Ubuntu 14.04 LTS Adds Support For Local Menus

[johnc]

Do people have such tiny displays that a menu bar and title bar take up too much of their view?

The large fonts and huge GTK widgets are far bigger space wasters than the menu bar.

[Thpn]

NEC makes great 4:3 monitors

About missing vertical space, it may be better to ask the manufacturers for 4:3 screen. Maybe we can get that after all the people that use a computer only to watch some movie have switched to a tablet.

I buy, specify and recommend NEC 4:3 monitors.

http://www.necdisplay.com/

[johnc]

Oh jeez I just realized they're integrating the menu into the title bar. It looks idiotic.

Are there any non-insane UI designers left in the world?

[Luke_Wolf]

For an even clearer comparison:



I have a feeling that people talking about how Unity "does not save space" don't use it and therefore don't understand how some things work. That, of course, does not stop them from writing inane things on forums.

except you're forgetting that you now have a forced panel up top, which is not saving you any space vs local menus and a panel on the left or right side and not on top (i'll make my own comparison pictures in a little bit, will need to spin up a VM), furthermore how many people are running everything fullscreened?

[who_me]

except you're forgetting that you now have a forced panel up top, which is not saving you any space vs local menus and a panel on the left or right side and not on top (i'll make my own comparison pictures in a little bit, will need to spin up a VM), furthermore how many people are running everything fullscreened?

Are you for real?! I just showed you the difference.

1) The side panel has an auto-hide feature. It's a simple toggle button in System Settings --> Appearance -> Behaviour tab. Also offers the ability to tweak sensitivity for auto-hide.

2)With windows that are not maximized, you still save space in the actual application window without menu bar. You also don't necessarily need to use the mouse, unlike Mac OS X, because a simple key press calls the HUD and you just search for the function you need. Or, if a power user, one can still use the shortcut keys.

[Luke_Wolf]

Are you for real?! I just showed you the difference.

You showed the difference between full screen and windowed state for an application in unity, this does not compare the difference between global menu vs local menus without a top panel, for that we will require a different environment to be compared in the same side by side fashion using a side panel and no top panel/global menu. Now that said I will agree with you that titlebar based menus save 1 line of space, but this has already been stated (by me even) and is not the point of contention. Note: I'm not arguing about Unity saving or losing space (which you seem to have conflated with an argument against global menus) but that global menus do not save any space and in fact are a usability detriment.

2)With windows that are not maximized, you still save space in the actual application window without menu bar. You also don't necessarily need to use the mouse, unlike Mac OS X, because a simple key press calls the HUD and you just search for the function you need. Or, if a power user, one can still use the shortcut keys.

except you don't save any space by using global menus as you yourself just showed. You do however get space by titlebar menus.

[who_me]

How the fuck are you now saving space? I just showed you that you get a bigger area to render stuff on. It means that they are using the available screen area more efficiently than other DEs which *is* the point of the whole debate.

[Pajn]

global menus do not save any space and in fact are a usability detriment.

In any DE without global menus you want both a titlebar and a menubar, in Unity those
are combined. You usually also have a top or bottom bar which in Unity also are combined.
Show me any other DE that only wastes 26px on the hight.

[Luke_Wolf]

How the fuck are you now saving space? I just showed you that you get a bigger area to render stuff on.

by using titlebar menus which does not require the usage of global menus, and you can even have other approaches to it such as how firefox does the menu nowadays however global menus save no space

It means that they are using the available screen area more efficiently than other DEs which *is* the point of the whole debate.

You did not show this, you showed a comparison of Unity with a windowed app vs Unity with a full screen app, where in the fullscreen mode it turns the top panel into a titlebar, as well as a menu, once I get this ubuntu VM up and running (probably another 10 minutes or so) I'll do a screenshot comparison vs KDE with a sidepanel (which will be a mageia 4 install since it's a kde VM I have on hand).

Further though you're the only person in this thread so far who has been arguing about unity as opposed to global menus

[Luke_Wolf]

I think I've proven my point