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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
Windows: focus groups, study users, never get it quite brilliant but basically give people what they want.
Apple: try to think about what will appeal to the user, deliver to maximise experience.
Gnome: WE DID COMP SCI IN COLLAGE AND HURD OF DON NORMAN THIS MAEKS US EXPURTS ON UI DESIGN. WE HAVE NO EVIDENCE OR TRACK RECORD BUT U WANT WAT WE WANT. WE WANT TO MAKE A NAME 4 OURSELVES PLS ACCEPT ONE OF OUR IDEAS PLS!!!
For ubuntu to drop Gnome for Unity.
Blender And Linux Fan
It seems like both the KDE and the GNOME folks have decided that they need to reinvent this whole desktop thing. KDE decided that icons are unnecessary, now GNOME deems maximize/minimize buttons unneeded.
Guess I'm lucky to use IceWM which still works the way it worked ten years ago - and I find that a good thing.
Real life is overrated.
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
Minimize is removed because the concept doesn't make much sense in GNOME Shell. Minimize only has an intuitive function when used with a panel, while in GNOME Shell all it does is make the window disappear. The last time I tried GNOME Shell, minimizing did prove to be a frustrating habit acquired by years of having a panel.
Maximize on the other hand is removed because... well, because this is GNOME we are talking about...?
They're arguing that minimizing is an uncommon thing to do and also one that doesn't work well within the general interface ideas behind Gnome Shell. So minimizing is, basically, deprecated. OTOH, they're not at all saying that maximizing is infrequent. What they are saying is that you should maximize in other ways: primarily by dragging the window to the top edge (that'd be the same as in Win7; the mouse gesture might be different, I haven't really tried Gnome 3); double clicking the title bar will also still work, I assume. Mouse gestures are supposedly more "gratifying" or some similar thing that will undoubtedly get a lot of hate on Slashdot.
FWIW, it's true that I only really use the close button on the title bar. I rarely minimize windows, and I invariably maximize by double clicking the title bar.
Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
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.
... from the very beginning.
I lost track of all the "cool" but horrible ideas which made it into gnome.
- CORBA after it had long died
- XML
- GConf (the horrors of the windows registry re-implemented by monkeys)
- C# and Mono - embracing Microsoft technology!
- Umpteen window manager changes, none good enough
The sad part is that the other DE's are not in a good shape either. KDE 4 has come out of the woods recently. Enlightenment is still not out. XFCE does not have that traction. GNUstep is like HURD, barely alive.
May be writing a good GUI is beyond something that can be accomplished by a mainly volunteer community...
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
Somewhere a million Microsoft employees are smiling.
And they're smiling because, when the boss comes in while they're looking at Natalie Portman pictures, they can click the Minimize button...
All things you could already do with any decent X11 window manager. How is it that GNOME's removing easy access to these features, and cluttering the context menu making them much harder to access, only to come back around and make them easier again, is a positive feature? Hell, if GNOME/KDE weren't trying so hard to imitate Windows all the time, they wouldn't have to remove the normal options, to FORCE people to kick their Windows habits, which GNOME/KDE have been encouraging, while all other X11 WMs used a different and superior model to Windows.
I use blackbox based WM's because they make it this quicker and easier than anything else. Mouse-over the title-bar and wheel-up to shade, wheel-down to unshade. Mouse-over the maximize button, and middle-click to maximize vertically-only, or left-click for horizontal-only maximization, in addition to the normal left-click. Right-click on the titlebar and the top entry is "send-to", select the workspace and it's gone. Don't need to mouse-over a tiny "switcher" applet to switch workspaces, either, mouse-over any blank area on the desktop, and wheel-up/down to go next/prev. Or you can middle-click for a list, or you can always use the toolbar (but you don't NEED the toolbar at all, if you don't want it).
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
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.
Ya know what would be REALLY bold? Replace the keyboard.
A radical departure would be a wall hanging with little pictures on it. Now, the unimaginitive would likely want the pictures to represent actions and things a computer would do. NO. That's too microsoft. A BOLD wall-hanging device would use pictures that DON'T correspond to actions. Like, a cartoon of a dog is what you hit to delete files.
But here's the fun part - there are TWO pictures of dogs, both hidden behind blank tiles. When you uncover one, it shows the dog for a few seconds and then goes blank. You have to remember where that is and then find the SECOND dog to complete the action.
I know what you're thinking- "That's not innovative, I've played that game before!" oh no, not THIS bold game you haven't. THIS one changes the position of all of the pictures under the blank tiles every time you open one. So you CAN'T memorize where the 1st dog was to find the second one.
Plus you can't use fingers. Nope. You use BEANBAGS. A sensor makes sure you're at least ten feet from the control, and you have to peg the tiles in the right order, throwing blindly, to complete the action. And these are not just ANY beanbags, they're special RFID beanbags. Don't lose any, though, they are expensive and demand is outstripping production so the wait for replacements is about 6 months.
Studies have shown that people LOVE bean bag toss games. This will make the computer using experience MUCH more enjoyable.
We also have a contract with Adobe. They have hired us to make Photoshop more user friendly. Currently we're looking at the bold move of replacing the entire Photoshop paradigm with something entirely different. The final decision hasn't been made. but the current favorite concept is to replace the entire Photoshop Suite with MKV files of Underdog cartoons. (MKV, not AVI. MKV is more fresh and innovative!)
Our internal studies show people in an office would rather watch Underdog than do photo editing anyway.
This space available.
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.
I write bullshit
Yeah, I agree, this is a great change. Before, I always wanted more blank space on the title bar, and it was a bit boring and unsatisfying to just maximize windows with a single input event. Minimizing windows to organize them with a single input event was always a bit unsatisfying too, your approach seems much more logical, and only requires a few dozen extra input events - I'm glad the choice to work either way has been eliminated. Yeah, dragging and dropping is very enjoyable, I always try to incorporate that into my workflow.
You know, when they announced GConf, I thought like you, because I had bad experiences with the registry and back then I was an arrogant 20 year old programmer who didn't like any framework for anything, especially not tasks like configuration. However, I have warmed to it as Gnome 2.0 slowly became an OK system. Configuration should not be something that needs to be re-designed and re-implemented in every application. Things like policies, handling multiple instances of the one program, external configuration tools, etc. should work on a layer below the app. When I am writing an application, I want to be able to say, "OK, I have these options, make sure they are stored somewhere and tell me when the user wants to change them" and it works really well. It's no harder to use than libconfig or libxml2 but it has the addition that it notifies the application when a variable changes. It is a shitload easier than writing a custom parser by hand or with bison.
When Argumentum ad Hominem falls short, try Argumentum ad Matrem