
It’s time to fix the window controls (ubuntu 10.04) - dotcoma
http://yokozar.org/blog/archives/194
======
sdfx
Whether they had good reason for changing a central UI element or not, it
comes across as if they decided on a whim. This change seems so random. It's
strange that they didn't anticipate the uproar in the community and at least
try to answer the concerns and justify their decision.

------
barrkel
It's a weakness of all centralized software construction mechanisms that
change chosen by a handful of people can end up thrust unwillingly on large
crowds. It's not like casual users can fork Ubuntu simply because they dislike
the window layout.

But there are some pathologies that seem endemic to open source. A revealing
comment by one of the bug shepherds on the relevant bug[1] says "Change is
always good , _if_ there is a good reason to change". I think this is plainly
false: change doesn't just need good reasons, it needs excellent reasons,
because change by itself has such high costs.

Open source is often too open to change for its own sake, and often lacks
consideration for the maintenance costs of new functionality. To take the on-
topic example of OS changes, it was viable for XP users to completely skip
Vista, and continue to use the old OS, over a period of nearly 10 years,
without issues of incompatibility. Try doing the same with a typical Linux
distro, and you'll find your apt-get (or equivalent) will pull in all sorts of
dependencies that you may or may not desire if you want to use the latest
software.

[1] <https://bugs.edge.launchpad.net/bugs/532633>

~~~
SwellJoe
_To take the on-topic example of OS changes, it was viable for XP users to
completely skip Vista, and continue to use the old OS, over a period of nearly
10 years, without issues of incompatibility. Try doing the same with a typical
Linux distro, and you'll find your apt-get (or equivalent) will pull in all
sorts of dependencies that you may or may not desire if you want to use the
latest software._

You've made a mistake in your Linux distro selection, if lifecycle in a
priority (and for me, it usually is). RHEL (and thus, CentOS) has a seven year
update cycle. During that period they will never "pull in all sorts of
dependencies you may or may not desire". It is a stable platform and it
remains the same throughout its lifecycle. If you prefer apt-based distros,
Ubuntu LTS has a five year lifecycle. Debian tends to be about 3-4 years, but
is based on the development of the next revision rather than a stated
lifecycle, as far as I know (so if Debian develops faster, you have to upgrade
faster).

That said, I suppose one could argue that on older stable Linux distros, one
might have to add some dependencies from outside of the core OS in order to
run super new stuff...though I rarely find things that won't build against the
libraries available on CentOS 5 or Ubuntu 8.04LTS. Some developer tools move
really fast, as do some of the new-fangled Gnome or KDE user applications, but
mostly I never notice that the OS is a couple years old.

So, yes, Open Source does change faster, but there are very easy ways to opt
out of the rapid release cycle for systems that need stability (like servers).
I can't tell you the number of folks I've met over the years who've started
out with Fedora or Ubuntu, only to figure out that upgrading every 12-18
months is stressful and unproductive, and moved to a more predictable distro,
even though it has older packages.

In short, you have a choice about how long you can use a Linux distro safely
and productively. You can prioritize for the latest and greatest or you can
prioritize stability and predictability.

~~~
jfager
One of the most confusing parts about this switch, to me, was that it
immediately precedes an LTS release. Why would you spring experimental changes
right before the release you're calling 'stable' and committing to for 5
years? I was under the impression that LTS was supposed to be the distillation
of all the new features that were embraced or rejected during the wild and
crazy intermediate releases.

The actual change isn't that big of a deal. It's pretty easy to fix, and it
would have been fine in a minor release with plenty of lead time before it
became 'official', just to try it out. The big deal is that this reveals a
broken management and release process, and comes across as a serious trust
breaker.

~~~
SwellJoe
Ubuntu has a long history of making dumb little changes without warning and
then committing to them against all reason. I don't know if they've fixed it
yet, or not, but my favorite is when they broke the Apache configuration file
by adding shell variables to it (thus making it it unparse-able by everything
other than Ubuntu scripts; the Apache standard tools can't parse the Ubuntu
configuration file without pre-processing, for an example of how absurd this
decision was). All this breakage was caused just because someone was too lazy
to parse out a few different types of variables from the existing
configuration file syntax (I looked it up, and the comment about this in the
changelog was that parsing it wasn't possible; despite the fact that numerous,
probably hundreds, of applications and scripts do parse it correctly). The
Ubuntu developer culture of superiority and self-importance is quite trying at
times.

------
NathanKP
If they want to make the window controls like the window controls on Mac OS X,
I'm fine with that. (I use Mac OS X a lot anyway, and am already comfortable
with controls on the left side of the window.) They should at least get it
right, however, with the close button on the far left of the title bar, and
the minimize and expand buttons to the right of that button.

It looks to me like they just moved the right hand centric window controls to
the left, which is terrible ergonomics and design.

~~~
Gimpson
OS X doesn't suffer from the File Menu/Close Button proximity problem either
since the menu bar isn't attached to the window. That proximity alone should
be a disqualifier for this new layout.

~~~
riobard
Might be a little bit off topic, but the detached menu bar gradually pisses me
off as screen gets bigger. It's really a long-distance travel for the mouse to
click the menu on a 1920x1200 screen. Now Apple is rolling out 27' iMac with
an even bigger screen ...

The situation gets even worse when I use multiple monitors as menu bar only
shows on one of them.

~~~
paddy_m
I agree. Fitt's law falls apart at high resolution

~~~
seabee
I'm not convinced it falls apart. It seems more like a failure to take account
for the distance you must travel on your return from the menu bar.

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jwecker
Not only is this a violation of Fitt's law- it's practically the canonical
example of how to violate it. That is, when an application is maximized the
exact upper corners of the screen become incredibly valuable because a user
can get there without aiming but just by flicking the mouse in the general
direction. Flick it to the upper left and click for all window controls, flick
it to the upper right and click to close.

I remember when Microsoft made it so that you had to go to the corner but then
pull it back several pixels, thus destroying forcing you to aim the mouse
cursor. It may sound like a silly little thing, but I thought at the time that
it was a good metaphor for how they could get something to _look_ similar (to,
say, a mac) and yet still get it completely wrong. When I switched to linux
around the same time I thought it was so refreshing that the UIs of the time
(minus some skins people had made) didn't violate this example of Fitt's law,
and also that if anyone were dumb enough to change that in the future, we
could all just fix it.

I usually disregard comments about linux desktops copying window's mistakes,
but this is just very irritating to me, mostly because it's elective- it's
like you actually have to _try_ to get it wrong.

~~~
ajross
I'd love to see some modern testing results on that, honestly. The idea of
"flicking" the mouse to the corner of the screen made sense on a 512x348 Mac
Plus desktop. It doesn't seem as appropriate on a 1920x1080 monster, where
generally nothing is maximized anyway. And with a touchpad you can't do it at
all.

~~~
DougBTX
You're neglecting pointer acceleration, which applies for touchpads too.

If yours is anything like mine, try this: position your mouse to the far left
of the screen; quickly swipe across the touch pad from left to right. Your
pointer should reach the far right hand side of the screen. Now swipe ever so
slowly from right to left, your pointer might get about a quarter of the way
across the screen.

Once you consider acceleration (eg, the further you try to move, the faster
you are moving when you get there), Fitt's law is more, not less, important on
a big screen.

~~~
cracki
i disabled acceleration, and i suspect many others do.

i tried several times to get used to it. it's just not predictable enough for
me. hitting or missing a target just because i was too fast or slow, sounds
useless to me.

~~~
elblanco
The acceleration curve on macs is horribly horribly broken. There's a bunch of
utilities to fix it or turn it off because strangely you can't do it yourself.

------
viraptor
It's not like it ever happened before, is it? Oh wait:

[https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/update-
notifier/+b...](https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/update-
notifier/+bug/332945) ("update notifications change" outrage with 20+
duplicates, 100+ reporters, 400+ comments) - this is what happens when you
implement an official pop-under to do system upgrades.

Timeline: Feature freeze 19 Feb 2009, change done 23 Feb 2009, UI freeze 5 Mar
2009?

~~~
ahi
Ahh crap. You just turned one of my minor annoyances into "who the ____thought
this was a good idea?" I thought I was misclicking somewhere or accidentally
hitting a keycombo. I have come to accept people's mistakes, but when they put
some thought into it before pulling the trigger--arrgh!

------
andrewvc
I mean wow, just wow, I would love to hear the rationale for such a boneheaded
decision.

Thank god whoever makes this decision doesn't work for a car company, or we'd
see next year's model with reversed gas and brake pedals.

~~~
jasonlotito
FTA: <http://www.ivankamajic.com/?p=281> "Many of you have been asking for
some correspondence regarding the button position in the window manager.

Here it is..."

~~~
andrewvc
In that link they really don't actually go into the 'why' they just say they
thought about it and show us a snapshot of a white board that says nothing as
far as rationale.

The most telling part of the article parent linked to is: "Is it better or
worse? It is quite hard to tell." If that's what they think, then why change
it?

Additionally, the author says: " I have had it running on my machine with the
buttons in this order since before the Portland sprint (first week of
February?) and I am quite used to it". That sounds like it conferred no
benefit whatsoever.

~~~
jasonlotito
Sorry. I didn't mean to suggest that the article was entirely complete. Only
that you might have missed it, and it might go further in explaining things
you seemed interested in. =)

~~~
andrewvc
Sorry if I sounded offended, I actually did miss that link, and I up voted
your comment when I read it.

------
CoryMathews
So why don't they leave it on the right as default (old way) and just a gui
way to switch it to the other site for left handed/osx people. Then both sides
are happy. Problem solved-ish.

~~~
mrshoe
When presented with two interface options, we should resist the urge to
implement both and let the user decide.

~~~
pyre
Why not just go with the one that is more useful to more people as the default
and bury the option to switch deep in some 'advanced' config setting? You
still have to make a design decision in choosing the default correctly since
that is most crucial.

~~~
sp332
Sure you can configure it. <http://fosswire.com/post/2008/02/customize-your-
titlebar/>

------
runinit
It's already been fixed!

[http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2010/03/worried-
ubuntu-1004-will-...](http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2010/03/worried-
ubuntu-1004-will-have-left-
hand.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed:+d0od+\(Omg!+Ubuntu!\))

~~~
rapind
so link to a blog post that just links to another blog post?

~~~
runinit
To be fair, I couldn't be bothered to click through. Just wanted to pass along
the information regarding this topic (which is now obsolete).

EDIT:

[http://blog.dustinkirkland.com/2010/03/ubuntus-new-themes-
an...](http://blog.dustinkirkland.com/2010/03/ubuntus-new-themes-and-
byobu.html)

------
chaosmachine
Seems it's time to fix the database, too: "Error establishing a database
connection"

Edit: Bing cache has it (Google doesn't!)

[http://cc.bingj.com/cache.aspx?d=802200748186&w=92581924...](http://cc.bingj.com/cache.aspx?d=802200748186&w=92581924,4ad187f5)

Here's a brilliant idea for any Google engineers out there: Dedicate a few
bots to caching everything that hits the front page of digg/reddit/hn before
the sites go down.

------
jsz0
The Ubuntu folks need to get a good UI designer to deal with this stuff. I'm
not sure a design-by-committe approach works for producing a good UI with
sensible defaults, good UI organization, good colors, consistency, etc. It
seems to me Ubuntu 10 is taking a huge step backwards in all these areas.

~~~
kilian
Except that this wasn't a design-by-committee approach... This appeared fully
done from the internal design department of Canonical a day before UI freeze,
which just reeks of everything FOSS _shouldn't_ be :(

------
krainboltgreene
They need to change the entire GUI. Desktop metaphors are done.

EDIT: For some reason I can't reply to anything anymore...Just redirects me to
<http://news.ycombinator.com/r> with a blank page.

Anyways: cookie: Oh man I have a ton of ideas! A lot of them flow well into
the touch interface world, but that means they don't work well with the
keyboard interface.

For instance, one of my ideas was the infinite vertical, limited horizontal
screen. Check out Shoes's STACK & FLOW positioning for some hints.

Radial menus instead of file menus. Also, menus open-able from from anywhere
on the application ui.

If I had a decent design station and PS4 I bet I could make some nifty
examples.

~~~
cookiecaper
What do you suggest?

KDE wanted to change the whole game up with KDE 4. They solicited the
community for ideas for months. They still ended up at roughly the same
interface and concepts that have always existed for the overall interface
metaphor.

I think this is just how people expect computers to work now. Of all the
proposals out there, I haven't heard many feasible replacements for the
desktop idea.

~~~
andybak
"They solicited the community for ideas for months." Maybe soliciting for
ideas visionary UX guru's would have worked out better for them.

UI design is a technical art-form not a popularity contest.

~~~
cookiecaper
Right, but the thing is that nobody could present to KDE an idea that was
likely to work out better than the traditional desktop/windowing model.

------
Tycho
If you're right handed and start with the pointer in the centre of the screen,
the base of your hand resting on the desk and palm/fingers covering the mouse,
it is more awkward trying to move the mouse to the right than to the left.
Movement to the upper right corner seems to require arm muscles.

------
neondiet
Maybe I'm on my own here, but I like the look of it on them on the left. I'm
used to that with OS X.

------
AndrejMitrovich
I wish we had some kind of cache service or something that generates multiple
cache links for a website thats slashdotted/reddited/digged/ycombinated/etc.
Every day someone posts a link and everyone else shares it with everybody, and
before you know it the site gets DDoSed and nobody can reach it. Unless we're
lucky enough the website was cached by google/bing.

~~~
aphyr
Coral Cache was invented for just that.

<http://www.coralcdn.org/>

------
w1ntermute
Can someone copy/paste the article from their browser cache? The site is down.

------
kingkilr
I'm running ubuntu 10.04 right now (upgraded this morning), it's just not that
annoying. I'd like it to be fixed (I think the chromium close/redize/minimize
buttons look much better), but I think the flurry about this is over statued.

------
rapind
People still use windows controls?

------
technomancy
Who closes windows with the mouse these days anyway?

~~~
jsz0
The vast majority of people using computers.

------
jrockway
Wow... if only the window manager was a separate program or something... then
you could just run the one that you like instead of the default one.

Oh, you mean that's true? Oh...

~~~
cookiecaper
Good defaults are crucial to the success of a platform. Ubuntu is going for
mainstream adoption. The mainstream wants their computers to "just work". They
don't want to have to change themes or window managers, they just want the
buttons to live where they're expected.

Even if the users were willing to change the WM for the button position,
almost no user knows how to change the WM, and it probably necessitates
editing .desktop files or .xinitrc or something (unless you use something like
fusion-icon to control it, which might be reasonable but is still extra
configuration).

Furthermore, this is custom to that theme. Any other Metacity theme has the
buttons on the right, so they'd just have to change the theme, not the WM, to
get the buttons where desired.

~~~
pyre
> _They don't want to have to change themes or window managers, they just want
> the buttons to live where they're expected._

By this reasoning no one on Windows would ever switch to OSX.

~~~
DougBTX
At least OSX and Windows both put the close button in a corner, this theme
puts it between the maximise button and the window title. I've never seen
another OS put it in such a strange position.

~~~
pyre
How does that negate my statement? Normal people don't look for things like,
"Is the close button on the outside of the window?" Are you really going to
tell me that the only reason that people tolerate a switch from Windows to
MacOS X is because the close-window button is still towards the outside of the
window even though the buttons are on the opposite side?

------
postfuturist
Everyone who is complaining is smart enough to easily change the theme to
something they are more used to. Less technical people are either: 1\. Not
using Ubuntu, probably never will regardless of the position of window
controls. 2\. Perfectly happy to learn to click wherever required, as is
evident when they purchase Macs and use those.

~~~
viraptor
It's not about preference - it's about usability (if we leave out strange
release management out of it):

\- proximity to "File" menu

\- proximity to top "Applications" menu

\- inconsistency (windows close on the left, tabs and system on the right)

~~~
vollmond
Not to mention that, according to TFA, no existing themes work with the new
structure: changing to another theme can't help.

~~~
cookiecaper
It's not that no themes work, if I understand correctly, it's that any other
theme would still have the buttons on the right. Someone please correct me if
this is wrong.

~~~
pyre
IIRC, the theme itself has control over where the buttons on the window
titlebar go. I know for sure that this is the case in Emerald, and I know that
other window managers allow various themes to move around the position of the
buttons at will. If they changed the underlying code to _force_ all themes to
use the same button position regardless of what they have it set to... that's
a lot bigger of an issue than just changing the button position in the default
theme.

Maybe someone running 10.04 Alpha 3 can confirm that this is being forced upon
other themes. Another thought is that maybe most themes don't specify the
button locations because they are used to the defaults being 'buttons on the
right,' and this Ubuntu change messes with the global defaults rather than
just applying the changes locally to the new default theme.

