Ubuntu 10.4: How to place the window close button on the right again | Hacker News Reader

Ubuntu 10.4: How to place the window close button on the right again

codigomanso.com

14 pointssean1234526 comments

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Anyone who belongs on HN can find this information with Google, probably as the first result on their first try.

I thought HN was a hangout for people wanting to start their own business.

Edit: Yikes. I guess the truth hurts. :)

"Hacker News"

I tried to eat an apple but chipped my tooth on the monitor. A descriptive name doesn't necessarily make it so.

Forrest Gump's uncle does something in fruit ;)

Maybe this site needs an 'about'.

Well I tried today, but it was a little harder than I expected. And this GUI method is also very usefull for most people.

But maybe the news value is that there are a lot of people searching for methods to place the buttons right again...

edit By the way, you will be missing the maximize button...

Honestly, it took about ten seconds to learn it was on the other side. Is it really that much trouble for people to adapt? It's been less than a day and I don't even notice it's on the other side any more.

Yes, there's the argument that people should (and can) put it wherever they like, but seriously, within ten or so instances it's relearned.

It really isn't trouble at all...except people hate change.

Ubuntu Linux is in danger of becoming the new windows. Time to move to Plan 9! I don't see that becoming mainstream for at least a year.

It's almost ridiculous how much.

If such a minute change like this generates such a negative reaction from someone, how is that person going to handle real, serious change? Especially when this minute change was such an arbitrary thing to begin with.

Change is good. Temporary uncomfort is good. Adaptability is a trait to nurture, not protect yourself from.

Pointless change for the sake of change is what causes me to react negatively.

Except it was neither pointless nor simply for the sake of change.

Really? I don't understand the point except perhaps that Ubuntu now wants to look more like Mac OS X than Windows.

If change were always a good thing, and temporary uncomfort good - do you mind if I borrow that office chair of yours and replace it with a different one? If you're still bored, there's this French-layout keyboard I could give you. And - no, don't use it with UK/US layout, that would be boring.

Unwarranted change - one that you push onto others without asking, and without really having a good reason - is usually a bad thing in terms of usability - especially when one of your Linux machines suddenly has the window buttons on one side whereas all the others have them on the other.

If it were a radical improvement in usability, I'd say go for it, but as it is, you're typically at the right side of a window when you don't want to have the mouse cursor inside it (or to be near the scroll bar, because the scroll wheel doesn't work when you're mousing over that flash movie), so you have to go a shorter way if the buttons are on the right.

"If change were always a good thing, and temporary uncomfort good - do you mind if I borrow that office chair of yours and replace it with a different one? If you're still bored, there's this French-layout keyboard I could give you. And - no, don't use it with UK/US layout, that would be boring."

These are not good examples. I just use whichever chair is closest to where I want to sit when I want to sit, and I switch between dvorak and qwerty more than once a day without even noticing any more. Likewise, I anticipate, whichever side the close button is on. These are utterly inconsequential changes. I'd be willing to bet that the time I would save each day by having the close button more often nearer to where the mouse pointer is when I need to close a window is swallowed up in a single digressive conversation lasting less than a few minutes.

Your keyboard example is poor. The point is to not be so ridiculously oversensitive to change as to freak out over very minor ones. Your example is on a whole other order of magnitude of chaos, and as such is not a valid comparison.

Change is good. Temporary uncomfort is good.

This isn't like moving to a new city to broaden your horizons. I didn't find changing the side the buttons were on expanded my consciousness and brought about a refreshing personal transformation.

No, the button change simply annoyed me because it was pointless, and ruined years of muscle memory (till I turned it off). Change for the sake of change can be good in some areas of life, but for the simple day to day stuff, if it isn't broken, don't fix it unless you're actually making it better.

Has anyone actually found the new buttons better? The closest I've heard anyone say is, "eh, I got used to em pretty quick". I'd hardly call that a ringing endorsement.

I found them actively bad, as they're right on top of all your menus, which could lead to mistaken menu clicks and vice versa.

FWIW, I actually do find the buttons to be better positioned now. Ubuntu's default layout puts the power, email, date/time and network tray icons in the top-right corner of the screen, within a quarter-inch a maximized window's control buttons. I am constantly clicking the wrong button when I'm in a hurry, sometimes closing a window (requiring me to answer a dialog box before I can work in that window again) or minimizing it when I'm just trying to set my IM status, and sometimes opening the calendar when I want to close a window. Top-left is better for me since the worst I can accidentally do there is open the Applications menu for a second, and it disappears when you click outside it, unlike the calendar.

>> "This isn't like moving to a new city to broaden your horizons. I didn't find changing the side the buttons were on expanded my consciousness and brought about a refreshing personal transformation."

Not everything is a revelation, or a revolution. Small details matter. Hence the fact that we're even talking about this one.

>. "but for the simple day to day stuff, if it isn't broken, don't fix it unless you're actually making it better."

I would argue that it is better. Now everything is grouped together on the left. Since we're speaking to each other in English, I can say that "we" read from left to right.

Left makes sense. The buttons are positioned the same location from the top-left of the screen whether I'm on my 1024x600 netbook or my 1920x1200 laptop. They're no longer at the farthest possible point away from where my eyes typically linger.

You can say that's a small thing, you can say it doesn't matter to you. But to simply say it's "change for the sake of change" is to woefully undersell the idea of good design. (Of course, in this case, it's mostly aping the design established by Apple, but better to perpetuate good designs than bad ones)

I don't like it, but it doesn't matter for me because I change to clearlooks with new icons for gnome anyways and they didn't mess with buttons on that theme.

It's only troublesome if you use Chrome (like me) as the buttons of chrome stay on the right side. I am happily switching it back to the right side because i really don't see the point to put it left. No benefit but the disadvantage to learn to become accustomed to it, so whats the point?

edit: I've used the new version since beta2 and it was no big deal for me to click on the left side. Still i changed it to the right side yesterday.

I would recommend switch Chromium to use System titlebars. Along with the Ambiance Chrome theme, you get a really nice appearance: http://imgur.com/ccAKI.png

No, i couldn't do that.

One of the best features of Chrome is the tabs-in-the-titlebar thing, i couldn't give that up :)

Thanks for the hint anyway

Or get yourself a mouse with extra buttons (I bought a Logitech over 5 years ago), and map those buttons to minimize/restore. Or even better, use a stack that remembers which windows you've minimized, and quickly restore them in the reverse order.

Right side: gconftool-2 --set “/apps/metacity/general/button_layout” --type string “:minimize,maximize,close”

Left side: gconftool-2 --set “/apps/metacity/general/button_layout” --type string “maximize,minimize,close:”

Far faster than using the gconf-editor GUI, IMO.

If you're worried about what side of the window your close button is on, you're doing it wrong. Learn the keyboard shortcuts and move on to more important issues.

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