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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!!!
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.
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?
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...?
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...
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.
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.
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.