[Cialug] Ubuntu's new look

[Zachary Kotlarek]

On Mar 4, 2010, at 3:45 PM, Tim Champion wrote:

> On Thu, Mar 4, 2010 at 3:33 PM, Matthew Nuzum <newz at bearfruit.org> wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 4, 2010 at 12:10 PM, Tim Champion <timchampion at gmail.com> wrote:
> >I'm surprised no one has mentioned the placement of the minimize/maximize/close controls.
> hmmm. top left - mac style.
> 
> 
> Ah, but look closer. There's even something odd about that.
> 
> Ya, I see the close button is not in the extreme left corner, the bottons are in the same position, just the other side. I seriously hop that this is customizable, 'cause I don't think I can adjust to that kind of oddness. 


Yes. The unbearable oddness of having your titlebar interface left/center justified in locales that read left-to-right, universal buttons on the left and context-specific buttons on the right.

I'd argue that it's the decision to put the window title in the left corner that forced all the useful buttons to the other side in the first place, and that the right-justified buttons in left-to-right locales are the odd duck out because of that change.

Until Windows 95, all popular windows managers -- MS Windows, most X11 windowing systems, and Apple's System -- put the window title in the center and buttons on either edge of the title bar. Windows 95 put the title on the left and so all the buttons were forced to the right. Apple and many X11 systems have kept the centered window title, but eventually many X11 systems copied Windows 95 and moved all their buttons to the right anyway.

But that sort of argument might start a flame war about the One True Titlebar Layout, and since I'm an obvious blasphemer I should only make it after donning my asbestos pants. ;-)

	Zach

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