Ubiquity Users. Come and say hello!

[monsterstack]

Anyone else use Mozilla Labs excellent Ubiquity? It's completely changed the way I use the internet. For the uninitiated, here's a an introduction (http://labs.mozilla.com/2008/08/introducing-ubiquity/) [mozilla.com] to what it's all about (scroll down for a video too).

What do you use it for?

[monsterstack]

Serious bumpage. I can't believe there aren't any Ubiquity users here. It's a bloody interactive command line in Firefox! This stuff is worth at least ten million geek points.

[unicycletim]

ubiquity's awesome.

i dont use it to its full potential, usually just to google something, rather than going to google.com and typing it in, or to look something up on wikipedia

[monsterstack]

ubiquity's awesome.

i dont use it to its full potential, usually just to google something, rather than going to google.com and typing it in, or to look something up on wikipedia

The Wikipedia look-ups could do with being a bit more interactive. You type in "wiki Ubuntu" and you'll immediately get what's in my screen cap. But there's no way to select the actual article you want to look at by scrolling with the arrow keys.

[gn2]

Started to watch the promo video but quickly stopped.
Can't add a map to an e-mail, has no-one at Mozilla ever heard of a screenshot?

[monsterstack]

Started to watch the promo video but quickly stopped.
Can't add a map to an e-mail, has no-one at Mozilla ever heard of a screenshot?

Wait, so you think this:


ctrl+space
"map location"
enter


is inferior to


Open a new tab
Go to maps.google.com
search for location
print screen
save image as image.png
open gimp
crop image
open email client
attach image


Eh? I don't really understand the logic with your criticism. In any event, it is worth watching the rest of the video: y'know it can actually do more than map things.

[gn2]

Wait, so you think this:


ctrl+space
"map location"
enter


is inferior to


Open a new tab
Go to maps.google.com
search for location
print screen
save image as image.png
open gimp
crop image
open email client
attach image


Eh?

You've made an incorrect assumption.

No need to edit the image.
There are a range of utilities to allow you to select a defined area of the screen for capture, for example Shutter.
You also left off the procedure for sending the e-mail from the Ubiquity list.

It just comes down to personal preference.
I can't see myself ever using Mozilla Ubiquity, it's a solution to a problem I just don't have.

EDIT: Just looked at the rest of the video at your suggestion and I now think that Mozilla Ubiquity is a solution to a range of problems I don't have.
Sorry, just can't get excited by this tool at all.

[monsterstack]

You've made an incorrect assumption.

No need to edit the image.
There are a range of utilities to allow you to select a defined area of the screen for capture, for example Shutter.
You also left off the procedure for sending the e-mail from the Ubiquity list.

It just comes down to personal preference.
I can't see myself ever using Mozilla Ubiquity, it's a solution to a problem I just don't have.

EDIT: Just looked at the rest of the video at your suggestion and I now think that Mozilla Ubiquity is a solution to a range of problems I don't have.
Sorry, just can't get excited by this tool at all.

That's fair enough. Ubiquity wasn't designed to do anything you can't already do in other ways. For me it's just a way of getting all of those things done much more quickly.

I don't use it exactly how they use it in the video, but say I've found a cool thing my girlfriend might like on ebay, all I have to do is select the images and type "email this to catherine" and all the legwork is done for me: it includes the image in the email as well as the link to the relevant page I yoinked it from.

The calculator and translation stuff is also pretty awesome.

[gn2]

The calculator and translation stuff is also pretty awesome.

Applications > Accesories > Calculator... and there's no shortage of English language pages to choose from ;)

You really shouldn't be e-mailing items for sale to your girl, in my experience women need no help finding stuff to spend money on!

What's wrong with just e-mailing the e-bay item number anyway?
Why waste bandwidth sending fat bloated e-mails?

[monsterstack]

Applications > Accesories > Calculator... and there's no shortage of English language pages to choose from ;)

You really shouldn't be e-mailing items for sale to your girl, in my experience women need no help finding stuff to spend money on!

What's wrong with just e-mailing the e-bay item number anyway?
Why waste bandwidth sending fat bloated e-mails?

Speed is of the essence! I just enjoy being able to do all that stuff quickly. I like the way it is intuitive. It reminds me of the idea behind Tim Berners-Lee's semantic web (maybe we'll get it one day).

As for the ebay example, sure, I could just email her the link, but why not give her a reason to click it? :P

[gn2]

Isn't the fact that the link came from you reason enough for her to click it?
Or is she fed up being bombarded with trivial e-mails which have become far too easy to send....?

[Luffield]

I like it a lot, but I don't always remember what can be done with it, so I often do things the hard way, without using Ubiquity.

But basically I think this is a very interesting direction in interface design. I'm a huge fan of Gnome Do and I hope to see other applications using this kind of interaction in the not-too-distant future (OO.o, for example, could benefit a great deal from it IMO).

[joey-elijah]

I use it - though i do often forget to!

It's awesome, fo sho. It's like the gnome-do of the Internet. It's features (and associated shortcuts - yowch!) will only continue to grow and get more capable.

I used to have my browser laden with MozLabs extensions - i swapped Weave out for Xmarks, Persona's lost it's charm very quickly and the rest have long been forgotten - aside from Ubiquity, which i guess shows its strength.

[Stefanie]

I use it to translate words from Greek/Spanish to English... Just select a word, ctrl+space, type "trans" and the translation appears. Going to translate.google.com is much more cumbersome, especially when there are a lot of words to look up.

Ubiquity is also very useful for conversion - gcalc 1000 dollars in euros, 3 inches in cm, and so on.

These are the features I use most often (plus the "map" command).

[billgoldberg]

I really like it and use it a lot.

[meeples]

me too. i love it.

i think it should included into ubuntu by default.

its a real selling point for new users and old ones alike.

[sim-value]

Its so much win !