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Gnome's Nice Little GUI Perks

Posted by timothy on from the thinking-of-users dept.

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.

25 of 502 comments (clear)

  1. support for WebDAV in nautilus by stonebeat.org · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Although Steven some nice features, he missed to mention that Nautilus supports WebDAV as well. WebDAV stands for "Web-based Distributed Authoring and Versioning".
    However Nautilus needs to improve the WebDAV functionality. MacOS has the best implementation of a WebDAV client as far as I know.

    --


    Consensus is good, but informed dictatorship is better
    1. Re:support for WebDAV in nautilus by Ambassador+Kosh · · Score: 4, Interesting

      KDE has transparent webdav to every kde application through the io slaves. You could use konqueror like filemanager and do webdav://server or webdavs://server since it also has ssl webdav support but more useful is that you can use those urls from any kde application so in your word processor, code editor, sound recorder etc you can save to webdav just like you would your home dir. To make it easier to get back to it you can bookmark it.

      I normally don't use the webdav functionality however stuff like sftp works the same way.

      --
      Computer modeling for biotech drug manufacturing is HARD! :)
  2. Interesting to non-Gnome users by $calar · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I have been using Gnome for a while, so it's no surprise to me when it comes to the things discussed in this article. About the only new thing I learned is that you can drag and drop screenshots into another program.

    I do think that Gnome developers have paid good attention to detail in the last two 2.x releases. Without KDE 3.2, I'd have to throw in some criticisms there, but KDE 3.2 just rocks. Very refined.

  3. I'll show you significant impact! by seanvaandering · · Score: 5, Interesting

    tiny details can have a significant impact on the user experience on operating ystems.

    Okay, while I completely agree with that article, Ill share some of my 'user experiences' using Linux vs. Windows and how things in Linux coming from a Windows POV are still archaic at best.

    For instance, yes like windows, you can hit the Print Screen button and get screen shots the same as windows, BUT it popups up a program asking you what to DO with the screenshot and how to save it - very nice.

    However, From a user who used IE just for the convienance when on WIndows, I migrated to Linux beore the MyDOOM crap and heres what Ive found:

    Mozilla still has a ways to go, and is still IMHO a superior browser to IE, mostly due to the fact it does not allow executable installations and popups enabled by default -- HOWEVER, installing Java as a plugin in the browser and making it a "symbolic link" in the plugins directory of the JavaVM is tricky at best. If i didnt have a clue about these things Id be trashing Linux right there. No one in windows land has no clue what a symbolic link is, or how to "create one" in a command line.

    There are other things also, but ill stick to the most basic and most obvious problem that a linux newbie would encounter right off the bat after installing Linux after migrating from Windows.

    Keep in mind, its the things that DON'T work that ultimately decides if a user is going to stick with a particular operating system/GUI/client or not -- unlike most of the slashdot crowd, the general public simply does not have the patience to try and troubleshoot a problem or PAY anyone, for that matter to get the same functionality that they had before.

  4. File naming and other stuff by WWWWolf · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Just this weekend I was still getting used to this weird operating system known as MacOSX: "How the heck do I rename a file?" Found out that clicking on the file name works. Yet, I far prefer GNOME's renaming idea: Renaming file is in the context menu, Edit menu and key F2 - and not selecting the file name extension is nice.

    I also like the idea of using SVG for icons - scalable icons rule, and have done so for years in operating systems no one uses. I just wish the SVG themers could come up with even a single aesthetically pleasing and extensive collection of file icons. The button themes are good already.

    Oh, and Emblems. Nautilus had these years ago. These things rule. OSX 10.3 got colored names. Not sure if Windows has innovated this feature yet.

    Now that I finally have some very infrequent access to a Mac - the supposed bastion of good UI design - I've started getting a little bit annoyed that GNOME stuff and WindowMaker are actually better at times. Both are lightyears ahead of Microsoft, though =)

    1. Re:File naming and other stuff by WWWWolf · · Score: 4, Interesting
      The rule on the Mac is the simplest one imaginable: point at the thing you want to manipulate. You learned that rule when you were about six months old

      ...and later I learned that I can either shout "I want the thingy, mom" or point at the thingy until someone gets that thing to me. Later, I learned how to pick it up myself, and the l33t hAx0rs even told how to use Fear and Influence to make other people to get the thingy to me, but I never got hang of it. =)

      The point is, just because I could do the thing with the method I learned when I was a baby, it doesn't mean it's always the best way to do things. There should be alternative ways to do things, along with the simplest way to do it. Even "File - Rename".

      (Apologies if there is such menu option - I've only used the Finnish edition. Apple, historically speaking, has had quite colorful history with translating their OS, not always agreeing to the translated terms the PC/Windows world uses - this isn't always a bad thing, because sometimes Windows translations suck as well. - To this day, Apple calls "File" menu "Arkisto" (lit. "Archive"), not "Tiedosto" (the estabilished translation). This is a great mystery.)

      Problem is that it's impossible to make a good-looking icon using vector graphics. You absolutely have to use a bitmap.

      Now, this is rubbish.

      Take a look around. You would be surprised if you knew how much of "good-looking art" is done with vector graphics. Even small size drawings. Even near-photorealistic icons.

      Most of the MacOS icons I've seen could be done with SVG and no one wouldn't notice the difference.

      First of all, SVG isn't exactly a yesteryear's graphics standard - it's very modern. In technical terms, this means that it has That Alpha Channel Thing figured out. The only BIG complaint from artists against vector graphics that I've heard is "There's only mask, no alpha channel". Well, there is now!

      Not earth-shattering, I know. Improves how things look, though.

      Also, what comes to scaling, I bet some sort of SVG grouping could be used for receding detail. If you want to do receding detail in bitmap icons, it's tricky - always have to create multiple bitmaps. (Okay, in reality you have one Photoshop source file and you just toggle layers and flatten and save.... but still, multiple bitmaps...)

      More likely, you've just come to the Mac with incorrect preconceptions, just like the whole right-clicky, vector-icon thing. You must unlearn what you have learned.

      Bah. Actually, so far I have had very few problems with OSX; there's not really have been much reason to "unlearn" anything. Most of the stuff has been, like, two minute blank stare at screen and then "oh, that thing there." =)

      I'm just saying that I had the illusion that MacOS was supposed to be unsurpassed in usability; It isn't. I suppose nothing is perfect. OSX is still pretty damn good though =)

  5. The extension idea by unborn · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Actually the extension idea makes a lot of sense. And it has already been submitted as a wish to bugs.kde.org:

    http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=58749

    Please cast your vote!

  6. Some irritating glitches too... by Tord · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I use Gnome every day at work and while there is much about the environment to love, there are also some really anoying glitches that I don't understand why they haven't been addressed allready. A few examples:

    1. You can easily create or install themes by clicking your way through or drag-n-drop, but there is no apparent way of REMOVING a theme.

    2. You can't change the location a launcher or shortcut points to once you have created it. That's irritating if you just needed to move the file or rename one folder in a long path and don't want to go through the hassle of creating a new launcher, name it and select icon from a long list again.

    3. You can drag-n-drop emblems onto icons from the sidebar, but you can't remove them in the same easy way. To do that you need to right-click the icon and go into a totally different dialogue.

    4. View files as a list in Nautilus and there is no way you can right-click on the background to get the context menu in order to for example add a folder. You then have to do it through the top-of-window menu instead.

    5. Listview in Nautilus again: you can't drag-n-drop a file from another window without dropping it onto an entry.

    6. There is no way you can change the permissions or emblems of multiple selected files in one go from Nautilus. You have to address them one by one.

    Just like Gnome's small features really adds to the experience, these small glitches really destroys it too when you run into them. Gnome is my prefered environment though, here's to hoping that some of these gets fixed in the next release...

  7. Cut and paste are not mentioned. by mrmeval · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I'm using stock Redhat 9

    I do not understand why cut and paste cannot be corrected. If a program is closed, what was just copied from it disappears from the buffer. Some programs can only do middle mouse button and others it's only via keyboard, some only from the menu some will do it from the right mouse.

    Some of this is the application programmers fault and some is the window manager.

    Other problems, why are programmers allowed to restrict what window functions I am allowed. If I want it to be minimized I want it minimized. I've seen this done on Gaim's away screen and it's very annoying. I would like to disable an application programmers access to these things either permanently or via user settable controls.

    --
    I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
  8. I'm not so sure about some of those niceties. by thatguywhoiam · · Score: 4, Interesting
    While the guy has some good points, he has others that I wouldn't necessarily agree with. Taken as a whole I'd say that GNOME had improved in comparison to itself, but its still a mixed bag, like all the other OSes.

    For instance, he said:
    Gnome, and the Nautilus file manager (the equivalent of Windows Explorer or Mac OS Finder) allows you to rename files only by right-clickling and choosing "Rename..." from the context-menu.

    This is not intuitive at all. While most of us would try the right-click eventually, there is no reason to go looking Rename there, except out of habit. If anything Rename deserves its own spot in the Edit menu. He also neglects Mac OS X Panther's 'gear' button, which is a nice approach - click file, then the gear to perform any kind of file manipulation. That is consistent. Right-click is for shortcuts but should never be the sole way of getting to a function. I do also agree with having only the filename before the suffic highlighted - I've noticed some apps do this for you and others don't, on the Mac anyways.

    In Mac OS X, when you take a screenshot, a PDF file is placed on the desktop. PDF is an awkward choice for a file format for a screenshot and if the desktop is obscured by windows, as it often is, then there is little feedback of where your screenshot has gone...

    This is true, although a slight modification of that same keyboard shortcut will capture to the clipboard, and gives you the same deal (and you can re-assign it). The GNOME minipreview thing sounds cool though. Windows would beat everything here if they would finally just rename PrtScrn to 'Screen Capture Button', and added a feedback sound.

    The DVD capture thing is interesting, I haven't tried it yet. Would it not be different depending on video hardware? (I remember Mac ATI cards would do the solid-colour-overlay thing while nVidia cards could capture DVD frames just fine.)

    While browsing font files (TrueType, OpenType, etc.) in Nautilus, the file icons are replaced with a small preview of the font. Very handy when you're browsing for a particular font

    A neat trick, but not even remotely handy. This is no way to browse fonts, looking at just an upper and lower-case A, in a 32x32 (or whatever) size. OS X has this one hands-down. Double-click a font and you get the whole repertoire, with a button that says 'Install Font' below it. It even asks you if you want to install for just this user, or all users.

    Now when I'm browing files, especially image files, on either Windows XP or Mac OS X, I find myself looking for the zoom controls - a good sign that Nautilus does it right.

    Not to be coy but this is only a good sign that you are used to GNOME. :)

    I do think that GNOME is pretty much in WinXP territory as far as usability, and you can take that as you will. Its a good thing, really... if they're starting to focus on things like font support and workflow, they may start to eclipse Redmond.

    Really I want GNOME to take a page from the design of Apple's Safari browser. Make it clean, elegant, simple, powerful. Do not load it with features. Don't copy features, invent better ones. This is how GNOME will find more diverse users. I worry that with all the propellerhead demand for things like (ugh) themes, the simple and elegant approach will often get lost.

    --
    If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
  9. Windows and Mac by ninejaguar · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Whether true or not, Gnome and KDE have the appearance of playing catch-up with Windows. I understand that between Windows and the Mac GUI, Windows has the larger market share. But, the Mac interface has always garnered the higher praise for all sort of criteria such as ease of use/utility, eye candy/asthetics...etc. The disparity in the two system's marketshare may have more to do with the fact Apple requires you to buy their hardware to use MacOS, and Microsoft doesn't. In hindsite, I wonder if MacOS would've been comptetive against Windows without Apple's hardware sale requirement.

    It's curious that Gnome and KDE based their GUI design template on Windows and not the Mac. Clearly, they're basing their design decisions on bringing a Free Windows to the masses, not a Free MacOS. This may very well be because the developers were more familiar with Windows as opposed to MacOS, but was it the better decision? Or, is it possible that the distinction between Windows and Mac are no longer as apparent as they were only a few years ago, and the Mac no longer has the lead as a better GUI?

    = 9J =

  10. Eat this KDE! by Lispy · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Okok, I don't want to start a flamewar here, but I have come to love Gnome lately and I wouldn't trade it with KDE or, beware, Windows.I am using Dropline Gnome for Slackware Linux and I must say that it not only rocks in daily works but still gives me cheers from people that see it the first time when passing my desktop. It just looks cool a-n-d useable. Gnome is very clear and not overloaded with features. What's more, now that gtk+ 2.2 is stable and had all it's debugcode removed it became much faster. The lazy responsetimes I had expierenced a few months ago are now all gone. The whole Desktop feels very snappy and responsive. Partly due to Kernel 2.6 but still, Gnome really has matured. I only hope they fix the last remaining issues:
    - a dialup tool comparable to Kppp
    - a decent CD-Burner (there are some in development, I know...)
    - a powerful file-dialog (it got fixbroken lately but I hope for a complete overhaul)

    cu,
    Lispy

  11. Re:Wrongo. by UserGoogol · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Context menus are one of the coolest UI paradigms in the universe. You only have to learn it once, and then you have tons of features at your disposal. Every UI has features which have to learnt.

    I think if you were to ask most people who know how to change the desktop in Windows, (although this is based on the highly informal sample size of myself) they would say that they change it by right clicking on the desktop and selecting properties. If you want to copy text on a webpage, how do you do it? Select text and right click, select copy.

    When I loaded up Fluxbox Knoppix for the first time, I thought it intensely awesome how they put so much into context menus. Don't clutter the screen with menus, but put features in a reasonably easy to find location.

    --
    "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity." -- Hanlon's Razor
  12. Mouseover audio files by gyrojoe · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Here's another neat thing in Nautilus that I've never seen anywhere else (Perhaps OS X has it, I've not use it much). When you mouseover an audio file, after a few seconds it will start to play. A bit like an image preview for audio files.

  13. Re:6 points by CaptnMArk · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Smarter file renaming was done in OS/2 >10 years ago (alt+click required).

  14. Re:and it took Microsoft how long by Oliver+Defacszio · · Score: 3, Interesting
    2. install Linux, use it for a month,

    How about two weeks? By that point, I'm sure I'd have to --

    1) Use my digital camera that isn't supported by Linux.
    2) Type up a research paper in a word processor that has basic functions like a fast, keystroke-operated word count or a non-retarded means of configuring page numbers (I'm looking at you, OpenOffice).
    3) Use a graphics design package with a UI that was not designed by a GIMP (oops, Freudian slip).
    4) Watch a video on a media player that features a UI that is even remotely usable (in other words, one that doesn't require I waste my time looking for 'skins' that were designed by adults).
    5) View three consecutive web sites without having to dick around with font settings.

    Oh, but it sure is pretty. Really. I like the appearance of KDE 3.1 much more than Windows 2000 (I haven't used XP enough to make any claims), but looks are only a piece of the pie when other aspects of it drive me crazy. I learned that when I dated the lingerie model with an ego the size of Jupiter.

    --

    -
    Inventor of the term 'pardon my French'.
  15. okay crazies by Linwood · · Score: 1, Interesting

    all i see is people talking about the single click rename in osx. but no one has mentioned if you right click any file and click "Get Info" (very inituitive) not only can you rename the file & ext, you can also add comments, lock the file/folder and access permissions, from a single access point. OSX +1, gnome -1, win -1

  16. Re:6 points by CaptnMArk · · Score: 3, Interesting

    While we are at it... The above is my #1 windows annoyance.

    #2 is the drag and drop than often happens in tree view when you are slighly clumsy with the mouse/double click. OS/2 fixes this too by using the right mouse button for all drag&drop operations.
    (and using the left drag one for multiple-selection).

  17. More Nautilus glitches by Earlybird · · Score: 2, Interesting
    The folder tree view is broken. Really. It doesn't sync with the file pane. You can't right-click on a folder in the tree to perform actions on it. You can't drag folders around. The only interactivity allowed is on the open/close arrows.

    I don't like KDE much, but I do envy KDE users for having Konqueror. It's a great file manager.

  18. Re:We're working on it by dspeyer · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Yes.

    Everything the old dialog does is still supported in the new one. Part of the advantage of working with old code is getting all this for free.

    Incidentally, did you know that you can tab-expand a glob in the old (and new) dialog? Type something like *.jpg into the filename box and hit tab. A useful little feature that I only discovered by reading the source (Hmm, that might suggest a problem...).

    --

    Sig:Why copyright isn't a fundamental human right

  19. Gnome's not so nice GUI... by kisielk · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Ever tried to use a Gnome app over an SSH tunnel? I have tried running PAN and Gaim from school by SSH'ing in to my home computer, and it's unbearably slow. It can take up to a minute to redraw the headers pane in PAN, because for some reason it slowly draws each header bit by bit.. you can actually see them refreshing slowly.

    As an experiment, I tried running some KDE apps over the same connection, and KNode refreshes its whole window nearly as fast as when I use it on my local machine.

    Now, I'm not writing this to rag on Gnome or its apps, because quite frankly I think PAN is the better news reader, and Gaim is my IM client of choice, it's just that for whatever reason they really suck over the network.

    I hope the Gnome developers don't forget that some people still like to run apps over a remote X connection.

  20. Re:and it took Microsoft how long by jrockway · · Score: 3, Interesting

    > Type up a research paper in a word processor that has basic functions like a fast, keystroke-operated word count or a non-retarded means of configuring page numbers (I'm looking at you, OpenOffice).

    How about M-x tex-count-words in emacs? I have that bound to C-c w. I'll bet you $100 that anyone would consider my LaTeX'd documents better looking than your word documents, too. Really!

    Basically, I have one thing to say to people like you: Don't use Linux. I don't give a damn. If you don't have time to set it up and learn to use it, cry me a fucking river. Bye now. How's that MyDoom treatin' ya?

    You not using Linux is your loss. Not mine. Nice troll, BTW.

    --
    My other car is first.
  21. Re:and it took Microsoft how long by KarmaMB84 · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Much of that 10 or 15 years that MS may have taken to get their desktop stable and usable might be due to hardware capable of driving the current version of the desktop not existing when they were developing Windows 3.1 and Windows 95 (and 95 really was usable, the underlying OS might not have been).

    At 6 years old, GNOME could learn from OSs already in existance and not be as constrained by hardware limitations as Apple and Microsoft's earlier attempts.

    As far as number of developers goes, Microsoft may have fewer doing active work on the GUI (as opposed to creating themes for the theme engine built by the real coders) than any of us think. People tend to get in each other's way when their are lots of them. Past a certain point, more people give less boost to productivity with each additional person. Past a point further down, productivity begins to drop as people start to get in each other's way more.

    GNOME may be lucky they don't have a gigantic number of people working on the official code base. I found GNOME to be rather polished when I used it, anyway.

  22. Re:You've mentioned ONE technical problem... by spectre_240sx · · Score: 2, Interesting

    One thing you should keep in mind when you become annoyed by all the linux zealots is that along with the actual kernel and operating system, the ideals are some of the most important things about it.

    At my school I do a lot of network management. Lately we've had trouble with our dinky little linksys router (great for home use but crap for the amount of users we have). Fortunately, GNU / Linux came to my aid. I'm now in the process of building a completely free (as in beer and speach) software router on an old G3. The fact that this isn't costing any money is pretty awesome and is the type of thing that draws people to linux, imo.
    That and the fact that it makes them 1337. :-)

  23. Re:and it took Microsoft how long by AME · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Use my digital camera that isn't supported by Linux.

    I'd be willing to bet that your digital camera isn't supported by Windows, either. More likely, the manufacturer of your digital camera supports Windows and not Linux.

    I know that the apparent result as far as the end-user is concerned is the same. But there is a technical difference there.

    --
    "I have a good idea why it's hard to verify programs. They're usually wrong." --Manuel Blum, FOCS 94