zlacker

I have to say that both Unit and Windows 7's desktop bar look absolutely horrendous to me. I haven't used either, so I can't tell if this leads to some surprising productivity boost but there's something about the space-consuming giant-kiddy-icons that make me think it will only work against me.

I don't have any problem right now with the size of the icons, but screen estate is always an issue. Window organisation, as it has been for the last 15 years, seems like it has much better room for optimisation.

Other choice have also seemed a bit arbitrary - like moving the power options to the status bar, whilst also moving the window controls away from the status bar. Mouse movement has increased in my experience.

>>sambe+(OP)
The key thing with any system is to make sure you move the bar to the left/right of the screen. Almost every screen has stacks of horizontal real estate but never enough vertical.

And by doing that -- the win7 icons don't bother me in the slightest.

>>whatus+N
That is certainly true, and it does seem to be on the side by default. I have a netbook-like Vaio with Wubi install that will provide quite a good test before upgrading my main PC - always lacking on the vertical. For me it doesn't take away from the ugliness: Ubuntu was starting to look really slick and "pro" with its black bars and smart new font. Those garish icons always screaming at me bring to mind a laptop covered in stickers and a keyboard so riddled with extra rubber Interweb buttons that you're scared to touch it. Of course, everything should have it's chance. I just wonder whether the switch to default status is warranted.

Glad to see the downvote-disagree is becoming ever more prevalent! Obviously an opinion on the aesthetics is totally unproductive. Here we go again... k--;