Launcher placement annoys me

[argvar]

The "unity launcher" placement to the left really bothers me. I'm using the desktop version.

This is not just a matter of placement preference, but a usability issue.

Thing is most websites are designed so they fit on a half 1920x1080 resolution display (pretty much the standard today), e.g. so you can place two web browser windows side by side.
The launcher bar takes away this precious horizontal space making it so that you cannot have two browser windows side by side without chopping off small part of the pages.

What made ubuntu place the launcher this way, when all other desktop environment makers have figured out it's best to have at top or bottom, or allow the user to choose?

There's no way of moving it?

[MidnightGrey]

You can set the launcher to autohide in Settings > Appearence > Behaviour.
Once hidden you can reveal it by dragging the mouse to the left edge of the monitor, this wont affect any fullscreen window dimensions.

[argvar]

You can set the launcher to autohide in Settings > Appearence > Behaviour.
Once hidden you can reveal it by dragging the mouse to the left edge of the monitor, this wont affect any fullscreen window dimensions.

I've tried it, but it doesn't behave "right".

I don't like it to pop-out accidently, and I don't want it to be annoyingly difficult to make it pop-out when I need it. I've tried to tweak it, but not been able to get the right behavior.

But bottomline, I don't like auto-hide either. I've used Windows for nearly 2 decades and I could never get used to it there either! I want to have all the application icons visible at bottom.

[argvar]

After googling it's like this is not possible:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/unity/+bug/668415/comments/2

That comment is like saying: "User convenience, productivity, requirements and overall experience is not important and doesn't meet our design goals"

I mean... who are they making this software for anyways?? A couple of obscure netbook market? Most people are using ubuntu on the PC DESKTOP! And why do they have a desktop version release that has the launcher placed like it is a netbook release?

This is probably the #1 thing that users coming from Windows try to do... move that darn thing to the bottom!

Is this "ubuntu" button to be located somewhere for better access by touchscreen devices? I would think that the bottom-left or bottom-right would be best, since most holding touchscreen devices have their thumbs in those places. Apple, Samsung, Microsoft etc. have all their primary buttons in those places.

[HeroOfCanton]

Try Xubuntu or Lubuntu. I switched to X at 11.04 and have not looked back. Everything for me has continued to "just work" and the desktop is actually user friendly.

[3rdalbum]

You can't move the Launcher. It is there because it is the best place for it - vertical space is precious on a widescreen monitor. So much so that the Windows 7 computer I use at work now sports its taskbar on the left side.

If you can't get used to how Unity does things, there are lots of other desktop environments available for Ubuntu. KDE, Gnome 3, Cinnamon, XFCE, LXDE, etc.

[Halpm]

I can also recommend setting it to always be hidden, (or using gnome shell) and using a third party dock like "docky". I changed to gnome/docky a while back and have never looked back

[mastablasta]

Thing is most websites are designed so they fit on a half 1920x1080 resolution display (pretty much the standard today), e.g. so you can place two web browser windows side by side.
The launcher bar takes away this precious horizontal space making it so that you cannot have two browser windows side by side without chopping off small part of the pages.

the thing is that is not true. Aside from having 4:3 monitor at work and at home.... i would say that propper websites are designed to be responsive. i.e. to fit nicely on your resolution as well as on a mobile phone. propper modern website will adjust itself to the size of browser screen and to screen resolution. that way you can put 4 or more browser windows side by side and browse multiple pages at once if you want. especialyl on your kind of screen resolution.

oh and as mentioend lot's of desktops to choose from in ubuntu. search for desktop in software center.

[resander]

This is for 64-bit Ubuntu 12.04 LTS.

You can turn off Unity...

I did not like/need it so:
- installed gnome-shell from Ubuntu Software Centre
- Shutdown & rebooted and then selected Classic Gnome (with no effects?) by clicking the icon at the top right-hand corner of the login dialog. That disabled Unity for this and subsequent logins.

Ken

[newb85]

If you can't get used to how Unity does things, there are lots of other desktop environments available for Ubuntu. KDE, Gnome 3, Cinnamon, XFCE, LXDE, etc.

Don't forget Mate! It runs in Compiz instead of Mutter, so it will be more configurable, which seems to be important to the OP.

If you're going for a dock, I suggest Cairo-Dock, if you have a decent graphics card