Windows controls: new button layout

[Dylan McCall]

> It would have been really appreciated if someone had thought of this in the
> case of package upgrade. Better still, this change shouldn't require one to
> have to open gconf-editor and find the place to set it -- most people that I
> know who use Ubuntu don't even know what a window manager is -- let alone
> that their window manager is called metacity. This should have been a
> toggle-switch on the "windows" preferences dialog, something along the lines
> of "look like a mac/look like windows"

That is the case, actually, but it's done with no extra widgetry.
Window button layout is now tied to your selected theme in 10.04.
Technically, the default value for the
/apps/metacity/general/button_layout key is still
menu:minimize,maximize,close, so mose themes (that don't set
button_layout) are still shown that way.
It's just the Ambiance, Radiance and Dust themes that explicitly set
button_layout to something else ;)

If you want the old button layout, simply change to a different theme,
for example Human, or the awesome Homosapien in apt:community-themes.
Indeed, it would have been nice if the theme thumbnails reflected
this, but they don't. (Come to think of it, I wish those thumbnails
didn't need to be auto generated. It gets very drab having the same
visual repeated again and again and again, even if it is technically
informative…)

If someone wants the awesome new themes but wants buttons on the
right, I made an installable theme for that case:
http://people.ubuntu.com/~dylanmccall/downloads/themes/Ambience_Radiance-Right.tar.gz
Download it, then drag the file to the Appearance Preferences dialog
to install it.

Unfortunately, all sorts of people are convincing less technically
focused users to go about the overcomplicated (and neither fun nor
obvious) route to customizing button layout by directly altering the
gconf key. I think part of this problem is a lack of nice upgrade
notes (there's just the tour, which focuses on newcomers), and certain
web sites which posted how-tos on this topic yet neglected to research
the particulars or to update their how-tos as the landscape changed.
(Okay, kudos to TechPad for having an update at the bottom of their
article, but it's still small print at the bottom; people tend to read
that last).

Speaking of release notes, I was looking for the 10.04 release notes
to see what we had going on there for the button layout change, but I
actually _couldn't find them_ from ubuntu.com. Am I just going crazy?


Thanks,
Dylan