After testing some wine apps on Ubuntu 11.04 A2 today, and using 10.10 NE in previous weeks, I've notice a few issues that may hinder the use of Wine on this OS. These are mostly aesthetic and ease of use, but are worth noting in any case.
1: Removal of Notification Area/System Tray
For those who aren't aware, 11.04 and 10.10N used the new Unity interface, instead of the legacy GNOME GUI. In terms of functionality, this means that the Notification Area has been removed, and so the normal Wine Dock has been undocked. This creates a floating "Wine System Tray" window, containing the notification icons from the normal systray.
As it's now a normal window, it can be hidden beneath the (potential) dozens of windows that one has open, and means it might be difficult to sort out a misbehaving Wine App.
2: Running Multiple Wine Apps in Unity - Visibility
The main feature of the new interface is the left-hand sidebar, containing some pinned launchers, and all currently open applications, with all of one application's windows compiled into a single link.
At a first thought this doesn't pose a problem, but on closer observation, all Wine apps are shown with a (rather attractive, don't get me wrong) Wine icon on the bar. This means it's not possible to identify (even by hovering over, which returns the label "Wine") what the Wine app open is, without scrolling through the windows. If I were running MS Word, Powerpoint and Excel at the same time, with Spotify and Firefox all under Wine, I'd have those 5 windows (or more, depending on number of instances), plus the Systray, all under the same icon on the sidebar, making it impossible to navigate to which program is needed, without scrolling through them all.
Finally, even if these programs WERE separated, they'd all have the Wine icon, so the ability to tell what the programs are is STILL not there.
I hope that Wine can solve these issues... and that any other issues are noted... before the release of Natty in Apr-11.
-A-
Forward-Compatibility with Ubuntu 11.04 (10.10 Netbook) plus
Re: Forward-Compatibility with Ubuntu 11.04 (10.10 Netbook)
Both problems sounds like bugs in new distro and not Wine.
1. Removing doc area beaks Xorg standards - file bug with ubuntu.
2. Wine not showing application icon - same, bug in your WM. Wine properly sets it's application icons, not Wine's default icon.
1. Removing doc area beaks Xorg standards - file bug with ubuntu.
2. Wine not showing application icon - same, bug in your WM. Wine properly sets it's application icons, not Wine's default icon.
Forward-Compatibility with Ubuntu 11.04 (10.10 Netbook) plus
On 02/13/2011 04:12 PM, ATMarsden wrote:
honestly asking - wouldn't this be something for Ubuntu to fix, not
Wine? Wine works fine, it seems to be UI changes Ubuntu has made that
cause the problem so they would need to either fix that in Unity or make
a custom build of Wine available in their repositories that ties into
their UI. Wouldn't changes to Wine to accomidate Ubuntu's layout
potentially mess things up for every non-Unity distro?
I hope this doesn't sound rude because I do not mean it that way, I'mI hope that Wine can solve these issues... and that any other issues are noted... before the release of Natty in Apr-11.
honestly asking - wouldn't this be something for Ubuntu to fix, not
Wine? Wine works fine, it seems to be UI changes Ubuntu has made that
cause the problem so they would need to either fix that in Unity or make
a custom build of Wine available in their repositories that ties into
their UI. Wouldn't changes to Wine to accomidate Ubuntu's layout
potentially mess things up for every non-Unity distro?
Excellent find. Please file a bug at http://bugs.ubuntu.com for this,
and post a link to the bug here.
Thanks!
and post a link to the bug here.
Thanks!
Point 1, RE:TParker and Vitamin:
While I see your point in saying it is Ubuntu's fault, they are adamant about removing the dock from the Unity interface, and so it seems more likely that Wine will be able to adapt, rather than our complaints to Canonical falling on deaf ears. I am not certain how the solution would work, I just felt that the Wine Forum was a good place to raise it, as I've seen similar issues raised on Canonical, to no response.
Point 2, RE:Vitamin
The issue here is that it takes the default icon for the PROCESS, rather than for the WINDOW, and, as stated, groups all the windows together into one "convenient" tab (based on process name, it seems). Whether this is something to be fixed by Wine or Unity remains to be seen.
DanKegel
I will file a bug as per your suggestion.[/b]
While I see your point in saying it is Ubuntu's fault, they are adamant about removing the dock from the Unity interface, and so it seems more likely that Wine will be able to adapt, rather than our complaints to Canonical falling on deaf ears. I am not certain how the solution would work, I just felt that the Wine Forum was a good place to raise it, as I've seen similar issues raised on Canonical, to no response.
Point 2, RE:Vitamin
The issue here is that it takes the default icon for the PROCESS, rather than for the WINDOW, and, as stated, groups all the windows together into one "convenient" tab (based on process name, it seems). Whether this is something to be fixed by Wine or Unity remains to be seen.
DanKegel
I will file a bug as per your suggestion.[/b]
You are welcome to explain that to everyone who writes Widows programs that create tray icons... There is not much Wine can do about it. And if Ubuntu so bend to removing mandatory part of the Xorg desktop then that interface simply won't be supported by Wine.ATMarsden wrote:While I see your point in saying it is Ubuntu's fault, they are adamant about removing the dock from the Unity interface
Which is a bug in window manager and should be fixed. There are reasons why each Window can have it's own Icon. Again this is part of the standard which gets broken by unity WM.ATMarsden wrote:The issue here is that it takes the default icon for the PROCESS, rather than for the WINDOW
Also, applications running in Wine do have their separate processes which appear in ps, and can be killed separately.
KDE also supports grouping windows coming from the same application together and other features similar to Unity, but it works together with Wine perfectly.
So if KDE can do it, then it is only Unity's fault that it breaks things.
KDE also supports grouping windows coming from the same application together and other features similar to Unity, but it works together with Wine perfectly.
So if KDE can do it, then it is only Unity's fault that it breaks things.
Agreed. I gave that exact opinion in that thread as "João Ricardo Lourenço". I think there's nothing left to be discussed here in the forums. It's their fault and Wine doesn't have to change itself to meet one distro's options. Maybe close the topic to avoid further discussion?vitamin wrote:When those specifications would be a part of official freedesktop stand(s) then Wine developers might look into it. Until then. don't use unity or beta ubuntu.ATMarsden wrote:Ubuntu's bug report has been rejected citing it as an issue for Wine to fix to "meet [ubuntu's] specifications".
leeyn wishful thinking.
Wine follows standards because long term they are sane. If ubuntu wants to take a non standard path so be it.
Remember people have yelled a wine to include a pulseaudio driver. Has it happened no. Will it happen no. Pulse audio need to fix there alsa emulation end of argument.
If Ubuntu wants to be wine incompatible so be it.
Wine follows standards because long term they are sane. If ubuntu wants to take a non standard path so be it.
Remember people have yelled a wine to include a pulseaudio driver. Has it happened no. Will it happen no. Pulse audio need to fix there alsa emulation end of argument.
If Ubuntu wants to be wine incompatible so be it.
