Comment 32 for bug 748739

Burton Leathers,

This is not a mailing list and I doubt anybody would read such a long message.

ccsm is there 'sudo apt-get install ccsm' would do it, and there is a
OOTB utility to change the launcher hide behavior, look in control
center.

On Mon, Jun 13, 2011 at 4:28 AM, Burton Leathers
<email address hidden> wrote:
> To the Unity developers ...
>
> I applaud your attempt to create a zero configuration desktop UI. I am
> sorry to say that my past experience tells me that you have undertaken
> to do something which is both impractical and impossible. I will try to
> explain as best I can why I hold this view.
>
> About ten years ago I worked for a major business software developer and
> amongst the other things I did was to define the architecture which
> allowed a set of independently developed applications to be slammed
> together into a suite. This involved creating an application deployment
> manager, an installation manager and a unified configuration manager. As
> this work was in progress, another team was busy creating a successor
> product which was intentionally integrated and which they anticipated
> delivering with a zero configuration requirement (although not a zero
> installation configuration requirement). I attempted in vain to point
> out to them that they were mistaken in their optimism and that I could
> offer them appropriate configuration tools.
>
> At the end of the day, experienced proved me to be correct. Why? I will
> explain in terms of the configuration issues which Unity will ultimately
> have to address.
>
> All users have a relationship with the system on which they work which
> is intensely personal. This is because they use the system for the
> achievement of personal goals and this entails the use of individual
> varieties of data and in turn an individual set of computational
> capabilities. Moreover, for idiosyncratic reasons, where a computational
> goals may be achieved using any one of a set of similarly capable pieces
> of software (e.g. browsers), individual experience and personal taste
> will lead to specific preferences. Finally, there is the inescapable
> fact that few users will come to Unity without a past. They will
> encounter Unity, as I did, as a result of upgrading a system which they
> had tailored to respect their personal mental models and individual
> aesthetics.
>
> I am sorry to say Unity's lack of configurability violates almost every
> consideration which makes a system a personally effective tool.
>
> As regards data, this is the place in which it is least bad. The
> "Favourites" part of the menu launched by the F&F button at least
> honours my bookmarks selections (as best I can tell) but the drop down
> list appears to be unrelated and idiosyncratic. As near as I can tell,
> it is based on a history of recently accessed folders.
>
> The "Applications" button launches a window which is sadly defective.
>
> The notion of "Most Frequently Used" is based on the assumption that
> what I have done in the past is what I will do in the future. Wrong! The
> past does not define the future. If it did, VM paging systems would
> never encounter a page fault. I am the best judge of those things which
> I have done often in the past and which I expect to do equally often in
> the future. That is why I want to be able to pin apps to the launch bar.
> Let me be the judge but just make it dead easy to decide that I should
> pin an app to the launch bar.
>
> The "Installed" area is even more problematic. On my system it is full
> of garbage. This garbage is mostly the result of the fact that I have
> installed -- or attempted to install -- Windows apps using Wine. Windows
> apps generate launch items at a frightening pace. When I have done
> installs under Wine, I have turned off the vast majority of the launch
> items. Unfortunately, Unity picks up all the potential launch items.
> This means that when I invoke "See ? more results", I am hosed with
> items I disabled during the Wine based install. There are a few other
> problems which I have encountered related to Windows based S/W which
> does not follow the Windows rules. I have been able to work around them
> in Gnome but Unity hits me with them without an identifiable workaround.
>
> Then there is the dubious "Apps available ..." field. Forget it. This
> appears just to be a ransom selection from the Synaptic database. This
> is truly bad. At least synaptic lets me learn more about the items it
> displays.
>
> Another defect of this dialog is that it has only two sizes. It would be
> more useful if it could be more smoothly resized.
>
> Finally, there is the drop down list of all applications. Where did this
> set of categories come from and on what basis does an app get assigned
> to one of the categories? It does not match (or import) the old Gnome
> menu categories not does it match the synaptic categories. Certainly it
> does not match my personal categories and the only way I can see many
> apps which matter to me is to ask to see all apps (see comments on "Apps
> available ...").
>
> My last concern regarding Unity is that it does not respect the
> configuration decisions I have made in past. I have established apps in
> the system bar. I have customized the menus. I have indicated preferred
> apps. Unity mostly ignores this. However much I might want the space
> saving and aesthetic features of Unity, this slap in the face guarantees
> that I will seek an alternative. One of my product managers told me more
> years ago than I will admit that the last thing you want your product to
> do is to consider changing suppliers. By ignoring the configuration
> decisions users have made is past, Unity will make them reconsider the
> wisdom of using Ubuntu. That is not a wise thing to so.
>
> That said, I consider Unity to be an admirable effort to move the UI to
> a more effective model. Please consider my remarks as feedback intended
> to help you achieve your goal.
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to unity
> in Ubuntu.
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/748739
>
> Title:
>  no config tool currently provided for Ubuntu Unity Plugin
>
> Status in “unity” package in Ubuntu:
>  Opinion
>
> Bug description:
>  Binary package hint: unity
>
>  At the moment there is no gui config tool provided for the unity plugin and possibly a few other compiz plugins
>  I can't see ccsm being default installed, users can't be expected to use  gsettings, dconf-editor or gconf-editor
>  One should be in place fairly soon
>
>  ProblemType: Bug
>  DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.04
>  Package: unity 3.8.2-0ubuntu1
>  ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.38-7.39-generic 2.6.38
>  Uname: Linux 2.6.38-7-generic i686
>  NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
>  Architecture: i386
>  CompizPlugins: [core,bailer,detection,composite,opengl,decor,vpswitch,move,compiztoolbox,regex,imgpng,place,mousepoll,unitymtgrabhandles,gnomecompat,animation,resize,session,expo,wall,ezoom,staticswitcher,fade,scale,unityshell]
>  Date: Sat Apr  2 20:31:23 2011
>  InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 11.04 "Natty Narwhal" - Beta i386 (20110330)
>  ProcEnviron:
>   LANGUAGE=en_US:en
>   LANG=en_US.UTF-8
>   SHELL=/bin/bash
>  SourcePackage: unity
>  UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
>
> To manage notifications about this bug go to:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/unity/+bug/748739/+subscriptions
>