Yesterday, Mark Shuttleworth has introduced a new features in Ubuntu 12.04 Precise Pangolin that's called HUD, HUD has expected to be a new form of application menu in Ubuntu, just now HUD has been introduced and ready to install in via PPA.
HUD is a short of 'Head-Up Display', HUD is a one of smart innovation from Unity Team that designed for Ubuntu 12.04 which integrates application menu to the Unity-desktop. HUD is designed as a semi-Dash, Users are allow to access application menu, recent history, and standard application command (undo, redo, search, etc) trough search button that stick dash. See following video to get clear illustration of HUD 'Head-Up Display'.
HUDs Menus are serve in two purposes. They act as a standard way to invoke commands which are too infrequently used to warrant a dedicated piece of UI real-estate, like a toolbar button, and they serve as a map of the app’s functionality, almost like a table of contents that one can scan to get a feel for ‘what the app does’. It’s command invocation that we think can be improved upon, and that’s where we are focusing our design exploration.
The HUD solves many of these issues, by connecting users directly to what they want. Check out the video, based on a current prototype. It’s a “vocabulary UI”, or VUI, and closer to the way users think. “I told the application to…” is common user paraphrasing for “I clicked the menu to…”. The tree is no longer important, what’s important is the efficiency of the match between what the user says, and the commands we offer up for invocation. (markshuttleworth.com)
The Feature of HUD
Apparently there are plans of Unity Team to make HUD integrate with voice recognition, gesture and touch, if it is realized, of course there will be good news for us and will probably be good prospect for Ubuntu phone to be implemented on.
Install Unity 5.1.0 with HUD Integration in Ubuntu 12.04 via PPA
You can tried to install HUD in Ubuntu 12.04 Precise Pangolin, but please consider that a HUD project is still in development and may unstable, your critics and suggestions probably needed for future improvements. do following to install Unity 5.1.0 with HUD integration in Ubuntu 12.04 Precise Pangolin.
- sudo add-apt-repository ppa:unity-team/hud
- sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade