Ubuntu 14.04 LTS Adds Support For Local Menus

[Aleve Sicofante]

I think I've proven my point

Maybe you should keep thinking then. Your hideous KDE setup can't even start to compare to the Ubuntu layout, but more importantly you're comparing apples to oranges. You could save a lot of space by removing everything, but then you can't compare that to Unity or any useful UI.

Unity global menu saves vertical space when compared to the same layout without global menu. That's a fact even if it's beyond your understanding.

There are other ways of saving vertical space and you have shown your own peculiar disaster of an UI to prove it. KDE also saves space by ignoring the notion of "padding" or "white space" (KDE ignores a lot of UI/UX basics). That doesn't negate the above fact: Unity's global menu does save space when compared with the same layout wihtout the global menu, which, by the way, is the only logically acceptable comparison.

[Aleve Sicofante]

I just read throughout the whole thread. Wow. Just wow.

I understand Phoronix is about benchmarks, mostly, and that might (might) excuse the ignorance on UI/UX design displayed all over the place here. However, if I was so ignorant about a given matter, I would stay silent. You won't read any comment by me on benchmarking or compiling, for instance.

There's a lot of healthy discussion about this new Unity feature in most other places I visit regularly. It's sad to see the state of this forums.

Thanks God most people posting their diatribes against Unity here are not designing user interfaces... Pfew.

[profoundWHALE]

In my experience with desktop managers, I didn't ever see much of a difference between LXDE, XFCE, and KDE.
Keyword: Much, and yes I understand the differences.

My personal favourite was and probably always will be the way Crunchbang uses Openbox as one.

[GreatEmerald]

Unity global menu saves vertical space when compared to the same layout without global menu. That's a fact even if it's beyond your understanding.

Not for non-maximised windows.

[Luke_Wolf]

Maybe you should keep thinking then. Your hideous KDE setup can't even start to compare to the Ubuntu layout, but more importantly you're comparing apples to oranges. You could save a lot of space by removing everything, but then you can't compare that to Unity or any useful UI.

Unity global menu saves vertical space when compared to the same layout without global menu. That's a fact even if it's beyond your understanding.

There are other ways of saving vertical space and you have shown your own peculiar disaster of an UI to prove it. KDE also saves space by ignoring the notion of "padding" or "white space" (KDE ignores a lot of UI/UX basics). That doesn't negate the above fact: Unity's global menu does save space when compared with the same layout wihtout the global menu, which, by the way, is the only logically acceptable comparison.

Delusional much?

I wasn't bothering to take the time to actually make a usable sidebar based system as I don't use that, the point was to compare global versus local menus with the same basic layout (Top panel is removed in KDE version as the only purpose it serves is to be a global menu, and some controls/indicators that can be shoved onto a panel on the left), as a result I took the default mageia desktop and just shifted the panel over to the left.

With the menubar collapsed into a menu button in order to compare only local vs global menus since the menubar goes into the titlebar in unity full screened you can clearly see that no pixels were saved by using a global menu. Pixels were only saved by methodologies that removed the menu bar as a separate line combining the titlebar and menu bar in the case of unity, and using a menu button in the case of KDE

[Luke_Wolf]

In my experience with desktop managers, I didn't ever see much of a difference between LXDE, XFCE, and KDE.
Keyword: Much, and yes I understand the differences.

My personal favourite was and probably always will be the way Crunchbang uses Openbox as one.

And This right here is the reality, even fully optimized for vertical pixels the way plasma netbook is you're reclaiming... 2 maybe 3 lines of space aka ~ 1/2 inch /1cm (for an extremely optimistic 3 saved lines), global menus limit total potential savings to 1 line, maybe 2 because you have to keep the panel up top (local menu systems can remove the decorations to gain an additional line). It's really not a noticeable amount unless you're looking for it or comparing it side by side, which makes obsessing over vertical pixel space utterly absurd.

[ferry]

Yeah give me a screenshot, I switched over to plasma netbook on the VM to check what you said out, and moved around a window and at least on mageia the shell basically just removed the decorations without a global menu (see post #33)

All right then: note the task bar at the top, with power down /sleep button, firefox menu, system tray and icon/title of current window on the right (when clicked this shows a task switcher although I prefer alt-tab on this 1024x600 eeepc).

There are no auto-hidden bars here, the only way to get more space is to press F11 to make FF fullscreeen.

[Pajn]

I think I've proven my point

Now show that again with an applications that doesn't feature a app specific menu,
like LibreOffice Writer.

Also Application specific menus kills global shortcut-keys to open the menu. On
Unity I can press Alt+F10 to navigate with my arrow-keys, in any program.
That is, if I for some reason doesn't want to use the HUD.
And second, it looks an behave different in different apps which is confusing for
users.

[Luke_Wolf]

All right then: note the task bar at the top, with power down /sleep button, firefox menu, system tray and icon/title of current window on the right (when clicked this shows a task switcher although I prefer alt-tab on this 1024x600 eeepc).

There are no auto-hidden bars here, the only way to get more space is to press F11 to make FF fullscreeen.

Fair enough, that is indeed a global menu, although you're still not saving space vs local menus shoved into menu buttons or similar, but at least in this case integration with the panel is providing more functionality than just a straight menubar up top

[mike4]

I like the Mac style as of 12.04 Unity. For Gnome I have to hide the top panel for the same effect.