[04:16] <binox> im hoping to find help with removing litestep and replacing it with explorer on my windows partition by using ubuntu, can anyone hlep
[04:17] <nhandler> binox: Try #ubuntu for support
[04:18] <binox> ty
[14:55] <broeisi> exit
[14:58] <gaurav__> hi guys
[14:59] <GauravButola> need help regardin Glade Interface Designer
[15:00] <serfus> GauravButola, this is not the channel you are looking for.
[15:00] <serfus> GauravButola, search for more info at http://glade.gnome.org/
[15:02] <GauravButola> serfus: I thought someone experienced might help hear, will seet the link BTW thanks
[15:02] <GauravButola> here*
[17:26]  * jcastro taps the mic
[17:26] <jcastro> check check
[17:26] <jcastro> raise your hand if you're almost ready for Q+A!
[17:26] <deuxpi> o/
[17:27] <nigelb> \o
[17:27] <DBO> o/
[17:28] <jono> bring it!
[17:31] <jono> alright!
[17:31] <jono> hi everyone!
[17:31] <jono> welcome 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] <jono> today we have a real treat - David Barth, the Desktop Experience Engineering Manager
[17:32] <dbarth> hi everyone
[17:32] <ClassBot> Logs 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] <jono> what 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 desktop
[17:32] <jono> innovations we ship in Ubuntu
[17:33] <jono> he is dbarth on IRC, he is here, and he is primed to answer all your questions
[17:33] <jono> asking a question is simple:
[17:33] <jono> 1. make sure you are in #ubuntu-classroom-chat
[17:33] <jono> 2. ask a question by prefixing it with 'QUESTION' - as an example: QUESTION: when can we expect a new icon theme for Unity?
[17:33] <jono> 3. dbarth will go through the questions one by one
[17:34] <jono> alright, so without further ado - ladies and gentlemen...boys and girls...dbarth!
[17:34] <dbarth> thanks jono!
[17:34] <jono> :-)
[17:34] <dbarth> wow, i see lots of people here on the channel
[17:34] <ClassBot> zamm asked: Why can't we minimnize windows when we click on active icons in unity launcher?
[17:34] <dbarth> let's see the questions then
[17:35] <dbarth> it's mostly a desgin question, but i'll try to asnwer
[17:35] <dbarth> the purpose of the launcher is to switch between applications, tasks
[17:35] <dbarth> it's not really a window manager
[17:35] <dbarth> it's a task manager
[17:36] <dbarth> there are some options in the quicklists associated with launchers to let you open a new window sometimes
[17:36] <dbarth> but again this belongs to the task oriented nature of the launcher
[17:36] <dbarth> to manage windows, we provide buttons on the top panel, next to the application name
[17:36] <dbarth> does that answer your question?
[17:37] <ClassBot> jono asked: When can we expect to see a fresh icon theme?
[17:38] <dbarth> ahah, another design question
[17:38] <dbarth> i'm better at nuts and bolts you know, but the short asnwer shoud be: next cycle
[17:39] <dbarth> the icon theme requires some non trivial efforts to manage all constraints and design directions
[17:39] <dbarth> and for natty, unity on the desktop took most of the cycles available in the team
[17:39] <ClassBot> AlanBell asked: why does unity not get affected by compiz zoom and colour filters?
[17:40] <dbarth> not affected? what do you mean?
[17:40] <DBO> I got this one :)
[17:40] <DBO> Unity is rendered by a toolkit called Nux
[17:40] <dbarth> DBO: go ahead
[17:41] <DBO> nux is quite nice but as of yet does not understand the methods compiz uses to transform the screen
[17:41] <DBO> this means that compiz will transform, but nux stays nice and centered
[17:42] <DBO> this is nice for some things (like expo mode), not nice for others (liek screen zoom)
[17:42] <ClassBot> paglia_s asked: when  will we be able to theme unity?
[17:43] <dbarth> well, you can already theme a bit of it
[17:43] <dbarth> mostly for accessibility reasons
[17:43] <dbarth> ie, to provide a high contrast theme for people with disabilities
[17:43] <dbarth> unity is not really designed to be themable
[17:43] <dbarth> it can use theme elements (colors, fonts, etc.) where it makes sense
[17:44] <dbarth> but in general is designed to be "as it is"
[17:44] <dbarth> the underlying reason for that is mostly consistency and visual identity
[17:45] <dbarth> consistency to be able to use visual elements made of colors, shapes and other forms or artwork
[17:45] <dbarth> to quickly convey something that is meaninful to the user
[17:46] <dbarth> themability 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 icons
[17:46] <ClassBot> Rajiv_ asked: how much energy efficient does it going to be ??
[17:46] <dbarth> energy efficient
[17:46] <dbarth> by that i assume you mean: how much do we care about battery life
[17:47] <dbarth> we do care a lot
[17:47] <dbarth> my engineers do care an awful lot
[17:47] <dbarth> they go to great extents to not use battery too much
[17:47] <dbarth> in particular, that's reflected in the GL toolkit we're using in Unity
[17:48] <dbarth> to go super fast to the GPU
[17:48] <dbarth> but avoid redrawing everytime
[17:48] <dbarth> or in the way ARGB windows are used and how they are "deployed" in different processes
[17:48] <dbarth> to avoid having the drivers suck the battery themselves
[17:49] <dbarth> so, to summarize, the rendering side of Unity has been really designed from the ground up to be energy efficient
[17:49] <dbarth> we probably have more work to do on other areas
[17:49] <dbarth> but that will be a good topic for O
[17:50] <ClassBot> Winterpeg 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] <dbarth> i must admit i don't know
[17:50] <dbarth> i haven't test gnome 3 that much since the last uds
[17:51] <jcastro> GNOME3 is available in a PPA
[17:51] <dbarth> i guess its a question better answered by the desktop team
[17:51] <dbarth> right, thanks jcastro
[17:51] <dbarth> most of our libraries have flags to build with gnome3 however
[17:51] <dbarth> so we're ready for the switch
[17:54] <ClassBot> Walther0 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"
[17:55] <dbarth> hmm, the autoscroll behavior you mean?
[17:55] <dbarth> it's there but was disabled during the cycle, and we're still testing to see if that can be re-established safely
[17:56] <dbarth> the short and simple asnwer is: we'll ship like it is; we may provide a SRU/ppa version once we finish testing
[17:57] <dbarth> but the launcher bar will continue to evolve and improve in O
[17:57] <ClassBot> shauno 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?
[17:59] <dbarth> asking for clarification in #ubuntu-classroom-chat, sorry ;)
[18:00] <dbarth> well, so the idea is that
[18:00] <dbarth> 1. the application name and window title is the important information
[18:00] <dbarth> so we prioritiez that in the panel initially
[18:01] <dbarth> 2. we want to keep that information around, as the user interacts with menus
[18:01] <dbarth> but we don't want to have menus slide far on the right
[18:01] <dbarth> so we take a fixed size thing and fade
[18:01] <dbarth> that's the design we've worked on this cycle; we're hearing the feedback, and we'll see how that can evolve next cycle
[18:02] <dbarth> i feel the balance between information and usability is corect right now
[18:02] <dbarth> but we're always thinking about new and better ways to refine that
[18:02] <ClassBot> davmor2 asked: Is the plan to keep using compiz or will this be swapped out for clutter possibly again in the future?
[18:03] <dbarth> hmm
[18:03] <dbarth> first let me say again that the clutter change was not decided easily
[18:03] <dbarth> but basically we were hitting a limit
[18:04] <dbarth> compiz pretty much allows us to integrate with the window manager and still bring our own rendering infrastructure with us
[18:04] <dbarth> as DBO explained
[18:04] <dbarth> so to anwer your question
[18:05] <dbarth> no, we don't intend to switch once more
[18:05] <dbarth> we'll continue investing into Unity, as a compiz plugin
[18:05] <dbarth> and continue to invest in making compiz a good host for our shell
[18:05] <ClassBot> nigelb 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] <dbarth> no
[18:05] <dbarth> i'm not
[18:06] <dbarth> rather
[18:06] <dbarth> i had hoped to have a lot more ready for release time, and we're not totally there
[18:06] <dbarth> we do have panel and launcher accessible
[18:06] <dbarth> we have parts of the dash (particularly alt-f2) working in a branch
[18:07] <dbarth> but i had hoped to have unity be the default choice for people with disabilities either
[18:07] <dbarth> instead of that, we'll recommend using the classic session for this cycle
[18:07] <dbarth> i think that it has become the official decision at this point
[18:08] <dbarth> that said, i want to underline the efforts that have been made on the a11y front
[18:08] <dbarth> it was not easy
[18:08] <dbarth> but we've made sure all of the unity building blocks pretty much understand the a11y requirements now
[18:09] <ClassBot> nshiell asked: Do you see Unity being used on the Desktop (or ust for small screens e.g. netbooks)?
[18:09] <dbarth> honestly both
[18:10] <dbarth> what we've learned by starting on netbooks and small screens
[18:10] <dbarth> means that we've learned and focused on what's essential for users
[18:10] <dbarth> so it applies rather nicely to desktop and big screens
[18:10] <dbarth> now, the 2 form factors are different
[18:11] <dbarth> but the work that we've done during this cycle was to make the changes necessary to scale
[18:11] <dbarth> to larger screens
[18:11] <dbarth> more viewports for example
[18:11] <dbarth> better multi-monitor support
[18:11] <dbarth> or a window mode / partial overlay for the dash
[18:11] <dbarth> and the challenge of getting all apps to use the global menu
[18:12] <dbarth> with some very good results
[18:12] <dbarth> with most if not all of the top apps being compatible with it inow
[18:12] <dbarth> all gnome apps
[18:12] <dbarth> plus firefox and thunderbird
[18:12] <dbarth> Libre Office even
[18:12] <dbarth> i wish we could have chromium now
[18:13] <dbarth> let's see in Oniric
[18:15] <ClassBot> sebsebseb asked: Apparently Unity might not be default for 11.04, because of bugs, and instead Ubuntu Classic Desktop, what do you think?
[18:15] <dbarth> nice, fully loaded, question ;)
[18:16] <dbarth> we are committing to providing a quality shell for Ubuntu
[18:16] <dbarth> committed even
[18:16] <dbarth> all of the teams in Ubuntu do test our work, and provide us with their frank, honest feedback
[18:17] <dbarth> and sometimes i take big slaps, i can tell you
[18:17] <dbarth> but if i look at the test resutls
[18:18] <dbarth> it tells me that we're good to go for Natty
[18:18] <dbarth> we have no major regression, we have no nuclear issue anymore
[18:18] <dbarth> we're still monitoring bugs every hours, especially now that we're in beta
[18:18] <dbarth> and we won't stop until the cd ships
[18:19] <ClassBot> sebsebseb asked: What do you think of Gnome Shell?
[18:21] <dbarth> i think Gnome Shell is an interesting project
[18:21] <dbarth> for providing a a new shell for the Gnome Platform
[18:21] <ClassBot> There are 10 minutes remaining in the current session.
[18:22] <dbarth> Unity is another interesting project pursuing a similar goal
[18:23] <ClassBot> th3pr0ph3t asked: When finished, will Unity have the same features as gnome or are users expected to change the way they work?
[18:25] <dbarth> there is a definition problem here, in fact
[18:26] <dbarth> if you mean gnome classic (ie 2.x) probably not, though we're taking that as a baseline
[18:26] <dbarth> because it has been the default desktop in all of Ubuntu before
[18:26] <dbarth> now, Unity obviosuly is not the classic session, so users may have to change some of their habits
[18:26] <ClassBot> There are 5 minutes remaining in the current session.
[18:27] <dbarth> we think (and our user researches show it) that we're making changes in the right direction
[18:27] <dbarth> to have a more usable desktop
[18:27] <dbarth> not only for normal computer users, but for people new or not accustomed to them
[18:28] <dbarth> now, the Gnome project provides both a platform and has different shells now
[18:28] <dbarth> (though GS would prefer to consider itself the one and only)
[18:28] <dbarth> so users will have to try and choose the one they prefer
[18:28] <dbarth> that's coopetition
[18:29] <ClassBot> basso asked: Some docks have problem putting wine shortcuts, how does unity handle this?
[18:30] <dbarth> yes, we still have a problem with those shortcuts
[18:31] <dbarth> we have the best guys on the problem though
[18:31] <dbarth> we kidnapped the Docky team
[18:31] <DBO> yeah
[18:31] <DBO> wine is still an issue
[18:31] <DBO> we are working on it
[18:31] <dbarth> we've trapped them in a room
[18:31] <dbarth> no food until you find
[18:31] <dbarth> etc.
[18:31] <dbarth> it's a really hard problem
[18:31] <dbarth> but they're on it
[18:31] <dbarth> we'll try to find a good solution for Oniric
[18:31] <ClassBot> Logs for this session will be available at http://irclogs.ubuntu.com/2011/04/08/%23ubuntu-classroom.html
[18:31] <dbarth> DBO: ;)
[18:32] <dbarth> thanks folks
[18:32] <dbarth> it was a pleasure
[18:32] <dbarth> i'm sorry i can't stay right now to take more questions informally
[18:32] <nigelb> Thanks dbarth :)
[18:32] <dbarth> (doctor appointment for the kid that can't wait)
[18:32] <dbarth> but i'll be back a bit later
[18:32] <dbarth> and you can always fine me (us, the Unity guys) in #ayatana
[18:32] <dbarth> cheers