Ubuntu's window buttons to stay on the left

Posted Apr 8, 2010 0:05 UTC (Thu) by jzbiciak (guest, #5246)
In reply to: Ubuntu's window buttons to stay on the left by cpeterso
Parent article: Ubuntu's window buttons to stay on the left

I have a different argument myself. I use 3 different computers most days: my Ubuntu 8.04 PC at home, RHEL Linux workstation at work managed by my employer's IT dept, and a Windows laptop (also managed by IT). Occasionally, I have to help coworkers with their computers, and I have two other computers around my house that I sometimes use at consol (one Linux, and one Windows due to a stupid proprietary package I need to use).

When it comes time for me to upgrade to Ubuntu 10.4, if I do, only one of those computers will get the upgrade. The rest won't.

Currently, all of the computers I use each day agree on where the Control key goes, on where Caps Lock goes, and on pretty much where everything else goes. This includes the window control icons in the upper right.

With this change, folks like me will now have their muscle memory thwarted when they sit down at "the weird machine." Kinda like I was always caught off guard by the Sun Type 6 keyboard on one of my computers with the UNIX layout with Control to the left of 'A', and then the two other keyboards I used regularly that have Caps Lock in that position.

I eventually used some xmodmap-fu to homogenize my work environment. I had to to keep my sanity.

Ubuntu's window buttons to stay on the left

Posted Apr 8, 2010 14:07 UTC (Thu) by MattPerry (guest, #46341) [Link] (2 responses)

> With this change, folks like me will now have their muscle memory thwarted
> when they sit down at "the weird machine."

Then select one of the many other themes that ship with Ubuntu that still have the buttons on the right. There are two *new* themes with buttons on the left and you aren't required to use them. You can still use the old human theme that comes with 9.10 and will still be in 10.04.

Really, this whole thing is a storm in a teacup.

Ubuntu's window buttons to stay on the left

Posted Apr 11, 2010 13:53 UTC (Sun) by Baylink (guest, #755) [Link] (1 responses)

I assert that your response is the result of nerdview, and that you don't spend any appreciable amount of time working with Real Users -- the group Shuttleworth clearly sees the need to convert.

Ubuntu's window buttons to stay on the left

Posted Apr 12, 2010 0:09 UTC (Mon) by jzbiciak (guest, #5246) [Link]

Furthermore, if the aim of moving these buttons to the left was to add Exciting New Features^TM on the right, then you also run into the issue (perhaps not immediately, but eventually) that the older themes just simply aren't supported well. It's the familiar pattern of interface deprecation. Mark the now-out-of-vogue way as "deprecated," meaning that you can keep using it for now, but it'll get removed at some point in the future because it's no longer "the way."

You now have partitioned the community into the "well supported" and "legacy users" with respect to this UI element. While it makes sense to deprecate some things, providing backward compatibility "for a time", I'm not sure deprecating such a widely used interface element makes sense. Even Windows 7 has kept the buttons over there (albeit, applying Fitts' Law more effectively than in the past, with the larger and variable-width buttons).