Originally, i was really against the idea of a dark theme, and maybe i'd still prefer it if Ubuntu would lighten up a little. I understand the organic theme completely, but please...this is an operating system. Anyways, all the dark themes i had seen really turned me off and even the best ones seemed to be loved by some and hated by others. If we're going to have a dark theme, lets have one that we can all agree on. When i saw the Intrepid alpha screenshot, like many others, i gagged a little.

How people interact with their computer is really essential to their satisfaction. This is why aside from features, the software's stability (minimizing annoying bugs), speed (clean code and making everything as efficient and responsive as possible), and interface (look and feel) are the three most important things that should be our focus and be kept at a high priority.
We should really work to increase usability: http://mpt.net.nz/archive/2008/08/01/free-software-usability

I have looked through all the artwork submissions for Intrepid, and of all of them, this is the one dark theme that i would actually like to use: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Artwork/Incoming/Intrepid/Wall-light

I first saw it on this Digg submission: http://digg.com/linux_unix/Intrepid_Ibex_Mockup_Designs

Of course, i'm sure everyone will have input to make it even better. This isn't a final design, but vote for the concept so far!

P.S. Please Digg :) Thanks http://digg.com/linux_unix/Vote_for_a_beautiful_usable_Ubuntu

At the moment, if I plug in a webcam or a USB mouse, there is nothing visual to say that Ubuntu has correctly detected the new hardware, to see if it's been properly detected, I have to actually start using it.

(wasn't sure what related project to put)

gnome-system-monitor provides a cleaner interface than Windows "Task Manager", and provides many useful features including list of processes running, memory and network usage, etc.

This functionality should be more accessible by key binding it by default to CTRL-ALT-DELETE as Windows does--as this is more familiar to users coming from Windows. The current key binding for CTRL-ALT-DELETE brings up the shutdown/logout options, which is already accessible as a desktop button, which is redundant for a relatively less used function.

gnome-system-monitor is an idle interface for monitoring the system and killing processes without using the terminal and provides an interface for doing this that most are already familiar with. Changing it's key binding would make it's functionality much more accessible.

There are apparently a number of ways to choose the default application for a given file type. This should be more consistent. Ideally it should be possible when using the "Open with..." menu item to select an application from what is available under the Applications menu, rather than from the often limited list that is presented.

In Jaunty Jackalope 9.04 beta is added shutdown/restart/logout confirmation dialog. This dialog is important at the moment. Focus an attention of user on it.

Ubuntu should maintain a database of programs for different file types, so that instead of clicking a file and discovering there is no supported program installed.. Instead, they should be prompted with something like the following:

=======================
- There are no known programs installed to open "jakebox" files.
- Ubuntu can install one of the following programs from APT automatically. We believe they may be able to open the file: (Show packages: eg. KJakebox, JB)
- Or you may select an existing program to attempt to open it with. (Show existing program list)
- Or just cancel
========================

This would be integrated with synaptic and catch all unsupported file types, and means that even advanced users wont have issues opening files they have never seen before.

I think all hands would be up on brainstorm when i asked if people have at least once been sent something they had to google to work out how to open.

Nautilus could detect if a folder contains a majority of a certain type of files and adapt the type and number of columns to provide more useful details.

I think of pictures folders, where it could show exif informations about pictures like the resolution of the picture and its capture date (in addition to the modification date)

I also think of music folders, where it could show the bitrate,the length and the (ID3) tags of the music files.
I think this would be very useful.

In addition, the ability to add/remove columns should be available by the right click on the listview header.

Please see the comments for further ideas

From #6245 (merged):

Having an extra column in the list showing something like "23x456" would be ideal, because you could see the info for all the files in the folder at once.

Have the info in the status-bar would be better than what we've got currently (right-click->properties->image shows the info in Nautilus, but it's not very efficient)

when I install new applications my ubuntu main menu goes to long, and there are too much space between icons. This detracts from usability, and looks ugly, when you are hit with a 5 mile long applications list.

Drag&Drop is such a intuitive and simple action - it must be promoted.
There are many things that already work in Ubuntu/GNOME/KDE with Drag&Drop, but there is much that can be improved:

- DnD an image from Firefox to the Desktop should place that image there, not a textfile with the link to the homepage.
- DnD from the icon on the left side of the URL in the Firefox address bar to the desktop should create a .desktop file with a link to that URL.
- DnD of devices onto the Pastebin should unmount them (like OSX)
- DnD of a Desktop file into a mainmenu/submenu of GNOME should create a menu item.
- fix the Nautilus-in-list-view-doesn't-accept-DnD-files issue: Launchpad bug #61237
- DnD file from anywhere (e.g. Desktop) to a folder in the "file open" "file save" dialogs.
- DnD a file into an edit box should insert a file:// link - KDE has this; Idea #3027
from Idea #4105:
- DnD Attachement from Thunderbird to Nautilus
- DnD Files From File-Roller to Nautilus
- DnD Picture from Nautilus to OOo

...and many more, please submit your ideas, I'll put them into the description!


If you like this idea, also look at my other ideas

Hello,

I live in a house with several different nationalities, and we all need to use one pc. It would be nice if we could create separate users which each make use of their own language.

So for example Piet from the Netherlands has a Dutch user account, Ricardo from Spain has a Spanish account, Aleksandra from Poland has a Polish account, etc.