Frozen in time (c) Alyssa Nicole via Flickr
This week we caught a chill in the form of our UI Freeze. That meant that from here on we should only be fixing bugs in the next release of Ubuntu.
A highlight of the design contributions this week was the wonderful user contributed wallpapers!
17 images were added as the new user contributed wallpapers for this release. This isn’t all the images that were shortlisted but the ones we had larger sizes of and felt would make your desktop really shine! We hope you like them. You can review all shortlisted entries in the Flickr group and if none are to your taste then why not take a look in the Ubuntu artwork pool for even more possibilities and share your favorites in the comments.
We have also landed our updates to Ambiance and Radiance in the dailies and those brave enough to be running Maverick will already be enjoying the benefits of Andrea and Otto’s hard work. You can read more in Andrea’s guest post on the matter.
In other team news we received an update to the Ubuntu fonts this week which are unfortunately not quite ready to be given out on general release. However, we’re close and in the meantime if you are interested or need access to the Ubuntu font family then you can make your case over in this Launchpad group.
If successful in your application you’ll get access to the PPA and all the goodies therein for capturing screenshots or making sure your launch materials are all decked out.
And finally this week in research we also prepared to send Charline on a bit of a tour of Asia as she prepares to user test in China and then head to the Epic conference in Japan to discuss the work we’ve been doing in research. We used the work of UX advocate Jan-Christoph Borchardt and his clever Python application called Pongo to make a mobile user testing rig. Pongo uses Istanbul (see the ubuntu software centre) to record the desktop but also overlays input from a webcam so we can see what people are doing on screen as well as in front of the computer. It also records audio for review later. We’ll report back with how we got on and our findings when she’s back in late September.
And that’s it for this week! Have a great weekend. The design team in London get an extra day of weekend this week thanks to Monday’s bank holiday so we’ll all be back bright eyed and bushy tailed on Tuesday 31st.
Toodleoo!
Hello Iain,
Great selection for this release! I’m the photographer of the Blue Building photo and I sent you a message on flickr about the “blue dot” in the sky. I was wondering if it would be possible to fix it because I know it’s going to be an easy fix and a nagging issue for those that might want to use it on release.
Thank you,
Edward
I saw this post on the planet and I thought, maybe I should say this here. whenever i create and html document (example index.html) the icon looks like regular .txt file and when i double click the file it opens in gedit instead of firefox. Does anyone else see that?
Is it just me, or does the multi-image wallpaper with the picture of Earth from space look a bit out of place? Specifically, the 1-pixel black outlines indicating multiple images look like something drawn in 199x.
And not to forget Andreas Nilsson, who gave me a massive head start on Pongo. :)
@Edward: I can’t see any good reason why not to update the wallpaper. Fix it if you are any good with photo editing, and send us the updated wallpaper (best way is to open a new bugreport in launchpad https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ubuntu-wallpapers/+filebug and attach the new wallpaper)
Is that purple wallpaper the new default wallpaper?
@ Andrea: Done and done. Thank you!
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ubuntu-wallpapers/+bug/625890
Nice collection! And I’m not just saying that because you chose my water-drops picture. All of the photos are fantastic.
Default wallpaper is so ugly….. Please fix ASAP
Is there any specific way we’re supposed to “make our case” to be accepted into the font testing group? A good 45+ people have requested to the join the group since this blog post, and the group member count has gone from 7 to a whopping 9. It seems kind of silly.
bif, everyone can test Ubuntu Beta Font. Join https://launchpad.net/~kubuntu-users and get your private PPA :)
The photo selection for Maverick is the best of all time, congratulations ! But i have to make a point. PLEASE, change the default wallpaper, it doesn’t look good.
Hello dear Canonical Design team, i am professional UI designer, graphic designer, and musician, i like where you going with Ubuntu…, but you need to go faster ! I must say that you make some big mistakes (new 10.10 Ubuntu wallpaper, you tell us that in this release we will have new controls on the right side of window borders,…) i wish you all best, and i think that in next release you must make a perfect UI !!!!! in this too … this should be “THE PERFECT 10” … but is not… keep the good work ;)
Thanks Extender. It’s weird to join the kubuntu-users group to test the font, since I don’t use Kubuntu and have no interest in it. But I did it anyway and am now using the font. The ubuntu-typeface-interest group is still at a standstill with nobody being accepted.