New Unity Feature

[PyX]

Always funny to see when a random Linux distro copies stuff from Apple they just don't get it done quite right.

It?s also true for Windows, but in that case, yeah the scrollbar looks out of place. You can?t put them outside of the window border, that?s hideous.

[.Neo]

Aww, Ubuntu is growing up. It's gone from being lots of ugly stuff to a consistently ugly interface. I guess that's progress by some definition.

At least that's more than what Microsoft can say about Windows. ;)

[remixedcat]

hey my windows looks good. I got my UXTheme hack ok :p much better.

still pretty dumb of MS to not allow people to theme without patching. default anything in windows is ugly. and the default mac osx interface looks very dated. I hear there are theme apps for osx but I think they are harder to come by and you gotta pay for them right?

[Syanide]

I think .Neo was referring to how inconsistent the look of Windows apps is, half of them have their own UI and draw it themselves instead of using native look. Just open Office, Internet Explorer, Winamp, iTunes, Notepad, Avast and Zune next to each other, they look either slightly or completely different from each other. Mac wins this one by far.

[remixedcat]

I do agree that native look is best. I'd like to have it as well for all my apps.

[e-berlin.org]

Aww, Ubuntu is growing up. It's gone from being lots of ugly stuff to a consistently ugly interface. I guess that's progress by some definition.

Please look at your avatar and your signature first and then talk about ugly.

[mr.r9]

I think .Neo was referring to how inconsistent the look of Windows apps is, half of them have their own UI and draw it themselves instead of using native look. Just open Office, Internet Explorer, Winamp, iTunes, Notepad, Avast and Zune next to each other, they look either slightly or completely different from each other. Mac wins this one by far.

Yeah, just compare MS Office Vs. Zune Vs. IE 8/9 which are all created by MS. Agree with you that OS X is the most unified. I might actually move to 11.04 on my laptop, but a question.

How's nVidias support for the 9-series GPU on Ubuntu? Are the drivers good enough to watch HD & play simple 3d games?

[.Neo]

I think .Neo was referring to how inconsistent the look of Windows apps is, half of them have their own UI and draw it themselves instead of using native look. Just open Office, Internet Explorer, Winamp, iTunes, Notepad, Avast and Zune next to each other, they look either slightly or completely different from each other. Mac wins this one by far.

Exactly. Not to mention the fact Microsoft can't seem to decide on a single system icon theme either. Oh well, maybe they like having Windows 7, Vista, XP and 2000-styled icons mixed together.

You guys should see Mac OS X Lion btw, Apple really stepped things up when it comes to consistency. (Y) Even iTunes 10 fits in there! (For now) :laugh: Personally I think the Ubuntu team is doing a good job at creating a proper and fairly unique user experience. Kudos to them. Although I'm not sure why they have Cover Flow-like stacked icons in their Unity Dock.

[Syanide]

^ Cool.

Anywho:

Default themes are now borderless

Control Center is now available by default

[OuchOfDeath]

While Unity is shaping up to look pretty good despite a lot of skepticism I've had right from the very beginning, I still don't think it'll be enough. Is Unity going to have any sort of settings manager that isn't in the form of a plugin in the Compiz settings manager? It's an absurd place to put the desktop shell settings, and it's entirely inconsistent both logically and in terms of UI usability. There are a lot of small issues present that aren't immediately apparent, and I don't think Unity will be polished enough in time for release.

One of the most glaring issues is the fact that Compiz is a bit slow. Some features in Compiz add a certain level of UI delay, the most consistent one being the minimize window function. There's an actual delay in using Compiz and minimizing a window, and I'm not talking about the animation. I'm talking about the time(delay) after releasing the mouse button when activating the minimize function, either through the minimize button or taskbar. GNOME 3's Mutter is way snappier and gives a much smoother experience, and although I have a feeling this is not Compiz at fault but the various plugins that are enabled, it falls on Canonical to fix this in their Unity shell seeing as it depends on Compiz.

[Solid Knight]

very awkward scrollbar. not sure if I like it.

He misses the overlay in the video a few times in the video.

[Lucas]

Mac OS X Lion Feature. Scrollbars just disappear when not using them. Scroll Around documents with multitouch, not clicking a down button.

Gotten from iOS, then implemented into OS X Lion.

[e-berlin.org]

Default themes are now borderless

^ I love it!

[remixedcat]

borderless looks lazy

[.Neo]

Default themes are now borderless

Must. Keep. Quiet.

:laugh:

[andrew_f]

I like the borderless, but it's not well pulled off there (yet). The contrast needs to be better. Perhaps a light shadow against dark background and dark against light?

[remixedcat]

The UI trend is getting stupid. You got lazy gradients and text that's all you get these days. Not they are even getting rid of graidients, now just boxes and text and shadows. boring.

[.Neo]

I like the borderless, but it's not well pulled off there (yet). The contrast needs to be better. Perhaps a light shadow against dark background and dark against light?

Since they went almost exactly after Mac OS X' design I can tell you right now that it's a non-issue. I only have one application on my Mac with a black transparent content area and that's Terminal (same as in the Ubuntu screen shot) and even that one you can change by selecting a different theme if it really bothers you. The rest of the windows are clearly visible against both dark and light background. Examples:

Terminal (Black transparent) - There's a visibility issue in the lower left corner

Terminal (White transparent) - No visibility issues against any background

System Preferences (custom desktop picture) - No visibility issues against any background

System Preferences (white background) - No visibility issues because of the drop shadow

As you can see there's only an issue (and even then it's not a big one) when you have a dark window against a dark background. Beyond that the borderless window design works perfectly fine against whatever desktop picture you throw at it. Those one or two applications that have an extremely dark content area don't really warrant a system where you suddenly have a white or colored drop shadow depending on the background. I can imagine it would be pretty hard to code as well and will start looking like a mess quick. How would it work against a background with both light and dark colors to begin with?

[andrew_f]

Since they went almost exactly after Mac OS X' design I can tell you right now that it's a non-issue. I only have one application on my Mac with a black transparent content area and that's Terminal (same as in the Ubuntu screen shot) and even that one you can change by selecting a different theme if it really bothers you. The rest of the windows are clearly visible against both dark and light background. Examples:

But Ubuntu's default theme is inherently darker than OS X (last time I used it)... Apples and Oranges ;) Literally.

[.Neo]

But Ubuntu's default theme is inherently darker than OS X (last time I used it)... Apples and Oranges ;) Literally.

The borderless design on both platforms is virtually the same, so you if you want to know what issues might exist you can use Mac OS X as an example. Ubuntu's default window chrome really isn't dark enough to make a huge difference against dark backgrounds compared to Mac OS X Snow Leopard's window chrome. Unless it matches the exact same shade but then again the same would apply to Aqua. Mac OS X has had this design for almost four years now system-wide and almost six years when it comes to certain applications like Mail. I can tell you right now that in all these years no real usability issues came into view compared to the previously bordered window design. :)

I do think the Ubuntu team needs to do something about the inactive states of windows. Active and non-active windows are next to identical on Ubuntu, except for the red close button turning brown. To me a borderless design looks much cleaner than having those obnoxiously fat borders you see on Windows these days.

[remixedcat]

LOL they are copying off mac!!!!! LMAO

[.Neo]

The UI trend is getting stupid. You got lazy gradients and text that's all you get these days. Not they are even getting rid of graidients, now just boxes and text and shadows. boring.

I'm not sure why you want flashy colors and screaming UI elements. We see that today on Windows 7 and quite frankly I'm finding Aero one of the most distractive GUIs out there. Aqua used to be the same back in the Mac OS X Cheetah (v10.0) ~ Mac OS X Jaguar (v10.2) days with transparency, bright buttons that had their own drop shadows, big toolbar icons and pinstripes. It took away your focus from the window content and redirected it to the interface itself. Current Aqua, and even more so Mac OS X Lion's new Aqua theme, puts your focus on the content and that's the way things should be. Apple basically goes back to a modernized version of Mac OS 9's Platinum interface.

The Ubuntu team does the same thing, be it by largely copying Mac OS X, which is a good call rather than going down Microsoft's road.

[tiagosilva29]

LOL they are copying off mac!!!!! LMAO

Swoosh593510830[/snapback]

[Jan Veteran]

I'm not sure why you want flashy colors and screaming UI elements. We see that today on Windows 7 and quite frankly I'm finding Aero one of the most distractive GUIs out there. Aqua used to be the same back in the Mac OS X Cheetah (v10.0) ~ Mac OS X Jaguar (v10.2) days with transparency, bright buttons that had their own drop shadows, big toolbar icons and pinstripes. It took away your focus from the window content and redirected it to the interface itself. Current Aqua, and even more so Mac OS X Lion's new Aqua theme, puts your focus on the content and that's the way things should be. Apple basically goes back to a modernized version of Mac OS 9's Platinum interface.

The Ubuntu team does the same thing, be it by largely copying Mac OS X, which is a good call rather than going down Microsoft's road.

Aero glass is not distracting at all, if you set the brightest aero colour then maybe.

[.Neo]

Aero glass is not distracting at all, if you set the brightest aero colour then maybe.

That's your opinion, let me have mine. I'm finding Windows Aero very distractive and in your face compared to Mac OS X (Snow) Leopard / Mac OS X Lion and Ubuntu. I absolutely hate the thick borders around everything, the space it wastes and pop-up balloons and borders everywhere.