Slashdot Mirror
Gnome 1.2.0 Released
Well, those wacky Gnome boys have gone and done it again -
you can grab Gnome 1.2.0 from the FTP site. Nat e-mailed me last night to say that it was coming out. As well as the above distro-friendly link, we've got a link for the stable sources ftp site.Update: 05/25 12:25 by H :Hey, I got e-mail from the Gnome folks again - they're going to update the mirrors and everything in half an hour (9 a.m. EDT), so hold off until then on downloading.Update: 05/25 02:12 by H : Check out HelixCode for an update on the release.
Hey, great! I hear that Red Hat Linux Kernel 2.4 will be out soon, too. ;)
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"Computer, move that window to the left. No not that window. Computer, move the Netscape window to the left. A little more. Computer, a little more. Ah-Ah-Choo!!! Damn! Computer, where is my Netscape window?"
"Computer, find all files starting with a capital letter and ending with dot empeg that were modified after January third, two thousand eight. What the hell? Computer, find all files starting with a capital letter and ending with dot em pee ee jee, that were modified after January third, two thousand eight. What the hell? Where's my goddamn keyboard? I can type eighty words per minute for Pete's sake..."
"What? No sir, I'm not looking at movies. Did I say empeg? I meant ex el ess... Yes, sir, I'll keep it down."
Whisper, "Computer..."
"Free your mind and your ass will follow"
Just because computer technology evolves and improves rapidly, it doesn't mean that user interfaces need to change so quickly.
People are not like computers; they can't switch their behaviors with a simple configure; make; make install Habits are learned, and hard to break. Why go to all that trouble, to make change for its own sake?
Take the "revolution" you mention: Microsoft's start menu. The whole idea of replacing the big, easy-to-use Program Manager, with a little menu hidden in the corner, is absurd.
You'll notice that GNOME and KDE provide far more functionality in their panels, than Microsoft ever provided in Win95..98.. NT 4.. 2000. The ability to place buttons on there, to run frequently-used apps, is a nice way to workaround the usability nightmare of the tiny start button.
Oh yes, and don't credit Microsoft for the "start" menu. Apple had the "apple" menu a while before that, providing the same functionality.
My point is, surely there must be another quantum leap which can be made, which will again revolutionise the way we use our computer desktops? I just hope GNOME has the vision to try to discover the way forward, rather than living in the shadow of Microsoft. Despite the Open Source development model allowing humanity's greatest thinkers to collaborate on GNOME, it seems that these developers are unable to (or are afraid to) think on a large enough scale to surpass Microsoft.
I thought the point behind making it similar was that new users wouldn't have to make a quantum leap to switch from one platform to another. It makes sense to me that the default Gnome configuration operates in a similar manner to the Windows taskbar. Once you learn how to use it you will find it much more configurable than the Windows taskbar...so configurable in fact that you can make it operate completely different than the Windows task bar. As far as configurability goes, it's already a quantum leap ahead.
Of course, I think you're correct that we can revolutionize the way we use our desktops. Highly configurable interfaces (something that the Windows desktop is not) give us the tools we need to find it. The Gnome/E/X combo give us a starting point similar to what we've experienced with Windows, but give us the option to change it to just about anything we can dream up. Gnome does this especially at the level that the average user can handle.
numb
While I'm pleased that the GNOME project is coming along well, I must admit that I still find it truly underwhelming. GNOME still feels to be very much emulating the look and feel of Windows 95, although GNOME's superior stability is the major difference.
From where I'm sitting, I'd say you can just about configure a window manager running Gnome applications to look like almost any windowing system currently available. Because the majority of people who use computers these days are used to the GUI paradigms of Windows and Mac OS, it's hardly surprising that much of the Gnome functionality is familiar too. If they had produced something a long way away from the current User Interfaces they would have faced accusations of being out of touch with current GUI thinking.
Much as I hate to admit this, Microsoft revolutionised GUI with the "Start" button and taskbar, which provides an easy and efficient way to get things done.
B*&^^%#@!!!
Sorry. I get so mad when somebody gets this idea that MS came up with the taskbar first for Windows 95, especially since I'd been using a system with a taskbar and application launcher for about 7 years in 1995 (Acorn Risc OS, preceeded by Acorn Arthur for those with long memories). And I'm fairly certain Risc OS was not the only GUI using a taskbar before Windows 95.
The other GUIs (CDE, KDE, GNOME) have all followed suit with similar taskbars, and have been sucessful in their attempts.
The taskbar is a useful guide which should, at it's most basic level, provide two things:
Anything else is window dressing or convenience, but these two seem to be the core requirement. Since most of the window managers, such as Sawfish, Afterstep, E, etc., all provide copious mechanisms for customizing or doing away with the taskbar altogether, it's not surprising that they have been successful in their efforts. It is also rewarding to see that they have not blindly followed the "Windows Way" of doing things and have left the choice of how to optimize the available tools as a customizable feature.
My point is, surely there must be another quantum leap which can be made, which will again revolutionise the way we use our computer desktops?
There may be. But first, we need to see some serious standardization in the way that the window elements are arranged so that the elusive goal of a consistent user interface across many applications is acheived. Nothing slows a GUI user down more than discovering that orders of buttons like 'Continue Editing', 'Save', 'Cancel' keep switching around so that Cancel is sometimes on the left and sometimes on the right, or ridiculously small toolbar buttons on an application which bear no resemblence to their function, or other nasties like 40+ small icons on a toolbar to distract the eye when looking for one little used function.
Once there is a degree of uniformity in the way that applications are laid out, then maybe we can step onto the next level of user friendliness. Quite where this will lead is another matter. I, for one, do not want the GUI interfering with my work or making inane suggestions - I have Vigor for that. I think that speech integration may go a long way to speeding up the interaction with the computer. For example, I want an application loaded, say Emacs (what else could I need? :-) ) and I simply ask for it to be loaded. I want to see the time, I ask for it and the computer tells me - this could be either spoken to me or shown on screen. I want to bold text while editing, I simply say "Bold" and keep typing. In fact, speech recognition should allow a user to keep their hands on the keyboard for most of the time and leave that mouse gathering cobwebs at the side. Finally all those modal windows could be dismissed with a quick word. I'd say that would make a huge step forward in productivity with a UI - effectively making use of another channel of input to supplement the accurate input channel of the keyboard.
Cheers,
Toby Haynes
Anything I post is strictly my own thoughts and doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the opinions of IBM.
HelixCode has enough mirrors to stand a slashdotting, but only if those mirrors have the code. Every person who doesn't try to pound on the mirrors is 30 more that will be able to download GNOME soon.
Please be responsible members of the community!
(and BTW, gnome people are VERY mad at slashdot right now)
-Seth Nickell
- Portable Object Adapter + all policies
- Naming Service
- Event Service
- Objects by Value
- Implementation Repository
Last time I saw a posting about Orbit on comp.object.corba it did not get a great review. Does anyone know if things have improved since? Only people having a clue need reply.As a Java programmer, I would like to play with the Orbit, the Gnome ORB, from a Java program. So far I have not seen any information as to how to do this. I've asked the gnome list and no one there could help me. From what I understand Orbit more or less a standard Corba ORB but it uses some sort of different authentication scheme. Does this make it incompatable with other ORBs, or does it still work? Can anyone provide pointers or information on this?
The difference between Canada and the USA is that in Canada healthcare is a right and gun ownership is a privilege.