
Ubuntu desktop moving application menus back into application windows - pedrocr
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/02/ubuntu-desktop-moving-application-menus-back-into-application-windows/
======
selmnoo
Very slightly-off topic:

So, I have this theory. The theory is that Microsoft and/or Apple somehow
infiltrated the Ubuntu organization and got their men in as developers and
made big changes to sabotage and undermine the Ubuntu project. And they've
done great.

Let me tell you about the Unity Launcher: [http://www.bomski.com/wp-
content/uploads/2012/10/screenshot....](http://www.bomski.com/wp-
content/uploads/2012/10/screenshot.jpg)

The awesome thing about it is the microscale indicator that is supposed to
tell you what window is open. Yeah, that small little triangle on right/left
side of icons. It gets even better when you have many windows open (the icon
menu folds) or have more than one window open of a certain application (the
triangle becomes an elongated thin icon which is now twice as difficult to
make out in full-view):
[http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-36ZlfS5qyI0/TZREYHuo56I/AAAAAAAAAr...](http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-36ZlfS5qyI0/TZREYHuo56I/AAAAAAAAArw/oGdahPyxiNQ/s1600/Screenshot-11.png).
Basically, the most perfect applications panel design to get my mom to stop
using Ubuntu (it worked, too!) When on a high resolution screen, I can't quite
make them out either (so it got me to stop using Ubuntu as well)! Also,
changing windows (e.g., if you have two or three document processing files
open), how do you quickly and efficiently switch to the right one? I don't
know! Give Ubuntu a chance yourself to see more gems like this. Man, I really
have to give kudos to whoever is behind this, to have convinced their
'dedicated UI team' that this shit is anything less than a joke. Bravo
Apple/Microsoft/whoever you are, I'm impressed!

~~~
Spittie
I have a different theory: the Ubuntu "core" and "design" teams have their
vision of what Ubuntu will be, and just don't listen for feedback from the
community.

It's fine to just push changes, otherwise we would be stuck in the 80s and the
90s (everyone hates changes), but it's not fine to not listen to any kind of
feedback from the community, even after years.

The unity sidebar is the biggest example. They refused to let users change the
size of the icons for years. Even now, you're still limited by a small range
they've decided on. They removed used, small features because it would make
the codebase "harder to mantain".

The global menu is an usability nightmare on Ubuntu (the HUD instead is a
pretty cool concept). I don't really like global menus, but Canonical managed
to make it even worse - It's hidden by default, and get showed only on mouse
hover. I've been using Linux with various DE for years, and the last time I
tried Ubuntu it took me 5 minutes to remember where is the menu (I can only
wonder what would my parents do). Obviously, they didn't change this at all.

I could go on and complain about Ubuntu all day (and not only about Unity -
I'd like to talk about their tendency to patch everything downstream) but the
message is "Canonical shot themself in the foot". I can only hope this is a
"new beginning" and they'll start to listen their userbase.

~~~
pekk
You talk like "the community" all has one opinion.

In reality, whoever is unhappy screams and claims to speak for "the community"
as a way of trying to get their way. And almost always someone is unhappy.

Most of the time, an equally large subset of the community is not screaming
because they are happy with that decision.

You could chase one side of the community and then the other forever, without
reaching a stable outcome.

~~~
Spittie
Sure, I understand. But why not make everyone happy, and give a choice? At
least, for the small "little" tweaks that make everyone scream?

There are plenty of examples: globalmenu on/off, globalmenu hidden/showed by
default, buttons on the left/right side of the window, size of the icons in
the launcher, side of the screen on which the launcher appear, show the
launcher on every screen or only the main one...

~~~
dagw
_why not make everyone happy, and give a choice_

They've already given users several choices. They're called Kubuntu, Xubuntun
and Lubuntu.

~~~
blueblob
I think it's time for a Gubunto that uses GNOME instead of Unity. :-)

~~~
gcb0
or, you know, use debian.

~~~
blueblob
I actually use Arch although I do like Debian too.

------
edtechdev
I know the argument about Fitt's law and having the menu up on the top (as was
the custom since the first Macintosh). That was in the 1980s, with tiny
monitors and usually only running one single window application at a time.
When you have larger monitors and multiple windows open, a single menu bar
runs into two new usability problems, one being mode errors. Is that menu for
the application I am trying to use it for? What mode is the menu bar in right
now? (vi/vim users know this one, too) The other issue is that with large
monitors it takes more effort to reach the menu bar with your mouse. It's not
a simple quick flick of the mouse up to the top like before with small
screens.

This is part of a larger class of problems I see with open source in
particular. They copy some feature that made perfect sense in the time,
context, and constraints under which it was designed, but don't factor in how
things have changed or they don't have knowledge of the original problem that
feature was designed to solve (which may no longer apply). I'm thinking of
common programming language features in particular.

That said, the spike in usability and stability and compatibility problems of
Ubuntu (like not being able to even see the last item in a list of files
because the bottom status bar was removed and replaced with a floating box)
just finally pushed me off Ubuntu as my primary OS this past fall, after using
it as my primary OS for 7 years. I know it's free and a lot of the
compatibility problems are more the fault of Microsoft/Nvidia (dual graphics,
uefi, etc.), I shouldn't complain, but to me it's not a good sign when you
won't even use something that's free. But maybe this article is a sign that
Ubuntu will improve in the future.

~~~
modeless
This is a great point. I've hated the top menu bar for years, but I never
considered that it was actually a good fit for the original Macintosh, and has
only become bad since screens became larger and multitasking more common.

I don't think it's fair to blame Open Source for this kind of problem, though.
After all, Apple had a chance to fix this when they redid the UI for OS X and
they didn't do it either. To this day they continue to copy the menu design
from the original Macintosh even though it no longer makes sense. They also
copied the Dock from NeXT into OS X, which I think was a bad decision too.

------
virtualritz
The main problem I have with the menu in Ubuntu is that the items are hidden
until you move the mouse.

That is just a design mistake of epic proportions because I can't acquire and
aim for the target menu before the mouse has reached the bar.

I never heard any Mac user complain about the global menu bar. Even on huge
screens. Perhaps that is reason.

~~~
Brakenshire
It's also bad from the perspective of discoverability. Any inexperienced user
will really struggle with menus that completely disappear.

------
mindstab
"But even for people who liked the design, it has grown more problematic over
time with the proliferation of bigger monitors"

Yes, this.

I think in everyone's rush for "convergence" they just forgot about the
desktop. I think the final winning solution will be more the Ubuntu/Canonical
approach (and that they are a bit ahead of Windows now) in that we will have
both options available and with a bit more time, you can easily choose from
"interface profiles"

On a big multiscreen desktop, I love and have for a long time loved, "in app
menus" and Focus-Follow-Mouse. But on my 10" netbook? I'm actually pretty
happy with global menu and click-focus because usually I'm just alt-tabing
between full screen apps.

Different situations call for different solutions. The real winner will be the
solution that provides all options and the flexibility to seamlessly move
between them, and as I said, I think Ubuntu is much closer. Windows with their
entire new set of "Metro" apps and bigger "classic desktop"/metro separation I
think has gone down the wrong path.

~~~
orangecat
_I think in everyone 's rush for "convergence" they just forgot about the
desktop._

Exactly. "Desktops are dead" has become a self-fulfilling prophecy. For most
users a new desktop computer wouldn't give them any significant benefits over
the 5 year old one that they already have, so of course they're not going to
buy one. Meanwhile, if hardware and software manufacturers had actually come
up with ways to take advantage of their massive CPU and GPU power, we could
have 50" displays at 8000x5000 pixels, eye tracking, gesture control, and who
knows what else. Basically what this guy says:
[http://tiamat.tsotech.com/displays-are-the-
key](http://tiamat.tsotech.com/displays-are-the-key)

------
eklavya
Okay, I get it Ubuntu bashing is the new fad. But cmon, they are providing
more choice here. For small screens global menu and close button on the system
panel save a lot of vertical space. Now they are providing an option to the
guys with big screens to have local menus so they don't have to keep on
selecting windows to access their menus. What's wrong in it?

I have come to like unity the way it is, though I didn't in the beginning. I
support Ubuntu in the spirit of open source and to be free to do things you
want to do and in the way you like.

It's very strange indeed to hear complaints about making new stuff from
hackers. Don't we all do it? Sometimes for nothing else but for our heart's
desire?

~~~
wpietri
Making new stuff for your heart's desire is excellent. Art is a vital part of
life. Inflicting something upon millions of people should, however, be about
what they need. I did not volunteer to be a participant in somebody's half-
assed art project, and if I did, it wouldn't be using my work laptop.

~~~
eklavya
Nothing is being inflicted, Nobody forces users to use Ubuntu, they do it
because they like it. That is not to say that they should be deaf to community
feedback. If it's so bad it is going to lose market share but Ubuntu really is
popular and people seem to still like it. The people who dislike it are just
way more vocal that's all. Why bitch about something that's free AND when you
have plenty of choices?

------
RyanZAG
Great move, the single menu bar thing is just terrible design. It just moves
common application actions further away from their context in order to give
more room for.. more application actions? Whoever designed the single menu bar
was clearly not thinking in terms of functional design principals.

~~~
nfoz
One of the nice thing about menus being at the top of the screen is an
adherence to Fitt's law:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitt%27s_law](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitt%27s_law)

> Edges and corners of the computer monitor (...) are particularly easy to
> acquire with a mouse, touchpad or trackball. Because the pointer remains at
> the screen edge regardless of how much further the mouse is moved, they can
> be considered as having infinite width. This doesn't apply to touchscreens,
> though.

But there's an argument to be made for the spatial-locality as well, as you
say. I think it's an interesting trade-off / difference of design philosophy.

~~~
RyanZAG
This tradeoff is best left to the user's specific task and is handled in a
very intuitive and usable fashion: maximizable windows.

~~~
nzp
No, it's actually best handled the way they are about to handle it: let the
user choose the alternative themselves.

------
nfoz
The "application context" vs. "window context" UI dichotomy is certainly
interesting; I think both mechanisms can be fine and implemented well or
poorly. Ubuntu's was always extremely poor. Unless the toolkit and, to some
extent, the applications are _designed_ for that use-case, trying to hack
their menus to appear at the top when they were expected to be part of the
window is just a disaster.

It's unfortunate that we just don't have the resources to make a sane desktop-
level application menu on the desktop-linux stack, even with all the might of
Ubuntu. But that seems to be the case, so I'm glad they're moving to something
more feasible. Even if it's a little disappointing.

------
forgottenpass
Even when I don't like the changes, I still like the idea they're
experimenting with the UI. But I really wish they had added a "just turn this
nonsense off" option in the configuration too. The tweaks never play nice with
software from outside of the ubuntu repos.

A few commercial products running on Linux are important to our workflow. If
they have a GUI, chances are high that there is a visual bug that makes the
program unusable and that the root cause is a Unity feature. For example, the
thing that moves the menu to the top bar meant no menu at all. Something else
meant 1 quadrant of the application window just wouldn't paint at all, still
no idea why on that one.

Wasting half a day implementing a workaroud here and there isn't the worst
thing in the world, but it's a low enough number of special purpose machines
that I always threaten the next time I'll just migrate them to another DE.

------
sethammons
Unlike many others, I really liked most of Unity. However, I never liked the
menu bar always being at the top of the screen. I think that changing the
menues to being attached again is a good thing, and I like how they integrated
it to hide in the title bar.

------
d0
Looking at that screenshot, one question:

What do we drag stuff with now without setting off a menu?

~~~
CyberShadow
Watch the video in the article. At 0:48, they drag the titlebar as usual, even
though there are menu entries directly under the mouse cursor. I guess they
have replaced the "pull down" mouse gesture with initiating a window drag, so
the only way to open a menu with the mouse is to click it.

~~~
dagurp
I'm used to maximising and resizing windows by double clicking on the title
bar. I wonder if it will be possible now.

------
japhyr
> The intent of moving application-specific menus into the global menu bar was
> to leave more room for content in applications. But even for people who
> liked the design, it has grown more problematic over time with the
> proliferation of bigger monitors...

This matches my experience. I usually work from a laptop, but when I've used
ubuntu on a larger monitor it's been annoying to have to go all the way to the
top left of the screen for a menu. I use keyboard shortcuts for most actions,
but I do notice the issue when I need to access a menu.

------
mistercow
This actually is _the_ thing keeping me from using Unity right now. A
permanent menu bar made since on a 4:3 screen. But in 16:9, I just don't want
to lose my precious vertical screen real estate to a menu bar.

~~~
mindstab
you can remove it already, and it's about the first thing I don on all my new
computers:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7282659](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7282659)

~~~
mistercow
That doesn't solve the real estate problem - in fact it makes it worse in some
apps. The top bar is still there after you do that. It just moves the menu
items back into the window.

I don't really care where the menu items are. If the top bar would auto-hide,
I'd be fine with it. I just don't want to give up the space.

Apparently there's a modified Unity called "Unity Revamped" which adds
autohide as an option to CCSM, but it's a slightly older version of Unity, and
for whatever reason I can't downgrade to it.

------
nzp
Reading the title made my blood pressure start slightly rising as it gives an
impression this is not configurable. Fortunately this is not the case. I like
the menu bar where it is now, that space is wasted anyway. If Unity didn't
have the HUD then the current solution would be problematic with focus follows
mouse, but with the HUD it's a non issue.

Doesn't anyone else find it a bit weird how they pretend they invented the top
bar menu and are like: "Yeah, we had this really cool and innovative idea,
but, um, yeah as it was used in the real world for the past couple of years we
gathered some data and we have second thoughts... You know how it is when
you're the first and only product with an original feature..." Right...
Because it's not like there's a certain other operating system GUI which has
had this feature since the '80s.

------
fps
I'm an Ubuntu + Gnome 3 user, but this seems a little pointless. None of the
applications I use these days even have the 90's style
File/Edit/View/Tools/Help style menus. Everything is in a right click menu, a
function bar, or a much smaller all purpose "more" icon. File/Edit/View always
made for a frustrating treasure hunt tracking down which of the
properties/preferences/settings dialog box a certain setting was buried in; I
don't understand why those menus lasted as long as they did.

~~~
Avshalom
moving everything into a right click or more icon doesn't get rid of the menu
it just adds one more step to the treasure hunt.

~~~
fps
Not really. Some applications I use (like Gnome terminal) only have a right
click menu. Everything is there, or in the "profile preferences" dialog
accessible from within right click. Other applications (like Chrome) have a
very sensible hierarchy:

\- If I want to do something to an object within a page (copy link, open
image, translate text), I right click on that thing.

\- If I want to do something to the active document/page, there's a button for
it at the top.

\- If I want to make a change to the application, I go to the singular
settings dialog accessible through the "more functions" button.

Hierarchical menus are a mess, and I'm glad they appear to be dying.

------
runn1ng
I, for one, love it when the menus are on top.

What I don't like, however, is that they are on the top bar _sometimes_ , but
not _always_.

Java Swing applications usually have their own bar. evince, Ubuntu's _default
PDF reader_ , has just some useless "About" menu on top, and everything
important is _under the gear icon in the window_ (which took me about 15
minutes to discover). And it's a default GNOME application!

~~~
smithzvk
That is really weird. For me evince has no gear icon and has its menus in the
global menu like every other GTK application.

~~~
theintern
On my Ubuntu 13.10 I have what runn1ng describes, one menu item that just
contains help. Everything else is in the gear.

~~~
smithzvk
Oh, I'm still on 12.04. Guess I have that to look forward to.

------
realrocker
O elusive menu bar, where art thee, My fingers cry for a chance unity, Though
I travel edge from edge looking, No fear, My Love, the trackpad is never
ending.

------
mindstab
Already right now you _can_ remove Unity's global menu, it just takes some
work

$ sudo apt-get autoremove appmenu-gtk appmenu-gtk3 appmenu-qt firefox-
globalmenu

------
LarryMade2
Meh

Whenever I upgrade Ubuntu, first thing I do is change the desktop manager.
Unity or whatever they call it just isn't productive for me.

Just like Windows 8 (Metro) adding a button saying Start doesn't fix the
problem that people have about using the thing in general. Same goes with
adding menus on the top of windows for me. For me, it's the issue of just
trying to locate the program I want without having to go to more effort than
just selecting it from a list. Canonical thinks I want to search for it (which
includes being able to remember it's name) and also be delighted at the
opportunity to always download or buy something other than what's already on
my computer... no thanks.

------
bliti
I just wished that Canonical would sell an Ubuntu laptop. Not a namebrand
laptop with Ubuntu installed in it, but a machine made for them exclusively.
Then they can integrate the OS to perfectly work with the machine. I'd buy
that in a heartbeat.

~~~
mistercow
System76 is kind of like that. Obviously it isn't Canonical choosing hardware
and tweaking software to match it, but they do make good choices to make sure
everything works well. In my experience, it's not quite as seamless as a Mac,
but it's damned close.

~~~
willismichael
Agreed (posted using a System76 laptop)

------
usablebytes
I trust, that's a good decision. The context of a component should always be
carried with the component. I myself, found the global menus a lot
troublesome, although the design intention to provide more room was
successful.

------
mark_l_watson
I don't use my Ubuntu laptop nearly as often as my MacBook Air, so not a huge
deal for me. That said, when I just work on a laptop's screen I like the menus
on top but when I plug into a huge monitor being able to flip to the menus on
window mode is excellent.

Off topic, but I need to find a nice way to do the same for OS X when I plug
my Air into a huge monitor. Any suggestions?

------
yason
I wonder if they already allow binding commands and window manager functions
to super key? They didn't and that kind of put me off Unity right from the
start.

Good keyboard controls are a must for any desktop environment and the super
key is perfect for activating those while leaving all three of control, alt,
and shift for applications (such as Emacs).

------
gpvos
I'm still in favour of how Acorn's RiscOS did it: the main menu is under the
middle mouse button[0]. It's always nearby, because it's always at your cursor
location. And it can optionally be context-sensitive, like today's "right-
click" context menus.

[0] which should be a real button, not a dinky scroll wheel.

------
dhughes
Years ago when Ubuntu Netbook Edition remix first came out I actually liked
Unity on a netbook and put it on a desktop PC but then realized I hated it on
a full size desktop PC.

It's the same with Win 8 Metro I thought it looked great on mobile phones and
on a desktop PC or laptop PC but looks versus using are two different things!

------
mavhc
Why is there a menu bar at all? Just use the menu button anywhere in the
window to open the menu, ultimate Fitts law.

------
higherpurpose
Now if they can only let users to switch the sidebar to the bottom, the way it
is in Windows, that would be perfect. Even a change like that for a user that
comes from Windows can turn him away from Ubuntu.

~~~
NateDad
Monitors are almost always wider than they are tall... using horizontal space
makes a ton more sense. If such a small thing turns off a user, they're not
seriously considering a different OS anyway.

------
robomartin
I am surprised nobody has mentioned multi-monitor setups. This is where you
really experience how bad the concept of a single unified menu bar for
EVERYTHING that is running on the machine can be. Connect four 1920 x 1200 (or
larger) monitors to your machine and you'll be cursing in no time at all. Even
a simpler dual screen setup suffers from this concept. I don't care if it is
under osx Or Ubuntu/Unity, this UI is inferior to one where the application
and the relevant menu exist in a self contained window.

Now, that does not mean that an application cannot spawn multiple windows at
all. For example, Altium Designer --a high-end electronics circuit design
package-- can make use of one or more monitors quite effectively. You can, for
example, have the schematic editor running in a window on one monitor while
you design the PCB on the second and the documentation is open on the third.
Each window houses the relevant menus and toolbars. This would be an absolute
nightmare on OSX or Ubuntu style single menu systems.

It doesn't end there. If I am working on a web project i might have my IDE
open front and center while supporting tools are open on the other monitors. I
usually run several virtual machines on the monitor immediately to the left.
Each machine runs a different browser for testing purposes. I found this to be
far easier than other options and I can keep those virtual machines and
browsers clean of extraneous stuff that might otherwise modify behavior. I
then keep a terminal window or two logged into whatever remote server I might
be working on. This can also be on a separate monitor if needed. I usually
keep the terminal on the left with the VM's. On my right monitor I usually run
Chrome and Firefox for reference (PDF's, manuals, SO, etc.) and technical
debugging purposes. If needed other tools such as email and the too-important
music player go on the right as well. If I need photoshop, excel or some other
tool it usually goes in the center monitor. I tend to keep several open file
browsers on the fourth monitor (although Only one of my systems has four large
monitors).

Again, dedicated and context-appropriate menus make it easy to deal with such
a setup without having to mouse all over the universe of available pixels. If
I had to do this on OSX or Ubuntu I'd probably throw the computer out the
window. In fact our Mac systems all have dual monitors but I still use the
Windows systems for almost anything other than iOS development because OSX
continues to evolve into a royal pain in the ass. I can run Ubuntu 12.04 LTS
server in a virtual machine on the PC with a shared drive and have the best of
all worlds. BTW, running Vista and 7.

~~~
nknighthb
1) You are unusual.

2) Mavericks was released with per-monitor menu bars four months ago.

~~~
robomartin
> You are unusual

Of course. I hope all of us are to some extent or another. The world would be
a pretty sad place if people were not "unusual" about something.

> Mavericks was released with per-monitor menu bars four months ago.

To me that's replacing a bad UI/UX experience with a worst UI/UX experience.

I suspect we disagree on this. That's OK. No need to take the discussion any
further.

Thanks.

------
skywhopper
I would be happy, but Ubuntu managed to drive me away from their default UI
with Unity long ago. This is only one of many things I didn't care for in
Unity.

------
justin_vanw
Who even notices silly things like this?

It's gnu/Linux. Ubuntu isn't doing much, they do a string replace and change
"Debian" to "Ubuntu", force everybody to use a half baked semi optimized for
tablet even though nobody anywhere runs Ubuntu on a tablet UI layer, Unity is
just garbage, but none of that matters. Ubuntu hasn't made any decisions, they
are just setting some defaults.

Who cares what the default menu location is when it takes 5 minutes to get
everything back to the way you like it? (10 seconds if you are clever enough
to rsync your home directory from another machine)

~~~
antihero
What an utterly worthless comment. Ubuntu has lots of developers that produce
a great deal of patches. I'm not a fan of Ubuntu but you don't have to be to
understand that they do indeed contribute to the FOSS ecosystem, and saying
that they don't is disingenuous and frankly offensive.

Furthermore discussions about "little things like this" are what people have
been pushing for - Linux on the desktop taking user experience as seriously as
technical supremacy - for years, and is one of the main reasons people still
cling to OSX and Windows.

------
Mikeb85
Bah, I loved the menus being in the global bar. Made so much more sense, and
makes the screen feel larger.

------
shirro
Get rid of the menu bars altogether. They made sense in 1984 when people who
had never seen a mouse needed to discover how to use things. How often do you
use a menu in an app today? Anything commonly done has a keyboard shortcut.
Anything graphical has palettes. Menus are often contextual or being hidden
behind three bar buttons these days.

