Shuttleworth announces Canonical's HUD. What do you think?

[bananaoomarang]

http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/939

Imagine a KRunner/GnomeDo that integrates... Pretty much everything. That includes application menus, bookmarks, searching computer/web, applications themselves....

I think it looks super cool, and I'm not a huge fan of Unity. Voice would work very well!

http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/939

Curious to know what the LXF community thinks?

[Rhakios]

I will reserve judgement until I can see whether or not its ability to anticipate my intent is anything like that of predictive text, and if it is, I won't touch it with a bargepole.

[nordle]

I will reserve judgement until I can see whether or not its ability to anticipate my intent is anything like that of predictive text, and if it is, I won't touch it with a bargepole.

I won't touch it with a baguette police.

[guy]

Anybody who can coin a word like "intenterface" thereby proves beyond doubt that their system is incapable of anticipating my intent.

[leke]

Heres a vid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_WW-DHq ... AAAAAAAEAA

[wyliecoyoteuk]

At least they're being honest, white text in a black box.
Hmmm, now what does that remind me of?

As long as the menus are still there, great.
The biggest problem with all of these menu GUI replacements is that they lack "discoverability". i.e. they are not browseable.
All very well typing a couple of letters if you know what you are looking for, for example if you have read the manual.
We do all read the manual don't we?
And of course there always is a manual isn't there?


I often help people with software that I have never seen before, and the first thing I do is browse the menus to see what sort of options are available, which is difficult, if not impossible with the ribbon and its ilk.

We have a software industry that can't even agree on the usage of "preferences", "settings", " options", "customisation" and "configuration" or where to put them, even in applications from the same company.

[guy]

We have a software industry that can't even agree on the usage of "preferences", "settings", " options", "customisation" and "configuration" or where to put them, even in applications from the same company.

Which of course is why smart anticipation is the answer - no need to stress where to put the gorram preferences, just wait for the user to say (or type) "pre..." and launch Impress for the presentation they obviously intend to create.

[Oh well!]

Sorry about the pun. This seems like a terrible, thoughtless move. I have a daughter with severe speech and language difficulties: menus with icons are great for her; text is useless. And as for all the people with dyslexia: it would be a nightmare. Microsoft's ribbon makes far more sense. Surely most other distros will see the lack of sense in HUD.

[nordle]

Microsoft's ribbon makes far more sense.

A bit OT, I think I'm fairly good at looking at new tech and cracking on with it. But I've been using Office 2007 at work for 4 years now, still can't use the Ribbon. I can, but its so much slower than the previous menu system.
When I return home, on the odd occasion I have to use LibreOffice ( I may not have used it in 3 months, I may have only used it 100 times in my life), I can crack on pretty quickly and effectively.

I must be getting old

[wyliecoyoteuk]

@Nordle
Ubit Menu will give you your sanity back

[Catinaz]

Sounds like HUD is "All-in-one" and vice versa. As far as I can remember my self I never heard of one "All-in-one" thing/app/good/etc. that was really good at "all". I prefer to have 10 different things/apps/goods/etc. that are very good at what they do.
And then

"...and easier to use than hotkeys since you just have to know what you want, not remember a specific key combination."

Usually I DO remember key combination and if I don't then I dont know what I want.

"Hotkeys are a sort of mental gymnastics, the HUD is a continuation of mental flow."

I want these mental gymnastics in order not to become "mental flow......."
Completely agree with wyliecoyoteuk:

The biggest problem with all of these menu GUI replacements is that they lack "discoverability". i.e. they are not browseable.

Nahhhh, Hud's not for me.

[nordle]

@Nordle
Ubit Menu will give you your sanity back

What a legend! Fantastic......feel a bit silly for not having googled it, after all I could not have been the only one to not appreciate the Ribbons finer points.

Brilliant thanks

....now, just to convince IT to install it.....