Questions tagged [usability]

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

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Frozen screen while selecting wifi network

I use Ubuntu 22.04, in the default window manager when I click on "select network" the window of the network manager occupies the center of the screen and there I can pick one of the ...
Gna's user avatar
  • 1
0 votes
0 answers
57 views

Setting the mouse speed high is problematic with multiple windows on multiple displays

Does the community think the problem described below is worth considering? What suggestions do you have for making the mouse easier to track? If there's not some setting that is a good solution, where ...
Patrick Callahan's user avatar
-1 votes
1 answer
44 views

non-search file picking with keyboard?

When using "Files" (the default gnome file manager application) I cannot use the keyboard to select a file that i know is already in the current view. Only way to use the keyboard is to ...
gabriel's user avatar
  • 171
2 votes
1 answer
1k views

do-release-upgrade how to continue after choosing D for "Remove obsolete packages?"

I was on 20.04, commands I ran on terminal to upgrade : sudo apt dist-upgrade sudo apt update sudo apt dist-upgrade sudo apt-get install update-manager-core sudo gedit /etc/update-manager/release-...
tgkprog's user avatar
  • 555
3 votes
0 answers
682 views

Firefox 95.0.1 and earlier versions suddenly becomes unusably slow

I'm having a persistent and transient issue with firefox on ubuntu 20.04 with ff 92 / 95, etc. Basically I can be watching a video, or reading a web page, or filling out a forum and firefox becomes ...
Colin Faber's user avatar
1 vote
0 answers
178 views

is there some way to tell the window manager to block all input to any new window, or any kind of popup dialog for a few seconds?

(This is not about web browsing), this is about: system popups (I know only the one about: application not responding). Windows focus and input grabbing behavior. what is the worst thing we all (???)...
Aquarius Power's user avatar
1 vote
0 answers
28 views

Warn when other workspace session is open or when programs still running (20.04)

When pressing the "Power Off" button in Ubuntu 20, is there a way to prevent the system from shutting down when any programs (especially in other workspaces) are still open? Or to at least ...
Jan Spörer's user avatar
1 vote
0 answers
33 views

Dialogue boxes steal focus form current application

I was jut typing an email when an Ubuntu error message popped up. Since I was pressing enter or space while typing I either OKed or Cancelled something. I think it's really bad to steal the focus of ...
Alex_M's user avatar
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1 vote
1 answer
157 views

Is it possible to install latest version of RaySession on Ubuntu MATE 20.04 LTS?

I'm testing RaySession application. I have started with its version from official repository. But it seems to be outdated. So I decided to get latest master from GitHub project page https://github.com/...
N0rbert's user avatar
  • 99.7k
3 votes
0 answers
904 views

How do I type a disk encryption password using a bluetooth keyboard?

I'm using a bluetooth keyboard (a Keychron K8) through a USB bluetooth dongle (from Plugable) on Ubuntu 20.10 with an encrypted disk. I connected and trusted the keyboard using bluetoothctl. When I ...
user avatar
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
2 votes
0 answers
260 views

Center tray icons popup in Ubuntu 18.04

I'm using Dash to Panel to have my tray icons in the bottom-right corner of the screen, and there is something that bugs me off about the popup that the icons show when clicked. It appears to the ...
Carlos Roldán's user avatar
3 votes
1 answer
87 views

Default Action for Cancel-Dialog in Gedit nearly not visible

I am getting older and my eyes see worse. If I close gedit, I can hardly see the default action which is "Save as..." Is there a way to make default actions (in all applications) more visible?
guettli's user avatar
  • 1,717
0 votes
1 answer
69 views

How drag a window with ALT+click like in Unity in GNOME 3

How can I arrange windows in a certain position in GNOME 3 manually, like in Ubuntu 16 with Alt+Click?
Celebre Asm's user avatar
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
1 vote
1 answer
176 views

Orange lock screen

When I lock my screen, I come back to an orange screen with a white clock and date in the middle. Getting out of this screen to get to the password screen is quite tedious. Clicking on the desktop ...
David Schwartz's user avatar
4 votes
1 answer
1k views

How to hide "quodlibet wants to inhibit shortcuts" message

Ever since upgrading to 17.10, whenever I click on the time elapsed bar in quodlibet (to manually change the current track playback time), I get a warning message that says "Quod Libet wants to ...
pattivacek's user avatar
  • 1,087
0 votes
1 answer
492 views

How to type A with Circle in Ubuntu 16.04 With Dead-keys?

I see no dead-key symbol for circle in Fig. 1 which is about my used keyboard layout, English Dvorak, you can use English Qwerty with dead-keys to test the same thing. There is small circle at bottom-...
Léo Léopold Hertz 준영's user avatar
14 votes
1 answer
3k views

Why does no file manager ask for higher permission if needed? [closed]

I just answered another beginners question about "Cannot write.......check permissions". Of course I know how to use chown/chmod; I'm working with command line anyway. But the average consumer does ...
AnnoSiedler's user avatar
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
4 votes
1 answer
119 views

Spelling correction which feels like flying

Here is a screen shot of a typo: The cursor is at the "..." position. My dream: I press a magic keyboard short-cut and the spelling correction takes its best guess at correcting the typo. How to ...
guettli's user avatar
  • 1,717
4 votes
1 answer
69 views

Thunderbird: History of seen Messages

Is there a way in thunderbird to step backward and forward in the history of last messages? Like in firefox: It has a history of the last visited pages. I would like to have a history of the last ...
guettli's user avatar
  • 1,717
1 vote
1 answer
1k views

Enabling Ctrl+Alt+Del for X

How to I re-enbale the feature where Ctrl+Alt+Del will immediately kill X? I've been running into a graphics bug and I realized that, that was disabled in Ubuntu 16.10 for some reason. How do I get ...
Christopher's user avatar
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
1 vote
3 answers
2k views

What are good ePub viewers you have come across? I'd like to take notes and highlight important text paragraphs [duplicate]

ePub3 has become very popular in the recent years because it has had some style-improvements entails much more than before. I am looking for a good ePub viewer that is simple but has great ...
Angelina's user avatar
0 votes
0 answers
39 views

Search for configuration (like Super-A for Applications, Super-F for Files)

Is there a way to search for configuration settings, like Super-A for Applications, Super-F for Files? I want to type in: "shortcuts" and then I want to see a list of things which match this term. ...
guettli's user avatar
  • 1,717
1 vote
0 answers
85 views

Window decoration which respects titlebar colour AND supports Attach as Tab

It seems that some KDE features, such as Attach as Tab, are windows decoration dependent. Specifically, the otherwise excellent Plastik windows decoration does not support Attach as Tab. The default ...
dotancohen's user avatar
  • 2,805
2 votes
1 answer
105 views

Interactive "open with" dialog mod?

I switched to Ubuntu this year from Windows. I like Ubuntu, but what I'm missing is smart "Open with" dialog. You should manually search for a program either from long list without ability to filter, ...
Михаил Павлов's user avatar
3 votes
3 answers
851 views

How to Disable Hovering-App-Bar in 16.04?

I get this hovering bar as an artifact popping many times per hour without pressing Alt-Tab, which duration 3-15 seconds with/without interaction of mouse/touchpad/keyboard booting other Ubuntus and ...
Léo Léopold Hertz 준영's user avatar
1 vote
1 answer
140 views

What is Suitable pageUp Key in Ubuntu 16.04 of Macbook Air?

There are some configs which use the button. I have replaced them now but I think pageUp can be necessary key in some applications. System: Macbook Air 2013-mid. What is suitable pageUp key in ...
Léo Léopold Hertz 준영's user avatar
3 votes
1 answer
11k views

How to *Add To Panel* in 16.04? [duplicate]

In older distros, there is the feature: right-click the top-bar > Add To Panel. But not anymore in Ubuntu 16.04? I want to create a application icon-shortcut to the application bar. I want to use the ...
Léo Léopold Hertz 준영's user avatar
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
0 votes
1 answer
20 views

Good system for writing coding excerpts (possible cloud based)

I am using Ubuntu for some time, and 99% of time I am using Goggle drive Documents for writing code excerpts. However, Google experience, although super fast when searching, works quite slow when ...
prosti's user avatar
  • 1,017
5 votes
1 answer
100 views

Spelling correction like swift/swype

I like typing and type with ten fingers since 20 years. Sometimes I make mistakes or don't know the correct spelling of a word. I like the swype-app in android phones. I am very fast although I use ...
guettli's user avatar
  • 1,717
7 votes
2 answers
215 views

Firefox: Long lines in text area not visible

If you have long lines in a text area of Firefox, you can't see whether there is one long line or whether there are several short lines. I've attached two screen shots as an example. Firefox: Emacs:...
guettli's user avatar
  • 1,717
3 votes
1 answer
210 views

What is overriding my window geometry? (Unity / 15.10)

Out of the box, on a freshly installed Ubuntu 15.10, if I start a terminal, it will launch a window which fills almost the entire screen. It's not maximized in the window manager sense, but its ...
tripleee's user avatar
  • 1,462
18 votes
4 answers
19k views

How to select text for copy and paste in Chrome by keyboard not using the mouse?

I have some online tutorial open in my Google chrome. It tells me to run some commands in a terminal. My current workflow is to select the necessary parts via mouse, and insert the copied text via ...
k0pernikus's user avatar
  • 6,105
16 votes
2 answers
5k views

Gedit: Search next match ... usability

Searching the next match with gedit makes me crazy. I press Ctrl+F The search input box opens I enter foo There is a match for foo. Nice Up to now everything is sane I want to search the next match (...
guettli's user avatar
  • 1,717
2 votes
0 answers
154 views

Open html file with gedit from Unity Dash (Files lens)

I search a html file wit super-f. The file was found and Ubuntu displays these choices: open folder open file email file The above items where translated from german back to english. If I chosse "...
guettli's user avatar
  • 1,717
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
2 votes
1 answer
2k views

To Disable CTRL+SHIFT+C in Google Chrome of Ubuntu? [duplicate]

This keybinding is very irritating because it is very close to the copy-command Ctrl+C. Partially, the problem can be explained by my keyboard layout Dvorak such that the browser may consider the ...
Léo Léopold Hertz 준영's user avatar
0 votes
1 answer
116 views

Any editor with CTRL+R binding for compiling LaTeX

I just had to replace my OSX with Ubuntu 14.04 and I want to find ways to get Textmate's capabilities to some text-editor: CMD+R compiles the document in Textmates and let's you choose different ...
Léo Léopold Hertz 준영's user avatar
29 votes
4 answers
16k views

How to change tab in Google Chrome with the keyboard, in Ubuntu

In OSX, you can browse tabs in browsers by Ctrl+ N/p or similar. I have not found any keys in Ubuntu 14.04. How can you browse tabs of browsers by keyboard in Ubuntu?
Léo Léopold Hertz 준영's user avatar
1 vote
1 answer
57 views

How to improve usability of Ubuntu by providing feedback? [duplicate]

I have several ideas how to improve the usability of the Ubuntu desktop. What the next step? Where should I post my ideas?
guettli's user avatar
  • 1,717
1 vote
0 answers
216 views

Disable Gnome Shell document preview

I have a password protected LibreOffice Calc file. When I press the SUPER key and type the name it is shown. Now I press enter or click the file and it is opened with some document preview, but this ...
domih's user avatar
  • 265
2 votes
0 answers
605 views

Cgroups I/O read restriction

I am trying to restrict group to read operation to 100 per second. Here is my cgroups configuration: # Configuration file generated by cgsnapshot mount { blkio = /cgroup/blkio; } group ...
Divij Satra's user avatar
-2 votes
1 answer
55 views

Searching for a better method/framework/anything to build deb packages

For those that have downvoted, if you care to let me know why, I can try to improve the question. I have been scouring the pipes for an official page on an officially sanctioned method of building ....
software engineer's user avatar
23 votes
5 answers
63k views

Minimal terminal editor alternative to vi and nano

What terminal/console mode alternatives to vi/vim and nano are available? I am looking for minimal, good looking and friendly text mode editor for complete newbies with PC. I remember I've seen ...
anatoly techtonik's user avatar
1 vote
2 answers
94 views

Is it possible to retire packages that don't stand up to modern usability standards?

What is the Ubuntu process to deprecate and remove packages from repository? I quite often need a user mode FTP server to transfer files to my machine and constantly run over http://packages.ubuntu....
anatoly techtonik's user avatar
0 votes
1 answer
153 views

Why are terminal shortcuts different than the ones used elsewhere for the same task?

I ask this out of sheer curiosity. For pasting - why wasn't Ctrl+v made as a shortcut - which is standard - instead of Ctrl+Shift+v - which is not standard? Same goes with so many other shortcuts (...
Man's user avatar
  • 133