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Ubuntu and window controlsUbuntu and window controlsPosted Mar 25, 2010 6:51 UTC (Thu) by Felix.Braun (subscriber, #3032)Parent article: Ubuntu and window controls
I like to work with maximized windows. Therefore, with the old button setup, the close-window-button was frighteningly close to the shut-down button in the upper right hand corner of the panel. Because of that, I have long moved my window controls to the left of the window. Given that, the change introduced now in the standard theme seems quite sensible to me :-)
Seriously though, I honestly don't understand the fuss this change has caused. This is Linux. Everything is open and tunable to your personal preferences. If you don't like purple, a new background is literally just three clicks away. If you want to shuffle around your window controls, even GNOME (which is usually criticised for being too inflexible) lets you do that. Granted, doing that while keeping the standard theme requires using gconf-editor. But you can always switch themes in a way discoverable even by the freshest noob.
Making this into a huge project governance issue seems quite over the top to me.
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Ubuntu and window controls Posted Mar 26, 2010 10:13 UTC (Fri) by Cato (subscriber, #7643) [Link]
Ubuntu is meant to be Linux for ordinary people, who have no clue about how to move buttons around, and most likely aren't aware that's even possible.
Ubuntu and window controls Posted Mar 26, 2010 14:50 UTC (Fri) by iabervon (subscriber, #722) [Link]
I feel like that's the real shame here. The answer should be: "Don't like where the buttons are or how they work? Use the easy-to-find, easy-to-use configuration tool to make them different." (And while you're at it, find out that there are a ton of useful triggers possible that you wouldn't have thought of.)
Personally, I've got a menu button which I double-click to close in the upper left, a button next to it to send the window to the back in stacking order, the title, a minimize button, and a maximize button in the upper right. The only one of these I regularly use is the menu menu, which I double-click and sometimes use the "stay on top" item from the menu. I normally minimize with shift-left-windows, and maximize with left-shift-right-shift, which don't require me to aim at fiddly little buttons.
I don't think that my customizations would make good defaults, but I think that it would be a great point in favor of Linux if the time that office workers spend personalizing their desktops extended to functional improvements in their individual work flows.
Ubuntu and window controls Posted Apr 2, 2010 14:29 UTC (Fri) by jzbiciak (✭ supporter ✭, #5246) [Link] I actually agree with this statement by and large. I consider myself something of a UNIX and computer geek, having hacked all my own config files inside and out 17 years ago when it was something "fun" to do. These days, I've got bigger fish to fry, and having to figure out how to move the buttons around my window is not something I know how to do, or feel like I should have to figure out how to do. I'd be rather annoyed if they didn't give me a friendly GUI for undoing their decisions, seeing as those buttons have been in that position for quite a long time. I have a lot of muscle memory built up and other computers I whose buttons won't be moving. It sounds Ubuntu won't be offering such a GUI, though. I guess I'll just have to be annoyed. (I'll also have to come back here for the magic incantation on how to fix it.) It'll be like the [Ctrl] vs. [Caps-Lock] keyboard layout issue all over again, with one keyboard with [Ctrl] at the left, and the rest with [Caps-Lock] there. ("xmodmap" to the rescue, in that case.) BTW, your comment did remind me of an old Dilbert comic. *chuckle*
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