Author Archive

The HUD replaces traditional menus in applications targeting Unity. Say what you mean, instead of navigating through a tree of options. Initially the HUD is shaped as a fast and smart look-ahead search through menus, but over the next four releases, it will gain more sophisticated kinds of interaction.

Threads are coalescing around the concept of an Ubuntu TV experience, driven by Unity.

Feature freeze for 11.10 brings the likely look and feel of Unity for this release into focus. We’ve moved from Dash Places to Scopes and Lenses, introduced more sophisticated filtering and cleaned up some visual elements.

Natty will feature a world first – overlay scrollbars in desktop applications. The goal is to put content first and banish chrome, while still paying attention to the needs of the desktop environment – mouse pointers. These were designed and developed by Canonical as part of the Ayatana initiative, improving both focus and awareness for users of Ubuntu and other free desktops that adopt these technologies.

The Ubuntu font represents the values of Ubuntu and Canonical, distilled into a typeface that is highly legible on screen, clean and balanced in print, professionally designed yet imbued with the wisdom of the whole Ubuntu community. I hope it’s a benchmark for more libre font work, and a catalyst for improvements in the tools of typography.

Here’s a way to show off your movie-making creative skills AND promote whatever you think the coolest things in 10.10 are: make a Maverick Movie!

Gestures are a powerful interaction language that will be as relevant for desktops as it is on phones and tablets. Ubuntu 10.10 has a gesture framework that allows for gesture chaining or composition into rich “gesture sentences”. You can use multi-touch gestures for window management with Unity in 10.10 Netbook Edition or on your desktop by installing Unity directly.

Showing a few mockups of track data overlayed on album art in the new sound menu in Maverick Meerkat, 10.10.

“Windicators” are window indicators, on the right of the title bar, which follow the same pattern as the Ayatana indicators that Ubuntu uses on in the panel.

The Ubuntu 10.10 Netbook Edition will use a single consolidated menu, displayed in the panel, rather than individual menus in each application window.