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Usability Problems With Unity

MTK358 — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 16:35:15 GMT

I think that the sidebar is really confusing. When you click on an icon, it launches the app. You click on it again, and it brings that app to the top. There's no obvious way to start another instance (you have to right-click). If there are multiple instances of an app open, you have to go through two steps to choose it: first click on the icon, then on the instance you want. Why combine the unrelated concepts of launching a process and window management?

Second, the way the menubar is now on top of the screen rather than in each application. Personally I find it confusing, but maybe it's becasue I'm not used to it. But it has two very, very serious flaws:

It shows the name of the currently active window. This is really confusing if there's a maximized window in the background and a smaller, active one selected, because the title of the active window looks like the title of the maximized window.

I like focus follows mouse (you don't have to click to select a window). The problem is that this makes it literally impossible (!) to use the menubar of an application that has a larger window behind it. Basically, when you move the mouse out of the application you're working on to get to the menubar, the mouse travels across another window to get there and the menubar changes to the one from the app you just moved the mouse over. Yes, it only happens when you change the default focus policy, but in my opinion it's still a fatal flaw.

And this is just a minor annoyance, some apps don't support the menubar in the top panel, and this is really inconsistent.

Third, the launcher "menu" (that takes up the whole screen) has no easy way to access favorite apps right away. You either have to use the keyboard or click and scroll through lots of menus and icons.

Finally, the workspace switcher isn't really obvoius, and for some reason you have to double-click to select a desktop.

I wonder what kind of "usability experts" designed this, and how many newbies will be put off from Linux by this?

How to enable the Compose key in X

MTK358 — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 16:33:09 GMT

Here I will show you how to enable the Compose key in X. It lets you type unusual characters like this:

��ə k��

by pressing the Compose key followed by a predefined sequence of keys. Here are some good references:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compose_key
http://www.hermit.org/Linux/ComposeKeys.html

Anyway, first you need to choose which key you want to be the Compose key. Then, open a terminal and enter the command "xev" (without the quotes). A window called "Event Tester" will pop up. Make sure that it's focused by clicking on it and leaving the mouse cursor in it.

Now press and release the key that you want to become the Compose key. Remember or write down the number after the word "keycode" in the output (see below image):

Now open the file ".Xmodmap" (the name begins with a dot) in your home directory (create it if it isn't there already) with a text editor and type in the following line, replacing with the number you got in xev.

Code:

keycode  = Multi_key

Now, open the file .xinitrc (it's in your home directory, and it's a hidden file) in a text editor. Insert this line in the beginning of the file:

Code:

xmodmap ~/.Xmodmap

And next time you log in the Compose key should work! To start using the Compose key right now, enter the command "xmodmap ~/.Xmodmap" in a terminal.

Here's some more information abotu the Compose key, including what characters you can type and how:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compose_key
http://www.hermit.org/Linux/ComposeKeys.html

IMPORTANT: I can't guarantee that this will work for systems that use a GUI login manager, I don't know how those work. I can only guarantee that this will work with the "startx" command.

How to fix Arch Linux file manager mounting error

MTK358 — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 14:47:58 GMT

When you plug in a removable storage device in your Arch box and get an error dialog with some kind of errors about HAL when you try mounting it with your favorite file manager, this should fix your problems:

First, edit "/etc/dbus-1/system.d/hal.conf".

Code:

vim /etc/dbus-1/system.d/hal.conf

You can obviously use whatever your favorite editor is in place of vim.

Now find something that looks like this in the file:

Code:

Make sure that the block starts with the line "". Now add in the part highlighted in bold. It probably doesn't matter where you put it, though, as long as it's within the " ... " block and NOT within another block:

Code:

Save the modified file and restart the HAL daemon:

Code:

/etc/rc.d/hal restart

It should work now!