Natty Narwhal

Garp · 07-04-2011, 08:26

Oh dear.

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. What the heck do Canonical think they're doing? Unity, the new interface on top of Gnome, is godawful. It's blatantly designed with both touch and OS X in mind, and it fails at both, miserably.
Half the time it dithers about trying to decide if it should unhide from the side. Then it'll pop up, and it's got this OS X / Win 7 idea of icons being launchers as well as indicating active programs. Only those programs can be positively screaming at you to pay attention to them and you won't notice as the bar will happily stay hidden. At least with OS X you get a bouncing icon. For that matter, both Avant Window Navigator and Docky which are both Linux/Gnome dock applications, handle it perfectly well. Docky tries to be the OS X toolbar, Avant takes its lead from OS X but takes it in a different direction.
They've also picked up the 'top bar is the menu' stunt from OS X. Great right up until I want to move an application between virtual desktops, something I do regularly. Previous I'd right click on the title bar, select "move desktop right" or whatever option was appropriate. Now I have to go find the window control, unmaximise, then hunt for the title bar and do what I usually do. It also seems 50-50 whether or not it'll bury the application title bar underneath the screen one, where I can't get at it.

Final stupid change: "Start" button. Previously under Ubuntu you had 3 menus, Application, Places and Administration. Fairly self explanatory. Now it's all in one, but unlike Windows or other Linux Windows Managers, it doesn't give you straight forward menu to drill down. Now it takes up ~ 1/3rd width of the screen, you have to click on "My Apps", then up in the top right corner look for the disguised drop down box and select which application group you wanted, then scroll through the large icons that have appeared to go find the application you want. It's actually quicker to hit the 'start' button, move your hands to the keyboard and start typing the name of the application you want, then go and click on it. It's ugly, the icons are way too large (designed with touch in mind) and slow. It also takes great pains, and a 1/3rd of the menu box to tell me what applications I could be installing right now. Focus for design should be minimising the number of steps involved in any process, whilst retaining user friendliness. Not increasing.

I even assumed it was down to me doing an upgrade to Natty rather than a fresh install, so I wiped out all my .gnome2 .gconf etc. folders to let it start clean. No, even clean it comes up the same.

Generally I've liked Ubuntu, it's taken a sensible approach to redesign. Even when they shifted the buttons to the top left of the window I stood by them and learned to change my instincts. This I can't support in any way shape or form. It's awful, absolutely awful. It represents a huge step backwards for Ubuntu and the UI. When there are applications that do what they're trying to do in Unity but do it a lot better it's beyond my comprehension that they'd waste time making square wheels.

Burble · 07-04-2011, 09:09

I saw your tweets about it but haven't got around to trying it myself yet. From the comments I've read so far I've seen few positive ones.

I'll reserve judgement for now until I've tried it out, but from what you've described I don't think I'll be liking it.

Goose · 07-04-2011, 09:33

I've given it a quick whirl, and agree with Garp. I can see why they need to make a change (lets be honest, she's never been the prettiest girl out there), but this is just......gah! I don't want extra hurdles and complications!

As a developer, I can see what they've tried to do, I just didn't realise it was possible to miss the mark so massively. I really hope they work on it though, as it's a needed change if they really want to make it more accessible and better looking. Not sure you power users are going to ever like that direction though.

Mark · 07-04-2011, 19:44

Us power users still have the command prompt*. Don't they ever dare remove that.

* besides Synaptic and GParted, I do almost everything in Ubuntu from the command-line, but then that's because I use Ubuntu mostly for doing low level system repair work.

07-04-2011, 08:26	#1
Garp Preparing more tumbleweed Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: Hawaii Posts: 6,038	Natty Narwhal Oh dear. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. What the heck do Canonical think they're doing? Unity, the new interface on top of Gnome, is godawful. It's blatantly designed with both touch and OS X in mind, and it fails at both, miserably. Half the time it dithers about trying to decide if it should unhide from the side. Then it'll pop up, and it's got this OS X / Win 7 idea of icons being launchers as well as indicating active programs. Only those programs can be positively screaming at you to pay attention to them and you won't notice as the bar will happily stay hidden. At least with OS X you get a bouncing icon. For that matter, both Avant Window Navigator and Docky which are both Linux/Gnome dock applications, handle it perfectly well. Docky tries to be the OS X toolbar, Avant takes its lead from OS X but takes it in a different direction. They've also picked up the 'top bar is the menu' stunt from OS X. Great right up until I want to move an application between virtual desktops, something I do regularly. Previous I'd right click on the title bar, select "move desktop right" or whatever option was appropriate. Now I have to go find the window control, unmaximise, then hunt for the title bar and do what I usually do. It also seems 50-50 whether or not it'll bury the application title bar underneath the screen one, where I can't get at it. Final stupid change: "Start" button. Previously under Ubuntu you had 3 menus, Application, Places and Administration. Fairly self explanatory. Now it's all in one, but unlike Windows or other Linux Windows Managers, it doesn't give you straight forward menu to drill down. Now it takes up ~ 1/3rd width of the screen, you have to click on "My Apps", then up in the top right corner look for the disguised drop down box and select which application group you wanted, then scroll through the large icons that have appeared to go find the application you want. It's actually quicker to hit the 'start' button, move your hands to the keyboard and start typing the name of the application you want, then go and click on it. It's ugly, the icons are way too large (designed with touch in mind) and slow. It also takes great pains, and a 1/3rd of the menu box to tell me what applications I could be installing right now. Focus for design should be minimising the number of steps involved in any process, whilst retaining user friendliness. Not increasing. I even assumed it was down to me doing an upgrade to Natty rather than a fresh install, so I wiped out all my .gnome2 .gconf etc. folders to let it start clean. No, even clean it comes up the same. Generally I've liked Ubuntu, it's taken a sensible approach to redesign. Even when they shifted the buttons to the top left of the window I stood by them and learned to change my instincts. This I can't support in any way shape or form. It's awful, absolutely awful. It represents a huge step backwards for Ubuntu and the UI. When there are applications that do what they're trying to do in Unity but do it a lot better it's beyond my comprehension that they'd waste time making square wheels. __________________ Mal: Define "interesting"? Wash: "Oh, God, oh, God, we're all gonna die"?

07-04-2011, 09:33	#3
Goose The list is long, but distinguished Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: Århus, Denmark Posts: 1,643	I've given it a quick whirl, and agree with Garp. I can see why they need to make a change (lets be honest, she's never been the prettiest girl out there), but this is just......gah! I don't want extra hurdles and complications! As a developer, I can see what they've tried to do, I just didn't realise it was possible to miss the mark so massively. I really hope they work on it though, as it's a needed change if they really want to make it more accessible and better looking. Not sure you power users are going to ever like that direction though. __________________

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07-04-2011, 09:09	#2
Burble Rocket Fuel Join Date: Jul 2006 Posts: 7,826	I saw your tweets about it but haven't got around to trying it myself yet. From the comments I've read so far I've seen few positive ones. I'll reserve judgement for now until I've tried it out, but from what you've described I don't think I'll be liking it.

07-04-2011, 19:44	#4
Mark Screaming Orgasm Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: Newbury Posts: 15,194	Us power users still have the command prompt. Don't they ever dare remove that. besides Synaptic and GParted, I do almost everything in Ubuntu from the command-line, but then that's because I use Ubuntu mostly for doing low level system repair work.