/srv/irclogs.ubuntu.com/2011/04/08/#ubuntu-classroom.txt

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binoxim hoping to find help with removing litestep and replacing it with explorer on my windows partition by using ubuntu, can anyone hlep04:16
nhandlerbinox: Try #ubuntu for support04:17
binoxty04:18
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broeisiexit14:55
gaurav__hi guys14:58
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GauravButolaneed help regardin Glade Interface Designer14:59
serfusGauravButola, this is not the channel you are looking for.15:00
serfusGauravButola, search for more info at http://glade.gnome.org/15:00
GauravButolaserfus: I thought someone experienced might help hear, will seet the link BTW thanks15:02
GauravButolahere*15:02
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* jcastro taps the mic17:26
jcastrocheck check17:26
jcastroraise your hand if you're almost ready for Q+A!17:26
deuxpio/17:26
nigelb\o17:27
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DBOo/17:27
jonobring it!17:28
jonoalright!17:31
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jonohi everyone!17:31
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jonowelcome to yet another weekly IRC Q+A session - no better way to top off your week than getting the answers to all your burning questions!17:31
jonotoday we have a real treat - David Barth, the Desktop Experience Engineering Manager17:31
=== ChanServ changed the topic of #ubuntu-classroom to: Welcome to the Ubuntu Classroom - https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Classroom || Support in #ubuntu || Upcoming Schedule: http://is.gd/8rtIi || Questions in #ubuntu-classroom-chat || Current Session: Q and A with Desktop Experience Team Manager - Instructors: dbarth, DBO
dbarthhi everyone17:32
ClassBotLogs for this session will be available at http://irclogs.ubuntu.com/2011/04/08/%23ubuntu-classroom.html following the conclusion of the session.17:32
jonowhat does that mean? it means that David manages the engineers who work on Unity, the application indicators, notify-osd, the global menu and many of the other desktop17:32
jonoinnovations we ship in Ubuntu17:32
jonohe is dbarth on IRC, he is here, and he is primed to answer all your questions17:33
jonoasking a question is simple:17:33
jono1. make sure you are in #ubuntu-classroom-chat17:33
jono2. ask a question by prefixing it with 'QUESTION' - as an example: QUESTION: when can we expect a new icon theme for Unity?17:33
jono3. dbarth will go through the questions one by one17:33
jonoalright, so without further ado - ladies and gentlemen...boys and girls...dbarth!17:34
dbarththanks jono!17:34
jono:-)17:34
dbarthwow, i see lots of people here on the channel17:34
ClassBotzamm asked: Why can't we minimnize windows when we click on active icons in unity launcher?17:34
dbarthlet's see the questions then17:34
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dbarthit's mostly a desgin question, but i'll try to asnwer17:35
dbarththe purpose of the launcher is to switch between applications, tasks17:35
dbarthit's not really a window manager17:35
dbarthit's a task manager17:35
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dbarththere are some options in the quicklists associated with launchers to let you open a new window sometimes17:36
dbarthbut again this belongs to the task oriented nature of the launcher17:36
dbarthto manage windows, we provide buttons on the top panel, next to the application name17:36
dbarthdoes that answer your question?17:36
ClassBotjono asked: When can we expect to see a fresh icon theme?17:37
dbarthahah, another design question17:38
dbarthi'm better at nuts and bolts you know, but the short asnwer shoud be: next cycle17:38
dbarththe icon theme requires some non trivial efforts to manage all constraints and design directions17:39
dbarthand for natty, unity on the desktop took most of the cycles available in the team17:39
ClassBotAlanBell asked: why does unity not get affected by compiz zoom and colour filters?17:39
dbarthnot affected? what do you mean?17:40
DBOI got this one :)17:40
DBOUnity is rendered by a toolkit called Nux17:40
dbarthDBO: go ahead17:40
DBOnux is quite nice but as of yet does not understand the methods compiz uses to transform the screen17:41
DBOthis means that compiz will transform, but nux stays nice and centered17:41
DBOthis is nice for some things (like expo mode), not nice for others (liek screen zoom)17:42
ClassBotpaglia_s asked: when  will we be able to theme unity?17:42
dbarthwell, you can already theme a bit of it17:43
dbarthmostly for accessibility reasons17:43
dbarthie, to provide a high contrast theme for people with disabilities17:43
dbarthunity is not really designed to be themable17:43
dbarthit can use theme elements (colors, fonts, etc.) where it makes sense17:43
dbarthbut in general is designed to be "as it is"17:44
dbarththe underlying reason for that is mostly consistency and visual identity17:44
dbarthconsistency to be able to use visual elements made of colors, shapes and other forms or artwork17:45
dbarthto quickly convey something that is meaninful to the user17:45
dbarththemability is then difficult to get into the mix, as it would blur some of that, and render the interface unintelligible, where it's not using explicit text or icons17:46
ClassBotRajiv_ asked: how much energy efficient does it going to be ??17:46
dbarthenergy efficient17:46
dbarthby that i assume you mean: how much do we care about battery life17:46
dbarthwe do care a lot17:47
dbarthmy engineers do care an awful lot17:47
dbarththey go to great extents to not use battery too much17:47
dbarthin particular, that's reflected in the GL toolkit we're using in Unity17:47
dbarthto go super fast to the GPU17:48
dbarthbut avoid redrawing everytime17:48
dbarthor in the way ARGB windows are used and how they are "deployed" in different processes17:48
dbarthto avoid having the drivers suck the battery themselves17:48
dbarthso, to summarize, the rendering side of Unity has been really designed from the ground up to be energy efficient17:49
dbarthwe probably have more work to do on other areas17:49
dbarthbut that will be a good topic for O17:49
ClassBotWinterpeg asked: Would Ubuntu provide an easy way to install Gnome 3 in both LTS and interim versions? I am trying Unity, but would welcome the ability to choose. Thank you.17:50
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dbarthi must admit i don't know17:50
dbarthi haven't test gnome 3 that much since the last uds17:50
jcastroGNOME3 is available in a PPA17:51
dbarthi guess its a question better answered by the desktop team17:51
dbarthright, thanks jcastro17:51
dbarthmost of our libraries have flags to build with gnome3 however17:51
dbarthso we're ready for the switch17:51
ClassBotWalther0 asked: Is the Unity bar going to remain as is? The dock-like behavior is not working intuitively - only way to get the last application icons to show properly is to drag the mouse sideways from the very bottom or by scrolling the list, not by the intuitive way as Cairo-dock or Awn, by just moving the mouse the previous application icons "dodge"17:54
dbarthhmm, the autoscroll behavior you mean?17:55
dbarthit's there but was disabled during the cycle, and we're still testing to see if that can be re-established safely17:55
dbarththe short and simple asnwer is: we'll ship like it is; we may provide a SRU/ppa version once we finish testing17:56
dbarthbut the launcher bar will continue to evolve and improve in O17:57
ClassBotshauno asked: What's the logic behind a window's label being positioned differently relative to the global menu, depending on the maximized (or not) state of the window?17:57
dbarthasking for clarification in #ubuntu-classroom-chat, sorry ;)17:59
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dbarthwell, so the idea is that18:00
dbarth1. the application name and window title is the important information18:00
dbarthso we prioritiez that in the panel initially18:00
dbarth2. we want to keep that information around, as the user interacts with menus18:01
dbarthbut we don't want to have menus slide far on the right18:01
dbarthso we take a fixed size thing and fade18:01
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dbarththat's the design we've worked on this cycle; we're hearing the feedback, and we'll see how that can evolve next cycle18:01
dbarthi feel the balance between information and usability is corect right now18:02
dbarthbut we're always thinking about new and better ways to refine that18:02
ClassBotdavmor2 asked: Is the plan to keep using compiz or will this be swapped out for clutter possibly again in the future?18:02
dbarthhmm18:03
dbarthfirst let me say again that the clutter change was not decided easily18:03
dbarthbut basically we were hitting a limit18:03
dbarthcompiz pretty much allows us to integrate with the window manager and still bring our own rendering infrastructure with us18:04
dbarthas DBO explained18:04
dbarthso to anwer your question18:04
dbarthno, we don't intend to switch once more18:05
dbarthwe'll continue investing into Unity, as a compiz plugin18:05
dbarthand continue to invest in making compiz a good host for our shell18:05
ClassBotnigelb asked: Last cycle Unity had a bunch of issues with accessiblity, how are we doing on that front at the end of this cycle? Are you happy with the pace of things on this front?18:05
dbarthno18:05
dbarthi'm not18:05
dbarthrather18:06
dbarthi had hoped to have a lot more ready for release time, and we're not totally there18:06
dbarthwe do have panel and launcher accessible18:06
dbarthwe have parts of the dash (particularly alt-f2) working in a branch18:06
dbarthbut i had hoped to have unity be the default choice for people with disabilities either18:07
dbarthinstead of that, we'll recommend using the classic session for this cycle18:07
dbarthi think that it has become the official decision at this point18:07
dbarththat said, i want to underline the efforts that have been made on the a11y front18:08
dbarthit was not easy18:08
dbarthbut we've made sure all of the unity building blocks pretty much understand the a11y requirements now18:08
ClassBotnshiell asked: Do you see Unity being used on the Desktop (or ust for small screens e.g. netbooks)?18:09
dbarthhonestly both18:09
dbarthwhat we've learned by starting on netbooks and small screens18:10
dbarthmeans that we've learned and focused on what's essential for users18:10
dbarthso it applies rather nicely to desktop and big screens18:10
dbarthnow, the 2 form factors are different18:10
dbarthbut the work that we've done during this cycle was to make the changes necessary to scale18:11
dbarthto larger screens18:11
dbarthmore viewports for example18:11
dbarthbetter multi-monitor support18:11
dbarthor a window mode / partial overlay for the dash18:11
dbarthand the challenge of getting all apps to use the global menu18:11
dbarthwith some very good results18:12
dbarthwith most if not all of the top apps being compatible with it inow18:12
dbarthall gnome apps18:12
dbarthplus firefox and thunderbird18:12
dbarthLibre Office even18:12
dbarthi wish we could have chromium now18:12
dbarthlet's see in Oniric18:13
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ClassBotsebsebseb asked: Apparently Unity might not be default for 11.04, because of bugs, and instead Ubuntu Classic Desktop, what do you think?18:15
dbarthnice, fully loaded, question ;)18:15
dbarthwe are committing to providing a quality shell for Ubuntu18:16
dbarthcommitted even18:16
dbarthall of the teams in Ubuntu do test our work, and provide us with their frank, honest feedback18:16
dbarthand sometimes i take big slaps, i can tell you18:17
dbarthbut if i look at the test resutls18:17
dbarthit tells me that we're good to go for Natty18:18
dbarthwe have no major regression, we have no nuclear issue anymore18:18
dbarthwe're still monitoring bugs every hours, especially now that we're in beta18:18
dbarthand we won't stop until the cd ships18:18
ClassBotsebsebseb asked: What do you think of Gnome Shell?18:19
dbarthi think Gnome Shell is an interesting project18:21
dbarthfor providing a a new shell for the Gnome Platform18:21
ClassBotThere are 10 minutes remaining in the current session.18:21
dbarthUnity is another interesting project pursuing a similar goal18:22
ClassBotth3pr0ph3t asked: When finished, will Unity have the same features as gnome or are users expected to change the way they work?18:23
dbarththere is a definition problem here, in fact18:25
dbarthif you mean gnome classic (ie 2.x) probably not, though we're taking that as a baseline18:26
dbarthbecause it has been the default desktop in all of Ubuntu before18:26
dbarthnow, Unity obviosuly is not the classic session, so users may have to change some of their habits18:26
ClassBotThere are 5 minutes remaining in the current session.18:26
dbarthwe think (and our user researches show it) that we're making changes in the right direction18:27
dbarthto have a more usable desktop18:27
dbarthnot only for normal computer users, but for people new or not accustomed to them18:27
dbarthnow, the Gnome project provides both a platform and has different shells now18:28
dbarth(though GS would prefer to consider itself the one and only)18:28
dbarthso users will have to try and choose the one they prefer18:28
dbarththat's coopetition18:28
ClassBotbasso asked: Some docks have problem putting wine shortcuts, how does unity handle this?18:29
dbarthyes, we still have a problem with those shortcuts18:30
dbarthwe have the best guys on the problem though18:31
dbarthwe kidnapped the Docky team18:31
DBOyeah18:31
DBOwine is still an issue18:31
DBOwe are working on it18:31
dbarthwe've trapped them in a room18:31
dbarthno food until you find18:31
dbarthetc.18:31
dbarthit's a really hard problem18:31
dbarthbut they're on it18:31
dbarthwe'll try to find a good solution for Oniric18:31
ClassBotLogs for this session will be available at http://irclogs.ubuntu.com/2011/04/08/%23ubuntu-classroom.html18:31
dbarthDBO: ;)18:31
dbarththanks folks18:32
dbarthit was a pleasure18:32
dbarthi'm sorry i can't stay right now to take more questions informally18:32
nigelbThanks dbarth :)18:32
=== ChanServ changed the topic of #ubuntu-classroom to: Welcome to the Ubuntu Classroom - https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Classroom || Support in #ubuntu || Upcoming Schedule: http://is.gd/8rtIi || Questions in #ubuntu-classroom-chat ||
dbarth(doctor appointment for the kid that can't wait)18:32
dbarthbut i'll be back a bit later18:32
dbarthand you can always fine me (us, the Unity guys) in #ayatana18:32
dbarthcheers18:32
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