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Ubuntu Will Revert Window Controls To the Right-Hand Side in Next Release (neowin.net)
Following a survey carried out last month, Ubuntu will begin shipping with the minimise, maximise, and close buttons on the right-hand side of windows. From a report: In the survey 46.2% of people said they prefer their window controls on the left-hand side and 53.8% said they prefer them on the right. The decision comes after seven years of window controls being on the left, at the time it had plenty of detractors but Ubuntu founder, Mark Shuttleworth, maintained that the controls needed shifting to the left because they'd be in the way of the then newly introduced window indicators.
And of course, this qualifies as "Stuff that Matters"
FunOne
51% of our users want shit on the left
49% want shit on the right
therefore left is best because a bunch of randos who filled out a survey monkey are best equipped to design our UI for us
That's not exactly a "landslide" victory. Why not just make it user-configurable?
And you might just have a better system.
I mean really, the right thing would have been to have left things alone.
Being a programmer my question is, why isn't there a configuration parameter so the user can choose? Just my 2 cents ;)
If I wanted a Mac I'd just go fucking buy one...
Doing what is popular instead of what is right shows they have no backbone, and they just don't give a damn care about us. Why not do what is right and stick with what Apple has proven is the best? Instead, they're weak and don't stand-up for what is right because they don't care or respect us.
If the controls have been on the left for 7 years, then why on Earth would you change the default to the right for mostly no good reason?
Really, nonsense like this is why Linux desktop adoption has been...slow.
But apparently these newfangled "user interfaces" cannot do that anymore?
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
But apparently these newfangled "user interfaces" cannot do that anymore?
You can still do it in metacity afaik. But Unity was purposely made less configurable to make support easier. It was a dumb idea and now it's going away.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Why does it have to be all or nothing? I prefer close on the left and max/min on the right.
We used to have arguments like this all the time at a place I worked. We built scientific software, with the UI written in C++ using Qt. The support, and the hardcore numerical solver, department heads used to have heated debates about button placement. Both had good points, and both's suggestions depended on their perspectives, and the perspective of the user base each represented (with support being more along the engineering, and the solver being more along scientific applications.)
The solution I proposed was to make the widgets dockable, and for a user's preferences to be remembered. We implemented this, and it make the argument far less heated. Instead of "where should an element BE?" it became "where should an element start?" I proposed a set of different defaults, based on science / engineering preferences, but I don't think we started down this path. We did get a cool "export preferences" feature working, so someone wouldn't have to re-dock all their widgets every time they got on a new machine.
This is the same discussion. The same solution applies.
I would prefer Ubuntu / Linux focus more resources on making my software RAID controller suck less, and fewer resources on these kind of trivial points. From a software development perspective, it's way easier to switch the position of a menu than to make my cheap 1990s server BIOS chip work...
We have 33 inch monitors with 3840 x 2400 pixels. Put the fucking buttons on BOTH sides! Or even better, get this: LET THE USER HAVE A SIMPLE CONTROL TO CHOOSE!!!!!!
Remember when the computer was about the user and giving him/her the control and choice?
Typical: a guy who has succeeded on something beyond reasonable expectation believes that he is an expert on just about everything. Reality, as usual, straightening things up.
Close on one and other buttons on the other side so one don't close accidently.
See amigaos and others doing it right.
In windows, I've always taken advantage of the 'feature' from Windows 16-bit days, where if you double-click on a program icon (on the left), it closes the window, so whenever I want to close a window, I just find the closest upper corner, and double/single click it.
You could do the same kind of thing simpler, just by having an X-mark box on the right, program icon at the left, and whenever you bring your mouse near the program icon, have it shift over and reveal a minimize/maximize/close button - and the same on the right, just slide out a minimize/maximize option. Of course, add the option to disable animations, and you're good to go - no visual clutter, but can use it wherever the window is.
Just an idea.
Ryan Fenton
That explains it...
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
When they forced them to the left, I tweaked them to the right.
Whatever happened to the ability to be able to choose the appearance of your desktop?
I may move them to the left now, just because, you can't tell me what to do. /s
I prefer a basic Debian instal for cleanness, stability and security, though it was nice to see the window controls in a sensible position when I used Ubuntu for those occasional multimedia installs. Ah well, nothing lasts for ever.
YESSSSS!!
EPIC WIN!!!
Wow. This ranks right up there with the furious debate over which side of the toast should be buttered. Conservatives, of course, insist that it be the side they've always buttered, while liberals, deliberately non-conformist, insist it be the other. Will there ever be peace at the breakfast table?
...omphaloskepsis often...
Some of us don't want any buttons on our windows, and would prefer to have minimal to no decorations.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
I can't speak specifically to Ubuntu's UI, but in general, the close/exit action belongs on the left side. The majority of us read and write from left-to-right, and so an action on the left is to move backwards while an action on the right is to go further. Web browsers reinforce this notion with the idea of back and forward buttons (though their placement may not be ideal).
It's an easy, logical standard and allows the users to quickly grasp the likely effect of their action in a pop-up dialog, for example. The affirmative choice goes on the right edge and the close / cancellation / negative response goes on the left edge. This also automatically means there is a good space between the two very opposite operations, vastly reducing the chance of a mis-click. In similar fashion, I always put the save/update action on the right and the delete action on the left.
Why is this not a common standard by now?
-IOVAR Web Dev Platform
This sort of blatant discrimination against lefties MUST STOP!
Time and time again Rightists stomp all over us lefties rights! er... uh... I yield back the rest of my time.
I switched to Mint long ago. Not only does it have the window controls in the right place, but it has a much more sensible selection of default applications, and I can get it with MATE, a desktop manager that's not trying to be an avant-garde tablet interface.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
I'm getting real tired of having to read through that crap to get to my tech news. The next century is going to be about technologists making central bankers kneel and suck their dicks.
Seriously, WTF do you need to download and install a fucking THIRD PARTY PROGRAM to do something as ludicrously simple and common as changing window colors, fonts, size, etc...
Windows control panel let you do this is Windows 1.0!!!!
It's absolute madness that you can't change the window color by default. How come Windows figured out how to add a control panel almost 30 years ago, but Gnome still can't include a built-in control panel that lets you change window color. It's an absolute embarrassment that you need a THIRD PARTY program to do something this basic and common.
Or let the individual user decide like in the good old days.
http://ahtribune.com/world/nor...
American Arms Deal at Work.
Just randomly place the controls, and note the locations where the user correctly clicks on them rather than missing them. The controls will automagically navigate to the optimal location for each user. Everybody's happy. Until they have to use someone else's machine.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
xfce means my window controls never moved - these other window managers have brain damage
I had thought that Ubuntu was planning to just adopt the GNOME Shell, but that's not their plan. Reading TFS I found out: their plan is to use extensions to change the GNOME Shell experience so that the desktop works more similarly to Unity.
Famously, the GNOME Shell got rid of minimize and maximize buttons completely, opting to keep only the close button.[1] To maximize you snap a window to the top of the screen. There is no minimize, but you can make any number of virtual workspaces and the equivalent of minimize is to send a window to a workspace that is not currently displayed. It's not necessarily a bad way to go, but it's really different from any other desktop environment ever.
The new Ubuntu is going to have a dock, and minimize will make the window disappear the way it does now in Unity, and you will use the dock to re-open the window just as now in Unity.
What about menus... will they be per-window or Mac OS X style? One screenshot (see it here) shows them at the top of the window. Just like Unity.
So the Ubuntu team is going to avoid the needless duplication of effort of making a complete desktop environment, but they will be customizing their GNOME Shell to work pretty much like Ubuntu works today.
I guess I should have expected it but this was surprising news for me. Personally I am still using MATE on my own computers, but I'd rather use a Unity clone than native GNOME Shell.
[1] Note that back in the GNOME 2.x days at Sun Microsystems, Sun paid for usability studies. For GNOME 3.x, a developer made the giant change of removing the minimize button by... thinking about it and talking to two other people on the GNOME 3.x development team. Who needs usability studies? Not the GNOME devs, apparently.
Actual quote: "In the end, I think with GNOME 3 we need to emphasize design coherency and slickness - what is different and better, and that actually is more important than being 100% sure we perfectly meet everybody's workflow." Personally I think the emphasis on "coherency and slickness" vs. "workflow" was a mistake, which is why I'm still using MATE. I just want to get my work done with minimal distractions.
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
The buttons were moved from the right side of the window to the left side because Ubuntu was planning an amazing new feature called "windicators" ("window indicators") which were going to go on the right side of the window bar. These would show, for example, a progress bar for a background task in an app, online/offline indicator for server connection status, etc. My favorite idea: they were supposed to also provide convenient per-app volume control or mute. (PulseAudio does allow per-app volume controls but there isn't any window chrome for it; you have to go to the audio control panel, find the list of running audio apps, and control from there.)
http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/333
Windicators... never happened.
https://askubuntu.com/questions/58466/what-is-the-current-status-of-windicators
This announcement, that the window buttons are going back to the right side, indicates to me that Ubuntu has officially given up on ever implementing "windicators".
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
I used to submit 4 or 5 a week which definitely fit the criteria of news for nerds, stuff that matters. CmdrTaco was a dick. He never once published any of them so I'm jaded. This same shit happened with the nazi-editors on Wikipedia. They wouldn't even let you fix a damned typo. I won't ever help out Wiki again. Same here.
I don't think anyone considers Gnome 3 to be relevant any more. It's been infiltrated and corrupted. GTK is pretty much stagnant with Qt superior in every way. Serious technical work in Gnome 3 isn't really happening. Honestly Ubuntu isn't far behind.
How did this survey find 10,000 people who prefer window controls on the left?
Or did they just find 10K users who are sick of Ubuntu radically changing their gui every other release?
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
"lets put all the options in one place"
systemd-windowbuttons
Let the users decide which sides they want on their own!
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Why not put them slightly to the right of the center?
It is user-configurable.
The survey was to pick the default.
crossposts to soylentnews with the exact same article summary etc either BEFORE or AFTER doing the same to slashdot. I've been wondering what kind of ad revenue shill scam they have going on there.
> It's been clear since BEFORE the latest takeover that the owners don't know what they're doing.
How about a survey on if users want systemd's million lines of untrusted code running pid1? Oh no lets make it about window manager defaults.
To /dev/null.
I keep clicking cancel on window boxes when I use Ubuntu due to being familiar with Windows.
This is a big turn off for alot of users hwo keep closing Windows dialog boxes
http://saveie6.com/
I'll just switch away from Ubuntu. How about that?
Most of the OSs I had used had the max/min buttons on the right: early Unix with graphics (e.g. HP-UX), Windows, most Linux other than Ubuntu, many things based on Ubuntu (e.g. Kubuntu)....
All because Shuttlecock, and his minions wanted it on the left is a poor reason to have move them to the left. Now, all of a sudden, because of a single poll that is split almost 50/50 (what is the margin of error?) they suddenly want to move it to the right? What gives? The survey would suggest putting it in the middle or having it easily moved from left to right or vice versa.
I prefer my buttons on the bottom, you insensitive clod.