18.04 Bionic - Changes to default layout

Development Discussion
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I know it’s early in development, but April isn’t that far off. Just thought I’d take another peek and see where UM is headed, a fresh install shows the “Traditional” layout now uses the Brisk Menu along with Places and System, and it seems Breeze is the default cursor theme.

I always understood Ubuntu MATE along with Solus to be leading the way in terms of innovation, and though it doesn’t suit me personally as a MATE enthusiast to see overwhelming changes, after all that’s why MATE was forked, I have learned to accept it and move on (to other distros).

Is it fair to say the community feedback for the default layout as recent as 17.10 and the appreciation showed by the user community at being asked now means nothing? This isn’t meant as an attack, just hoping to confirm that UM is going the way of Canonical insomuch as all (many) decisions regarding the direction of the distro are made independent of the user community.

Maybe that’s unfair to say that. I accept that every community or corporate leader would want to have some control over what they’re making, but if there are like-minded people who chose UM for it’s Ubuntu base and pure MATE desktop without the fancy new stuff that is increasing the ISO size over that of Vanilla Ubuntu and almost doubling the resource usage, would it be feasible to have a “core” version that people using the last LTS would immediately recognise and be comfortable with? A long-shot I know, but I figured it was worth a shot!

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Hi @Alif_Dal_Mim, Just a side note. In MATE-Tweak under Panel you can add “Show Applications” and get the old Menu Bar back full.

I’m not sure if this Frankenstein menu is in the future or not but these days my victories are being able to get around them.

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Hi, thanks for the heads up, that definitely helps.

Though MATE Tweak is among my long list of --purge'd packages, I will see if the gsettings command still works. Even “Menu Bar” from the Add to Panel list is missing the Applications menu.

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Okay, so the way to I got the standard mate menu back in the 18.04 daily build was to unlock and delete the brisk menu and the remains of the standard menu. Then, right-click “add to panel” and choose the “custom menu bar” (which is, in fact, the standard Mate menu) and then move and lock it to the left hand end of the task bar.

Alternatively, as an addendum to what Bill mentioned, delete the brisk menu and go into mate tweak and check the “show applications” check-box to rebuild the existing standard menu and move and lock it to the left of the task-bar.

I am hoping all of this daftness is just a function of it being a daily build and is not indicative of an actual change to the default menu on UM. Because, if it is, then it does rather beg the question of what all of that “consultation” about menus was about a few months back.

I could live with the Brisk menu being default so long as the standard mate menu was easily available in Mate Tweak. But, as things currently stand on the daily build, it isn’t and the only way to get it is to fiddle around in the way I described, above. Which seems to me to be making it unnecessarily hard for newcomers to find and use it.

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The changes to the “traditional” layout in Ubuntu MATE 18.04 is intended to offer a familiar look and feel but expose new useful features, such as Super key menu launching and indicators.

As you’ve already discovered, it is trivial to restore the original menu and you can then save that as you own custom layout.

Is it such a departure?

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Yes it is such a departure.

Firstly, because to not have the standard menu as default is to make a mockery of the “consultation” carried out with users some months back. Why bother consulting users if you intend to ignore their views?

However, don’t misunderstand me here. I don’t actually have a problem, in principle, with devs on a particular project having their own distinctive vision that they intend to pursue and where they expect users to follow where they lead. Just so long as that is made clear to users from the outset. Some users may like the changes and some may not. But, that’s life and, most importantly, the process is transparent and nobody is decieved.

What I do object to, though, is when users are “consulted” on the basis of a pretence that their views matter. But where those views are then subsequently ignored once the debate has died down a bit. It just seems to me, Martin, that you never accepted the result of that consultation and have simply bided what you considered a sufficient period of time until you felt able to slip in that which you wanted to implement in the first place.

Secondly, notwithstanding the above, for new users, having to delete existing menus, find the standard menu in the “add to panel” list under the name of “custom-menu” (or rebuild what remains of the standard menu on the taskbar) and then move and lock it into position on the left hand end of the top panel is not trivial. It may be trivial for more experienced users. But, not for new users.

It would be trivial if it was a layout option in Mate Tweak.

But it isn’t.

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I understand that having the Traditional layout as default would mean that a feature that is deemed crucial for new users, the super key activated menu, wouldn’t be accessible until another layout is activated.

But changing the “Traditional” layout of all things just seems a peculiar and alienating move. Maybe it should have been left as it was and another layout chosen as default after all. My only hope at the moment is that it is not affected upstream.

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I don't see what is a big deal with this. :slight_smile:
Ubuntu Mate changing the default panel layout can be a positive event.

I already use the Super key for launching the jgmenu via ksuperkey GitHub - hanschen/ksuperkey: Linux utility that allows you to use the Super key both to open the start menu and as a modifier key in keyboard shortcuts

Screenshot at 2018-02-15 15-23-52.png1920×1080 206 KB

Making it work out of the box for newbies is a good step forward.

Perhaps it could be even more trivial with some new panel applet to change/save the panel layouts. :blush:

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Read stevecook’s posts to understand the points being made, the issue is not that the default layout is changing in and of itself.

Other than that, nice showcase.

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I personally have no problems with the breeze cursor theme in my use I actually prefer it it gives it a more polished feel however leaving out the traditional menu in the traditional layout i feel is a mistake, not that I use the menu, but MATEis gnome 2 and even if it is not default I think there should be a traditional layout, the way it is on previous versions, however I do not use that and personally do not care for any of the menu’s on mate right except panther, and that not completely, i use the AM for daily use, I am just biding my time till I can figure out how to put the gnomenu on MATE or a variant of it, then we can have a somewhat more realistic setup for mutiny as well as a just plain good menu, just some thoughts

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The “big deal” is users have been dealt with dishonestly. I happen to think that is important.

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I still fail to see why is this so important. Anyone can restore the original menu in a few steps and save a custom layout.
You mentioned “new users”.
The problem with the windtendo-users/linux-wannabes is that they are so tied to wintendo like with an umbilical cord.
Gnu/Linux has a different philosophy, it’s a different way of seeing life.
There will certanly be videos on YouTube and instructions on this forum on how to do this. If after all of that, they feel discomfort to make a few simple steps to restore the menu, then they certainly should go back to wintendo.
What is dishonest here? They decided to change the default looks, if you wan’t to go back to the old one, then follow these simple steps.

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The irony :slight_smile:

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[quote="Misko_2083, post:12, topic:15985, full:true"]
....I still fail to see why is this so important. Anyone can restore the original menu in a few steps and save a custom layout.....[/quote]

That is because you have failed to understand (or pretended to fail to understand) the problem I have outlined. The problem is not the change in and of itself. Devs are at liberty to take a distro in whatever direction they wish. The problem is one of dishonesty in communication with users. Namely, in the carrying out of an explicit consultation with users on the specific issue of change from the standard menu to the Brisk menu as default. The overwhelming result of that consultation was that users did not wish for the menu to be changed.

Following the consultation, a great show was made about how the dev team would respect the wishes of the users and so the change would not be implemented. And yet, here we are, several months later and precisely such a change is being implemented with no formal notification whatsoever. The only reason it is being discussed is due to a user noticing it on the 18.04 daily build and then posting about it on here.

To repeat, since you obviously did not comprehend the words in my post the first time around, I don't actually have a problem, in principle, with devs on a particular project having their own distinctive vision that they intend to pursue and where they expect users to follow where they lead. Just so long as that is made clear to users from the outset. Some users may like the changes and some may not. But, that's life and, most importantly, the process is transparent and nobody is deceived.

But, in pretending to consult users but then quietly ignoring the result of that consultation once debate has died down, people have been deceived and no amount of obfuscatory posts, of the type which your last one typifies, will change that.

...You mentioned "new users".
The problem with the windtendo-users/linux-wannabes is that they are so tied to wintendo like with an umbilical cord.

Gnu/Linux has a different philosophy, it's a different way of seeing life.
There will certanly be videos on YouTube and instructions on this forum on how to do this. If after all of that, they feel discomfort to make a few simple steps to restore the menu, then they certainly should go back to wintendo....

As a previous poster has already noted - oh the irony.

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In case anyone wonders where that poll was -- it's here:

To be clear, I'm just the developer for web/Welcome/Boutique related stuff, I don't actually develop MATE itself or touch other pieces of code for Ubuntu MATE.

I'll be here to defend the corner to ensure Traditional sticks to its values. It's more so that one of the objectives of Ubuntu MATE is:

Recreate the halcyon days of Ubuntu for users who prefer a traditional desktop metaphor.

This change would've resulted in "Menu, Places, System" which sounds like a Frankenstein... "Applications, Places, System" with simple drop-down menus is a very nice characteristic of MATE. :slight_smile:

I agree with @stevecook172001 that I too personally don't mind the default changing when it's for the better, but I suppose there has been no announcement as there hasn't been an Alpha release yet. 18.04 is still in development and it looks like it was an experimental change.

Development wise, it has been reverted for technical reasons I believe, especially if you consider users will be upgrading from 16.04 -- the experience should be as smooth as possible.

I too would not expect to see a "Traditional" layout that presented Brisk... that would be a lie. :slight_smile: If it was called something like "Traditional: Supercharged" and set as the default, I'd be OK with that.

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Precisely.

To absolutely reiterate here - even though such a change being made would be despite the result of that consultation, it could still be implemented honourably if two things pertain:

  1. The new default menu, whatever components it is comprised of eventually, does not pretend to be the traditional menu. But is, instead, given another name

  2. The proper, traditional Mate menu layout of Applications/Places/System is explicitly offered as one of the layout options in Mate Tweak and retains its proper title of “Traditional Mate (Gnome2-like) Layout”

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So I see now this is not a technical issue, though it was discussed at some stage in the thread.
The thread mentioned by Iah7 is about the promise not to change the default layout in 17.10.
I could not find the thread about 18.04, so I guess there wasn't one.

Nevertheless, it's a cheap shot not to have a new open discusion with the community about the changes in LTS while knowing that the community voted against such changes in the 17.10 and were given a promise not to change.

It's a matter of thrust.

Is it a big deal on tehnical side? I don't think so.

You are wrong if you tried to imply that I was trying to obscure the discussion in this thread. My post was not obfuscatory and had nothing to do with the deceived people. It is my opinion based on dealing with many, many people who tried to switch to Gnu software from Win. But that's another subject for some other thread.

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Well - if I was wrong, then I apologise for that.

As it happens, I also don’t think it is a technical issue and do think it is a matter of trust.

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Would it be possible to select the desktop configuration from the installer, or in the welcome pop-up after installation?

That would appear to square the circle (that the developer wants to introduce new stuff but the users want to stick to old stuff) by making the option to switch to the new more up front - I can understand that it must be rather galling to see new stuff hidden away.

It would also support some nice large pictures of what the various options look like :slight_smile:

Similar facilities have been/are provided elsewhere for “browser ballots” and the like, so this is not even an original suggestion …

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That would be great. Q4OS does something similar: every install is minimal and on first boot you get a “desktop profiler” to choose from a full, medium, or barebones selection of apps, as well as themes, layouts and alternative desktop environments even.

Of course this means a user must have access to internet, but keeps the ISO size down and allows choice.

Sorry, off on a tangent there. This may seem like trolling but although anything is possible it remains to be seen what is actually implemented. I’m actually surprised all it took was a few posts to change their minds about the Brisk menu as default, because I always heard UM jokingly referred to as an almost one man show. A stand should be made for what you believe in, or do you cave to “community resistance” after the slightest criticism? Which is it guys?

P.s apologies for any offence caused