How do you know there's scrollable content?
Generally when you see half a picture at the bottom of the screen or text, thats a big giveaway to me
The second beta of Ubuntu 15.10 Wily Werewolf has arrived and there’s not much to see here. Oh sure, there's some revamped scrollbars, Unity 7.3.2 that has some welcome bug fixes and Ubuntu's version of the 4.2.1 Linux kernel, but this is no lycanthropic beast of great transformation as the name might suggest. You won't find …
That's pretty much the reverse of the IgNobel-winning appendicitis test where victims - sorry, patients - are driven in an ambulance over speed bumps. The absence of excruciating pain is a good indication that you don't have appendicitis, but the presence of excruciating pain doesn't mean that you do. Here, the presence of split content is a good indication that the page is scrollable, but the absence of split content doesn't mean that it's not scrollable.
I trust that's clear.
I don't often advocate for "new and improved" functionality in OS, but I'd admit that ever since "discovery" of mouse with the scroll-wheel there's no need for scroll-bar. Huge bright scroll-bars and title-bars definitely add insult to injury in ever since Windows 8 (and burn plasma screen attached to my HTPC). Obviously, user has been protected from his/her own choice on MS platform
"I'd admit that ever since "discovery" of mouse with the scroll-wheel there's no need for scroll-bar."
Not got a mouse, but got a pen on this system - so touching the text indicates that I want to add my own highlight or annotation, whereas my intent through touching a scrollbar is unambiguous. Basically, what we are seeing is a move away from supporting multiple ways of doing the same thing with many different input devices and GUI furniture sets and layouts, which enable users to make choices based on their personal preferences and needs at the time, to only supporting a single set of GUI furniture and layouts that can only be used in the way the OS writer dictated...
Additionally, this is something that can't really be solved by using a different OS/distribution. It should be solvable within a single distribution so if a user doesn't like the default UI then they can simply go into a menu and select another and if they desire to customise it then they need simply to drill down in the desktop/input device configuration menu's.
When the web page you open is just an image and headline, then you know you have to scroll (glares at ElReg "hero" images....)
Mobile Reg is your friend. Haven't looked at the desktop site for ages and ages.
How about (with 14.04) you look at the right hand side of the window and look to see if the orangy-brown indicator bar is present, how long it is, and where it is in the window - just like with a traditional scrollbar. For Christ's sake, it's right there in his own screenshot on the second page (right hand window)! The only thing that appears and disappears on hover is the "handle" (as he calls it).
In 14.04 the visual indicator works in exactly the same way as visual indication of "traditional" scrollbars does. If you can't use the 14.04 style scroll indicator to tell if something is scrollable, then you can't use "traditional" scrollbars to do that either because they work the same way.
I'll take a guess that the author's actual experience with the mainstream version of Ubuntu was limited to taking the screen shots.
thames: "How about (with 14.04) you look at the right hand side of the window and look to see if the orangy-brown indicator bar is present"
I'll take a guess that your actual experience with the mainstream version of Ubuntu was limited to some custom installation where the bar remained always visible. It does not. I've cursed it to death and threw many pristine installations on various hardware almost out of the windows because I felt insulted by the makers thinking this was "progress". Now you telly me it all was a nightmare? That ended for me when I started using the latest Cinnamon. Peace at last.
My favourite recent example of the victory of aesthetics over functionality.
And what's really depressing is that, not so long ago, we Linux nerds were able to point and laugh at, say, Vista and say "Well, you'll never get anything on Linux sacrificing functionality for looks."
I need a "sad penguin" icon.
Have you got one of them tower things my dad had when he was a boy?
The reality is that (computer usage == internet usage) for the vast majority. And the unfortunate reality is that internet usage trend increases are similar-sh to mean screen-size decreases.
If Linux/GNU is to survive beyond a timeline of your own usage then that means it has to think about something other than your use case.
This is not to say that Unity is the bee's knees. I will, however, state that it is a lot better than the XP-mimicing desktop environments that always seem to be popular in these comment threads.
You have to ask the question "why is the Gnome 2/Mate/XP-ish popular"? IMHO they are all easy to use, easy to see the state of things, and they look OK. These interfaces are not overly embellished until the user decides to embellish them, but neither are they austere or try to enforce minimalism.
Friendly, communicative, and pleasing to look at are all wonderful, but not at the expense of usability. Translucent windows are nice, but they can hinder usability (can't read the text because the background is getting in the way), when that happens you need to be able to make the background opaque (and thankfully you can). Light grey text on a slightly darker grey background does not promote readability. Keeping window borders the same colour when selected as when not selected is decidedly uncommunicative as to their state, and no, subtly changing the drop shadow does nothing to improve the situation. Flat graphics for a GUI are so unreal, the real world is not flat and GUIs were created to try to ape real world things so as to make using a computer easier. We don't need to have photographic realism for everything but neither do we need to go to the other extreme.
<quote>Light grey text on a slightly darker grey background does not promote readability.</quote>
AMEN BROTHER!!! and those idiots who do EXACTLY THAT ought to be shot!!!!
Now, where is the "You said it" icon?
<quote>Keeping window borders the same colour when selected as when not selected is decidedly uncommunicative as to their state, and no, subtly changing the drop shadow does nothing to improve the situation.</quote>
I hear THAT!!!
I am a user of the "Tree Style Tabs" addon for Firefox. I have painfully set it up so that the tab colors for the active tab are clearly different from the others. BUT the brilliant geniuses at Mozilla have decided to FUCK WITH those settings somewhere in the 6 week upgrade cycle and now, they are all the same color; and I have forgotten WHERE that setting is. WHICH pisses me off no end!!! Which is why I truly feel that Mozilla has lost its way, and needs to stop fucking with the UI and fix Firefox's REAL problems. For now, I have eschewed the latest version of Firefox as "fluff encrusted".
Mate rather than Cinnamon too, on Mint.
Why are linux desktops copying all that's worst in Apple, Android, MS and Web GUIs?
They should study NN/g articles on UX and GUIs,
Or maybe go back to copying NT4 and Win98 GUI, but with less shiny bits.
Things on web sites or GUIs that are not obvious till you mouse hover is a FAIL!
Skeumorphic is over the top and distracting, but clicky things that look like buttons or traditional hyperlinks should be mandatory. Like this web page. Really IT DOESN'T HURT aesthetics or CPU performance to add two bright lines and two dark lines on every button!
I'm all about the Mate on Ubuntu.
Mainly because our office uses Ubuntu as our default Linux image, and I still hate Unity, espceially it's Alt-Tab behaviour where it groups multiple windows of the same program.
Oh and pinned programs, I can't stand those either. I don't want to see programs I'm not running on the task bar, because I'm not running them. I especially don't want them masquerading as a running program.
I have tried to get used to Unity, but it's just so full of little things like that that grate on me.
I've been running with MATE as the desktop for years too - first with LinuxMint, now with Ubuntu MATE - but I wish I could find the tweaks to..
a) Have the window borders wider than one pixel. I know there's a keyboard shortcut to 'change size of window', but...
b) Colour the scrollbar something other than light grey on slightly darker grey. Or is that a GTK thing?
"Why are linux desktops copying all that's worst in Apple, Android, MS and Web GUIs?"
Because they want mainstream users (i.e. nubs) to use them.
This seems a pretty simple concept to me.
The days of people doing something good for free (on the internet - which is basically all consumer devices are for these days) because it is good are pretty much over (if the whole AdBlock furore of late hasn't already confirmed this for you).
This cancer must consume even FOSS if it is to survive.
Sadly.
>> Why are linux desktops copying all that's worst in Apple, Android, MS and Web GUIs?
Correction: Why are "SOME" linux desktops copying all that's worst in Apple, Android, MS and Web GUIs?
Answer: Because some stupid kids born in the late 80s think they know it all, and ignore why GUIs evolved the way they did during the 80's 90's.
Also because some developers copied the worst of Microsoft GUI's practices and then threw them away together with the baby. (I'm looking at you stupid dev who created the floating toolbars)
Can do in the 'hot corners' guy as well?
I think boiling in stale yak urine for 16 days should be a suitable punishment for them
Boris
<<runs his remote destop windows full screen , with some other applications.... and nearly always hits the hot corner instead of the X button to close the window....... aaaaaaaaaarghhhhhhhh
Imho as a 50's born kid it's about adaptability. I've used every flavor of MS since DOS 6, OS2, numerous Linux distros with all their various GUIs, Mac, iOS and Android.
Becoming adept at using any interface was a worthwhile skill to acquire for me. That way I can choose to use the OS and applications that best suit my needs at any given time. Currently Ubuntu fills that spot and Unity, although not perfect, is perfectly usable for most computing needs. Windows 10 I use when I have to for other purposes.
"...Why are linux desktops copying all that's worst in Apple, Android, MS and Web GUIs?..."
Exactly this.
Copying the pointles crap like "catch me if you can" scrollbars [which OSX Finder also has] but failing to copy the stuff that's actually useful. Every time I switch to using the file browser on one of my Linux boxes, after using OSX I feel like I've stepped back in time ten years.
If you're going to copy something from OSX, copy the Finder Column View / Preview Pane and Quicklook features. Light years ahead of anything I've seen on a Linux file browser —and that in spite of the fact that, outside of iTunes, the Finder is probably the in-house siftware most reviled by OSX users.
I want to make a shout out for kdeconnect, which is something you can put on your phone/tablet and have notifications appear on your desktop(or not). You can send/receive files via bluetooth/wifi (using RSA), and soon (!) you can send SMS or possibly make calls.
I love Linux for its flexibility and the ability to get into the guts, if you have the desire, skill or inclination.
But apps that do things like this, are the sort of focused productivity software linux needs to spread its appeal.
That, and not changing the look and feel every 5 years...and disabling apps like kdeconnect....
P.
@John Hughes
1. It breaks one of the main strengths of UNIX - That every component stands by itself and can be managed separately.
2. The use of interrelated dependencies of systems that should be kept separate encourages "standard" distributions and, I suspect, will allow organizations like, say, Canonical to distribute a "premium" commercial product (like Red Hat) that will tend to limit user and developer choice; and encourages loading unnecessary insecure cruft.
I am so old that I remember the Berkely Distributions, and still use it. SystemD - Linux for grunt and click users who really like Windows?
sure RedHat havea commercial support business. They is also distros like CentOS which are built on the GPL's source code from RH. How does that fit in with your monetization?
I do think that Canonical will have to become financiall more astute very soon. however If the want to follow the same model as RH I think they will fail. Far too many Ubuntu users are 'Freetards' and will revert to Debian etc.
@Steve Davies 3
Monetization, as such, is not necessarily bad, but I believe that it tends to lock you in. It may well be worthwhile for you, but I am uncomfortable with it. A quote from The Wikipedia entry on RHEL:-
Unusually, Red Hat took steps to obfuscate their changes to the Linux kernel for 6.0 by not publicly providing the patch files for their changes in the source tarball, and only releasing the finished product in source form. Speculation suggested that the move was made to affect Oracle's competing rebuild and support services, which further modifies the distribution. This practice however, still complies with the GNU GPL since source code is defined as "[the] preferred form of the work for making modifications to it", and the distribution still complies with this definition.[16] Red Hat's CTO Brian Stevens later confirmed the change, stating that certain information (such as patch information) would now only be provided to paying customers to make the Red Hat product more competitive against the growing number of companies offering support for products based on RHEL. CentOS developers had no objections to the change since they do not make any changes to the kernel beyond what is provided by Red Hat.[17] Their competitor Oracle announced in November 2012 that they were releasing a RedPatch service, which allows public view of the RHEL kernel changes, broken down by patch.