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Comment by V-2 | Hacker News Reader

I don't use it, and I won't use it for a very simple, trivial even, yet important usability related reason: there is a gap left between the tabs bar and the top edge of the screen, which is inconvenient for switching tabs.

For UI designers, if they ever wondered why Firefox or Chrome don't have this gap - old but gold: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/uibook/chapters/fog0000000063....

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Doesn't mention Fitts's law[0] at all, which is what matters here. Having a visual gap doesn't matter as long as the area is reactive: see how you can click the top left/right corners on OS X, yet the highlighted target is clearly not extending there. Same for the Dock icons, where the icons are visually perceived as being within a square, yet moving the pointer along the bottom edge still registers: although it is visually perceived as being outside the square (below the glowing dot even!), there is a logical shadow of interactivity hanging below, introducing a slight cognitive dissonance in exchange for a huge boost in usability.

This was indeed a huge complaint on Windows 95, that MS fixed later on without any visual change (98? 2000? I can't remember).

[0]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitts's_law

There's a very important reason as to why that gap exists. And it has to do with usability.

Earlier, when tabbed browsing happened, all the browsers, which in those days was Opera and Firefox, did NOT have the tabs right till the top. The title bar would still show which in turn would give you a gap above the tabs to move the whole browser window.

So, when you're browsing full screen and you use your mouse to drag the whole window you'll click on the top bar and move it away (which in turn would restore the window to the non-maximized size).

Then Google Chrome appeared and started using the title bar to put tabs into. I think this also had to do with Windows 7 allowing this. (I don't think this was possible in Windows XP).

Other browsers, including Opera followed. However, Opera kept usability in mind and put a 1px gap between the top edge and from where the tabs begin. So, even in full screen mode you can control the whole window using the mouse.

How did Chrome solve this problem? Their tabs were tapered, so that you'd get a gap in between to tabs to control the window. In the case of Firefox, the tabs had more rounded corners to achieve the same thing. However, Opera tabs had always been the squarest, so they decided to leave the 1px gap.

In any other browser, which allows tabs in the title bar, when in full screen mode, try to control the window by clicking the top of any tab and you'll see that it cannot work. You'll only end up holding the tab and the browser window will think you're trying to detach it.

Hope this helps.

Now give me a valid reason why this is not optional and customizable.

Magnificent link, thanks. On the Apple subreddits there are occasional discussions about moving from WIn to OS X in which this issue of the static menu bar on OS X comes up. I have always preferred the OS X way, but could never explain why.

Additionally, does anyone know of *nix (preferably Linux) DE that does it the OS X way?

Ubuntu/Unity?

Unity has never done it for me, and on my hardware it has not performed as well as I would like.

edit: a google search of unity doesn't show it with a menu bar for file, edit etc anchored top the top of the screen like OS X, those menus are still in the application window.

I'm an Enlightenment user when not at work, so maybe I need to create a E19 fork (I wouldn't know where to start).

When did you last time try Unity - it has improved a lot since first versions? I bought MBP few months ago and I find myself a lot less productive with OSX than with Ubuntu+Unity.

About your edit. Are you sure? They are not in application window for me.

I have not tried Ubuntu for a couple of years. I'm very happily using Bodhi Linux on my daily computers at home. No plans to change.

Not sure it has improved as far as the UI look goes. That ugly oversized left bar is hideous, as are all the badly low res gifs they seem to be using for icons. Look at osx or windows which have been doing crisp looking icons for a while. I could not bear to use ubuntu, have tried, went back to osx + windows 7.

You actually can customize the size of the dock, and have it set up to hide/show based on mouse position or keyboard shortcuts. There's a lot of options if you install "unity-tweak-tool"

There are also some nice alternative icon sets, like the Numix icons. Overall, I really like Unity now compared to when I first tried it a few years ago, and I'd rather use it than Windows 7 or 8. But it probably does need a couple of tweaks to fit your needs.

It's an option on Ubuntu/Unity, there was a lot of hatred for it being docked to the top of the screen so they brought back application level docking I believe in the last LTS, but I could be wrong.

> Magnificent link

If you're interested in this kind of stuff, may I recommend reading Designed for Use by Lukas Mathis.

> does anyone know of *nix (preferably Linux) DE that does it the OS X way?

Gnome 3 does it slightly differently (menu entries get collapsed into one) and tries hard to respect Fitts's law, to the point of being quite innovative in how submenus work (they expand instead of branching in a tree). If you approach it with an open mind, it's quite nice.

KDE used to have an option to put the menubar on top. Plasma changed a lot of things, so I don't know if this still stands.

The typical desktop screens are pretty large now, so browsing fullscreen is rather wasteful. And if you're not fullscreen, tabs reaching the top of the window make no sense. Instead, tabs on the bottom become optimal as it minimizes the distance between content and the tabs making them easier to target (Fitt's law). The screen sizes are bound to increase even more in the future (as 4k standard becomes more widespread), so the decision to move tabs to the top is going to look increasingly silly and counterproductive.

The gap on Ubuntu is actually smaller than the same gap on Firefox/Chrome.

Incidentally, I like how you can make notes on sites. I wish there were public notes as well for each domain or maybe page. That feature of stumbleupon was great. People would add comments etc on many pages. It was a way to have essentially a reddit thread for every page without having to search for it. Too bad they got rid of it when they redesigned it a few years ago.

This is unnecessarily negative. The gap allows to easily drag the window which is a useful feature too. Opera have an option to enbale/disable this gap. Vivaldi can easily add a similar option.

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