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GNOME 3: Beauty To the Bone?
someWebGeek writes "According to the GNOME design crew, as reported by Allan over at As Far as I Know, GNOME 3 will represent a new approach to GNOME application design. The design patterns being developed and employed may effect a new, prettier interface, but more importantly a new mindset about the entire project, a mindset intended to encourage greater deep beauty in the application layers below the user interface. Maybe...for now, I'm sticking to the sinking ship of KDE in the Ubuntu ocean."
I wait with baited breath for a hopefully usable system, unlike the current gnome shell, and most especially unlike unity. I want applications that remember their states and can be saved and restored (gconsole, I'm looking at you in particular) and otherwise the ability to organize my working day properly on desktop and laptop.
Support tablet all you want, but don't remove support for desktop and laptop - like unity did.
If it breaks my way of operating a computer. Yes gnome3 is pretty, yes gnome3 does have some interesting idea's, yes gnome3 is a fucking pain in the ass and gets in the way all the damn time.
I lasted a whole 3 months with it, then rolled back to gnome2, sure its ugly, sure it has its problems as well, but wow its like using a modern computer, not mac OS6, I can put shortcuts on my desktop without switching DM's, I can right click options that in gnome3 require 3rd party shit and editing a text file, I can make a pile of virtual desktops and not play mind games to get them to show up (like maximize 1 app so desktop2 shows then right click and move bullshit), and if my mouse happens to hit the corner of the screen the whole fucking thing doesnt insta break, zoom out, and require me to select something before I can get back to what I was doing (even windows7 got that right)
WHAT THE FUCK?
This is not a Tablet-OS, It is a "Desktop-OS". If I Wanted a FUCKING Phone or Tablet, I would buy a FUCKING Phone or Tablet! and there are already better interfaces than the Shit that is Gnome3 and Unity for them (iOS and Adroid 3.x)
STOP SHOVING SHITTY MOBILE PHONE TOUCH-SCREEN INTERFACES DOWN OUR THROATS FOR DESKTOPS!
there is a menu at the top and a dock at the bottom. In the early days Gnome and KDE were cloning Windows-like paradigms, but increasingly they clone Mac paradigms, which is why they opted for a dock I'm sure. Honestly, unless you are stuck on a small monitor
In case you really mean a Mac-style app menu disconnected from the app window, you have the monitor sizes backwards. A top-menu GUI makes sense on the original 512x342 display, since you have to maximize most stuff anyway and your mouse can't possibly have far to travel.
A modern iMac is painful to use. Your choice: place every app in the upper-left corner of the screen, or move the mouse over a thousand pixels each way.
The OSX dock is unusable too. The fact that an app is running is indicated by a tiny dot under the icon. The fact that a second instance is running (rather difficult to do BTW) is indicated by a second icon located nowhere near the normal dock icon. You don't get a second dot. Seriously, WTF?
Hey, GNOME team - I really want to like & use your stuff. It looks neat. But - I earn my living with this 'user interface' each and every day. I don't spend the day playing music and splashing paint on brick walls wondering what bark is made of...
I write code. Lots of code. I have 10-15 editor windows open on 2 or 3 desktops. I deal with 200 emails a day, while on conference calls with customers, while trying to 2 other things (usually poorly, but that's not the point). My computer life isn't as simple as opening 1 program.
I need the ability to be productive all the time. Please, write up user-stories based on what your kernel developer friends needs. Look at what people like Linus need. Please help us!
I have a 24" screen. Why would I ever maximize a window other than, say a game or Google Earth? I have a "windowing" system for a reason. Fixed-width layouts on the web are common as well and on a large, high res screen you're going to have either a very large window with a lot of blank space, or a window with very zoomed-in text. Maybe they are catering to the ADHT-type people, but I run a Window Manager for a reason. I can kind of see where they are going (and apps aren't forced to be maximized), but I have some serious doubts.
I stopped using modal interfaces for computing when Windows 98 came out, removing my "boot to command prompt, and type 'win' if I need windows" option. This was the year I learned about Linux, GNU, and in particular GNU Screen which allowed me to fill my massive high-res monitors with many terminals, and thus become more effective than closing one to open another... It amazed me that this software had been around for 13 years at that time. It was like getting out of an abusive relationship. I had been using two separate machines and a KVM switch -- I gained another order of magnitude in efficiency that day.
It's strange to see Gnome returning to the "one activity at a time" methodology that we had with simple DOS programs, or even the Apple IIe. At this rate programming an interface with Gnome4 will require wielding wire cutters and a soldering iron, Gnome5 will simply be several strings of beads, and Gnome6 is only a single stick -- What's more simple and user friendly than a beach full of sand? Gnome7: It's just a zen-like feeling of serene clarity you hold in your mind -- the ultimate free software, no hardware even required -- Wow, its NOTHING!
After the scales had fallen from my eyes, I promised myself that I would never stand for such abuse again.
Go ahead and write code without the API docs open on an adjacent screen or window -- or write a school report without your sources visible. Hell, enter spreadsheet data without another page visible. Look at papers? What papers? Some of us are paperless now! Who are these 'users' they're targeting? Surely no one that actually USES a computer. If it's only fit to be used as a media consumption device I believe they should call their desktop design methodology, Consumer Friendly, not User Friendly.
Virtual desktops are great for organization of your open windows. Having everything on one desktop, gives you no logical grouping of applications. Indeed, the keyboard shortcuts for switching between open applications are different if those applications are on separate desktops.
For example, one may have the following:
Desktop1: console
Desktop2: todo list, notes, and time tracking for billing
Desktop3: Gimp and all of its toolbars, file browsers
Desktop4: Gvim or editor of choice
Desktop5: Web browser(s)
Desktop6: Music player
Once you become consistent, you know that you can use a keyboard shortcut to switch to any of these windows, without having to Alt+Tab cycle through them. This is a great reason to keep Gimp on it's own virtual desktop, since there is an application window created for the main program, each open file, and each toolbar. The same can be said for browsers and their developer plugins. Applications which are related, logically, and that you switch between often can be on the same desktop. YMMV.
Where you see stagnancy, those with actual perception see maturity, competence, and highly optimized design. If it ain't BUSTED, don't FIX it. If it's not only not busted, but in fact is pretty optimal, don't even THINK about fixing it from the ground up. Gnome3 is like trying to turn a perfectly good hammer into some shitty linear monstrosity that you have to punch nails with straight ahead, instead of economically swinging the hammer at it.
Caveat. I do actual work with desktops and notebooks. I have absolutely no use whatsoever for teeny tiny touchscreens, but for those who do, I recognize those need a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT UI with a different paradigm. But there is absolutely no call to DESTROY the oven when you are designing a microwave.
OS UI got stagnant for about 10 years in there, so I'm happy that they're experimenting with things
I use gnome 3 on 2 monitors with unmaximized windows every day and I love the new task switcher. The Linux community is ridiculously conservative.
I'm ridiculously conservative in that I want my car to have four wheels too. Not five, not three, but four. Because it works
With multiple windows, focus-follows-mouse and no click-to-raise, I can mark/paste between them without the layout of my display changing at all. I know where things are, because they're the same place as ten minutes ago. And I can have a window open to a dozen servers at the same time, without running out of screen real estate.
This is known as X-mouse, and was the standard for a long time because it works. It wasn't displaced by something better, but displaced because of a new generation of users who never had a chance to use it,, and grew up with click-to-focus and click-to-raise because that's what Microsoft Windows had.
Then the new genration of Windows users started using Linux, and started transforming Linux into what they knew. I bet you these new Gnome developers haven't even tried X-mouse. Gnome 2 had already made it hard enough to do, and with Gnome 3 it's next to impossible.
Another real killer is dropping DPI support. I can no longer have the same size fonts on my 146 DPI display as on my 90 DPI display. Because some idiot thought it more important that fonts are a certain number of pixels in size to better match graphics. Fuck writers and typographers, who perhaps want a 10 pt font to be around 10 pt, not 20 on one display and 6 on another.
Yes, it's a new generation of programmers. And they are clueless because they are history-less. They don't know why things were done certain ways, and they don't give a damn as long as they can continue their circlejerking.
I wonder how long it's going to take them to realize that their userbase is going, going, gone.
Or even servers. Where Gnome shell doesn't work at all, because it assumes that you have local access to the graphics card.
So you have to have two completely different user interfaces - one for local users with 3D cards, and one for everyone else. Yes, that makes it so simple and consistent!
Unfortunately, pride gets in the way of the Gnome devs saying "oops, we goofed on this one". Instead, they will rather see the ship sink, as long as they can blame it on someone else. And sink, it does. There really is one big reason why Mint has floated to the top of Linux distros now, and that's Gnome 3 being unusable. We know it, the Gnome devs know it, they know that we know it, but still they can't lose face by admitting the obvious.
Sarcasm aside, drawing the distinction between why one would do this on a printer vs. why one wouldn't want to do it on a desktop UI.
The reason printers have less and less buttons (when possible) can more accurately be attributed to a cost-cutting feature (less buttons == less hardware to manufacture, less moving parts to replace when they break in the field, less warranty problems, etc). If you don't get bothered by having to hold buttons down to get them to exercise new behaviors - this is all fine and good.
If I had to click and hold anything for 10 seconds in a UI I'd find a new UI. While pixels are finite on a desktop, they're still free.