[Master] Window Control buttons: position/order/alignment

Thanks for reporting this bug and any supporting documentation. Since this bug has enough information provided for a developer to begin work, I'm going to mark it as confirmed and let them handle it from here. Thanks for taking the time to make Ubuntu better!

Also do you think we could move the window buttons back to the upper right instead of the upper left over the File / Edit /Etc...

James, that would need to be in a second bug...

Now with the change of the window control buttons, I'm guessing that the title is meant to be this way..

After seeing this: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Brand#New%20GtkThemes

I am going to mark this bug invalid.

http://www.webupd8.org/2010/03/new-ubuntu-1004-light-and-dark-themes.html - window controls are already on right side. Please re-open this bug.

I'm not going to reopen a bug based upon a third party blog post when the wiki artwork created by Canonical is available which shows the new theme design. Bug is still invalid.

It is strange. As you can see in bug attachments, window controls were on right side(just in strange order-see bug description). But after recent update they are on left side again. It is quite big regression, because I have(naturally a lot of people) a lot of applications, which have classic window controls(minimize,maximize,close) on right side(chrome,lingea, audacious...). I think that majority of ubuntu users will not welcome this change positively.

@marian
+1

I just changed theme to human, but window controls remain on left side. It looks horrible.(Attachment:human-window-controls.png) And what about consistency with applications, which do not use metacity (compiz)? I think, that a lot of regular users will have problems with it(Attachment:consistence_with_other_applications.png). Light theme is not also very accessible for users with impaired mobility or users with poor sight(window controls over File/Edit...).

Thank you very much, Majo

I have made this a "master bug report" or "metabug" as there are more reports coming in regarding this issue.

As stated on a duplicate bug report, if you are not happy with this design decision there is an easy workaround to revert this behaviour:
gconftool-2 --set /apps/metacity/general/button_layout --type string ":minimize,maximize,close"

This bug is not invalid.

It would either be a "Wont Fix" or _might_ be re-considered for the final release.
This decision is something that needs to be made by the Upstream authors. The light themes hasnt yet been hosted publicly , once that is done , the concerned authors will decide.

Setting it to medium , since this is not just an aesthetic problem , but also forces users toloose muscle memory and change their usage patterns.

I would add that the arrangement of window controls does not revert to the expected layout when switching from Light back to Human or other themes, nor is there any way for a user to choose how they want their windows laid out except for the above workaround. It's great that it's an aesthetic decision, but a) it should only impact the new themes, and b) should be more readily user-controlled in the event that it is unwelcome.

I want to thank Mitch Towner for sharing the command to reverse the "new ART":

gconftool-2 --set /apps/metacity/general/button_layout --type string ":minimize,maximize,close"

It worked immediately, thank you very much!

(As a Ubuntu user I would like to know all the commands to properly fix or configure the OS

This is part of the Linux/Ubuntu way, namely: The freedom to control ones own OS, apps,

and thereby be in control of one's PC. This choice has been taken away from us by

Microsoft, and hopefully will be given back to the people through Linux and Ubuntu

The tendency to control and have power over others is a huge BUG

At least we can escape to Ubuntu for a little more freedom!)

BavarianPH,
Ubuntu forever!

The menu is missing in this command! gconftool-2 --set /apps/metacity/general/button_layout --type string "menu:minimize,maximize,close" ;-P

I think it would be better to switch the layout back because a lot of people strongly dislike the new layout. (It was not really welcomed by the Ubuntu users) The new button order also does not fit in well with a lot of other applications e.g. like Google Chrome or XMPP and no other major Linux Desktop uses it by default, which will confuse application developers. (The button order would have to be changed in KWin too to have a more consistent look)
Also, the icon of the application is not visible in titlebar anymore, which makes the order of windows even more confusing.
Would be good if a member of the Canonical design team could comment on this bug.

Setting to Low, as we have a workaround.

As this is a request to change the default settings I've changed the importance to Wishlist.

A workaroud??? You're kidding I hope?
The woarkaround breaks visual appearance because of symetry problems.

You may really think twice for such a huge habits change: LTS versions targets enterprises and aims to be a Red Hat or Suse alternative... but I really don't immagine any sysadmin install a distribution configured like this: Users screaming, loss of productivity...

This is really a pity to make this kind of change to:
-Make a bad copy of Apple layout, that count for 5% PC market share... whose users are under Steve gourou influence and are not really subject to change for any Linux flavour!
-Sink the Ubuntu boat in 6 months...

So please make this appear on top again... and go reading ubuntu forums to hear the scream about this stupidity!

We should have a way to revert to the old button layout in a GUI manner, not with a command-line workaround, as this affects the final user. Be able to put the button back to the right side (where they have always been) with a command line is just a usability joke.

Make a GUI to put the buttons on the left-side if you want, but please leave the buttons on the right side by default !
As the other Yann (!) says, this is a crazy change for a LTS !!!

Setting back to triaged as no more info is required for a developer to be able to work on this. Please don't change the status of this bug.
Please see top post for a workaround, sorry for missing the "menu" part of the string in my earlier post.

left side or right side is not the main problem.
Even If i agreed that copying the mac OS style is not the best idea. Some apps have the icon on right, so putting the gtk theme to the left will only perturb people.

for me this new themes are cool (in design) but are uggly in some way

if you try to force the buttons in this order : minimise, maximise, close => you will have an UGLY theme

and on ALL window who only have 2 or 3 buttons, you'll have something ugly too?field.comment=left side or right side is not the main problem for

for me this theme is cool (in design) but it's uggly in some way

if you try to force the buttons in this order : minimise, maximise, close => you will have an UGLY theme

and on ALL window who only have 2 or 3 buttons, you'll have something ugly too

ok having a new theme is cool, but changing the side an the order of the buttons is kind of disturbing
copy Mac design is a bad idea too.

there are about 5% Mac user,
and about 90% Windows user

Convincing 10% windows users to switch on ubuntu, will bring a LOT more people than bringing 100% of mac user

Ok there are people who want to change from windows to mac, but its not for the button position ^^ so stop copy useless stuff ^^

OK, setting back to "confirmed"... maybe this is the more appropriate as "triaged" is clearly inappropriate: Buttons artwork is so more symetric, so changing gconf makes this look very bad.

So the solution may be to change buttons to make them symetric again for users being able to change default behaviour withous artifact... or making a second theme that is coherent, that could be chosen at install.

Maybe Canonical could uses this to make stats on users choice: Is users choose left (I doubt!), maybe this could become the default in future releases. But let users decide!

@Yann , Kindly stop changing the bug status!

This bug has enough information , is there any information missing from the bug?

Triaged means:
    * A member of UbuntuBugControl believes that the report describes a genuine bug in enough detail that a developer could start working on a fix
    * Use this when you are confident that it should be looked at by a developer and has enough information

For more information on bug status , see : https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/Status

The "developer" in tis case is the design team.

I like much the idea of the text on the left side than in the center. The place of the control-buttons has no importance for me.

This bug description mentions two completely separate issues: the window buttons and the window title. On the other hand, discussion seems to be completely about the buttons. I suggest editing the description to simplify things and maybe filing another bug if there is another regression caused by the position of the window title.

As well as being against the standard approach to how we manage bugs, putting both issues in one report is unfair to the other wishlist items being marked as duplicates of this one.
The window title position is a considerably less polarizing issue and one that _is_ controlled by individual themes (instead of gconf settings).

There's also the question of whether this is about the order of the buttons or just the side of the window they are on. The order of the buttons is what breaks other Metacity themes, while the side of the window is what really hurts muscle memory. I'm assuming you want them both back, but again, clarification in the bug description would go a long way.

Hi,

I know this doesn't solve the problem, but I have changed gnome-appearence-properties to include, on "Window borders" tab a simple switch for the window controls position. See branch and screenshot attached.

Maybe this will be handy for the users wanting to change back the position of the controls.

I do like left better :)

Wishlist? You must be joking! Did anybody see screenshots in attachment? (e.g. consistence_with_other_applications.png). No one distribution or desktop environment has window controls on the left side and also no one application for GNU/Linux, that does not use metacity(compiz). If you like window controls on the left side, please, there is a lot of mac os themes. And also the strange order of buttons, it will be very confusing for regular users. And even in LTS release....

I run Lucid-alpha3, and the "Customized Theme" tab / "Windows Border" tab
(or page)

does not have the option "Control: O right O left" ?

BavarianPH,
Ubuntu forever!

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On Tue, Mar 9, 2010 at 3:51 PM, Alex Eftimie <email address hidden> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I know this doesn't solve the problem, but I have changed gnome-
> appearence-properties to include, on "Window borders" tab a simple
> switch for the window controls position. See branch and screenshot
> attached.
>
> Maybe this will be handy for the users wanting to change back the
> position of the controls.
>
> I do like left better :)
>
> ** Attachment added: "window_controls_position_gui.png"
> http://launchpadlibrarian.net/40647960/window_controls_position_gui.png
>
> --
> [light-theme] please revert the order of the window controls back to
> "menu:minimize,maximize,close"
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/532633
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of a duplicate bug.
>
> Status in “light-themes” package in Ubuntu: Triaged
>
> Bug description:
> Binary package hint: light-themes
>
> Please centre window title like in human theme and also order window
> controls in classic order(minimize, maximize close).
> Thanks, Majo
>
> ------ WORKAROUND -----
> To revert to old layout, enter in terminal:
> $ gconftool-2 --set /apps/metacity/general/button_layout --type string
> "menu:minimize,maximize,close"
>
> To unsubscribe from this bug, go to:
>
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/light-themes/+bug/532633/+subscribe
>

Try to assign this to canonical desktop... Because current answers really look like bad jokes!

 assignee None

Yann, please do not assign bugs to someone unless you are responsible
for their tasking. You can assign a bug to yourself, or someone who
works for you, or a team or person in a team that you lead in Ubuntu.
But assigning a bug to someone who is NOT in that list is a bit like me
sending you an invoice for the time it has taken to write this email ;-)

Mark

the choice there is a design decision, it's worth noting though that the order should apply only to light themes, it doesn't now but the issue will be fixed for lucid, the title not being centered is also a different issue than the order and has a different bug.

That's nice to learn issue will be fixed before release and have been understood at highest Ubuntu level.

Regards

>> or will it be Ubuntu specific?
>>
>
>Depends on whether it is more broadly adoped.

But that's exactly the problem, Mark. What I thought makes difference in Ubuntu is its openness. Instead you are just trying to go the same path as the other guys with "we know what's better for you, ignorant user". It would have been really good if you told the public the reason for the change in the button position. It would have been a much nicer way to do it, if you cared to explain what's on your mind. Overall, it seems that very little thought goes into what would users experience. Thought, your goal was to treat users like human beings.

:-(

P.S. I still think very highly about your Ubuntu in general and appreciate you being such a thorn in the back of Apple and Microsoft. But please don't begin to follow their marketing strategies, because that's what human beings actually hate.
This is my last post here, farewell.

Why are you prying for info? If you are interested in what is going on with the right side of the window, then join the group Mark mentioned.

It has been made very, very, very easy to select a different theme with the buttons on the right. I did a clean install of Lucid and all of my downloaded right-handed button themes work flawlessly and the buttons are on the right as they were designed. Though I feel the buttons belong on the left now.

I have two systems side by side, both with buttons on opposing sides. I am not slowed down when I go from one to the other while working and yes I am constantly using both systems at the same time.

On 5/1/2010 11:58 PM, running_rabbit07 wrote:
> It has been made very, very, very easy to select a different theme with
> the buttons on the right.

My student users appear quite impressed with 10.04 LTS on the machines
where it is installed. So far, very few have changed the default
background. Regarding the button locations, many quickly switched to
the "New Wave" which matches the color scheme quite nicely and has the
buttons on the right. As for who prefers the buttons on the right
versus the left, there is no surprise here. The Mac users think the
left side buttons are just wonderful, and many of the rest quickly
switched to a right-handed theme.

 From here this looks like it is going to be one of the best if not the
best Ubuntu release so far; most definitely, it's the fastest.

Mark Appier

Avetik Topchyan wrote:
>IMHO, that has to be configured through GUI, like other settings, and not a through a terminal command. Why make life harder >than it should be?..

"Ubuntu Tweak" can be found, quickly, in the Software-Center. Life can be so easy ... ;-)

On Sun, 2010-05-02 at 12:19 +0000, scholli wrote:
> Avetik Topchyan wrote:
> >IMHO, that has to be configured through GUI, like other settings, and not a through a terminal command. Why make life harder >than it should be?..
>
> "Ubuntu Tweak" can be found, quickly, in the Software-Center. Life can
> be so easy ... ;-)
>

I don't think it is in the main repos, one needs to add the ppa:

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/tualatrix/ppa/ubuntu lucid main

While I have a lot of respect for the design team, I strongly believe that default settings in general should do whatever users are most likely to expect -- especially new users. By default, window controls should be on the right, with an easy-to-find method available for moving them to the left.

I think it is important to consider not that I an others have gone back to Karmic Ubuntu, or that we left initially due to the User Interface issues pertaining to Lucid's (MacBuntu) feel, but rather the bigger picture. The loss of trust in Canonical's ability to maintain stability over time.

As a long time Ubuntu fan, it is a heartbreak to find myself running away from 'MacBuntu" and once again due to stability issues. While adding options to software is fine. Forcing them upon users will only serve to reduce membership.

Rather then deal with Mark's mistakes directly, and I think I speak for many, I can only say one thing.

                                     ( DEBIAN ! )

After trying Debian I became convinced that it was far better for me. I first ran Debian from a Virtual box. Its like Ubuntu and in fact Ubuntu has its roots there. One difference is Mark is not there, and the buttons are where they should always be.

MacBuntu is not for me, and I know that others might also be reading these posts. I saw many thngs wrong with Ubuntu 10.04. Speed problems and GUI button placement. Ubuntu was a nice ride while it lasted, and for that I am greatful. After running Debian for the first time I was sold in almost no time flat.

They pride themselves on stability and SPEED ! I say this to all Ubuntu fans like myself. If you don't like Mark's button ideas give Debian a test run. Perhaps like I did. In a VirtualBox. Impressive ! Let Ubuntu learn the Microsoft lesson. Seems like many companies seem to need to learn from mistakes these days. Switching the buttons is a big mistake. It got me looking in other directions, and while I have run Red Hat, and Suse, I never tried Debian. Until my buttons changed to the left that is.

If Ubuntu goes to the left and you don't like it try Debian. You will be impressed and I am no longer looking back.

So long Ubuntu ! If at first you don't succeed try try again....

8-P

On Fri, Jul 23, 2010 at 13:23, Ubuntu-Me <email address hidden> wrote:
> Rather then deal with Mark's mistakes directly, and I think I speak for
> many,  I can only say one thing.
>                                     (    DEBIAN !    )
My problem with debian the last time I tried it is that I need to do
much more things by hand and they have very old versions of some
programs in their repositories only. - But maybe you are using the
"testing" version and not the "stable".

I tried several other distributions also but had issues with Fedora
also for example. I like(d) Ubuntu for making most things work
out-of-the-box or with just a few clicks. I can't frickle around at
each new user with Hardware xy.

Unfortunately, even with the mobile internet sticks which were used to
work out-of-the-box for me I got more and more troubles lately.
However, I could help them being solved in Lucid during beta - but
this is off-topic here.

The point for me is: It is not so easy to find the right distribution
- either had a hardware lately that only works with Suse (no other
distri tested worked) although I avoid Suse where I can.

In reality there should be more and better cooperation in the Linux
world between distributions. With actions like this - and now we get
back to the topic finally - the Ubuntu team is causing separation and
not uniting forces which would be so important for the whole Linux
community.
--
Martin Wildam

On 23/07/10 13:18, Martin Wildam wrote:
> In reality there should be more and better cooperation in the Linux
> world between distributions. With actions like this - and now we get
> back to the topic finally - the Ubuntu team is causing separation and
> not uniting forces which would be so important for the whole Linux
> community.

I'd like to hear your justification for that statement. We've:

 - built a bug tracker that explicitly lets us share bugs and fixes with
other distributions and upstreams (and is still the only open source
comprehensive hosting platform)
 - consistently invited people from other distributions (debian, red
hat, suse) to our conference, even sponsoring them
 - supported multiple efforts to converge on open standards across
desktop environments and distributions

You're entitled to your opinions, but simply repeating something you
heard (potentially from a competitor) is a poor way to form or shape
opinions.

Mark

I can't say that I initially liked the buttons on the left... and it irritated me that I couldn't move them back, however thanks to this thread I know how to move them, and knowing that I can... I haven't... I think that's a worthwhile lesson TBH, force a change and it will upset people, but if they have the option to change it back, 99% of people won't.

At the moment, it does look a bit illogical... but as I understand it, the remaining section of the title bar will be used for "something else"... so probably the jury is still out on if the eventual outcome will be good... I'm betting it will be.

As for the previous poster suggesting that this is the reason to move to another distribution... IMO, that's ridiculous... Ubuntu has clearly made huge strides in the last few releases and 10.04 is no different... if you don't like the window controls on the left, move them back to the right and chill!

IMO, we should spend more time worrying about getting BTRFS in, and personally I'd like to see a GUI to manage LUKS encrypted volumes & files... so we can steer people away from truecrypt, rather than spending so much effort debating such a simple change as if some buttons are on the left or the right.

On Fri, Jul 23, 2010 at 15:09, Mark Shuttleworth
<email address hidden> wrote:
> On 23/07/10 13:18, Martin Wildam wrote:
>> the Ubuntu team is causing separation and
>> not uniting forces which would be so important for the whole Linux
>> community.
> I'd like to hear your justification for that statement. We've:
>  - built a bug tracker that explicitly lets us share bugs and fixes with
> other distributions and upstreams (and is still the only open source
> comprehensive hosting platform)
>  - consistently invited people from other distributions (debian, red
> hat, suse) to our conference, even sponsoring them
>  - supported multiple efforts to converge on open standards across
> desktop environments and distributions

Don't get me wrong please! - I was really not talking about the
infrastructure and about your community activities! The whole
launchpad is awesome very effective KISS software - Participating in
the Ubuntu community is a lot more pleasureful for me than e.g. in
Fedora/redhat world (at least my experience).

I was talking about decisions like the positioning of the buttons.
This and some other decisions have been taken without coordinating
with the community. I read a lot of Linux related blogs and listen to
a lot of Linux related podcasts. The vast majority of people is
definitely agains decisions like this - changing window control
buttons. I do consider myself as a GTD focus person and mouse miles
driven vastly increased (not just because I was first moving right and
then left only after discovering that the buttons are not there any
more. ;-) )

> You're entitled to your opinions, but simply repeating something you
> heard (potentially from a competitor) is a poor way to form or shape
> opinions.

Again, I was not talking about the general interaction with the
community or the service in general!

I was talking about a few design decisions that have been taken
without really considering the opinion of the community. And I am not
just repeating what I have heard or read elsewhere - it is my very own
experience that I only get confirmed when readin/listening on the web.
I am trying hard to spread the word for Ubuntu and my testing and
intallations done for friends, I do in the nights when family sleeps
and all other work is done. I face a lot of potential new end users
and I am working in IT business for about 20 years (mostly as software
developer), so I think I have some experience regarding usability.

And it is not, that I am not flexible: If you can give me something on
the free space at the Window border that I find awesome useful, I am
willing to adapt. That said, I am quite sure that the new feature
could also perfectly go to the left so the minimize, maximize and
close buttons could remain where they have ever been. And: Why not
waiting with that change until the new feature is availble?

With the current situation I do face either different themes design
broken because they got hit in the cold with the change in 10.04 - oh
and as we are talking about 10.04: It is definitely the worst idea
introducing such experiments with an LTS - I am far from being alone
with this opinion!

But let me come to a very positive...

On Fri, Jul 23, 2010 at 15:36, James Lewis <email address hidden> wrote:
> As for the previous poster suggesting that this is the reason to move to
> another distribution... IMO, that's ridiculous... Ubuntu has clearly
> made huge strides in the last few releases and 10.04 is no different...

I do also tend to think that a few bad decisions (that mostly can be
fixed by configuration) are not enough reason to change distribution.
- Not, when the other distributions do worse (which I tend to think
focusing on my personal needs).

> if you don't like the window controls on the left, move them back to the
> right and chill!

So far, I always changed theme to one that has the buttons on the
right as I don't yet remember how to move them to the left by heart.

> IMO, we should spend more time worrying about getting BTRFS in, and
> personally I'd like to see a GUI to manage LUKS encrypted volumes &
> files... so we can steer people away from truecrypt, rather than
> spending so much effort debating such a simple change as if some buttons
> are on the left or the right.

As far as I have read (not my own experience), BTRFS is still
considered unstable and I have seen a few benchmark results where
BTRFS was faster only in a few of the use cases. From what I have
interpreted, Ext4 could be still the best choice for allround-use, but
I am not into details - there might be pretty good reasons for pushing
BTRFS - however, this is off-topic here.
--
Martin Wildam

The difference between Debian and Ubuntu is that Ubuntu makes all the choices for you, so that you don't have to think about them.

The choices made are made by people that know more about the system than most of us do, so they are very likely are very good choices. However, you might dislike some of the choices - they could be suboptimal to you or your environment. In such cases you can go under the bonnet and change stuff yourself. But still - not having to think about all the other possible choices saves your time for more important and interesting things.

If you find that a lot of Ubuntu choices do not look right for you, then Ubuntu might not be optimised for you or your environment and you would find more power and configuration in Debian, but frankly Ubuntu does have all the same knobs as Debian, they are just not as exposed to the unaware users.

On Fri, 2010-07-23 at 13:36 +0000, James Lewis wrote:
> As for the previous poster suggesting that this is the reason to move
> to
> another distribution... IMO, that's ridiculous... Ubuntu has clearly
> made huge strides in the last few releases and 10.04 is no
> different...
> if you don't like the window controls on the left, move them back to
> the
> right and chill!

I could not agree more...I use lots of different linux distros...more
all the time with the advent of Virtualization... but Ubuntu is by far
the easiest to get setup and configured. Combined with the support
options and the general polish that Ubuntu brings to the table...I
wouldn't want to change unless there was some major instability or speed
issue...and that's certainly not the case with 10.04.

 Personally, I hate the buttons on the left...its a major usability
issue for me on a desktop system...but it took all of 45 seconds to
rectify...including the google search!

Besides, the wonderful thing about linux systems is that they are so
customizable...I have to change dozens of things to suit my
preferences...regardless of the distro (I prefer vlc to totem, gvim to
gedit, I need to install dev tools... and who keeps the default
wallpaper? The list goes on and on...)

In my mind, it doesn't make much difference if the buttons are on the
left...move them to the right.

If there is a complaint to be made, it is that Gnome doesn't provide
good enough GUI tools for customizing and/or creating themes...but
that's case no matter what distro you are using.

Anyway, just my two cents.

--
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Jason Remley
International Man of Mystery
<email address hidden>

The Right's view of government and the Left's view of big business are
both correct. --Robert Anton Wilson
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Hi,

is there a way for an admin to change the buttons back to the right (for all users of a system)? The suggested workaround only works for my own account. If so, can you add it to the description, please?

Thanks in advance,
   Stefan.

It's funny how Ubuntu got big by laying emphasis on the community and now you are doing things like this one here.

The movement of the window buttons is just one of many reasons I'm currently wiping out all Ubuntus and replacing them with Debian Squeeze (which is, even if it is testing, much more stable, does regard the GNOME standard, doesn't have ads, IS a democracy, plus the devs don't customize the UI to death).

On a laptop of a friend where Jaunty was installed she was prompted to upgrade to Lucid. I was surprised to hear that. A dist upgrade can break the system: why are you prompting users to do it??? Anyway... she clicked through, the upgrade was rolling. Sure enough afterward the system was broken and I had to fix it up. Lucid had multiple annoying bugs on that laptop too. I took the /home partition over to Squeeze. Went really smooth. One Ubuntu less.

I also don't recommend Ubuntu to other people anymore. I try to hook them up with Debian for their own good as I can somewhat foresee that this is just the beginning of more unpleasant decisions.

Goodbye Ubuntu.

For months ago I was commenting here, predicting all the awful things that would happen after upgrading computers in our organization to 10.04, and confronting people with left side buttons layout (look at my comment #526: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/light-themes/+bug/532633/comments/526). And you know what? I was completely wrong.

Nothing really significant happened. I got on or two people from administration saying that they "can't close a window, because the button disappeared". After I showed them the button on the left side it was the last time I heard about the issue. This also happened when I was already looking over their shoulder, so there is a good chance they would otherwise figure this out on their own.

I also got one person commenting Ubuntu is coping Apple. But the main effect of the whole redesign is that for the first people noticed a new version of Ubuntu. We are using Ubuntu since version 6.06, upgrading computers every six months. For the first time I had people coming to me asking about the new version and it's features.

Nothing terrible happend. I think it wasn't that important.

> much more stable, does regard the GNOME standard, doesn't have ads, IS a democracy, plus the devs don't customize the UI to death).
where is ad in ubuntu?

> On a laptop of a friend where Jaunty was installed she was prompted to upgrade to Lucid. I was surprised to hear that. A dist upgrade can break the system: why are you prompting users to do it
i think it depends all on the system configuration. The dev teams are doing their best to enable you to upgrade the distribution.
Don't take it for granted that somebody invests work to enable you a upgrade from an older version.

> I also don't recommend Ubuntu to other people anymore. I try to hook them up with Debian for their own good as I can somewhat foresee that this is just the beginning of more unpleasant decisions.
Despite the windows border issue i'm quit happy with lucid. You get LTS (longer than debian i think) and you get cutting edge software version. Also i think the community in ubuntu is much more "beginner friendly" than the debian community.

Ok, I was in the first two or five rounds of this discussion and I
have to say that at this point any further discussion is moot.

The real bug was that Mark and others did not consider the possibility
at people would hate the changed in the UI. And by hate, I mean,
running screaming in the street effigy burning, storm the Bastille,
throw the tea in the harbor, *HATE* the UI. I'm pretty sure they
expected some people to dislike it, but not hate it.

When they realized they had a real problem they fixed it. All you have
to do it to go to appearance in the preferences menu and select the
old human theme and you get all the goodness of 10.4 with a nice
livable theme. They didn't do that at first, no, they gave us set of
instructions that required you to start a command line program and
directly edit a control string. Getting the string wrong could mean
losing the buttons on your windows. It was a pain but it worked. Now,
you just have to click through a couple of menus and click on the old
theme and you are done. What they finally did is what they should have
done in the first case, they put in their new ideas for a theme and
made it easy for people like you and I to keep our old theme. It would
have been nice if they made that an option at installation time, but
they really do want to make Ubuntu look that way.

Now, let me make a comment to all the folks who left Ubuntu and are
not coming back and all the people who are threatening to leave if
this doesn't get fixed.

                                          Nobody at Ubuntu gives a
*SHIT* what you do.

Mark is a very smart person. He wants to make Ubuntu into a true
commpetitor with Windows. He wants to make a few billion dollars doing
it. He has already vacationed on the IIS, maybe he want to build his
own orbital resort. It would be a perfectly logical next thing if he
had the money, who knows. Maybe he just likes being the rich. I know I
like having more money than I need. A fat wallet feels a lot like...
*FREEDOM*.

So why doesn't he care if you leave? Well, are you a customer of his?
If customers leave in large numbers then a company has something to
worry about. But, if you are not a customer then why would the company
care about anything you do? Mark is trying to monetize Ubuntu. To do
that he has given it a look that appeals to a demographic who spend a
shit load of money buying digital goods. Marks last big money maker
was another company that sold a digital good. Those kinds of companies
can make a butt load of money. That demographic also is very
influenced by how "cool" something looks. (BTW, "cool" is pronounced
something like "Khol" where you kind of swallow the "kwo" sound.
Pronouncing it correctly is very important.) So now Ubuntu looks right
to that demographic. He has added the ability to purchase music and to
use all your existing mp3s with Ubuntu. (Did you notice the codexs
included in 10.4?) And, he has provided a way to store your digital
goods online, UbuntuOne is pretty nice and I expect it will become
*awsome* and the music store hidden away in RhythmBox is all most to
good to be true. Even though I am almost 60 I decided to move to 10.4
despite because of those two ...

@ willdye, and others

"I strongly believe that default settings in general should do whatever users are most likely to expect -- especially new users"

I remember that the main problem about the layout was "The new users will complain and dislike the left side buttons". There are hundreds of new launchpad members every day seeking a solution to their problems on "Ask A Question", so please, the math is simple, ask the moderators of launchpad to find all the issues associated with Left Layout and once we analyze it, it's worth to continue the discussion here.

Pako wrote:
> @ willdye, and others
>
> "I strongly believe that default settings in general should do whatever
> users are most likely to expect -- especially new users"
>
> I remember that the main problem about the layout was "The new users
> will complain and dislike the left side buttons". There are hundreds of
> new launchpad members every day seeking a solution to their problems on
> "Ask A Question", so please, the math is simple, ask the moderators of
> launchpad to find all the issues associated with Left Layout and once we
> analyze it, it's worth to continue the discussion here.
>
>
My biggest complaint is moving between 10.4 and other releases. I have
to do a mental shift and that means a distraction, which means lost
work. It's not that I don't like it, I just think the default should be
status quo, and let the user decide later.

...Ken

I see no reason to at least make the button placement configurable in the UI.

As it stands, since it's only configurable via a hidden gconf setting, people turn to applications like Ubuntu Tweak, with known security issues, to change it. It would be nice to have a separate UI to specifically configure Ayatana's additions to GNOME.

^^^ I'd say that is very reasonable. Considering that I unfortunately work back and forth between windows and ubuntu, having the buttons on the other side throws my muscle memory out of whack making me less productive.

@ Maia and @ Tory , I believe there is a way from the "Appearance" preferences dialog to move the buttons to the right, without having to mess around with gconf or UbuntuTweak for that matter.

Once you are in the "Theme" tab, choose the Clearlooks theme. This will move the buttons to the right since Clearlooks is unchaged from the original Clearlooks theme.

Then goto "Customize" and select the Ambiance/Radiance controls and the rest of the settings as you wish.
This way I believe the window buttons continue to stay to the right !

P.S. @ Maia If the above procedure does indeed work, maybe you could mention it on your blog, where a few people have mentioned the necessity of using Ubuntu Tweak just for this purpose.

@Nandan: that's a lot of explaination for something which could easily be integrated into the Appearance preferences. Also, most users will never discover that on their own.

Here is an easy way (though also not easy for users to find this - if only it was included by default into Ubuntu...): install MWbuttons [1], then go to Applications > Accessories > Metacity Window Buttons and you can directly select a layout for your buttons - nothing more, nothing less.

[1] https://launchpad.net/~pabluk/+archive/ppa/+files/mwbuttons_0.2.4-0ubuntu1~ppa2_all.deb

The issue here is that most people in the world are right handed. For right handed people, it is much more convenient to move mouse to top right or bottom left. Thus this is where windows controls should be.

I personally feel that the move to shift the button to left was just "APE"ing the mac.

Also I suggest have a default installed interface to switch the position of the controllers rather than having people to use gconf / dconf editor.

You are way late to the party here mate. :) With the Unity up and running this change makes perfect sense. The close button is in the top left corner of the screen and is very accessible. I was a skeptic, but now I am converted.

Minor quible: it is not in the very corner but a few pixels off, but I guess to prevent people closing windows by accidentally brushing the mouse.

Just forget it. Ubuntu Design want it this way so it's the greatest
thing ever. Maybe they'll change their minds later and return it to the
right, THEN that would be it's the greatest thing ever.

--
http://www.fastmail.fm - Send your email first class

@ Bhaavan Merchant (bhaavanmerchant)
on ""APE"ing the mac."

Yes, and the launcher on the right is copied from Next OS back in 80's and Apple's design is borrowed from the Braun's electronic devices made in 60's + the system is based (copied) on Unix and Otto motor + 90% of the things you are enjoy today are invented by Germans so that now can be used (copied) by Japanese and others, so your statement about someone copied some others design, is superficial.

Sorry, I didnt want to sound accusatory or anything. But for me, the reason I switched to linux was the ability to customize it for me. This Unity is taking more and more of it away from me. From this 11.10 release of Ubuntu, to get my controls on my right, ill need to change theme. For this, ill need to use a gnome-tweak-tool, which will install gnome3 shell as dependency. So to get my unity correct, ill need to go install gnome-shell which was the main thing unity wished to avoid.

My preferred solution would be have a drop down asking user to choose between right and left controls where theme is being selected.
Alternatively, something like a config file in /etc where i just change the value to right.
The hierarchy in dconf gconf is too complicated and not user-intuitive.

Also in favor of right sided controls, I still maintain:

1) It is easier for right handed people.
2) Most people come from a Windows background. This I say from the fact that 90% of OS share is windows. They are used to a convention of right sided windows control. Ubuntu is perceived as a distro to which makes linux transition easy. Thus, right handed controls will only help making Unity more usable.

Again, you may feel that my generalization i wrong or not apt. But I personally have come from a certain background and I find a certain convention favorable and easy. Unity should not force its choices on me without leaving an option to revert back.

On Sun, Nov 27, 2011 at 7:25 PM, Bhaavan Merchant
<email address hidden> wrote:
> Sorry, I didnt want to sound accusatory or anything. But for me, the
> reason I switched to linux was the ability to customize it for me. This
> Unity is taking more and more of it away from me.

That's a non sequitur. Linux is still as customizable as ever, there's
just one particular program on Linux that you wish to customize that
isn't very customizable: Unity. No matter how elegant and simple they
make Unity, you'll always be able to swap it out for something with a
lot more knobs to tweak. It is impossible for Unity to subtract from
the customizability of Linux.

From android to mac osx, GNOME-shell... not a single one can be customized, so why do you guys think that Ubuntu should be everything for everybody?

/mode #launchpad-ex-bug-tracker +b pablo!<email address hidden>

/me has unsubscribed

Spock do something, there is an intruder here!

On 28 November 2011 09:12, Pako <email address hidden> wrote:

> Spock do something, there is an intruder here!
>
>
Spock! The computer! Destroy it!

To all right buttons advocates

Lets say tomorrow Ubuntu officials decide to turn back the buttons to the right and after tomorrow you realize that Fedora fits better to you, or just reinstall all of your computers with Windows because your girlfriend said so and you'll do that with such an easy because you've never pay for Linux, leave Ubuntu and never back again. So, do you think it's fair especially for developers to meet your daily needs and wishes because of this?
You know what? I appreciate Clement Lefebvre has done with Linux Mint or Mark with Ubuntu, he does not PULE for better customization, he build his own OS.

Right is better? Is better my a**!! Prove it scientifically and I'll unsubscribe the same minute.

@Pako : you can't "prove" an opinion, which is what left vs right is.

@bhaavanmerchant : You should be able to change theme from the appearance menu - no need for anything else. I typically install "Shiki-Color" from the repo, then switch to that. The buttons will instantly be back to normal.

@Everyone, this bug is now closed. Mark has left the discussion (he's not notified directly of these comments any more), the bug status is "won't fix" and the default positioning is staying on the left. You can still, so far, simply change them back to the right again.

This bug report is now (always was, in hindsight) just noise and I'm un-subscribing from it too.

I have no pain in my wrist anymore from constantly left-right moving the cursor and 30miles left-right mouse path a year, now is shorten to 2 miles. With a launcher on the left and apps and folders search on the fly, I do my job in 2 seconds. This is proven fact.

Button spacing of light theme too small.

The Close Minimize Maximize buttons are too close to each other. Aiming for one and not miss click on another is difficult. The button spacing on MacOS feels better. Also it may looks better too.