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1b1ed1a
(Get the code!)
So, with Unity 5 officially out with Ubuntu 12.04, I thought I'd test its multi-monitor support.
The good news is that it is no longer totally broken. The ability to put a Launcher on each monitor *is* a solution. The option to have the Launcher only on the primary monitor (called "laptop" mode, for some reason) is also great for people who happen to have their primary monitor on the left, but that option always existed.
There is some bad news, too. This solution is mind-boggingly awkward:
1) Waste of space! Why do I need multiple Launchers when I have one clear primary monitor?
2) Distracting! When I have an alert (wiggle), it appears on *all* Launchers. I never know quite where to look. It's like my whole setup is demanding attention from me at once.
3) Gets in the way! The default is for the mouse pointer to delay a bit on the Launcher, to make it easier for you not to miss it when you need to access it. When the Launcher is on the left side of the screen of your right-most monitor ... this is an exercise in futility. Every time I move the mouse between monitors, it seems to "stick" on that middle Launcher. After trying this for a day (I wanted to give Unity UX developers the benefit of the doubt), I felt like poking a stick in my eye. The whole point of having multiple monitors is for working easily with windows on all of them. But if my mouse pointer keeps sticking in the middle, this is anything but smooth. I quickly entered CCSM and disabled this heurstic (thanks for letting me!).
The final judgment is this: 1) thanks for finally thinking about multi-monitor solutions, but 2) your solution is so unbelievably awkward. It seems like you would go to any bizarre lengths just to not let users decide where the best location for the Launcher in their setup would be.
Lurking behind this is the fact that testing this solution with its heuristic must be incredibly difficult: you have to test both "appears on all monitors" and "laptop (?)" mode. And didn't you say that the whole reason you don't want to support a movable Launcher is that it would involve too many testing scenarios? (Well, after you said that the whole reason is that it doesn't fit your "vision").
It's high time we got some straight answers on this, instead of excuses. It would be even nicer to hear from the UX developers that their approach might have been wrong. But I'm not holding my breath: we live in an a bizarre era in which UX developers are given full executive power, and they're enjoying this ego-fest to the max.