!

  • nrundy

    The switcher uses Ctrl + Tab? This shortcut is used to cycle through open tabs in web browsers. Isn’t this going to be a conflict?

    Not crazy about that Gold aero-snap animation. What was wrong with the orange? I thought the orange was awesome.

    • http://profiles.google.com/patrickscott52 Patrick Scott

      Ctrl + Tab is only a temporary assignment AFAIK. Once the new switcher is good enough it will replace the current Alt + Tab switcher

    • http://profiles.google.com/patrickscott52 Patrick Scott

      Ctrl + Tab is only a temporary assignment AFAIK. Once the new switcher is good enough it will replace the current Alt + Tab switcher

  • Ogün Çakır

    loving the way the Unity develops, I say that default desktop effects should be more eye-candy. yes, users can modify effects settings the way they want, but regarding the migrating users, the first impact is important.

    by the way, there must be a few more variants of light-themes. icons could be re-modified according to theme change. a blue and green theme with compatible icon variants would be great.

    • http://twitter.com/NomadeWolf A B

      Unity is crap. That’s why it’s normal it’ll only get better. There’s is no going down…

    • http://twitter.com/NomadeWolf A B

      Unity is crap. That’s why it’s normal it’ll only get better. There’s is no going down…

  • Ogün Çakır

    loving the way the Unity develops, I say that default desktop effects should be more eye-candy. yes, users can modify effects settings the way they want, but regarding the migrating users, the first impact is important.

    by the way, there must be a few more variants of light-themes. icons could be re-modified according to theme change. a blue and green theme with compatible icon variants would be great.

  • ike ahloe

    i wish we wouldn’t call it aero-snap because linux had it first. not a big deal but why give away an achievement.

    • http://omgubuntu.co.uk/ Joey-Elijah Sneddon

      I term it “aero snap” style simply because that’s the broadest possible analogy. Linux users will know what it refers to, but so will most of Joe Public. 

  • Ogün Çakır

    and yes, gnome 3 developers did sth very well: on the top panel, active window is shown by its icon smoothly. i adore it. please god give unity developers strength to apply this feature to unity panel :)

    • Anonymous

      I personally think that looks ugly … also, it serves little to no purpose in the unity desktop

  • Ogün Çakır

    and yes, gnome 3 developers did sth very well: on the top panel, active window is shown by its icon smoothly. i adore it. please god give unity developers strength to apply this feature to unity panel :)

  • http://twitter.com/brightside_87 brightside

    Aero-snap burns my eyes. Gaudy flashy color. But other changes really great.

  • http://facebook.com/domcan2 1roxtar

    1. Plus – Changing Launcher opacity.  I was hoping we would get this.  I love it!
    2. Minus – Not diggin’ the gold color for Snap feature.  Would have preferred an Ubuntu purple instead.

    Wish List:  Being able to format my Thumb Drives from the Unity launcher.

    • David Tigue

      You can make the color of the snap feature whatever color you want. So this is now a non-issue.

      • http://twitter.com/samhorne Samuel Horne

        Since when?

        • Anonymous

          “Grid” plugin in ccsm

  • Ogün Çakır

    oh, i’m very excited, okay. another issue that i have to point to: while working in a maximized window, i have to go to the left side of the screen to open another application window on the launcher. despite we can do this by “win.key+W”, unity shell could show us the opened windows with one click on the ubuntu logo. (again like gnome 3 i guess :()

  • Anonymous

    I don’t like the square around the icons.. Those are just random colours picked from the icon, and it looks ugly most of the time.. Just look at the software center with the “military green”.. When is it going to be dropped?

    • https://launchpad.net/~stachowski-mateusz Mateusz Stachowski

      You can disable backlight of icons in Unity plugin of Compiz or change it to only running applications (the square around icon doesn’t dissapear but it isn’t coloured).

  • Anonymous

    wow, the modal dialogs were the ONLY thing I was willing to try Unity for. apparently Canonical knows what the end user wants about as much as Steve Jobs does.

    • http://dmenounos.myopenid.com/ Dimitris

      What do you mean? There have always been modal windows. For example try in Firefox “File” -> “Open File” or “Print”.

  • Anonymous

    Why in the name of Satan’s sock drawer are all these changes only available in CCSM? All this tweakability is meaningless to the newbie user because he or she doesn’t know about CCSM. I’m still waiting on Kitchen Sink or its equivalent.

    P.S. Re: the new snap overlay: AAAARGH! My eyes! They burn!

    • Sashin Ranasinghe

      I suppose the tweaking isn’t aimed at the newbie user. 

    • http://profiles.google.com/patrickscott52 Patrick Scott

      Yeah, I’d like to see all these options in the “Launcher and Menu” application in the System Settings. I wonder if it is due to an increased localization effort. Are the CCSM options localized in to as many different languages as the core Ubuntu applications? If not, that would explain it…

  • http://www.thekiplingconspiracy.co.uk christiegrinham

    “Adjust edge reveal” – yes! I may finally actually be able to use Unity!

  • David Tigue

    I’ve used multiple displays with Ubuntu 11.04 Unity and it works seamlessly for me on all three of my laptops/netbooks and also on both my home server and desktop.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000145124961 David Otero Navarro

    I think we should be able to vhange the launcher’s background, as well as the panel one. Not only adjust the opacity…

    • http://profiles.google.com/patrickscott52 Patrick Scott

      Hopefully the launcher will be more theme-able in future releases (the Panel already is AFAIK)…

    • Anonymous

      Somebody commented on another post that a windows 7 style color picker would suffice … and I truly do think that it is possible

  • David Tigue

    And why were the modal dialogs removed anyway? Was it something they couldn’t implement in time for Oneiric? Or was it one of those great Shuttleworth design descisions?

    • http://profiles.google.com/patrickscott52 Patrick Scott

      Who knows…Maybe it will reappear for the beta release once the developers have stabilised it a bit more..

      • https://launchpad.net/~didrocks Didier Roche

        Who knows? People reading the available information:
        - https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DesktopTeam/Meeting/2011-08-02: “We reverted the unity dialog reverting light-themes, removing the unitydialogs plugin and reverted from unity-window-decorator to gtk-window-decorator to workaround the slowliness some people were getting. ”
        - changelog in compiz and unity:
        https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/compiz/1:0.9.5.0-0ubuntu2
        https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/unity/4.6.0-0ubuntu1

        We take a huge amount of time for documenting all this. So please, it would be nice if people take the time to get the infromation (the changelog is available in update-manager for instance) to read it

        • http://omgubuntu.co.uk/ Joey-Elijah Sneddon

          That and more were mentioned in Jorge/Ahmeds update post preceding this one. 

          • http://profiles.google.com/patrickscott52 Patrick Scott

            I like to read your posts in reverse-chronological order because that is they way that they show up in my feed reader but thank you for lecturing me..

          • http://omgubuntu.co.uk/ Joey-Elijah Sneddon

            Typically both posts would have been one, but I wasn’t sure whether Jorge/Ahmed would have appreciated my inserting screenshots into their post, and with people wanting screenshots and not having time to ask… it came as two posts. 

        • http://profiles.google.com/patrickscott52 Patrick Scott

          Meow! – If I had rephrased to “I don’t know” would you have been a little bit less catty in your response? – In my comment, I made a guess that it was taken out because of stability issues and I wasn’t wrong so there is no need to attack me. I’m sorry if I don’t have an extensive knowledge of where to find all of this information. I know just about enough about Ubuntu to get my work done and nothing more, I’m not an expert and I don’t pretend to be..

          It’s nice to be nice

        • Anonymous

          Hate to say it, but your first link doesn’t work.

          I would suspect that most users of Ubuntu are not developers and are not intimate with how to track down such information that your trying to link to.

          That’s besides the fact that I don’t know many people who would waste time trawling through all the minutes for meetings that may or may not be relevant. This year alone has 28 separate meeting minutes.

          The change logs are only obvious to people who know the underlying components of Ubuntu and know where to find them. The other issue is often change logs are written for people who develop and are not useful to non developers of the said components.

          Please understand that the user base of Ubuntu is larger than it’s developers and your going to get commentary like the one your complaining about because the information is not accessible to the average person, sometimes when it is accessible it’s not understandable by the average user.

          You may say that the average person shouldn’t be concerned with such things, but the average person sees articles like this because they get linked around on places like facebook, technology sites, etc.

          While your post was helpful (I was able to sort out the link), it was also insulting.

          • http://profiles.google.com/patrickscott52 Patrick Scott

            Yes, thank you! My thoughts exactly, it was insulting – I expect better from members of the community…

    • Anonymous

      Trust me, they are not ready yet … perhaps they just pulled them for quality control?

  • Saie Surendra

    Maybe a dumb question, but I would really like the unity bar at the bottom, like docky. A lot of people still prefer and use docky over it.
    A few like me use them together.
    Thats only because, I have not found a way to get it to come to the bottom.

    It would also be nice if it takes what docky does and just does it better.. like mayb wen you roll over the button.. the icon grows a little and squashes inside the box.. that would be nice over docky..

    and hopefullyy.. its recognised that, like on windows.. you may have several windows of the same program open… so we need to be able to see and handle that.. maybe something like ‘mouse over’ on an already open app will show tiny screens next to it of the windows already open.. and can close or reoppen from there… (like windwos 7 has)

    Im also a fan of the glowing lights in docky.. both over and under it..

    • http://profiles.google.com/patrickscott52 Patrick Scott

      Folks at canonical have been saying for a while that they won’t be adding the option to move the launcher to the bottom. They argue that moving it to the bottom wouldn’t make sense as the launcher is connected to the dash in the top left corner – effectively it would invalidate a lot of the design work that has gone into the dash and the overall Unity experience. If that is true and they did allow users to move the launcher to the bottom, then a lot of people (who were raised on Windows or Mac) would jump at the chance to move the launcher to the bottom and encounter those design problems which arise from moving the launcher. Therefore a lot of people would be left with a bad impression of Unity (more so than those who long for it to be customizable)…

      It may be a lot more effort than it’s worth to allow users to separate the launcher from the Dash

      • http://dmenounos.myopenid.com/ Dimitris

        BS. The real reason they won’t do that is because they are trying hard to create an “ubuntu personality”. They are playing the Steve Jobs game. It doesn’t matter if it goes against standard concepts. It doesn’t matter if it is not functional. As long as it adds to the unique “ubuntu personality” …

        • Sashin Ranasinghe

          What evidence do you have to support this?

        • http://profiles.google.com/patrickscott52 Patrick Scott

          I think we’re kind of agreeing with each other.. Allowing users to move the Launcher would invalidate a lot of the design choices they made with the dash and panel – and also ruin that “ubuntu personality” – Personally I don’t think there is anything wrong with a personality as long as it works well and Unity works well for me right now (apart from a couple of minor issues I’ve encountered due to it’s youth)

      • Saie Surendra

        That is probably fair I guess, lol. Seeing unity for that reason makes me appreciate it.

    • http://twitter.com/me4oslav Georgi Karavasilev

      Mark ain’t exactly a fan of “Aero peek”  ( ’mouse over’ on an already open app will show tiny screens next to it of the windows already open.. and can close or reoppen from there… (like windwos 7 has)
      Read this: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/unity/+bug/684693

      • Saie Surendra

        Fair but we don’t need it to be exactly like windows. We just need a way of tackling the issue it has.. and that is minimised apps that are not on the launcher, and many windows of the same app already open.
        To be honest, it isn’t easy managing several windows with just unity at the moment.. but I guess improvements will be coming sooner or later.

    • J W

      The windows 7 “mouse over” preview would be perfect. I would also like to be able to click an icon in the launcher to minimize.

  • Brian Bentsen

    Excellent, now they just need a “panel mode” option – when you have a
    large/wide screen it’s a nuisance more than anything else to have the
    launcher pop in and out of view constantly. I get the feeling the Ubuntu
    11.04+10 desktop was designed mainly with netbooks in mind (global menu is
    another nuisance, unless you have a very small screen), and that’s all
    good and well, but please include customisation options to make Unity
    integrate fully with larger screens :o)

    • http://profiles.google.com/patrickscott52 Patrick Scott

      You can configure the launcher to always show using the “Hide Launcher” setting in CCSM under the Unity plugin settings. Is that what you meant by “panel mode”?

      • Brian Bentsen

        Yes! Has that always been there? Couldn’t find the setting when I tried Unity some months ago. Me being daft then :o)

        • http://twitter.com/me4oslav Georgi Karavasilev

          Has been there pretty much from the begining of the existence of Compiz Unity :)

    • http://twitter.com/me4oslav Georgi Karavasilev

      And the appmenu can be disabled either by removing it’s packages (appmenu-gtk indicator-applet-appmenu indicator-appmenu) or by executing the following commands:
      sudo su
      echo “export UBUNTU_MENUPROXY=” > /etc/X11/Xsession.d/81ubuntumenuproxy

      • http://profiles.google.com/patrickscott52 Patrick Scott

        Are there any nasty side effects to that? Do the window controls still go in the top panel?

        • http://twitter.com/me4oslav Georgi Karavasilev

          Yes.

      • Brian Bentsen

        Or choosing Ubuntu classic until the developers make the Unity desktop a viable alternative to Gnome 2 + awn/docky and synaptic/gnome do – they got some way to go.. 

        • http://twitter.com/me4oslav Georgi Karavasilev

          Unity isn’t designed to be Gnome 2.
          You can use Synapse and Synaptic with unity (Gnome-Do is pretty dead).
          But what’s the point of AWN, Docky, Cairo, Plank, etc… you name it in Unity when there is the Unity launcher who just keeps getting better and better :)

          • Brian Bentsen

            I’ll make the move when Unity launcher outperforms my awn dock in tweakability and stability – that’s certainly not now.

          • http://twitter.com/me4oslav Georgi Karavasilev

            Your choice :)
            But prepare to not be using Gnome for a very long time, then.
            11.10 uses Gnome 3 and Gnome 3 classic mode is a piece and you can’t use AWN with it, so you have to choose between KDE/XFCE/LXDE etc…

          • http://twitter.com/me4oslav Georgi Karavasilev

            Your choice :)
            But prepare to not be using Gnome for a very long time, then.
            11.10 uses Gnome 3 and Gnome 3 classic mode is a piece and you can’t use AWN with it, so you have to choose between KDE/XFCE/LXDE etc…

  • Anonymous

    I hope the launcher gets a preview option for apps that are active.
    Nice to see these changes. 

  • Julian Rene Rengifo Niño

    I hope this performarce is perfect for LTS in 2012.

  • Julian Rene Rengifo Niño

    I hope this performarce is perfect for LTS in 2012.

  • http://profiles.google.com/were.not.superheroes.anymore Danny Droid

    Any word on changing the size of the panel as well as the position?

    Only real two things stopping me from using and enjoying Unity. 

    • Anonymous

      You can change the size to make it bigger or smaller, but however…….its still stuck on the left side

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Carlos-Felipe-Araújo/100000923339064 Carlos Felipe Araújo

    Linus is using XFCE, I`m, KDE and LXDE. 
    For me
    Gnome 2.x > KDE > XFCE > LXDE > UNITY > GNOME 3.

  • http://www.facebook.com/m.owner Алексей Мартяшев

    Oh no! Please! If i want so many options, i would like install Arch! Also remove theme switcher please, i think changing wallpapers is enough.

  • http://www.therealneo.com JohnDoe

    the really removed modal dialogues really? theres still 12.04 to look forward to.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Angel-Sheehan/510136103 Angel Sheehan

    I like the idea of the opacity for the launcher ,also  i was thinking adding a foggy glass effect to the launcher and a control to adjust the fog intensity would be nice, it would give a nice effect of a foggy glass window over the wallpaper :P

  • Brian Oswald

    I love the Unity customization tools, but I hate the gold overlay with “Ubuntu Snap”. I think they should revert to the transparent orange glow to match the rest of the orange in the theme(s). Gold is bright, distracting and out-of-place. 

    • http://twitter.com/zc456 Squeaks

      Agreed.

    • http://twitter.com/zc456 Squeaks

      Agreed.

  • http://twitter.com/di0nysys Andrew Smith

    I want NO global menu while using chrome!!!!! Till then no Unity for me.

    • http://twitter.com/me4oslav Georgi Karavasilev

      Global menu for Chrome can be disabled via about:flags
      And also it doesn’t change anything is chrome itself!
      Please don’t go on Unity rant for no reason!

  • Anonymous

    Apple edge reveal in OSX Lion I like the best to far. It works when apps are full screen. With the track pad anyway, swipe to the edge, then another swipe to reveal the dock. The chance of accidentally revealing is minimal, and you are in full control of when it will be revealed, waiting for a time delay.

  • http://twitter.com/HussainQuraishi Haich Kew

    I think im the only one who finds compiz crap and tacky….
    During screen animations the window title bar detaches slightly and when the scale plugin is initiated the window previews look like utter rubbish, theyre all pixelated and stuff. But when i tried gnome shell, all the animations were smoother, faster, not pixelation or tearing for that matter….. 

    I keep hearing people saying how they dont like mutter, but it works way better than compiz!

  • Anonymous

    Although I won’t be using Unity in the near future, I’m quite excited about it. It’s already a really good option for new users. When you have the choice between Unity, GNOME 3, KDE 4, and XFCE4, I can’t imagine an unsatisfied user. I’m glad we’ve diversified ourselves so much and explored interaction more seriously.

    I’m really excited to see how things shape up for the next LTS. I think DELL and other vendors will be much more excited to ship it if it’s polished up enough.

  • Anonymous

    Although I won’t be using Unity in the near future, I’m quite excited about it. It’s already a really good option for new users. When you have the choice between Unity, GNOME 3, KDE 4, and XFCE4, I can’t imagine an unsatisfied user. I’m glad we’ve diversified ourselves so much and explored interaction more seriously.

    I’m really excited to see how things shape up for the next LTS. I think DELL and other vendors will be much more excited to ship it if it’s polished up enough.

  • Anonymous

    I switched from Ubuntu to Mint not because I totally disliked Unity but because of one aspect of it, namely the ‘Applications available for download’ section. I find it unnecessary, unprofessional and patronising. When there is an option to remove it I might consider returning to Ubuntu.

  • http://twitter.com/NomadeWolf A B

    Unity is still a long way from being any good.
    It’s unnatural, it has almost no options for customization. I take much more time to get what i need done.

    I REALLY tried to use it, but it’s just crap.
    I not saying that SOME people won’t like and/or get used to it. But i think i speak for the majority when i say that unity is not for me.

    Ubuntu was going the right direction with Gnome, including more functionality into the system notification, and then just threw it all away with unity…

  • http://www.facebook.com/david.t.brown1 David Timothy Brown

    Anyone know a way to get the new compiz unity plugin to work in the ccsm of Ubuntu Natty.  I would like to try out these new features without installing Oneiric.  Something like a PPA to add.

  • veldar

    again windows 7 ftw 
    i start to believe open source is nothing but a Coping Source and nothing original except for the Linux KERNAL 

    • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_XGZHLVX4VLNUYXBDSZKUX2P2EQ Nemes

      Veldar do your self a service and grow up …

      not just ..because your sweetly stupid proposition

      but the way you think make me feel it will be impossible to give you arguments on topic because you don’t have the mental level to understand about Open Source.

      so I will post pone my arguments for you at least 5 years
      grow up please in between

      • veldar

        im doing a favore to you noob and telling you to grow up and be greative for once in your life and stop been non greative wanna be loser like your os

      • veldar

        im doing a favore to you noob and telling you to grow up and be greative for once in your life and stop been non greative wanna be loser like your os

  • Humps Blow-Doll

    Everybody LOVES Mac OS X!!!

  • Anonymous

    in 11.04 we could click a launcher icon to minimize the already running windows, then click again to restore the windows.  This was a GREAT feature that I used all of the time.

    11.10 – cannot click launcher icons to MINIMIZE the running windows – why was this removed?  Please add this behaviour back!

 
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