Ubuntu's window buttons to stay on the left

Posted Apr 1, 2010 22:16 UTC (Thu) by aigarius (subscriber, #7329)
Parent article: Ubuntu's window buttons to stay on the left

Except if you don't want them to - only the new themes will have the buttons
on the left, old themes will still have buttons on the right as before.
There was a bug in beta that caused buttons to jump to left side for all
themes, but it has been fixed now.

It is also possible to choose the Human theme and then customize it to
replace all parts of it with the parts from the new Radiance theme - this
way you get the new shiny theme with the old button layout.

Ubuntu's window buttons to stay on the left

Posted Apr 1, 2010 22:32 UTC (Thu) by kirkengaard (guest, #15022) [Link]

Or just go into gconf-editor, apps/metacity/general, and change button_layout to something like "menu:minimize,maximize,close".

Ubuntu's window buttons to stay on the left

Posted Apr 2, 2010 14:13 UTC (Fri) by ikm (guest, #493) [Link] (9 responses)

> Except if you don't want them to

Oh come on -- who'd really WANT them to? This change is pushed against the will of the majority who's used to the usual layout. Not many of those would bother investigating how to change this back -- even if they don't really like it.

Ubuntu's window buttons to stay on the left

Posted Apr 10, 2010 1:13 UTC (Sat) by jbailey (guest, #16890) [Link] (8 responses)

"The will of the majority" makes it sound all democratic and such -- which Ubuntu never claimed to be. Shuttleworth has been clear from the beginning that he'll be opinionated. Luckily, most of the time his opinions seem to be good ones.

Ubuntu's window buttons to stay on the left

Posted Apr 10, 2010 8:49 UTC (Sat) by ikm (guest, #493) [Link] (4 responses)

Who cares what it claimed to be?

Ubuntu's window buttons to stay on the left

Posted Apr 10, 2010 12:16 UTC (Sat) by jbailey (guest, #16890) [Link] (3 responses)

By the same token, who cares what the will of the majority is?

The will of the majority wants to run Windows and is pretty convinced the the blue "e" on their desktop is the Internet.

Few things about popular opinion would want me to base a product on it.

Ubuntu's window buttons to stay on the left

Posted Apr 10, 2010 12:20 UTC (Sat) by ikm (guest, #493) [Link] (2 responses)

> By the same token, who cares what the will of the majority is?

The majority does.

Ubuntu's window buttons to stay on the left

Posted Apr 10, 2010 12:24 UTC (Sat) by jbailey (guest, #16890) [Link]

Source? I haven't seen much that demonstrates that.

Ubuntu's window buttons to stay on the left

Posted Apr 10, 2010 15:50 UTC (Sat) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link]

Anybody who cares about bug #1 does.

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/1

Ubuntu's window buttons to stay on the left

Posted Apr 11, 2010 13:51 UTC (Sun) by Baylink (guest, #755) [Link] (2 responses)

Except, of course, that putting the Window Close button -- which often does not trigger an "are you sure" dialog before it's irreversible action -- *immediately above the window menu bar* is the sort of Stupid 'Designer' Trick rejected by dozens of usability specialists in the past -- there's a *reason* why those buttons live in the right hand end of the window frame on nearly every windowing system of the last 3 decades, folks.

Yup; Shuttleworth has lost it. And so, shortly, will Ubuntu.

You, Mr Shuttleworth, are no Steve Jobs.

Ubuntu's window buttons to stay on the left

Posted Apr 12, 2010 2:36 UTC (Mon) by jbailey (guest, #16890) [Link] (1 responses)

While I don't think that Shuttleworth is as capable as Jobs at designing beautiful UIs, predictions of Ubuntu shortly losing are laughable at best. I don't think there's any one else in the Desktop Linux space that has a complete offering (OEM deals, support, etc).

In the absence of any competition, they have a captive market. While they are tweaking UIs and learning how best to serve customers through experimentation, anyone else has to go through the relationship building stage that Canonical has already completed.

It could be much worse. We could be stuck with whatever default UIs are being provided with no one trying for a good experience. I think we're better off for the work that they're doing, despite and because of the bumps in the road that they'll hit.

Ubuntu's window buttons to stay on the left

Posted Apr 12, 2010 3:59 UTC (Mon) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link]

It should be noted that, you don't need competition to make a product fail and lack of competition might be because simply might be not enough profit on the desktop market for the business ventures to be successful. Nobody has shown otherwise. Maybe proprietary services tied to the desktop is Canonical's answer. I would hope that wouldn't be the case.