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unity hud menu

Back when Mark Shuttleworth announced HUD (Head-Up Display), a new smart menu for Unity, it wasn't sure if it will be added by default in Ubuntu 12.04 Precise Pangolin. Well, Unity 5.4.0 has just been uploaded to the Ubuntu 12.04 repositories and it comes with HUD by default. However, HUD doesn't replace the global menu so it you're not forced to use it!


There's also a new default video lens which can search for both local and online videos (Vimeo, YouTube, Amazon, TED, BBC iPlayer, etc.):

unity video lens ubuntu 12.04

ubuntu 12.04 default video lens


The latest Unity 5.4.0 also includes many bug fixes and minor tweaks, like:

- better looking quicklists:


- the Ubuntu button, mounted devices, workspace switcher and trash icon now follow the Dash "chameleon" style:


Update -> There's an interesting change I forgot to add: NotifyOSD now uses the same median colour and blur used for Dash (which depends on the colour of your wallpaper). We've talked about this a while back, but it wasn't available in Ubuntu 12.04 until today:





If you're using Ubuntu 12.04 Precise Pangolin, you should get Unity 5.4.0 as an update in a few minutes.

To use HUD, tap ALT, then type your query. The key can be changed from CompizConfig Settings Manager.

Unfortunately there's no official list of changes for Unity 5.4.0 because there's a bug in the changelog (it's almost identical to 5.2.0).