Accessibility category

I've been using Ubuntu for about 8 months now, and decided to tell all my friends and family about it, and I eventually talked my girlfriend into installing Ubuntu onto her computer. She likes it fine for the most part, but she's very "point-and-click" when it comes to computers, she expects things to work without having to think about them, and that seems to be the mindset of many people I've spoken to.

Anyways, to make a longer story not so long, she installed a program outside of the Add/Remove option in the menu, using the terminal, she copies the commands into the prompt and it installed the program, (you'll have to forgive me if I use incorrect terminology with naming these programs and commands, etc. as I am relatively new to linux) but after installing the program, she had no idea where it was. Sad to say, I wasn't exactly sure myself (I later found out after some research)

Would there be any way to create a folder or something called "Newly Installed Programs" or something similar, in the menu or on the desktop, for programs created without the use of the Add/Remove option? This issue has hindered her wanting to use Ubuntu, and I'm sure she's not the only one. Would there be some way to make it easier to manage these new programs and make them easier to find?


(I apologize if this is discussed here already, I searched but saw nothing related.)

nowadays, laptops are more common than PC, and every one has a built in bluetooth

when i put liveCD into my latest laptop, in order to play with bluetooth, i have to setup network connection, and download some software

theese packages are not so heavy - for ex bluez-utils have 215 kB package size

bluemon - 25 kB

and so on

Rename Preferences and Administration in Settings menu to some more clear one. Like:

Preferences --> Personal settings
Administration --> System management

This could clear things out on new users.

Maybe most of us feel disturb when this happens

Here what I mean:

http://img208.imageshack.us/my.php?image=wtfnu5.png

I did some googling on this, and all I found was an archaic and apparently obsolete program called mini-commander, and a note that similar functionality had been lost in KDE4. I'll try to explain it as best I can, because one nearly universal theme I saw from people asking for how to do this was people replying not understanding what they were talking about.

Basically, give the option to add a small text entry area on a gnome-panel, in which commands could be entered. Such commands would act exactly as if they had been launched in the "Run Application" window normally brought up by pressing "ALT+F2".

Deskbar-Applet does NOT provide this functionality, and nor does this replace deskbar-applet. Whereas deskbar-applet stays as an icon which is expanded, and searches for things to run automatically, a Run-Application-Applet should stay a simple text entry area on the panel, which can be clicked to enter text. It should act exactly as the taskbar in the ALT+F2 Run Application window; providing autocomplete, but NOT running anything other than the command line. It should not show similar results.

This functionality is NOT provided in GNOME currently, and only appears to be offered in KDE 3; not 4. I am NOT asking for a button to launch a terminal, nor would a drop down terminal such as Tilda fill this role.

The preferences window should contain at least two options; the first being a checkbox which would change ALT+F2's behavior from opening the Run Application window to giving focus to the panel applet. The second should be adjusting its width. A third one should probably be added for the 'run in terminal' checkbox the run application window already has.

This would be useful as a low-overhead way of launching programs. Let's use my real-world scenario of wanting to have easy access to multiple applications. Well, I can use application launchers. Each of these takes time to make, especially if I need to hunt down an icon for them, and each of them eats up screen space. Just five or six application launchers take up about the same room as a full window; thus making it painful to manage even one more window at a time. Worst yet, having my cursor off by a few pixels can be the difference between opening a calculator and opening a virtual machine; one of which obviously consumes more time to close if accidentally opened.

[....]

This idea is somewhat a derivate for my previous idea (http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/16512/ ).
The explanation below is based on a true story!

The situation:
One of my friends would like to set up his system to be able to play DVD-s, movies, mp3, etc. In one word: multimedia.
Because I knew what packages he needs, I wrote him down the command based on apt (apt-get install package1 package2 etc).

The solution:
It would be nice a GUI where I can make multiple selections on the available packages, and at the end to finish the work with creation of a metapackage to install all the selected stuff.

Advantages:
I could share the created metapackage with others, without the posibility to make errors when typing package names or forgetting something out.
I could make a metapackage for myself, and when setting up a new system, I could install all what I want with one command (similar to ubuntu-restricted-extras metapackage
for example.)

Disadvantages:
On a very customized system it could result some unexpected issues. (conflicts, missing repos, etc.)

That would allow me to select multiple files and open their context menus with one mouse click.

I press the right button, the selection box is drawn, I drag the mouse to select a bunch of icons while the right button is still pressed, then release it to have the menu popped-down for those icons. very handy..

We just only want to know what author think about self package and what are solutions from author.

In the keyboard shortcuts one can set keyboards shortcuts to rhythmbox. Unfortunatly they do not function with Youtubes flashplayer, totem or any other. Please apply those shortcuts (play, pause, next, previous, ...) to any player!

Nautilus to appear in a dual display support on a button or keyboard for easy management of files (similar FreeCommander on Windos) and the Simple File Transfer FTP.

Of course in normal (if dual pricing is not lit), Nautilus operate with a single display.

1. Detect a pheripherie and display a menu only in case device is plugged in. Assume keyboard and mouse not be standart!
2. Unify all menus: It is stupid that I configure the Keyboard in 2 menus, grafix card in 4 menus (Screen resolution, nvidia settings, etc.), volume and sound in 2 menus.
3. Do not show items which are not there! I o not have blutooth in my desktop, but in my laptop.
4. Do not show items which are not installed: My desktop has no modem, but Laptop has one!
5. Detect all buttons! My keyboard has extra keys as well as my former mouse.

Changing month/year now is very inconvenient - need to point out this little arrows, then push and push to choose one.
Make them like in ExtJS web toolkit:
http://extjs.com/deploy/dev/examples/form/adv-vtypes.html or something similar

(NOTE: I can only be 100% sure that this applies to GNOME. I'm not really sure if this affects KDE users as well, since I don't use it)

I prefer to use the keyboard whenever possible when operating my PC. Whenever a message box appears, my first reaction is to just press the key that corresponds to the hotkey that's visible on screen (i.e. The [Y] key for selecting '[Y]es', [N] for '[N]o', [Esc] key for 'Cancel' and [Enter] key for selecting the default command).

About 25% of the time, the message box does what it's supposed to do, and complies with the action i have just selected with the keyboard. The rest of the time, however, either (1) the message box has lost its focus for some reason or other, (2) I have to remember that the [Alt] key needs to be pressed as well as the hotkey and try again, or (3) it will just sit there like a dummy whenever I press either [Esc] or [Enter] to close it, and have to reach for the mouse to click on it instead.

I feel that since we are bombarded by message boxes all day, this should be something to consider fixing at some point because of the fact that these little seconds of lost time eventually add up to productivity issues down the road. Message box functionality is inconsistent between programs, and even the most important of message boxes can lose their focus, which for keyboard users like myself, is a huge no-no. I dread the times I need to go to my Windows partition to do stuff, but their message boxes are better to work with most of the time.

I think a few fellow users will join me in thanking you guys for all your efforts so far. Keep up the great work!

Have two taskbars in Gnome is very handy, but it greatly reduces the usable area for applications, especially with the laptop's screens.
It would be nice to create a fourth button in the windows border (-> System -> Preferences -> Windows -> Add button fullscreen) to make a fullscreen of applications as is possible with Firefox (F11) or OpenOffice.org (Ctrl + Shift + J).

PS: https://addons.mozilla.org/fr/firefox/addon/810
I have this addon on firefox but it is an icon under the windows border.

In compiz, it's possible to configure a shortcut in CompizConfig -> Extra WindowsManager actions -> Toggle Fullscreen, but not a graphical shortcut.

Why don't make an option who fullscreen the windows when the second button is double-cliced or when the user clics two second on the button ?

Here a new idea for Control Center

(Users and Groups)
About Me
Sessions
Assistance
Authorizations
Search and Indexes
Interface
Preferred Applications
Groups
Users
Encryption
SCIM
User template
(Look and Feel)
Theme: Icons, Screensaver, Sounds, Compiz profile, colours...
Wallpaper
Fonts
Interface
Visual Effects
Sound Effects
Language
(Internet and Networking)
Networks: Allow to link to a proxy server profile
Proxies: Enter number of profiles
Remote Desktop
Firewall
(Hardware)
Drivers
Printing

[....]

Ubuntu has great way to manage applications menu by classifying the programs according to categories. After using ubuntu for a long time I come up with many office applications so the menu can not cover them. I suggest at this stage to make second auto categorization. For example.
|
+->Office->
|
+ KDE office
-Open Office
|
-> Writer
-> Calc and other applications
+PDF utilities
+Mail [Thunderbird, Evolution, Kmail]

the same applies to Internet, you can divide them again to chat and browsers ...

sound and video can be divided to video players and music players [itunes like]

maybe I am not good at suggesting the second stage of categories but having second stage will help a lot people who installed many applications.

When i go into "System Settings" there is an icon called "About Me", in there i can fill out information about me.

I don't think anybody actually fills that information out.
People don't like giving out personal information just for the heck of it.

A short survey showing the proportion of users who actually fill that field would give interesting results (probably nobody has filled it out).
Could be very cheap to implement, just a check on some 20 random users which have been using Kubuntu for at least 6 months each.

The only useful button there is the "Change Password" button. But a single button doesn't justify a whole screen.

Also the "Paths" icon should be named more accurately "My Paths".

And the "About me" icon should be called "My Settings".
Because it's not about personal information, it's about the setup.


And due to the above that icon should yield only one screen showing "My Paths" information and a "Change Password" button.

There is little program that can be used to quickly share files within a local network called Giver that would be ideal for Ubuntu, as it is easy to use.

http://code.google.com/p/giver/

Ctrl+Alt+Backspace instantly kills X there should be some sort of safety on this for newer linux users. Adding a X prompt to it -similar to a kernel prompt text based- saying holding this for 3 seconds will kill your session and what you were doing. Of course leaving a way to disable this for normal users would be highly welcome. Say by setting the time in a config if 0 safety is disabled otherwise it has a time set on it.

Otherwise provide in the LiveCD a presentation - An Icon on the desktop so people see it - and as a shared document an a installed system (attached by its own package for removal purpose if wanted) warnings of dangerous or confusing things to do to your system -commands and hotkeys- and what their use is.

This is mostly a forwarding of this blogpost I found through Digg. Link:

http://www.matusiak.eu/numerodix/blog/index.php/2008/12/19/linux-audio-confusin g-as-ever/

Maybe there should be a collaboration in the linux world to bring forward a universal audio format that also work on all plattforms? Right now there seem to be a jungle out there.