Slashdot Mirror
Gnome's Nice Little GUI Perks
asdren writes "
Steven Garrity has written a short
article highlighting some 'user interface niceties' found in Gnome
with regards to file renaming, screen captures, fonts and file zooming." Garrity points out that "... tiny details can have a significant impact on the user experience
on operating systems. Inconsistencies that seem insignificant when
considering individually, but together they degrade the overall polish and sense
of stability in the system," and points out a few places where Gnome manages to avoid such inconsistency.
Didn't think Gnome *was* an operating system.
99% of my apps are GNOME compliant. With the exception fo XChat, they are also HIG compliant. That's better that the Windows desktop I used at work (before switching to Linux there as well).
i personally think the file dialog could use some improvements, (i know, this is gtk), maybe it could use a few more navigation buttons to speed things up, seems a little primitive atm ?!?!
Marge, get me your address book, 4 beers, and my conversation hat.
I read the story title as being about Nice little parks for gnomes. What a wonderful idea!
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
to get Windows a decently stable and complete Desktop? 10? 15? Let's not forget GNOME is a relative new-comer at 6 years old, and the fact that it has a fraction of the number of developers and resources Microsoft can devote to their desktop should tell you how quickly it is progressing. Yes it is far from perfect, but you simply have not been paying attention if you aren't astonished by the advances GNOME (and KDE) have made in the last 3 years.
Ahh the same way Microsoft Office doesn't use the same widgets as Microsoft Windows? And they are from the same company.
Can't something be flamebait and insightful?
He never said you couldn't rename files in windows by right clicking-them. The point was that there's a "feature" in windows and OS X that allows you to rename files easily. The problem is it's too easy and gets triggered by accident often. Gnome doesn't have this problem (and niether does KDE).
The article does show why linux is more user-friendly than windows, but not in the way that the author intends.
He claims that file-renaming is better in nautilus because the only way to do it is through a context menu, and furthermore, the filename without extension is highlighted by default. Personally, I find both of those "features" terribly annoying. Quite often, all I want to do is change the extension on a file. Nautilus' behavior makes this much harder than it is in windows.
But the great thing is that there are plenty of file managers for linux, and even plenty built specifically for gnome. So I just use a different one that I like better. Choice is what makes linux better than windows, not the default behavior of one app.
That's more important than you'd think... It seems that everyone loves OSX, which is notable for having an incredible display manager and style standards. People notice the little perks like the camera-shutter sound more than they notice the bigger architectural changes.
At my job, I run a network of mainly Windows XP computers, and a small lab of linux servers with KDE 3.2 installed as the default desktop environment for whoever wants to use it. Invariably the first user comments are on the bouncing icons, translucent menus, or the fact that GAIM shows buddy icons in the main list. People generally don't care what the operating system is, but they do notice changes in the UI.
Linux has matured as a server OS, but being fast and pretty will bring it to the masses.
Why, it's been working for Microsoft for ages? Anyone remember the time around OS/2 and Windows 95 being launched, with MS constantly saying that 95 was delayed but it was going to be so damn good so you'd better just wait a bit longer and not go with that other silly IBM os.
The user is suppose to know that if he wants to do an unusual operation on any object, he can right click on it and get a full list of choices. I'll agree that this is not obvious the first time you use a computer, but "having a good UI" does not mean that "every user is able to use the software perfectly the first time he or she encounters it".
Once the user has learned the technique, the context menu is a *much* better location for the renaming operation than the system-wide menu bar you propose. The problem w/the system-wide (or application-wide) menu bar is that it does not narrow down the number of choices based on context... to rename under this arrangement, I have to "select" the file (thus enabling "invisible" functionality elsewhere), than I have to search the menus for a rename operation, and that's very costly. With the context menu, I know that my options just apply to the file I clicked on.
Consider this... maximum visibilty would be a bunch of buttons popping up around the file whenever you hover over it. But this would be annoying. Making the user explicitly ask for the buttons to come up removes the annoyance while adding a small learning cost.
But don't take my word for it... go conduct a usability test or look through the research to see what actually works for real users.
-1, Too Many Layers Of Abstraction
In appearance yes. Of course Windows is playing catch up with Mac by appearance.
KDE has many features that windows just doesn't have, or has but doesn't get right. (I don't use GNOME, but I assume it is in a similar situation)
Just in the main browser interface, IE doesn't have pop up blocking, nor is their spell check of web forms. Virtual desktops are still not shiped with windows (despite being a feature of X11 window mangers since I first saw it back in 1993...), and handy to have. Nor is my favorite: focus follows mouse available. Sure you might not like some of them, but they handy to others, and features windows still doesn't have, in some cases more than 10 years after X11 had it.
KDE/GNOME is playing catch up in some areas true, but in other areas they have gone far beyond windows, and windows isn't even trying to catch up as far as I can tell.
Each of your other points are really subjective. Your use of words like "non-retarded", "not designed by a GIMP", "I waste my time looking for 'skins' that were designed by adults" and "having to dick around with font settings" confirms that.
Maybe if you'd stick to technical reasons (not to mention the appropriate environment - Gnome, not KDE - we'd be more inclined to take you seriously.
This article just highlights that nothing really has changed in the Nautilus/Gnome world.
Development on how to take 31337 screenshots is given a priority, when screenshots are taken often, if at all. (I think I've taken 1 in the past three years, and that was done with xv's "grab window".) Screenshots simply aren't something worth spending time on.
Nautilus still sucks. Yea! It defaults to selecting everything before the extention! It STILL FOUR DAMN YEARS LATER doesn't support icon arranging. You either have them all messed up, or flush left in alphabetical order. What the hell? It still seems slow, and doesn't have decent plugins. I'm not a KDE guy, but Konqueror is heads and shoulders above Nautilus.
Nautilus sucks and needs to be replaced. Hopefully Velocity or Endeavour2 will mature enough to actually replace that dog.
You know, trying to learn Windows from a UNIX POV, I've found some Windows things that are still archaic as well. This creates a significant impact on the user experience.
There are dozens that I could mention, but the biggest is the window manager. Whatever the name is for the Windows window manager, it does not have snapto or window shading. This is a major annoyance when you have multiple windows up on the screen. Neither does it have easily controlled z-ordering. It is not an easy to use window manager. The look may have improved, but the behavior has not changed from Windows 3.0.
The only reason the public has stuck with Windows as long as it has is simply because they are familiar with it. No other reason.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!