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GNOME Shell Extensions Are Live
DrXym writes "GNOME Shell has been criticized for certain shortcomings when compared to GNOME 2.x. Chief amongst them was that 2.x offered panel applets whereas 3.x is seemingly lacking any such functionality. What most people don't know is that GNOME Shell has a rich extension framework similar to Mozilla Firefox add-ons. Now, the official site to install extensions has gone live. So if you yearn for an application menu, or a dock, or a status monitor, then head on over. Extensions can be installed with a few clicks and removed just as easily."
Xfce is the next standard for the authentic-gnome users, I've made the migration and I'm entirely satisfied.
There's a lot of major open source projects that have gone stupid over the past year or two. Firefox is the other big one, of course. But we've seen similar stupidity from Thunderbird and Ubuntu, for instance.
It's like a big mass of unemployed web designers have moved on to fucking up real applications, perhaps because nobody will hire them to do web development any more, given similar fuck-ups in the past.
No, we don't want gradients and curved corners all over the place. No, we don't want the menus to be removed. No, we don't want the status bar to be hidden. We just want software that works, and these failed designers just can't provide that!
The biggest idiocy of GNOME 3 last time I tried it (Ubuntu 11.10) was that Right click on the panel didn't work. You had to alt-right-click for everything. This is because the GNUssolini decided it was too distracting for me to right click and I wouldn't get any work done if I right clicked. So they changed all context menus to alt-right-click.
So, is there a GNOME Shell Extension that makes right-click work the way it used to?
Sure, they're good in theory, but after you've been using some extension for years the Gnome developers decide that they want Change and then your extension breaks and the developer hasn't updated it in a long time because it's done and there's really no way to improve it, and now it's dead unless someone else learns whatever arcane Gnome-isms are required to fix it.
Users simply can't rely on anything outside the main code development tree, and with Gnome you can't even rely on that.
Ive been a long time ubuntu user, and with the ubuntu unity/gnome fiasco I've been looking at going back to SuSE or even switch to Fedora since I work on redhat boxes all day.
But I decided to go with Mint, and with the extensions installed, its back to what Gnome 3 should have been. I do like being able to reload the desktop without closing my apps, and the looking glass debugger is a nice touch. I think now that extensions are out, and distros can start using them again, Ubuntu will make a comback. But now that I'm switched to Mint, its basically Ubuntu with the better desktop, I might not go back.
I just wish the gnome extensions were installed by default, so people didnt have to learn about them 2nd hand after they already get pissed off at a crippled and funny looking desktop.
No, it's not a problem at all. The problem is the fallacy that in order to make a UI that appeals to new users you must automatically get rid of everything that your old users liked about the original. You CAN have both, just bury the option to switch somewhere that only the old power users will find and you're fine.
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
they're trying to make a desktop that has a broad appeal
And that is completelly understandable. They need to abandon nerds and prepare for a broad audience because next year is, definitely, the year of linux on the desktop.
I'm a nerd, but I also like to get meaningful work done without having to tweak a UI everyday. Up until Ubuntu 10.10 I had the benefit of an attractive AND functional desktop, heck, I even finally perfected my ideal desktop configuration with 10.10, even with warming up to the stupid-application-buttons-on-the-left-side-of-the-title-bar-because-we-want-to-be-like-Apple. However, as much as I like change, the kind of change that prevents me from effectively using my main computer exactly the way I want will drive me away. They could have at least had the courtesy to make the new UI into a separate DE that can be selected at the login screen, but apparently that was too much to ask... bastards. This is why I've switched to Mint and will not look back until the Mint team gets on the idiot UI bandwagon.
By "dock" I mean, some form graphical display that lists currently running programs intermingled with programs that you can lauch if you wish.
So, a mashup of popular items from the 'Start' menu and the currently running windows list. A list of two completely different things - action buttons and status buttons
See, that doesn't bother me a bit. The only thing I use that type of facility for is High Frequency items, email, browser, file manager, command shells. If one of those is ALREADY open I want the open one 99.94444% of the time, and if I want a new one, its left click.
You keep most menu items in the start-bar menu / what ever you want to call it. But the high frequency items I want handy, and If they are running already chances are I want the running one, and not another one.
It may not be to your liking, but it is very well thought out in all the implementations I've see of something like that. Why dig thru application menus? Computers are supposed to be intuitive. See icon, click Icon, get the desired result. They are not two completely different things. Its the way people work.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Unfortunately the people who are unhappy tend to be the loudest. I just wanted to chime in and say that I absolutely love Gnome 3 and wouldn't dream of going back to Gnome 2.