Looks good! Just hope it will be speedy enough for use once it is pushed out. One of the reasons I preferred GNOME Shell to Unity before the latter released version 5.0 was that pre-5.0 Unity had major performance issues on my hardware.
Replacing the old menu entirely sounds a bit “too much”, especially if you consider users coming from other operating systems. :) But for the rest, I agree that it looks good.
Savannah
Wow. That is like the least efficient thing I’ve ever heard of. Basically, you stuck every function of my program into a jumbled box and are making me type every time I want to do something, regardless of how familiar I am with the program. How do you expect tablet users to use this? Why would a search function be so much cooler than items organized into, say, menus? What if I want to browse the functions? Can you really assume that I have every item memorize, and that I always know exactly what I want to do before I’ve looked at my options? Can you assume that it’s reasonable to expect your users to type constantly? That’s a step WAY further back than a 1984 Mac. I might as well be a mathematician in the 1970s. “Sure, let’s just hand our users a terminal and pretend that’s futuristic.”
Alf
Maybe you should not remove the app menu completely, just hide it and show this option instead.
I think menu is still useful, even more when someone starts using new software and many times don’t know the capabilities of it. For example, when people start using GIMP many times they needed to explore the options, because it was different to the commercial (and most popular) competitor.
Mandy
Please, please, please have this supplement rather than replace the existing menu system. I find it very helpful to know which categories and subcategories exist, which is one of the features of the current menu implementation. I’m very excited about the HUD, but I do think it’s important to give users a choice — between using only HUD, only the current menu system, and both.
Realist
This post is why design.canonical.com is considered by the majority to be an oxymoron.
Kholerabbi
Something like this came up on the #gnome-do channel a few years back:
a do-like application-menu-thing would be handy
Which is a pleasure
what do you mean?
kholerabbi: something that lets you navigate app-menus by keyboard
since not everything has proper keybindings
zash_: that’s actually kind of interesting…
and navigating gigantic menu trees with touchpad is a pain
you can already use the keyboard (arrow kets etc.)
kholerabbi: yes, but arrows and alt+underlined char only does so much
agreed
label-matching ala gnome-do would be faster
so you’d press a shortcut (super+menu) then type ‘about’ or ‘new’…
precisly
You should mock it up. If it’s really a good idea it will catch on. Consider large menus like the gimp and inkscape in your designs
ok
I need sleep, but think on it and maybe talk to the global menu people
* zash_ needs moar coffee!
Any plans to expand HUD so it can supply commands to the application with current focus?
At present: In Firefox I press Alt and type Edit Find into the HUD overlay and HUD highlights the Firefox Find command. I click that, and the Find box opens up at the bottom of the page. HUD overlay disappears. Firefox page has focus, but text cursor not in the Find box. More fine mouse movements clicking in small targets…
What I imagine: In Firefox, I press Alt, type Edit Find into the HUD overlay. HUD finds the Firefox Edit Find command. I select that. A region opens in the HUD overlay. I type my search phrase in and press enter. HUD overlay disappears and Firefox has run the Find command and is waiting for Next…
Sort of like Quicksilver for application menus. HUD can provide large targets and invoke on screen keyboard and pipe commands to applications. You can use any application in the repository on a tablet.
The point of it is that it would understand your intent, searching for synonyms and not just exact words. It is entirely optional, and it will probably not be enabled on any future Ubuntu tablet edition. It IS reasonable for a laptop/desktop user to type constantly, since it is much more efficient for users to use the keyboards buttons instead of moving the mouse to the required position before they can click. BTW, terminals ARE the future ;)
Looks good! Just hope it will be speedy enough for use once it is pushed out. One of the reasons I preferred GNOME Shell to Unity before the latter released version 5.0 was that pre-5.0 Unity had major performance issues on my hardware.
Replacing the old menu entirely sounds a bit “too much”, especially if you consider users coming from other operating systems. :) But for the rest, I agree that it looks good.
Wow. That is like the least efficient thing I’ve ever heard of. Basically, you stuck every function of my program into a jumbled box and are making me type every time I want to do something, regardless of how familiar I am with the program. How do you expect tablet users to use this? Why would a search function be so much cooler than items organized into, say, menus? What if I want to browse the functions? Can you really assume that I have every item memorize, and that I always know exactly what I want to do before I’ve looked at my options? Can you assume that it’s reasonable to expect your users to type constantly? That’s a step WAY further back than a 1984 Mac. I might as well be a mathematician in the 1970s. “Sure, let’s just hand our users a terminal and pretend that’s futuristic.”
Maybe you should not remove the app menu completely, just hide it and show this option instead.
I think menu is still useful, even more when someone starts using new software and many times don’t know the capabilities of it. For example, when people start using GIMP many times they needed to explore the options, because it was different to the commercial (and most popular) competitor.
Please, please, please have this supplement rather than replace the existing menu system. I find it very helpful to know which categories and subcategories exist, which is one of the features of the current menu implementation. I’m very excited about the HUD, but I do think it’s important to give users a choice — between using only HUD, only the current menu system, and both.
This post is why design.canonical.com is considered by the majority to be an oxymoron.
Something like this came up on the #gnome-do channel a few years back:
a do-like application-menu-thing would be handy
Which is a pleasure
what do you mean?
kholerabbi: something that lets you navigate app-menus by keyboard
since not everything has proper keybindings
zash_: that’s actually kind of interesting…
and navigating gigantic menu trees with touchpad is a pain
you can already use the keyboard (arrow kets etc.)
kholerabbi: yes, but arrows and alt+underlined char only does so much
agreed
label-matching ala gnome-do would be faster
so you’d press a shortcut (super+menu) then type ‘about’ or ‘new’…
precisly
You should mock it up. If it’s really a good idea it will catch on. Consider large menus like the gimp and inkscape in your designs
ok
I need sleep, but think on it and maybe talk to the global menu people
* zash_ needs moar coffee!
Woops, that didn’t paste properly :/
I like the concept so far. I hope that the HUD can be used properly in netbooks. I would not use the HUD every day, though ;)
Any plans to expand HUD so it can supply commands to the application with current focus?
At present: In Firefox I press Alt and type Edit Find into the HUD overlay and HUD highlights the Firefox Find command. I click that, and the Find box opens up at the bottom of the page. HUD overlay disappears. Firefox page has focus, but text cursor not in the Find box. More fine mouse movements clicking in small targets…
What I imagine: In Firefox, I press Alt, type Edit Find into the HUD overlay. HUD finds the Firefox Edit Find command. I select that. A region opens in the HUD overlay. I type my search phrase in and press enter. HUD overlay disappears and Firefox has run the Find command and is waiting for Next…
Sort of like Quicksilver for application menus. HUD can provide large targets and invoke on screen keyboard and pipe commands to applications. You can use any application in the repository on a tablet.
Am I dreaming?
Do you think HUD can be used with this? http://yonosoyungeek.blogspot.com/2012/02/redisenando-un-so-simplificando-las.html
The point of it is that it would understand your intent, searching for synonyms and not just exact words. It is entirely optional, and it will probably not be enabled on any future Ubuntu tablet edition. It IS reasonable for a laptop/desktop user to type constantly, since it is much more efficient for users to use the keyboards buttons instead of moving the mouse to the required position before they can click. BTW, terminals ARE the future ;)
can i still use normal menus? please?