Ubuntu 14.04 finally offers users the choice of where application menus appear, answering a long-held request from fans of the distro.
Ubuntu’s Unity desktop has used a global menu bar at the top of the screen since Ubuntu 11.04.
The introduction of that was not without controversy, and subsequent decisions to hide the menu bar entries until a user moused over them proved equally contentious.
With locally integrated menus (LIM), users won’t need to mouse up to the top of the screen to access File > Save, Edit > Paste Special or any other menu item.
The implementation is different to what was proposed in 2012. Rather than hiding menus behind a button in the window title bar, app menus are embedded directly into the window decoration itself.
Not only does this continue to save on vertical space (the justification behind putting the menu in the top bar to start with) but they’re also much easier to discover, something novice users will appreciate!
When the menus are wider than the available space the trailing options are tucked inside a small caret drop-down positioned at the end.
The insertion of menus into the title bar looks like it could cause unwanted issues, right? Thankfully it doesn’t.
Clicking on an application window bar to move it works exactly the same as before. Menus are only triggered when the mouse hovers over the menu area for a split second longer than it would for moving a window.
Global is still the default menu behaviour
The feature won’t be made default but will be easily available to enable through a check box in the ‘Appearance’ pane of the Unity Control Centre.
Locally Integrated Menus will prove to be particularly helpful on big screens or those with fancy-pants high pixel density displays. In those cases where the ‘travel’ from application to the menu bar at the top of the screen is far greater than on smaller screens, and thus less helpful as a result.
Expect to find the feature land in development builds of Ubuntu 14.04 sometime in the coming days.
Second Image Credit: WoG