Mark Shuttleworth just announced the plan for the empty space on the right created by moving the window buttons (controls) to the left: Window Indicators or "windicators".
Window Indicators will be just like the current Panel Indicators: they will have an icon which indicates the state and clicking it brings up a menu.
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lozz
14 years 22 weeks 13 hours 5 min ago
Funny thing
My window buttons were on the left, just after I installed 10.04, but now they've moved back to the right, where they should be.
They look a little bit crude, compared with the initial ones, but I'm quite pleased with the revised location, whatever caused it to happen.
DeadSuperHero
14 years 22 weeks 11 hours 40 sec ago
I just can't get into this concept
It's not that I don't like additional buttons on Metacity. If anything, I thought Izo's mockup of a Zeitgeist button for related applications and file uploading was an utterly fantastic concept.
However, Mark Shuttleworth doesn't really seem to know what he's doing with this.
"Hey guys, let's give all applications a little sort of notification area of their own on the Metacity bar."
I'm just not feeling it.
"It'll merge into the panel when you maximize!"
Um, no. I liked the Ayatana notifications, I like the indicator applets replacing the Notification area. But this is just bizzare.
motters
14 years 21 weeks 1 day 12 hours ago
Meh
I don't really care whether the window controls are on the left or the right, although I realise that buttons on the left may be non-intuitive for new users migrating from Windows.
Windicators are an interesting concept, but as always it depends how good the implementation is. I also like the idea of combining the menu bar and window title.