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GNOME To Lose Minimize, Maximize Buttons
An anonymous reader writes "When GNOME 3 arrives in a month, users might be surprised to see old UI staples 'minimize' and 'maximize' buttons gone and replaced by... nothing, in the case of minimizing, and either drag-up or double-click-titlebar for maximizing. Says Allan Day, GNOME Marketing Contractor: 'Without minimize, the GNOME 3 desktop is a more focused UI, and it is a UI that has a consistent high level of quality. Yes, moving to a minimiseless world might take a little getting used to for some, but the change makes sense and has clear benefits.' Some users already welcome the change, while others are in an uproar, swearing to wait for GNOME 3.2, switch to KDE or even Windows. What do you think? A better, simpler interface for new times, or a case of making something simpler than it should be?" I like minimize and maximize buttons, but I'll admit to liking the look of GNOME 3 .
The world becomes more and more like satire every day.
Deleted
For ubuntu to drop Gnome for Unity.
Blender And Linux Fan
Tested in the real world? No, not at all. But the developers have done a lot of reading of theoretical papers, so how could this go wrong?
Dragging is more stress-inducing to the hand than simply clicking mouse. we do countless minimize-maximize actions over the course of a normal workday.
I cant risk more potential for RSI, just because a few people think that is better to do so.
Excuse me gnome, but you are losing me.
Read radical news here
I like clean interfaces, but seriously, what does this help? It doesn't save space, the title bar is still there. Ignoring those buttons costs nothing, and replacing a button with a non-graphical multiple-action like double clicking isn't making an interface simpler, it's making it more complex. I understand the confusion about a minimize button with no taskbar, but this doesn't seem like a particularly well thought out design change. We got rid of feature X, so action Y isn't the same anymore. Okay, just get rid of it.
"Until the become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious"
When are we going to get an interface that is totally configurable to user preferences?
Someday, I'd love to sit down at a computer, point it to the URL where my interface preferences live, and presto - it instantly becomes the desktop I'm most familiar with.
Think of it as the GUI equivalent of setting your shell in .profile.
"Slow down, Cowboy! It has been 3 years, 7 months and 26 days since you last successfully posted a comment."
I love Linux, but it's like everyone mutually agreed to abandon desktop sanity. KDE never met an option they didn't like, and Gnome never met one they did. I've used both extensively and recently but both make me spend more time cussing at the screen than I want to. I've held on to Linux (and FreeBSD) desktops for over a decade but I give up. It's not going to happen. I'm still going to work on a Unix all day, but I'm switching to the pretty one.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
This is such a drastic step of changing a UI paradign that's existed for the past 25+ years, and the only justifications I see for it are completely theoretical ones. Where's the usability testing by actual users to see if the theories hold any water?
Both sides can argue about what THEY think the user will prefer. The arguments can sound extrodinarily convincing, but what actually matters is how it performs in the real world with actual users. The solution to this problem seems to be "just put it in the next release and see if people revolt enough" rather than conducting actual controlled tests. IMO this is an extrodinarily flawed approach. A controlled test gives you non-biased opinions rather than political ones. This approach only seems to create a rift between the two opposing sides rather than finding out what's the best UI experience for the user.
AccountKiller
So they took a button on the screen you could click and turned into a keyboard shortcut, and one of the benefits listed in the article is that it is more touch-friendly.
It is nice that they took them out and used that space for nothing. I'm not sure how replacing useful buttons with more pixels that do nothing and convey no information helps.
Another argument given is that there's no dock or windows list to minimize to, but if you want to switch to a different window, you go to the overview, which is exactly like a windows list or dock, but less convenient.
Reading Owens explanation was painful. He starts with revealing that he never minimizes anything and then speculates randomly on why people would use it (missing nearly all of the reasons I use it), then bases everything on 2 peoples opinions who he had work without minimize buttons for a while.
The reasons for getting rid of the maximize button is they though it emphasized the title bar as a way to resize the window (WTF?) and that the new way is more enjoyable (WTFFF?)
I haven't found a single reason that wasn't based on incredibly minor aesthetics or really screwed up views of "emphasis" or "mental models."
Can anyone give an actual reason for doing this?
This sentence no verb.
Nothing. It's just the latest from the Department of Stuff Nobody Asked For.
Who exactly is supposed to be the target audience for these inanities? On the one hand, you have people who have already being been using computers for a long time. They already know how to work a standard Win/Lin interface. What's the need to present a "baby" interface?
For children? 5-year olds can (and do) run current versions of GNOME without a problem.
Meanwhile, how many mod points do you want to bet that Gnome still will not have fixed 5 or 10 year old basic usability bugs in the file chooser, etc., as opposed to creating whole new ones with shiny, fancy stuff?
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
Let's be honest, though; both Apple and Gnome have pretty much the same design approach. The only difference is that when Apple does it, all their douchebag fanboys call it a design win, but when Gnome does it, it's a terrible, uninformed, arbitrary decision. It's stupid either way.
Sounds like you want KDE.
In KDE whether or not you want minimise or maximize buttons is a simple click in the control panel.
It does NOT make the UI easier to use. Cleaner looking, yes, but NOT easier. A button sits there, visible, inviting you to click it. You see that the option is exists and if you care to find out what it does you can click it and see what happens if you're adventurous or you can RTFM if you're not. Either way, you know the option exists. Double-clicking the title bar, however, is completely non-discoverable except by accident. Look at the screenshot at the top of the screen. The title bar has the title, a close button, and... NOTHING ELSE. Just a bunch of wasted space. Gnome devs are doing their users--present and future--a great disservice by removing these buttons.
I think they're trying to copy the super-clean look of iOS, but iOS looks super clean because it works differently, not because it is clean for cleanliness' sake. There is no close button because you press the home button to leave the app. There is no minimize/restore because that's not how iOS apps work. There are no scroll bars because you scroll by dragging anywhere. Steve didn't just say "I'm going to throw away all these controls," he said "I'm going to change the UI" and as a result of THAT those controls were no longer needed. Gnome has not changed its underpinnings--it just threw away all those controls.
Double-clicking the title bar to change the window is a great shortcut for power users who know it's there because it's a nice big target and sometimes it's easier to double-click a part of the screen close to where the mouse is, rather than going after a button. But that shouldn't be the ONLY way.
Decades ago, as a kid, I absolutely HATED the original Mario games on the NES because there was all this totally undiscoverable crap where you had to jump in just the right spot to mash your head into an invisible block to get points. I thought it was the dumbest thing in the world--how could you possibly know to do that? I didn't think it was a good way to make a game back then and I'm positive that it's not a good way to make a UI now. Gnome devs are ON CRACK if they think this is a good idea.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
There's no better way to say it: This decision is asinine and incredibly arrogant.
The change to the maximize function is ... well, minimal. Double-clicking the menu bar is something that can be learned (although certainly confusing if you expect it to windowshade the window).
But killing miminize? Minimize is an important, frequently used function for anyone who does real-world work with multiple applications. Multiple screens are NOT a substitute. Anybody who thinks right-click/pick is an adequate substitute must not use a laptop. Clumsy, oafish interface.
I wasn't bothered when Ubuntu moved the close boxes around, because Gnome traditionally has followed a path of encouraging user customization, and I could easily move the controls back where I wanted them.
But if Gnome 3 removes the minimize button, it's dead to me.
Oh jesus effing Christ. I'm not a Linux hater but by god KDE, Gnome and Ubuntu seem to be having great fun in a spectacular race to the bottom.
Minimize - in GNOME 3 default shell is GNOME Shell, and in this shell there is nowhere to minimize to. You switch between windows using either Alt+Tab, or Expose, which can be reached just moving cursor to left top corner.
As a brother poster just put, what happens when you want a window hidden? I like this window existing, I don't want to see it - click, gone. Windows does this. Mac does this. Even bloody WindowMaker, blackbox and virtually every other WM in history do this. But GNOME want to differentiate themselves by removing a feature nobody wants removed. Good for them. They can suck somewhere else.
Maximize is more tricky, but more or less I always have wanted that confusing button gone. Nevermind that it toogles between maximize/restore functionality, double click on title of the window will do much better.
"Confusing"? Confused, by a maximise button? You click it, the window fills the screen. If it's filled the screen it shrinks it back. This is elementary. By all means complain about Apple's Zoom button (which is confusing to most users who don't understand what was going through Apple's head when they put it there, which is most of them) but a maximise button is probably the simplest thing there is. And by all means put Aero Snap functionality in - it's a feature of Win7 I simply cannot do without without going crazy now - but don't take a reasonable option away from me.
These changes are risky, but I would definitely not call them rushed or stupid or "just because authors want it that way". Keep in mind, that those are hired professionals which have brought us GNOME 2.x series.
They're risky because they're absolutely retarded. You would have to be absolutely insane to fuck around with something that is, to most people, an intrinsic part of using a computer. These changes are rushed, and whether their architects brought us GNOME 2 (which is hardly a case study in excellent UI idea, all things considered) is completely irrelevant. It's a silly idea.
Before criticizing understand that GNOME 3 and Unity (which also have got lot of "love" from Slashdot flamers) is created with future controls in mind - multitouch, gestures, etc.
Windows 7 does this right. I actually thought about this today - it looks like a desktop OS, it works like a desktop OS, but it would work equally well as a touchscreen OS, and neither gets disadvantaged by it. All of the controls and buttons are touch friendly without the user even realising it. To contrast however, GNOME's approach, from the looks of things (and Unity's) is "fuck you, we want it touchscreen friendly and desktop users can lump it". Bear in mind that touchscreens are still niche devices, especially on the desktop. It's stupid, stupid, stupid.
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