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Ubuntu 12.04 To Include Head-Up Display Menus
For the first few years of its existence, it would have been fair to say that Canonical was essentially polishing, packaging and publishing Debian Linux (and Gnome) to create the base Ubuntu desktop, to great acclaim. For the past few years, though, the company has pushed new looks and new applications (cf. Unity and Ubuntu TV), and refused to stick with prettifying existing interfaces. Now, Barence writes with this excerpt from PC Pro: "Ubuntu is set to replace the 30-year-old computer menu system with a 'Head-Up Display' that allows users to simply type or speak menu commands. Instead of hunting through drop-down menus to find application commands, Ubuntu's Head-Up Display lets users type what they want to do into a search box. The system suggests possible commands as the user begins typing – entering 'Rad' would bring up the Radial blur command in the GIMP art package, for example. HUD also uses fuzzy matching and learns from past searches to ensure the correct commands are offered to users. Canonical's Mark Shuttleworth told PC Pro the HUD will make it easier for people to learn new software packages, and migrate from Windows to Linux software without having to relearn menus. The HUD will first appear in Ubuntu 12.04."
I'd rather have them make Unity usable first. We'll see if they are able to do it and we may decide to move forward from that point.
Write boring code, not shiny code!
But we already have a way to type in commands, it's call the shell.
I've been doing this for years... so much, in fact, that I have no idea where most menu entries are on my Windows and Linux boxes, and I'm sure many don't even have menu entries. My wife can't navigate my desktops.
I hit "F2" and type commands on Gnome/Linux, and hit "r" all the time. It makes me look like a hacker and is really intimidating to inexperienced users watching me.
Expecting the user to know which command they want - especially in Linux where most program names have nothing to do with their functionality - just seems like a very strong turn in the opposite direction that Ubuntu has been taking.
on steroids
cmd+space yo!
The problem with slashdot is that most of its users were bullied and stuffed into lockers as kids!
Isn't 12.04 supposed to be the next LTS release? Seems like they've gone far wayward from their original goals if they're introducing such huge new projects into what's supposed to be a stable, reliable release that enterprises can trust. It would be a better idea to introduce it in 12.10, surely?
CheShA: Manchester Breakcore / Drill and Bass Yes I'm a s
has had this for decades. M-x allows you to enter a command by name, with tab completion.
Replacing the 30 year old GUI with the 40 year old CLI*.
(*plus autocomplete, yay)
...sounds good. That is almost the way I work now on windows or linux. On windows I more often than not hit (windows) + R to get the run box and then type the name of the .exe I want to run. On Ubuntu, it is (alt) + (f2) and type a command. I for one hope our Ubuntu overlords pull this off.
Now Mark Shuttleworth is well on his way to being the next Steve Jobs, for good or for bad.
And I've gone back to Debian, which is a huge relief after the crushing disappointments that were the last few version of Ubuntu.
In a year or two I expect Ubuntu to be as "open source" as IOS...
>>simply type or ....
So a glorified CLI...??
Why are we introducing a dramatically new interface feature for a long-term support (LTS) release?
"Ubuntu is set to replace the 30-year-old computer menu system" ? Really ? More like imitating Quicksilver, the well-known life-saver on Mac. Perhaps they should concentrate on preventing regression at every release. Like, NOT forcing users to have their dock on the left side of the screen. NOT forcing users to have their Desktop icons automatically organized on the left side of the screen (same place !!). NOT having ccsm go south every 10 clicks. etc. etc.
Lenovo is selling a 55" Android Ice Cream Sandwich TV
Why would anyone want to partner with Canonical, who abandoned their attempt to make an "Android Execution Environment" a couple of years ago because they couldn't make it work, when they can get the real deal?
Let's call it what it is, Anti-Social Media.
Awesome! Er, but, I can already do that with kubuntu. And every other version of Linux. And even with Windows -- my notebook has text to speech, and if you want to type DOS commands you can open a DOS window.
Steampunk retro!
Free Martian Whores!
"For years radios had been operated by means of pressing buttons and turning dials; then as the technology became more sophisticated the controls were made touch-sensitive - you merely had to brush the panels with your fingers; now all you had to do was wave your hand in the general direction of the components and hope. It saved a lot of muscular expenditure of course, but meant that you had to sit infuriatingly still if you wanted to keep listening to the same programme."
s/radios/linux/g ; s/listening to/running/
Nearly there. Time to start spinning in your grave, Mr. Adams.
Philip
-- Any sufficiently advanced level of incompetence is indistinguishable from malice
Ah good, they're copying the Win7 start menu, every OS needs to replace its nested menus with a type-to-search menu. Now if only MS would copy Nautilus, Windows Explorer is a real relic at this point, I mean no tabs, SRSLY?
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
I have to say it... While there have been a lot of issues with Unity and Ubuntu in general I love the fact that Ubuntu dares to try and do genuine innovation.
Let's face it: It's easy to bash something that "sucks", but it requires a lot more courage to risk braking stuff and trying to find genuinely new approaches to existing problems.
.: Max Romantschuk
Canonical is dummyfying linux so even windows users can use it, or so they hope, probably in vain. They don't care that linux users will move on to other distributions.
no, I don't have a sig
So the big menu improvement is... a text console! The idea itself is not new (AutoCad and several games use the same principle), but what I find hilarious is that apparently, is targeted for beginners - the same kind of users that usually don't know the name of the option/command/whatever they want to select. In most cases, advanced users don't use the menubar that often, because of... keyboard shortcuts - yes, using the keyboard to select actions from the menu! I guess that improvement will be announced on a next version...
Thank you for your off-topic post.
From the article: "Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth told PC Pro that HUD will help people get to grips with new software more quickly. “One of the first things people do [when they get a new piece of software] is go through all the menus,” he said."
I'm disappointed in Shuttleworth's understanding of people. Not even a single person I know, with the exception of Mr. Shuttleworth I suppose, ever goes through all the menu's when a new piece of software is installed. With a good piece of software, you hardly ever have to go through and memorize the menu. Moreover when one needs a function it is much easier to ask Google for it's whereabouts. In most cases Google even beats the build in Help function.
What if I don't know what I'm looking for? Or what if I just want to browse all the options?
Generally, the "Obligatory XKCD" meme requires that the XKCD in question have some relation to the subject at hand....
I think that's one face of some AC troll bot.
I saw the same comic posted by an AC in a thread yesterday, and it wasn't applicable to that thread, either.
"Oh for fuck's sake, where are the preferences?"
*ping*
"Oh, there they are."
Summation 2
There are a lot of comments saying that this is copying the Run command in Windows or Quicksilver for the Mac. It's not. These don't get you to commands within applications, As Shuttleworth says: “It’s all hooked in below the application level.”
Error 001
Security Scan and Virus Detection do not work with your operating system.
I think that anyone who is so intellectually impoverished that they cannot or will not relearn menus really ought not be using a computer, and certainly should not be permitted the privilege of being on the Internet, where they constitute an active, operational menace to everyone else.
As a side note, it should be interesting to study the privacy and security implications of this approach. A careful read of the Ubuntu mailing lists (all of which I'm on) reveals that -- so far -- nobody has put up their hand and pointed out that this "helpful" approach has as one obvious side effect the construction of a resource that's enormously useful to attackers.
Shuttleworth described HUD as a âoestark contrastâ to Microsoftâ(TM)s ribbon interface, which festoons menus with dozens of the most frequently used commands.
Unfortunately, it's not a "stark contrast" to the Windows Vista/7 Search box, the one that appears right above the Windows (formerly Start) button which you click it. And has since Vista came out in 2007. Oh, even better, it's been backported to XP as Windows Search 4.
And it should be noted that Microsoft stole this idea from Google Desktop.
I have no idea if you can use voice commands to access the Windows or Google versions, though.
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
This is essentially the opposite of the ribbon that Microsoft is putting everywhere. They are targeting beginners by putting all the commands right out there where they are MORE visible. Ubuntu has decided to hide all the commands and make them LESS visible. If there are no menus, how do you learn what to search for?
Not sure if I like this. If I am new to an app and don't even know the name of a command/action how do I find out what it is, how do I navigate a list of commands/actions to find out ?
OS X Lion has a similar feature, you can search the menu of any application by typing the command in a menu search box. The menu still stays on the screen though. It is actually quite useful, because if a menu item is in a obnoxious place, it becomes more easy to find.
I know I'd be completely lost without LaunchBar on OS X:
http://www.obdev.at/products/launchbar/index.html
I initially thought that entering keyboard commands to run a program was completely opposite what a GUI was supposed to offer, but being a command-line driven guy (hey, I'm getting old!), it was amazingly intuitive, not to mention blazingly fast. I rarely use the toolbar to start programs any more, let alone navigate through the Applications folder.
Definitely recommended for all you OS X folks out there.
What a great idea! Why didn't someone think of it sooner?
Within 2 weeks most of the people trying to use this will be choking on their own vomit.
Yes.... I can finally run through the office yelling "drop tables semicolon" for hours of fun.
GNU-Linux started as a command based OS, various GUIs were attempted, and now we're back to typing in what we want to do.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
Wow..... the trolls are all out today!
Sounds like someboby just read The Humane Interface! (which I totally recommend)
But seriously, this is one of the things he was working towards. It's been a while since I read it, but the reasoning was that commands should be typed inline with content. I think he called it literal something.
Typing commands is better because
- the interface is consistent
- it is discoverable
- does not clutter up the interface and is scalable for novice and experienced users
- works well literal human beings, who think, express and interact with language
I am pretty excited about this!
If you don't know about the existence of the command line terminal you likely don't need it anyway.
Unless you heard about a program that you want to install, and you don't want to wait a minute for Ubuntu Software Center to quit spinning its throbber. (I timed it on my Dell Inspiron Mini 1012 running Ubuntu 11.10.) It's so much faster to open a terminal and sudo apt-get install audacity or whatever.
KDE has had a search function like this for years. It is great, however... you have to know what you are looking for. Take a simple example of opening a console. We know it is called a console or terminal, or rxvt, or xterm, etc.. however a new user may not think of a term window, they may think "I need a command window" however, typing command windows does not display terminals.
Ill admit that this example can be handled with a lot of research using users who have never used linux before and asking them to type stuff.
Personally, I have gone over to using a panel with the most common apps on it and the search for stuff I use less often. However, I still use the menu from time to time to look up stuff that I just can't remember the name of.
That's right. When I learn a new program, I don't know what command I'm looking for. I haven't yet memorized all the commands, and I want to look at all the menu commands to find the one I vaguely remember. Or to find the one I didn't know about. Most computer users are like that.
After I've learned the commands, I use the keyboard shortcuts. I don't use the menus much, but they're there when I need them.
What's the alternative? Am I supposed to read the manual and put post-it notes on my monitor? Do I watch an instructional video?
While I know some people love search boxes on everything, I personally use them as a last resort. Inevitably it takes me more times and more interfacing (mouse or key clicks) to accomplish the exact same thing that a well written menu can do.
The argument that they present for why the HUD is great is exactly the reason why it is a poor replacement for menus. Menus are more than triggers for functions. They tell the story of what the software can do. For example, I use a lot of different graphics programs. Some have certain filters that others don't. Some filters are named differently in different programs. Sometimes there are brand new filters that I am just beginning to learn the names of. Sometimes I see a filter in a menu that I have never used and say "oh, let's see what this does". In all of these cases, a menu system beats a search box every single time - and the same is applicable to other kinds of functions in software.
If a solution requires someone to know the first letter of a command, then why not teach them to better use keyboard commands? Or perhaps come up with a way to better organize keyboard commands in a way that easier for a regular users to understand? Search boxes have their place, but they are not the best at being a primary point of accessing functions from a finite, predefined list.
I wish Ubuntu (and the rest of the Linux GUI world) would quit trying to re-invent everything with the user interface, and put some long-term polish on something that already works. Gnome 2 had finally become pretty darned usable when--oops!--you can't use Gnome 2 anymore! You have to use Gnome 3 (where half your stuff doesn't work, doesn't appear in a menu, or is generally very counter-intuitive to access and use in any case), or Unity (which is no better about all that, but also has all of about 1 year of code maturity and bug fixes).
Why, oh WHY can't I just go back to the fully-functional Gnome 2, where the System Menu was in the "System" menu, rather than being a bunch of random junk in the "other" category? Why must I now avoid the upper-left corner of the screen when I want to work with windows I already have open? Why the heck must I now spend time typing AND clicking on stuff, rather than spending the 3 seconds it used to take to open applications (or hitting Alt-F2 and just typing--with command completion)? And sure Compiz and such are pretty, but they're certainly not stable enough to be MANDATORY (in Unity, at least)! My desktop environment must crash at least twice every time I log on, now, and much more than that unless the settings are "just so."
Sometimes, I think that the biggest flaw in "Linux on the Desktop" is that the community is overly enthusiastic about trying new stuff, rather than refining stuff that already works pretty well (but so far, none of it as well as certain proprietary GUIs). Can't we, for once, "KISS?" (Keep It Simple, Stupid)
Caveat: X needs to be replaced. It was really well-suited for typical use-cases of the 1970s.
*sigh*
I'm done. You're now free to flame me for being heretical.
It looks like they want to make it like Blender 2.6 interface, there you can press SPACE and type any menu command, like to DUPLICATE, INSERT SPHERE or something
Novice to average level computer users trying to use this interface will be interesting. I wonder how it will handle all the ambiguous cases and vague implications...
"open that thing"
"show me stuff I like"
"do my term paper for me"
"initiate sexy time session"
"hack the pentagon lol"
Then disappointment ensues, followed by the rabid facebook posts of elderly people and 12 year olds because its not built to make an intelligent decision between 2000 potential implications.
And now they want to fuck around with menus in an even more radical way. I'd warrant that most people have NO IDEA what most menu items are called, and even if they did then it's still easier to mouse to it spatially through the nice hierarchical arrangement than to click on a hud with a mouse, typing a bit of it and then hoping you got the name right to show the option.
There is nothing wrong with redesigning UIs, but it seems Ubuntu are putting some seriously gratuitous stuff in there, defaulted on and alienating their user base in the process.
a lot of people would pay a lot of money for a system that operates pretty much like Windows 95 did
If you want Xubuntu, you know where to find it.
-- A happy Ubuntu user who was disappointed by Unity but pleased by sudo apt-get install xubuntu-desktop
This should have come from the "what-could-possibly-go-wrong" dept.... voice-activated desktop actions, GAWD help us all ;-)
Ever wondered whats wrong with the world? http://www.ishmael.org/
Sounds to me like all application and file metadata is being written to an index and then that index is read really freakin fast causing the list of apps\files to repopulate with each keystroke in real time. I've had this built into OS X my Mac (spotlight) for many years and it is infinitely useful (not trying to be a mac troll, I'm just sayin). I almost never have to browse for an app or file. You could literally have thousands of txt files named Untitled.txt spread all over your hard drive, as long as you can remember two consecutive words in the actual file you want it will reliably be pulled it up instantly. I very rarely have to type more than two letters for the application I want to pop up at the top of the list right away. It's good stuff!
There is a really good wikipedia article on it here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spotlight_(software)
Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
I tried Unity. I hated Unity. I went back to what I think is the best Ubuntu to-date, 10.04. I have no intention of trying to acclimate myself to yet another GUI either. Why fix what isn't broken? What's so wrong with the menu-driven system that it needs "fixing"? First Microsoft's ribbon, then Unity, now this. Their time would be better spent making the graphics work more smoothly with more cards. I know I'd be appreciative.
Jesus told him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me. - John 14:6 NLT
What is the big deal hear? Other than the talk part, KDE has had this for several years, and it works great. Mac has spotlight, which does the same thing. And Windows 7 has copied this feature as well. I guess its good that Ubuntu is incorporating the good ideas of other systems, but why is this news, and why does TFS make it sound so revolutionary? As for the talking part, not useful in allot of environments, where there is background noise, this includes offices, schools, coffee shops, and restaurants, and even homes where the TV is on.
...it would be easy to find the 'radial blur' command, and there would be no need for command search.
Hunting down a command happens only the first few times the command is accessed; typically, the user learns where the command is on the UI and uses the command having memorized the actions to select this command. That is, unless the UI is completely unintuitive, and the user has to search for the command each time he/she wants to use that command.
I like that the open source community is seeking ways to improve its products, but I don't think the search bar is a good long-term fix for the problem.
Why does everyone think I want to type to find something in the menu?
I was wondering what the OS response to the Ribbon-interface would be, so far the arguments has either been adopt or ignore. This gives what looks like a very promissing 3rd option.
So, it's a command line interface but shit?
Reading stuff like that is making me happy I left the Linux-on-the-desktop world years ago.
Where is the research showing that menus are bad and the studies proving this new system is better? Everything else is just geeks doing mental masturbation. Unless you have a seizable number of actual user tests, you are a fucking idiot to put a massive change in user interface into production.
Experiments are cool, and needed to move forward. Don't get me wrong. And as someone who is in love with Quicksilver, this is absolutely an interesting approach.
But you are still a fucking idiot if you confuse "interesting idea" with "ready for production just because we've finished the code".
Don't test UI ideas on your users. As long as you do that, Linux will never be ready for the desktop, because non-geek users hate that.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
So first of all this seems really neat. In OS X Spotlight is the killer feature for me. When Spotlight works (finds my stuff while I type) I'm very happy, and when its laggy, it feels like my whole computer is freezing shut, so Spotlight is very important to my workflow. Now Ubuntu is taking it a step further than Spotlight, and is not just indexing applications and filenames, but web browser bookmarks, sub-commands in programs, menu items, and more. I think this is really great, and I would love to see this come back to Spotlight in OS X. This is exactly why I use Linux, to try out new stuff while the others are sitting on their hands. A lot of Mac users don't find Spotlight as useful as I do, but I liken that problem to what Steve Jobs said about people who can't type: the solution is to wait for those people to all die off :) Linux and her various distributions shouldn't wait to innovate, that's why I have always loved Linux, it doesn't wait.
--"You are your own God"--
The search box is for *starting application*. It replaces the Start Menu with a search box.
(You can type "IM" to find GIMP or other image manipulation menu).
Ubuntu's HUD is for the *application's own menu*. It makes the menu searchable.
(While running GIMP, you start typing the name of some effect or filter, and it shows up directly, instead of having to dig through all the menus).
The big advantage is that it makes quickly accessible lot of deeply hidden function.
The dis-advantage is that you need to know that it exist in order to find it.
(So the first time you either need to scan all the hierarchical menu to learn what exist. Or you need to explore a few explorative keyword searches to discover what exists)
The Ribbon interface is also for the application menu. It shows a bunch of icon of the most often used functions instead of hierachical menus.
So it is fair to compare HUD and Ribbon (as both are in-application menu replacement).
The small advantage of ribbons is that it makes a few key function immediately visible (no need to dig menu to find how to do some formating).
The big disadvantage is the visual mess (searching a 2D space for some random function is more difficult than searching a hierarchy) and the limited space (you can't put 200+ function in a ribbon. You can correctly organise 200+ function when using a good hierarchy. And searching 200+ functions with a search box just makes plain fucking sens).
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Hmm, I think I disagree a little.
Per your other rants, it's not my duty on *my computer* to "change paradigms" at the whim of pseudo-bored software companies. When they want to fiddle with stuff, I am likely to try to put it back. I put back the classic menus in Excel, I put back the classic flywheel Start menu, etc. Bonus - my plugin gives me the original menus in Excel rather than the horrible new ones. It proves that the code was hidden, not dropped.
I am a fan of low-tek plugins / widgets for stuff like that. So if some feature has a dumb bug in it, maybe try to code a little utility that fixes it! (Or commission someone else to do it.)
Case in point - Windows 7. I like that it has 8 more years of back end middleware so that some more stuff "just works", but I was grumpy with all the little bumps, so I hunted around all the settings and disabled most of the candy. (You know, it's like cotton candy from a fair, it looks all swirly but there's nothing there.)
However, yes, there are limits, if the company totally overhauls the UI, and strips out the original feature code, rather than hiding it, then you might as well use a whole other distro / UI / platform/ etc.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Doesn't GNOME Shell already do this? I've been pretty happy with its search features since before it was launched.
"Our country is not nearly so overrun with the bigoted as it is overrun with the broadminded." -Archbishop Fulton Sheen
I like Linux and all but this sounds like a programer/power users interface.
The idea that you can simply type all you need is great for Linux users who remember all their commands and locations. What do I do when I forget a command, or don't even know it exists? What contextual menu can I dig through to FIND what I'm not sure I'm looking for?
Nice. Ragingfist.net was way too long, good to see that there is again a simple 2-letter TLD for our favorite internet shock site.
Off-topic? Is there a forum for feeding trolls?
We know it is called a console or terminal, or rxvt, or xterm, etc.. however a new user may not think of a term window, they may think "I need a command window" however, typing command windows does not display terminals.
- in KDE4 the alt+F2 combo not only search the actual program name, but also the other information in the associate ".desktop" file.
(So "Konsole" shows up when typing "Terminal").
- HUD is supposed to have some learning capability (like google's auto-correct: when some search fails, see what it the users' next attempt. When "command" is often followed by "terminal", that means that often people wanted a terminal in the first place). .desktop)
If enough volonteer accept to upload their auto-learned data (like Mozilla did at the beginning of their awesome bar), that means that a lot of this could be incorporated into future versions. (adding "synonym" table or "synonyms" into
- HUD is all that but at the application level. Useful for software with huge massive hierarchical menus. (Think GIMP and its Filter/Macro/Effect menus). In my opinion a better way to make application menus accessible than a ribbon (Just thinking about cramming all the filter/effects/macros into a ribbon... )
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Back in my XP days, I remember I found out I had to change a lot of stuff on users desktops if I wanted to help them. Control panel, not set to "Classic" view, no file extensions, whatever... So, I help them and it leaves their desktop in a foreign state for them, which then results in more support calls. So, I had to put it to my taste, help them, then put it back. A lot of trouble just because I was not using the default myself. That's exactly what I try to avoid these days.
This is also why dynamic menus are a bad idea... (Ala hidden menus in WinXP/Office)
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
You should have posted AC, as I am.
There are a lot of comments saying that this is copying the Run command in Windows or Quicksilver for the Mac. It's not. These don't get you to commands within applications, As Shuttleworth says: “It’s all hooked in below the application level.”
No, it's more like the Help menu on the Mac:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WScF1OAL094
Which actually takes the "Teach the user to fish" approach by popping down the actual menu where the command lives and showing it, rather than the "Give the user a fish" approach.
Seems like Synapse, but with the ability to search commands inside programs as well as launch them. Couldn't that get a bit crowded? If I type "Open", I might mean geany one time, gimp another... Still its an interesting idea. I wonder if it will be available as an app, or just integrated into Unity (where it won't really see the same exposure).
Wasn't it intended to simplify computer use? And we find ourselves saying, it's time to move away from it; it still spawned a couple of ... For Dummies books, no matter how much thought and work has been put in its design. Hey if you want to stay there, fine. But these guys are moving forward.
Come on, admit it, as long as you saw your health and ammo on the HUD in Quake (not to mention the score heh) you were doing well. Now this HUD might be worth checking out.
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
Man, that sounds like a horrible job. You mean that you had to look at the Fisher-Price color scheme for XP for years? It's a wonder that you're not stark raving mad.
Oh. Wait...
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
it's not my duty on *my computer* to "change paradigms" at the whim of pseudo-bored software companies.
This is what happens when you let programmers design your applications. It's Rule #1 in IT that should never be broken but Canonical seems to be going out of their way to add to the pile of examples for why this rule exists.
Per your comments on Win7, I have tried to turn as much cruft off as possible, but the programmers decided otherwise. It seems they went out of their way to make things more difficult, to hide as much as possible and make it much more tortuous to do simple things.
There's a reason people keep upgrading to Windows XP.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
I attended a talk on menus, tree-navs, and the like a few years back at a No Fluff conference. The thrust of the talk was, why should you waste time proving to your machine that you know the location of your desired item in a menu hierarchy? If you know what you're looking for, you should be able to just tell your computer "Give me X" and have it respond with the correct item/action. I've been able to cut short a lot of time wasting by telling my devs "Just ctrl-shift-R it" when they're hunting for a class in Eclipse. What Ubuntu is doing here is Ctrl-Shift-R writ large, and I applaud it even though I've spent the last year or so giving them shite for screwing up a perfectly good interface.
Granted, this doesn't replace the GUI, but exposes the GUI through an autocomplete CLI. Also, there doesn't seem to be any way to parameterize the commands through this interface, so I wouldn't necessarily call it a CLI.
As it is, I don't think it's a big deal. But there are 2 more existing concepts they really, REALLY should integrate if they want a hit:
1) Show the keyboard shortcuts! Why don't they list these along with the search hits? It's retarded to expect people to search for oft-used commands; give them the fastest way to reuse them right up front. Most menu displays already do this. This is a glaring lack of functionality.
2) REXX clone. I've only used the Amiga AREXX, but now that programs have a textual way of hitting commands, allow programmatic access for automation.
Sounds a lot like webOS to me. Been doing this on my phone since summer 09. They call it "Just Type". It's handy as long as you know how to spell what it is that you are looking for. Which, I imagine for Linux users, most will.
One of the first things people do with new software is go through all the menus and memorize them?
Wow, I mean, maybe in 1993, but I don't think people do this today. Most menu's follow similar metaphors that are easily transferable between applications, File, Exit, View, Help, I mean, the order and placement of these menus and are similar and easily discoverable and without even seeing the contents of those headers most people have a good idea what they contain. Also it typically takes one or two hunt and find a command before people become adept at finding content in an application, there is no need for a "long term" solution to find content in a menu. I find it incredulous that there are people out there that have not used a computer, even with limited experience. Back in 1993 I can see people forced to use a computer at work for the first time ever, and having a hard time knowing what to do, but these days most people have been exposed to them.
Look, all they did was bring Spotlight into a menuing system. Its a good idea but don't ruin it by saying something completely stupid like you did some extensive market research that brought out this "innovation".
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
So it's the Run Interface in KDE. At least it's a good feature they're copying! Hooray!
Everyone is screaming at M$oft to bring back the drop-down menus (and in some cases they did), and now Ubuntu is getting ready to drop them as well.
And on the Eighth Day, Man created God.
I don't do that as a job... I help and support people out of the kindness of my heart. As for the Fisher Price theme. You can change that without impacting the rest. Personally, I like "Royale Noir". Haven't used it in ages, though as I stopped using Windows personally. The few XP desktops I keep supporting, I installed it as default. Well, I do if a re-installation was necessary. Most people seem to really prefer it over the Luna scheme.
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
Dictionaries, Thesaurus, product catalogs, etc... And we can learn in grade school how to become trivia pursuit experts at guessing what programmers, we will never meet, were thinking when they created the interface vocabulary.....
Some people don't want to have to remember or guess but rather to look at a list to see what is available.
There are three primary user interfaces, the Command Line Interface, the GUI and the side door port, where with all three, like the primary colors of paint or light, you can make the rainbow..... So what is it that the computer industry doesn't want the users to have all three at the same time?
re: http://abstractionphysics.net/
Stupidest idea ever.
Remember when MS Office offered "short menus"? It defeated the purpose. A user can't discover functionality when it isn'rt presented for discovery through simple exploration.
There may be a replacement model for the Xerox PARC derived menus, after 30 years. This is NOT it.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
I know I love typing on my tablet...the experience is so good that I bought a keyboard to experience it more... I don't understand why an interface designed for tablets is being forced on desktop users. Win8 is doing the same thing. Works the same on all devices isn't a good thing...If the same thing were tried on cars we'd be steering with a rudder or ailerons.
This is getting to be a pet peeve.
I have to support visually impaired users, and users who don't like a lot of change. I've had more than one person who saw the upgrade message in 10.04 and upgraded to 11.(whatever) and managed to not only completely hose all of the "assistive technology" stuff we set up for them, but to add fuel to the fire they couldn't even navigate around the desktop enough to get onto the "log me in to your computer" page.
Even Microsoft hasn't foisted this many major UI changes on their end-users. KNOCK IT THE FUCK OFF.
Ubuntu 12.04 is shipping with Zsh? Wat?
I just upgraded to Linux Mint with the Cinnamon Desktop and I love it! Cinnamon is already nearly as good as Gnome 2 was, and it's improving drastically on a near-weekly basis. Everything just works with this distro. For almost a year now I'd been only half-heartedly recommending Linux to friends - now with Linux Mint and Cinnamon, I've resumed fully recommending Linux to anyone and everyone. If you have any hope left for Linux, I highly recommend trying this now. It's a painless install, and a comfortable, familiar and productive interface.
First of all, that functionality is already widely available in systems like Quicksilver and its UNIX clones, like Gnome Do and Kupfer. Those are useful for expert users in some circumstances (I run Gnome Do).
But is there any evidence at all that these kinds of systems improve usability for the general user? Any published papers? Any user testing?
Man, that article you linked is just awful. I'm trying to figure out where in there that I decided that the author is an idiot, and I think it is right about the time that he (you?) listed "double-click on the person's name" in the start menu as one of his steps. Which I think is actually cutting him a huge amount of slack, because he's at that point already derided how difficult it is in Windows 7 to shut down a computer over remote desktop (which is great for those of us who don't like getting calls after-hours because a user accidentally shut down their computer and now can't get back into it), made an incoherent claim that it was "quite clearly a programmer" who thought of this, and then moved on to complaining about moving the location for My Documents taking additional steps despite the fact that it's so uncommon a use case that it probably happens on the order of one per fifty computer lifetimes at best (most users won't know or care where the folder actually resides and never change it, and IT departments that do care for some reason will have an automated system because they won't want to do it manually with the process described on the page).
I don't want to say it goes downhill from there, but it certainly doesn't get a lot better. Don't let web designers design your webpage? Well, I can gather I shouldn't let programmers do it, either, but what does that leave? Either the marketing department or some random asshat from management? Those are frequently the people most responsible for webpages filled with stupid widgets and crappy layouts. Web designers didn't all decide on their own accord to start filling pages with Web 2.0 widgets, they did it because your pointy haired boss and your marketing department demanded it of them. Or is the IT Department of every company now filled with usability experts?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The dumbening continues. Soon there won't be an interface left.
Where can you go?
Windows 8 - Dumbed, Locked
OS-X - Soon to be IOS
Can I please just use the damn computer?
Your use of the word "intellectual" is new to me. I had not previously seen it defined in terms of rote memorization.
Nearly twenty years ago I recall Linux supporters making the same arguments for the CLI and against the GUI. They wanted to preserve "privilege" for the elect. Not so different from Hollywood.
Nice username.
So both Unity and Gnome 3 were called a step toward touchscreen interfacing for the future. Unity I could see it. Gnome 3, which I use daily, does become useful once you learn the keyboard shortcuts. Now Unity will use something like that. Yet if you eventually use a touchscreen, well keyboard shortcuts double suck. One that you have to resort to them, and two that a touchscreen device may only have a keyboard on the screen when you pull it up (thereby obscuring your other work). So if one of the ideas was to simplify and get on the touchscreen bandwagon for the near future, I think both of these will be failures.
KDE had its share of gripers and complainers. It hasn't fully lived up to the promises, but it has gotten quite usable. It never fully failed its users the way I think Unity and Gnome 3 are doing. Now if to cope with an overly simplified GUI they are having to add on increasing keyboard shortcuts and near CLI then they clearly are compounding their failure. So they either will adapt to the initial shortcomings as they go or probably become irrelevant. Gnome 3 shows some signs of adapting though only in the direction of desktop use. Unity appears to be like someone who cannot admit a mistake and are pushing on until everyone else gets it. Will be interesting to see if Shuttlesworth gets it instead before too much damage is done.
Soon I will move away from Linux altogether. First they broke my HTPC configuration with Unity: touch UI, laggy response times. Now they are going to break it even more. This just doesn't make sense. Using fast keyboard shortcuts (such as in VIM) makes sense for the Pro user. Using shortcuts in slow way with UI doesn't make sense at all: no exploration for the beginner, not fast for the Pro.
If the Unity is still there when the next LTS rolls out, I will install Windows, after 7 years. With Linux everything is broken, more or less. With Ubuntu more.
I can do things like this now. Start typing into gnome-d and it can find functionality within applications. I don't see any news here. And yes, I watched and understood the video.
Sorta sounds like some people like the old ways. Isn't the point of icons in a list in case i don't remember the name of what I'm looking for. ... or in what way is it different ( as i have not seen it yet) .
So this is a GUI based command line with command line completion
âoeTolerance applies only to persons, but never to truth. Intolerance applies only to truth, but never to persons.
What design persona did you create this feature for?
We have a range of personas, mapping to different kinds of user of Ubuntu. Initially the HUD started as a power user feature, aimed at improving the experience of tech-savvy users who make full use of applications but use too many apps (and adopt new apps too quickly) to remember every shortcut key. As the design progressed and developed, we expanded the scope of the design conversation to embrace all of our personas. We noticed in testing that new users found the HUD faster than the old menu, as did power users who hadn’t memorised the shortcut for a given function.
http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2012/01/hud-new-unity-feature/
Unfortunately PC Pro as a publication has gone way downhill. I've been buying it since issue 1 but can't buy it any more. It's turned into a willy-waving contest with contributors vying to explain to the reader just how many terabytes of disk space they have under their desks/in their private data centres/basements.
The recent redesign was not good - their A-list pages particularly looking like a 'how many typefaces and sizes can we get on one page' competition entry.
Writing standards have dropped. I always found Steve Cassidy circumlocutory but his articles are now incoherent. I get the feeling he tries to wrong-foot the reader in a misplaced attempt to inject drama.
Sad, particularly after the demise of PC World (UK).
With the exception of section 2 of that video (invoking app menu functions), which I'll admit is interesting but not necessarily useful, KRunner does the same things and more, and has since KDE4 was released several years ago.
KRunner has many different features that can be enabled or disabled based on what you want to use, including the following:
* Program search by name, description, and window contents (if running)
* Shell command execution. If you can do it in one line in bash, it should work here.
* Browser bookmark handling
* Calculator
* Calendar event access
* Find and display address book contacts
* Music player controls
* System controls, such as power management, user switching, reboot, shutdown by command. (e.g. "reboot" or "screen brightness 20%")
* Email and IM integration for finding contacts by name and sending messages.
* Some interesting "fluff" stuff like unit conversion and wikipedia search.
There are some more, and it's probably extensible, too.
I didn't use the extra features very much at first, and only use a small subset of them even now (mostly email, IM, shell, calculator, and unit conversion), but now I hate environments that don't have something similar. It's nice to see other DEs finally catching up a bit.
Shut the fuck up you worthless fat piece of shit.
It seems they went out of their way to make things more difficult, to hide as much as possible and make it much more tortuous to do simple things.
That's MS's MO and one of the reasons I avoid Microsoft whenever possible. It's easier to convert (brainwise) from XP to KDE than it is from XP to Win7. I have Win 7 on my newish notebook (I really ought to get off my lazy butt and put Linux on it), and several things are incredible annoyances that are complete downgrades from XP.
Control Panel -- whoever designed Win 7's control panel needs a good swift kick in the ass. What took two clicks in XP takes 7 in 7.
File Manager -- great, now I can't sort files by extension or by time if they're oggs or wavs -- and I have lots and lots of oggs and wavs.
Search -- Christ but they ruined that completely. Search has gone from "pretty bad" to "completely useless."
The more I use that OS the more I hate it.
Free Martian Whores!
I'm not sure I'm understanding it correctly, but that you can pipeline menu commands from within a text window seems to imply a standardized way to employ GUI-based applications just like we do for text-based CLI apps within *ix.
... they pitched it as enhancing testability (presumably, permitting testing of GUI apps in a very simple, standardized echo-to-a-pipeline way, instead of having to contort yourself through a proprietary scripted-test approach), but more generally, being able to employ functions within GUI based apps just like we do sed/awk/grep now .... yummy.
That seems extremely useful to me
"Ahh! I see you're in that indeterminate Schrodinger state where - oh, uh
What I don't understand is why some people in the Ubuntu dev team think there is something wrong with traditional Desktops.
Last time I checked, my traditional desktop OS, which happens to be Ubuntu 10.04 with Xfce, worked just fine and I'm as productive with it as I can be ... given that I read and post on /. ...
Frankly it sounds like change for change sake. Have only just started using Ubuntu on a regular basis after a long gap of trying it. Unity took a bit of getting used to, requiring a lot more keystrokes to find applications than a simple menu. As a long term Windows user, the panel was disturbing at first as well, because it was similar to that of a Mac (whereas I'd expected menu bars to be attached to an application window). And it's not yet finished - needs more options with the launcher (like positioning instead of being stuck on the left side of the screen).
A voice driven software is a nice idea, and perhaps a boon to some of my disabled friends of mine (who have difficulty holding a mouse and using a keyboard) but would be useless for the deaf and others who have difficulty talking anyway. In any case with all these systems why don't the previous options get included in later developments? For example in Unity, where applications can be pinned to the launcher, why not include a "Gnome2 Menu" application which just load up an old style drop menu instead of having to go through DASH? The thing is, that that'd be optional and easily detached if the user wanted. Likewise Vioce input is all very well, but how about making it easy for the user to choose which way they want to navigate?
You know what, I'm getting out of computers as a hobby. I need to spend more time outside anyway.
Had that before it was called the command line.
Did not need no stinking menus.
Your comment makes no sense. What "Obligatory XKCD" reference? Who are you talking to? The post immediately above yours has nothing to do with with XKCD. Perhaps you have posted in the wrong thread?
I approve!
Having been using Ubuntu since I returned to geekland about 5 years ago, my next install will be Linux Mint. I've been running it in VirtualBox on my Mac, and it's fairly decent.
Gnome 2.x was such a great interface. It was simple, clean, efficient. ok, it wasn't as beautiful as OS X, but window management was so much easier. Simple things like file open/save dialogues, the way menus were arranged, were logical and well-designed.
Innovation is good. I think Unity is OK, and an interesting experiment, but it was introduced too early. I also think that fundamentally users need to know what applications they have open - I know iOS doesn't do this, but I think it causes problems even on existing mobile devices, and would be even worse on a desktop for a content-creator.
This new idea is just bonkers. It's a step backwards.
I actually think that Desktop Linux may have a big future - perhaps in education (specifically IT / Computer Science classes at high school and university) - especially as hardware becomes dirt cheap and MS and Apple begin to neglect their full desktops. Ubuntu could (should?) have been aiming for that market, but it seems to me that they're chasing the same opportunities as Android. Android has already won.
RS
My sentiments exactly. It's a steaming pile of shit that only a programmer could love. Windows 8 looks even worse.
Someone made a comment about what a good manager should be like. Their comment was that a good manager should provide guidance, clarify tasks, assist when needed but otherwise, stay out of the way.
That is the same philosophy that an OS should have. Unfortunately MS has gone down the path of the micromanager. "You don't need to see this stuff so I'll just hide it for you. Oh, you want to see it? I'm sorry, I can't do that."
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Since 11.04 the menu has been replaced with a search box, called Unity. Sounds like an incremental improvement to that... what's the big deal?
Canonical are once again shooting themselves in the foot by introducing radically new and awkward changes to the desktop environment of Ubuntu. Now they want to incorporate a useless HUD which will slow users down even more and frustrate the hell out of them. Is there no end to the madness at Canonical ? Haven't they learned that users are NOT happy with their absurd changes (re Unity) and their complete and utter failure to fix serious breakages and regressions with Ubuntu itself ? Obviously not - Canonical is being run a bunch of lying, self-absorbed opportunists who think their way is best and stuff everyone else. I'm so glad I dumped this fascist distro and moved to LMDE. Canonical can sink and die for all I care.
I can't remember where I read that (surely an old Slashdot story) some years ago, but some guy who was teaching Windows to the elderly got a lot of success by showing them the console, which he dubbed the "text mode" of Windows. The "graphical mode" was just too overwhelming for those. They prefered remembering commands associated with the tasks they wanted to do.
__________ petitclv
Will this be a must to use Ubuntu or will the gnome/unity be an option still? Plus, this type or speak to find a command's like a google search, you type and results start to show up, isn't it?
Building for a shallow grave Must be something else we say Somehow to defend this place
can see it working for a home user , but not sure how it would work in an office environment.