Questions tagged [usability]

Usability is the ease of use and learnability of a human-made object, in this case, software.

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How to change LUKS passphrase?

Having installed Ubuntu 11.10 with whole disk encryption and LVM, I need to provide a way for users to easily change LUKS passphrase. Preferably, this should be done using GUI tools, thus, enabling ...
ervingsb's user avatar
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30 votes
6 answers
4k views

Drag and Drop across (fullscreen) applications, switching via Alt-Tab

Example Drag media file onto Totem's playlist to enqueue Bug in Compiz Especially for Unity (formerly Netbook Edition, being intended for small screens) this is quite a vital feature, as ...
type's user avatar
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19 votes
4 answers
7k views

How do I get Aero Snap in Unity 2D?

I really miss the "Aero Snap" window snapping feature present in Unity 3D. Is there any way I can get it, or an alternative to it, in Unity 2D?
Shibumi's user avatar
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52 votes
7 answers
19k views

How are typical users expected to read the documentation in /usr/share/doc?

I recently learned that there is a huge pile of documentation in /usr/share/doc. It seems like much of it is gzipped so that it is not directly accessible without administrative privileges: $ gunzip ...
ændrük's user avatar
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18 votes
7 answers
11k views

From Screenshot to "edit Image"

If I take a screenshot, often the next action is to paint on it. Sometimes I paint a circle around something, sometimes I blank parts to anonymize them. Below is an example of the window after the ...
guettli's user avatar
  • 1,717
6 votes
5 answers
9k views

Nautilus statusbar visibilty - Quickly check free space

In prior versions, I would open Nautilus and check the statusbar, which would tell me how much free space there is. Now, the statusbar isn't shown by default. I know you can enable it from the View ...
Jeremy's user avatar
  • 523
19 votes
1 answer
1k views

How can I stop Files from oversimplifying file types?

When I sort files by type in Files, both JPEG and TIFF file types are described unhelpfully as "Image". This oversimplification makes sorting effectively useless for me: When writing this question I ...
ændrük's user avatar
  • 76.6k
14 votes
4 answers
15k views

How to hide window title and menu bar in GNOME Shell?

Is it easily possible in GNOME 3's gnome-shell to achieve similar appearance of windows' title and menu bars as with Unity's Globalmenu?
type's user avatar
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26 votes
2 answers
43k views

How to copy/paste from "Sorry, the application XXX has stopped unexpectedly"

An app just crashed and I want to copy the error message and paste it into a search engine to hopefully find a solution. Unfortunately the error dialog does not allow me to copy/paste anything: In ...
Nicolas Raoul's user avatar
10 votes
3 answers
2k views

What is the difference between indicators and a system tray?

What is so new about indicators? What did we have before? Are there technical or usability differences?
Agmenor's user avatar
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1 vote
2 answers
3k views

What will happen if i will terminate the update in between (from the terminal)

so i use computer for unknown time. sometimes i use it for more than 3 hr. and sometimes lesss than half hour. what will happen if i will stop the update from the terminal when the packages are being ...
user avatar
30 votes
1 answer
24k views

Refreshing the wireless network list?

When I wake up my laptop (Ubuntu 10.04) from suspension, it does not recognize the available wireless networks. The only way to refresh the list is to disable wireless networking, and than enable it. ...
Adam Matan's user avatar
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20 votes
2 answers
3k views

Is it possible to drag files with right click?

Is there a way (maybe using some script in nautilus or something) so that you can drag files with the right mouse button and when you release, you're shown the context menu? If it can even be ...
Mussnoon's user avatar
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11 votes
4 answers
2k views

Highlight Window with focus even more

I have two monitors and sometimes I start to type into the wrong window. The window with the focus is highlighted in unity (Ubuntu 16.04) with a gray shadow. Is there a way to highlight the window ...
guettli's user avatar
  • 1,717
5 votes
1 answer
7k views

How can I customize fonts and backgrounds for gnome-terminal?

Mac has background-color -theme adjusting. During summer, I realize why it would be so super-cool: it is hard to see anything with standard settings when there are so much sun-light. So how can I ...
hhh's user avatar
  • 739
4 votes
1 answer
3k views

Where has "scientific mode" gone in gcalctool 6.2.0?

Ubuntu 11.10 ships gcalctool 6.2.0 . In previous versions the calculator has five models: Basic, Advance, Financial, Programming and Scientific. However, in this version there are only four ...
billzt's user avatar
  • 153
4 votes
0 answers
408 views

Resizing a window should be easier - increase boarder pixel count?

Currently its too difficult to resize a window by hovering cursor on window edge or corner until cursor changes to that double arrow pointer ... when I install Ubuntu 19.04 for people new to computers ...
Scott Stensland's user avatar
4 votes
3 answers
3k views

How to scroll in any direction with evince PDF viewer using mouse dragging

When viewing large PDFs with small print where one has to zoom in to be able to read even on fullscreen, it would be nice to be able to move the 'paper' with the drag of the mouse (hand cursor type). ...
type's user avatar
  • 3,227
4 votes
1 answer
20k views

How to modify default printscreen behaviour?

The Prnt Scrn button currently takes a screenshot and saves it in ~/Pictures. How can I modify the behaviour I want for the Prnt Scrn button? Use case: I want to take a screenshot and go to GIMP and ...
Nabil Kadimi's user avatar
  • 2,212
1 vote
1 answer
3k views

Move Mouse with Many Lines in Google Chrome?

In Mouse settings, I get only where I cannot change to scroll many lines. So I want to move many lines only in Google Chrome. I cannot find the feature in Settings > Search Mouse and Select the ...
Léo Léopold Hertz 준영's user avatar
1 vote
2 answers
298 views

Why are apt-get repositories hardcoded to a specific release?

From the usability point of view, I do not understand why on each release upgrade you have to manually patch all the URLs of apt in order to make them point to the newer distribution. Why is not ...
sorin's user avatar
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1 vote
1 answer
3k views

How to disable screen edge obstruction in KDE?

Whenever I enable any action in KDE -> System Settings -> Workspace behaviour -> Screen Edges selected screen edge becomes unreachable by the pointer which is bounces against it. I don't want ...
int_ua's user avatar
  • 8,554
0 votes
1 answer
200 views

Input language groups switching windows style

I want to enable one more input language and I wonder is there any way to group similar languages? Suppose I have English, Russian and Ukranian. Russian and Ukranian are similar and it would be ...
Михаил Павлов's user avatar