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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."
Since I moved from Debian to Ubuntu on some workstations, I now get to whine "but how long will it take Ubuntu to release the debs?" Or at least whine about GNOME app upgrades that depend on upgrading a new libc, which then forces upgrading all kinds of other apps (like Evolution v2.3.7 does). It's a whole new dependency hell, slightly less hot.
--
make install -not war
Burn Karma, burn!
A MENU EDITOR!
...
what a concept!
maybe they will go back to letting me change the icon of the damn foot menu
such features, years ahead of the alternatives..
mod me troll bait or whatever, but im sorry gnome really urks me sometimes.
For those who want the latest 2.12 goodness nicely prepackaged, Ubuntu 5.10 (Breezy) will be released with 2.12 on October 13:th, about a month from now.
h light=(release)
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/BreezyReleaseSchedule?hig
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
Link to torrent:n -5.iso.torrent
http://torrent.gnome.org/gnome-livecd-2.12-i386-e
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.
If the GUI could match the sheer attractivness of Tiger or Vista, there would be many more converts. Although it is billed as "an intuitive and attractive desktop for end-users" on GNOME's website, it still has a way to go. Say what you will about the other named OSes, but real progress is being made on the GUI front, and I'm afraid that GNOME is falling behind.
Information wants a fueled airplane waiting at the hangar and no one gets hurt.
The 'evince' app looks useful, letting you see PDF or some other formats, sort of like the 'preview' app in OSX. But, wait, there's more! As I read the webpage, Evince will now (or will one day) also handle presentation formats (openoffice "impress" and Powerpoint). This last thing is more than just a copy of non-free software, and that in itself is notable. But I think it's more important than that ... I think it would be very helpful to have just one interface for viewing many types of files. Of course, they will have had to make a comfortable and powerful interface; once this gets into Ubuntu or Fedora, I'll have to check it out!
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
This is fixed in GNOME 2.12 with the exception of starting apps from the terminal (where the problem becomes real complex).
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:
...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)
I've always found that to be interesting, because I'm either stupid, they're cheating, or getting useable fonts in X is just too fucking hard. Much more than it needs to be.
Web2.0: I love when people Flickr my cuil and digg my boingboing until my google is reddit and I start to yahoo
Someone wrote that GNOME is an OSX killer before.
Well yeah, maybe in 2020.
You see, Nautilus alone is vastly inferior to Finder (the new one). Of all gnome components, nautilus is the one that sucks most. Try browsing a large directory with thousands of files with nautilus, konqueror and windows explorer. The latter ones scan the directory MUCH faster. Nautilus takes about 1-2 MINUTES - unacceptable.
The main point of new gnome bugfix releases should be to improve nautilus. Speed it up, say, to about 100 times its current "speed".
Also, it is evident that once an ORDINARY USER (no hacker, no power user, no admin, no dev) has to edit a config file, the whole design has failed. Of course, this is not gnomes problem alone, but to a great deal the underlying OS; however, we are talking about an OSX killer, right? If you aren't lucky, and the hardware doesn't fit 1:1 with the distro, you have to dig through obscure manpages.
I also read that anyone that is not able to edit configfiles is an idiot and everyone MUST learn how to do this. See, I doubt a biologist that made some photos about a weird plant and want to download them from his cam to his PC is interested in editing config files just to get this to work - he JUST WANTS TO DO HIS JOB and is certainly not interested in learning sh and all about the Unix architecture. Config files per se are ok, as long as editing them is optional. Unfortunately, it still is mandatory sometimes (fortunately, the camera issue is resolved automatically by modern distros - but still, simple samba shares have to be edited by hand for example).
This sig does not contain any SCO code.
What the Gnome developers should do next is to concentrate on the basic elements. Making the code cleaner and faster. Make the interface more customizable. Make the file manager more functional and friendlier.
Right now, they are just doing too many things at once. Sure, there are Evolution users, but most people use Firefox and Thunderbird nowadays. Who needs yet another video player or CD ripper? It's more important to have a good CD burner - right now I still need to resort to the command line to blank a CD-RW. I sometimes have problems connecting to Samaba servers via Nautilus, the use of the mount command is required.
So, focus on the basics and make them better. Don't reinvent the wheel.