And The Reason Why The Metacity Window Buttons Are On The Left In Ubuntu 10.04 Is...

It's just showcasing the '-t' option of /sbin/shutdown I guess, like 'look how cool this UNIX is! We can shutdown whenever we want!"

I'm pretty glad I aliased shuth to 'shutdown -h now'.

I used to have a shuth (and shutr) alias until i found the poweroff/reboot commands...

Quoting:That said, I agree with tuxchick - better to let the user easily put them on one side or another.

You can. Just customise the theme IIRC. There;s also a gconf setting you can change: http://www.everyjoe.com/newlinuxuser/move-your-metacity-butt...

Also, for the record: XFCE's window manager configuration allows any button to be put on either side, configurable via GUI.

I'm using Emerald, it has configurable buttons as well.

Quoting:What's with this new deal of "System will shutdown in 60 seconds!" after you click the shutdown button?

It's probably a matter of taste, but shutting down is one of the few actions where I think it's appropriate with a warning/confirmation. And if a warning is to be given, I feel this new method gives some improvement. If I'm going to leave the computer anyway I can simply leave, ignoring the confirmation. On the other hand, if I need to turn it off at once, it doesn't help.

@mortenalver: You can always raise the skinny elephants instead :-)

Huh?

Ah...

I agree with Tuxchick. There can't be an overwhelming and valid reason to just put these controls on the left. The dominant OS has them on the right. Linux Desktops have them on the right. Why muck about with them? It only fouls up 3 decades of motor memory.

Moving everything to the left opens up the space on the right nicely, and I would like to experiment in 10.10 with some innovative options there.

It's nice and dandy that placing them left clears up the right side nicely for Mr. Shuttleworth. I'm just wondering what could be so farking important to put on the right side, that I'm supposed to just accept the new and annoying button position.

It better be jaw dropping and history changing, because right now I'm pretty annoyed that I'm aiming for the buttons like a noob again, while I could find them almost blindly before. That the menubar is close by doesn't help one bit.

On occasion I've worked with OS X and the left placement there also bugs me. For some reason (maybe because I'm a right paw, or because I read left to right) my mouse pointer is on the right of the screen most of the time. Having window controls on the left, just makes me move the mouse more than necessary. I don't like my pointer on the left, as that is where most of my viewable content is. At least OS X has a global menu, so there is no chance of accidentally hitting the menu, when you wanted to manipulate the window buttons.

Something just struck me. I was wrecking my brain to come up with something that could be put on the right side of a window, that Canonical thinks is worth riling a lot of users up over by moving control buttons.

My first ideas were, per window notification, a search field, an RSS field, a gwibber display, but then my dark side took over...

What if Canonical plans on putting an Ad banner there? They are searching ways to make Ubuntu pay for itself. They could expect a nice pay-off from Microsoft Advertising if they sell that space. Why not? They already get payed by Bing (yeah, Yahoo in name) to prop up Bing marketshare numbers.

Hehehe, you still use buttons for window management. I don't have any buttons on my windows. Heck, I don't have any window decoration whatsoever.

I don't even use my mouse. I just beat my slave until he moves the pointer where I want it.

Hehehe, you still use buttons for window management.

Oh yes, I like fondling my mouse. In part because I still want to be classified as human by non-techies.

If I start to do everything in the CLI and with keyboard shortcuts, I'll be perceived as threatening. Can't have that happen in my role as IT coordinator.

:P

After KDE spent the entire 3.x cycle trying to look like Windows, now that Ubuntu is trying to look like OS X there's suddenly a problem?

The purple is ugly, no doubt, but it's a different kind of ugly than brown. That should count for something.

The thing about Ubuntu that I'm always saying is that buy-in from fanboys is important, but not more important than giving prospective users more reasons to make the switch.

I do see some fairly sound logic: "Hey Windows users, this is kind of like the Mac, only better, freer and cheaper ... and the same thing to you Mac users."

Quoting:Hehehe, you still use buttons for window management.

At work I got a laptop without a mouse. Now, getting a mouse from the logistics department is easy-peasy (as evidenced by my coworker, who ordered so many stuff that it doesn't fit on his desk), but I just didn't feel like it. So for the past 22 months I've had only the laptop's touchpad. (You can compare my workplace to my coworker's: a desk; a laptop; my brain. And no mouse.)

Man, I've never learned that many keyboard shortcuts in my life!

I guess I should try those decoration-less windows next.

Quoting:Hehehe, you still use buttons for window management. I don't have any buttons on my windows. Heck, I don't have any window decoration whatsoever.

Now I finally know why it's called rat poison I think. Should be called 'mouse poison' though.

In Spanish (or at least Castilian), the mouse is called el ratón, "the rat".

@Hans: That's exactly why that window manager is called Ratpoison :-) I don't use it though. I use Awsome WM.

Hmm, yet another confusion on my part Sander. I tried xmonad once, but some people over here told 'real men use Flux'.

So I tried it for two days, liked the 'window tabbing', but I can't get my keys configured. Fluxbox blah's about unrecognized sequence. There's no graphical thingy to do it for me (exists, but horribly broken for Gentoo). And 'kill' isn't in the Window-context menu. So finally I know why I use WindowMaker instead of Fluxbox!

Nonetheless it lead me to discover dmenu in combination with Yeganesh, which makes me quite happy.