My first year working for Canonical draws to a close with my team delivering a new identity for Ubuntu.
I am very proud of the result and would like to thank them for all their hard work. I also want to thank Mark Shuttleworth and Jane Silber for setting out the challenge and for being part of the team.
Ubuntu has a great engineering heritage. It is fast and efficient. Ubuntu gives the world an excellent free and open-source operating system that helps many millions of people achieve their goals. This new identity gives Ubuntu an opportunity to stand up and be noticed. It gives all of us more to enjoy as we work and play.
If Ubuntu were a person it would be that person at the dinner party with great stories and a mind brimming with knowledge; the person you know will enjoy learning from. They know things you want to know, they do things you want to do; you want to be like them because they are amazing!
I am not going to wax lyrical on the meeting of form and function. Many others have written and spoken on that subject. This is a moment for celebration.
We have before us the very finest cloth. Let’s make sure our Ubuntu turns up to the dinner party in the coolest gear!
There is much to do.








Those pesky buttons
Many of you have been asking for some correspondence regarding the button position in the window manager.
Here it is.
At Ubuntu we have a golden opportunity not only to make our OS as good as the competition but to make it better. The button position discussion and analysis started with:
- Why do Mac OS and Windows have the buttons where they do?
- What was the functional reason behind the Mac OS choice (or the Windows position for that matter)?
- Why, when most application menus are top left should the window controls go top right?
- Why, when we read left to right is the most destructive action first?
- Are we smoking crack to think that the learning curve for getting used to a new position is ever going to be worth any real or perceived benefit of new positions?
As part of a major theme update it felt appropriate to ask these questions.
After the internal debate and analysis (which went something like the picture below) we decided to put this version in the theme and to use it. I have had it running on my machine with the buttons in this order since before the Portland sprint (first week of February?) and I am quite used to it.
Is it better or worse?
It is quite hard to tell. The theme has been in the alpha since Friday. Now that you have had a chance to use it what do you think?
Personally, I would have the max and min on the left and close on the right.