Unity

Bug #683084
Comment #2

Comment 2 for bug 683084

Revision history for this message

Philip Peitsch (philip-peitsch) wrote on 2010-12-07:

Hi,

I just upgraded to Natty and spent an evening playing around with the new unity launcher + global menu setup on a few different screen sizes. Short answer is 15" & 17" things are great, 22" single it starts to feel uncomfortable, 22" Dual things are really uncomfortable. My suggestion is that the global menu only kicks into play when the window is maximized, or potentially only when it is within a certain distance of the top panel (I have *no* idea of how feasible that is, so that might be asking for a gold-plated plane that flies for all I know...)

Resolutions tested at were:
- Dual 22" monitor: 1680x1050 + 1680x1050
- Single 22" monitor: 1680x1050
- Single 15" Laptop: 1280x800
- Single 17" Laptop: 1440*1024

Basically, for the 15" & 17", the global menu works generally well. As you stated Mark, most of the time there is only one application that is the main focus, and even on the upper limit (e.g., I'm transcribing notes from a webpage to a word document), there are generally few enough windows in focus due to the screen size that I have only one or two "primary" windows (i.e., non-popup windows that I will want to interact with the menus occasionally). Even if there are multiple windows, the top border is not far enough from the other windows to feel arduous (lower if horizontal split, right-most if vertical).

For the 22" single, the story started to change a bit. At 22", the screen starts to feel big enough for more than two activities ongoing in the same workspace. One rather typical example is I will have a file browser, a web-browser and a html editor all open. At this point, windows that touch the top bar are intuitive and simple enough to use, but windows down the bottom (e.g., horizontal split) do start to feel "annoyingly" far from the menu bar up the top. It is survivable, but one does start to notice the extra distance travelled quite soon (i.e., 30mins+).

For the dual 22" screen, I am finding I usually have ~4 primary applications going at the same time. For example, a web browser, a html editor, a chat program and a file browser. At this point, the windows are arrayed all over the dual screen, usually with the web browser and html editor being maximized, and the file browser and chat window being small and always on top. The global menu works well for the maximized window on first screen, and I believe your suggestion mark would address the maximized window on the second screen. However, the smaller "portal" type windows feel completely broken at this point due to the distance required to travel to get to the menus. Things feel even worse as I need to cross the big maximized window to get there, and in my case, I usually have follow-mouse-focus turned on, which means the bigger window grabs the global menu on the way over.

As suggested at the beginning, on a 22" dual, I'd definitely prefer small windows near the bottom of the screen did not use the global menu. Small windows at the top are much of a muchness, as the distance to the menu is small.

Also... can I have a pony? :)

Hi,

I just upgraded to Natty and spent an evening playing around with the new unity launcher + global menu setup on a few different screen sizes.  Short answer is 15" & 17" things are great, 22" single it starts to feel uncomfortable, 22" Dual things are really uncomfortable.  My suggestion is that the global menu only kicks into play when the window is maximized, or potentially only when it is within a certain distance of the top panel (I have *no* idea of how feasible that is, so that might be asking for a gold-plated plane that flies for all I know...)

Resolutions tested at were:
- Dual 22" monitor: 1680x1050 + 1680x1050
- Single 22" monitor: 1680x1050
- Single 15" Laptop: 1280x800
- Single 17" Laptop: 1440*1024

Basically, for the 15" & 17", the global menu works generally well.  As you stated Mark, most of the time there is only one application that is the main focus, and even on the upper limit (e.g., I'm transcribing notes from a webpage to a word document), there are generally few enough windows in focus due to the screen size that I have only one or two "primary" windows (i.e., non-popup windows that I will want to interact with the menus occasionally).  Even if there are multiple windows, the top border is not far enough from the other windows to feel arduous (lower if horizontal split, right-most if vertical).

For the 22" single, the story started to change a bit.  At 22", the screen starts to feel big enough for more than two activities ongoing in the same workspace.  One rather typical example is I will have a file browser, a web-browser and a html editor all open.  At this point, windows that touch the top bar are intuitive and simple enough to use, but windows down the bottom (e.g., horizontal split) do start to feel "annoyingly" far from the menu bar up the top.  It is survivable, but one does start to notice the extra distance travelled quite soon (i.e., 30mins+).

For the dual 22" screen, I am finding I usually have ~4 primary applications going at the same time.  For example, a web browser, a html editor, a chat program and a file browser.  At this point, the windows are arrayed all over the dual screen, usually with the web browser and html editor being maximized, and the file browser and chat window being small and always on top.  The global menu works well for the maximized window on first screen, and I believe your suggestion mark would address the maximized window on the second screen.  However, the smaller "portal" type windows feel completely broken at this point due to the distance required to travel to get to the menus.  Things feel even worse as I need to cross the big maximized window to get there, and in my case, I usually have follow-mouse-focus turned on, which means the bigger window grabs the global menu on the way over.

As suggested at the beginning, on a 22" dual, I'd definitely prefer small windows near the bottom of the screen did not use the global menu.  Small windows at the top are much of a muchness, as the distance to the menu is small.

Also... can I have a pony? :)