Unity > HUD

Overview

The HUD is a way for you to express your intent and have the application respond appropriately. We think of it as “beyond interface”, it’s the “intenterface”. This concept of “intent-driven interface” has been a primary theme of our work in the Unity shell, with dash search as a first class experience pioneered in Unity. Now we are bringing the same vision to the application, in a way which is completely compatible with existing applications and menus.

The following blog posts and YouTube video show more detail about the HUD.

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_WW-DHqR3c

• http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/939

• http://www.olli-ries.com/welcome-to-the-hud/?

Architecture

Testing the HUD

Prerequisites: Make sure you are running the latest version of precise, and all your packages are up to date.

Installing

As of Unity 5.2, HUD is integrated into Unity and does not need to be installed separately. Command line tools are available through the package indicator-appmenu-tools. It offers a number of additional tools:

• /usr/bin/hud-cli
• /usr/bin/hud-dump-application
• /usr/bin/hud-gtk
• /usr/bin/hud-list-applications
• /usr/bin/hud-verify-app-info

Testing

Invoke the HUD using the 'alt' key. The HUD interface should pop up and allow you to select menu actions.

Filing Bugs

For anything related to the user interface, ie directly unity related, file a bug against unity: http://bugs.launchpad.net/unity

When filing, tag the bug with 'HUD'.

For any issues with matching or other issues core to the tool itself, file them against the appmenu indicator. http://bugs.launchpad.net/indicator-appmenu