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GNOME 2.12 Released
Moderator writes "At long last, Gnome 2.12 has been released! Among the many new features are clipboard management, a menu editor, an improved search tool, and a spatial-tree view in Nautilus. Check out the start page for more info."
I just wish a little more effort would go into the user-interface aspect, which is really the whole point of a GUI right? It should be flicker-free. When I want to run a program it should come right up rather than changing the mouse pointer and making me wait. The fact that its logo is a foot doesn't help matters any.
Are there any window shells out there that have a little more pizazz than Enlightenment but retain the crisp response to user-input? Because that's what's needed to get the desktop crowd.
Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
-- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.
No shit. I hadn't tried Gnome for a few years, figured I'd give it a shot when I installed linux on a new box recently. I was all ready to add my most used programs to the foot menu...and...couldn't find a way to do it. I assumed it was buried somewhere, but began to consider the possibility that the paternalistic Gnome people knew better than me what programs I need to use, and had decided I simply didn't need to add programs.
I quickly switched back to KDE. Although I've since moved to blackbox since it isn't a memory hog, and is insanely easy to configure.
What I don't understand about Gnome is how it can have so few features and take up so much memory.
Nah, I agree. There are times when "Yes" and "No" are barely acceptable - namely, when you are asked a very short, simple question by the dialog. But really, if the whole point is to use your computer quickly, even a short dialog should avoid them. Why make the person read a sentence like "The action you are about to perform cannot be undone. Are you sure you want to do this?" in order to figure out what every dialog is for when you can give the familiar user a chance to do things so much more quickly by allowing him to read two buttons - "Delete" and "Cancel", "Delete" and "Don't Delete," something like that. If you are forcing the user to read the dialog in order to know the correct answer, you might as well have buttons labeled A, B, and C, and tell the user what each does in the dialog text.
That said, it's not enough. Prime example: In Quicken (2006 for Mac, anyway), if you are in the middle of the account creation wizard, and click the Cancel button, Quicken pops up a sheet with the usual "Are you sure you want to do this?" type question, and gives you the buttons "Cancel" and "Close." There are plenty of people out there (myself included) whose first instinct is to click the "Cancel" button because Cancel is the first button I clicked and Cancel is what I want to do. Of course, it's also the wrong answer.
KDE does all this nicely. Gnome on the other hand...
Well, I guess it has some new games and a menu editor this time around...
Ubuntu is pretty much done with their library transition. It is essentially a GCC-4.x distro now. They are shooting for a Breezy release in October. While I'm on the subject, I'll mention that tracking Ubuntu's unstable has been waaaaaaay more painful than tracking Debian's unstable. It has been stabilizing lately. The modularization of X.Org hurt worse than anything. For awhile it seemed like they were breaking X every other day. I tracked Debian's unstable for years and rarely got burned. Once Debian completes their x.org packages and finished their GCC transitions, I'm seriously considering changing my apt sources back. Unless a stable release is imminent, Debian's anal retentive ways do a decent job of providing late-model software that isn't broken.
/usr/local. It is basically what backports.org does for Debian stable (minus the alt libraries part) and it is an undertaking.
If a Hoary user tries to pin Gnome or even just major Gnome apps then the parent post is correct. It will pretty much result in upgrading to Breezy. The only other way out is to pull down the source debs and build them against Hoary's -dev libraries. You can avoid some hair pulling here by using your friend checkinstall to have renamed versions of some upgraded libraries under
I'd just wait for Breezy to release and stabilize and get it then if a working system with a minimum of effort is important to you.
I don't mind waiting so much, if it's a heavy app, but I'm really, really annoyed that applications steal back the focus when they finally appear. It's so unintiutive and annoying. Then again, all (or at least the ones I know of) OS:es and managers do this, so it's not specific to Gnome.
:) And if there is a way to get this behaviour today, please please tell me!
If you don't understand what I mean, here's the point: I often start up an application that I will use "in a while" and then proceed to navigate further in Nautilus or whatever. When the app starts, it steals back focus even though I already do something else. That is not usability. There's two use cases:
1. User starts application, waits for it to complete. This would cover almost all common use and especially non-power use. Focus remains with started application from the point that I start it.
2. User starts application, proceeds to give other window focus (by click, ALT-tab, whatever). Starting application at this point loses focus and will not regain it.
Ok, so if the app doesn't steal focus, it may not be obvious that it's finished? That's what the new taskbar hints is for, and it's also a matter of how you behave. Any user likely to have problems with this probably wait for each app to start in turn anyways, so it's not likely to be a problem.
Now this I would like to see. It annoys me at least a couple of times a day.
Spine World
Gnome is the OSX killer.
You are killing right? Its been how many years, better part of a decade and they just added freakin' clipboard services.
Call me back when they:
Our intelligent designer has never created an animal that we couldn't improve by strapping a bomb to it.
So, you're whining because the Unstable packages have been...unstable?
...my use of Gnome on Fedora Core 3 has been nothing short of miraculous in simplicity and efficiency and most closely comes to the interface I've come to expect after years of Windows and even, hack/wheeze/cough, OS/2.
KDE on the other hand seems to pride itself on being as different as possible, seems to be designed to make guesses as to what I want as opposed to asking me or simply doing the logical default, and is largely irrellevant to most supposedly KDE-centric apps when it comes to running them on Gnome. I don't have to change out of Gnome for KDE for them to work in almost every case.
Gnome is a pretty damn decent environment and I can see why it is the FC default.
If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
The only reason that there is a menu editor is for you damn KDE freaks who were taught that bad habit. Gnome menu editing is integrated with the damn menu, everything is drag & drop or context menu. Many KDE users couldn't figure it out when in reality HIG studies by both Red Hat and I believe also Novell showed that normal users found that intuitive and having to open up a whole new program just to edit a menu in KDE was absurd.
Red Hat does quite a few studies on user interaction on the Linux desktop and they found that only 5% of a developers needs overlap with regular users. All those decisions that are made about the gui are made because 95% of the people prefer them or find them more natural. Don't let KDE's bad habits affect your opinion of Gnome.
In Gnome if you want to do something, its most likely the most obvious way of doing it so try it (don't think obvious as a developer, think obvious as a regular user). Also some of the configuration things that KDE people bitch about are nonsense. If you want to configure every little thing, then use KDE, if you want your Desktop Environment integrated naturally, use Gnome. You can still configure anything you want, albeit you may have to do it in a slightly more convoluted way. Regular users should never come face to face with a configuration dialog of any sort unless they have every intention of it and they know whats going on. Most users don't know, configuring minor things should not be readily available to users. One more note, developers tend to be sloppy, spatial is much better once again for an average person. Once you use it for a bit, you realize the benefits. So many people have spent years in that alternative horrid messy directory structure that they automatically assume change is bad. Wake up and give Gnome a shot, it does alot under the hood for you and will make your desktop experience more efficient.
Regards,
Steve
Translation -
Gnome developers know better than users.
It's easy to use if you're one of our model users - if you're not, fuck you, we don't want you using our desktop environment.
See sig.
Advanced users are users too!
Now the users won't have to directly manipulate obscure data files?
Well, you could of course drag & drop items directly to the menu like you've always been able to do, but that would have required you to have actually tried it before you posted.
Malike Bamiyi wanted my assistance.