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Now that even cheap laptops are coming with touchscreens I was wondering if Canonical plans to include its new touch version of Unity GUI on regular Ubuntu for use in laptops and desktops.

Jorge Castro
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zShell
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    Wait for the OS to be released first, then you can ask all the questions you want. This doesn't have an answer yet. – Uri Herrera Jan 09 '13 at 01:48
  • From the Unity site and the Ubuntu site all there are for the Mobile GUI is just an Overview of it, no special comments or a notice of it being worked towards the desktop. – Uri Herrera Jan 09 '13 at 01:54
  • afaik developers can already use this mobile unity, so the question is if it can be easily ported to regular ubuntu – zShell Jan 09 '13 at 01:55
  • If and when the source code is available we can think of the GUI being ported, until then... well. – Uri Herrera Jan 09 '13 at 01:58
  • @UriHerrera Well, I've answered this, explaining how Unity supports touch screens now, and how this question cannot be fully answered yet. But you might consider even my answer too speculative. So maybe this question should be closed after all. The community will decide. – Eliah Kagan Jan 09 '13 at 02:12
  • I really hope not! I'm fed up of interfaces being dumbed-down just because the device has touch input. Take Firefox for example, Firefox for Android isn't half as good as Firefox – there are many things it lacks the ability to do, and is incompatible with nearly all addons. I wouldn't mind both Ubuntu and Ubuntu Touch in one system, but I would hate to see Ubuntu Touch replace Ubuntu. – James Haigh Dec 19 '13 at 21:07

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Unity already supports touchscreens. See, for example, this article. Unity was made from the very beginning to work the same way on different kinds of devices with different kinds of input hardware--that's why it's called "Unity".

So it's unclear exactly what it would mean for the "touch version" of Unity to be ported for desktop use. Not much information is available about Ubuntu for Phones yet, and it's not available for use or testing, so it would hard to answer highly specific questions.

Right now, we don't know what changes, if any, will be made to the phone version of Unity but not to mainline Unity. For all we know, they might end up having the same source code (perhaps with some differences in configuration or build options). From the official information about how Ubuntu for Phones works, the interface is shown to be operated in the same way.

On the other hand, perhaps there will be extensive changes. After all, Unity is a Nux plugin for Compiz, which may not be available on phones (or may work differently) even by the time Ubuntu for Phones ships.

Community
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Eliah Kagan
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