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."

Comments

found a GNOME replacement

[poppopret]

It takes just a minute to make XFCE look and act pretty much like GNOME 1.

I think you can clone GNOME 2 as well, but I always configured that to be like GNOME 1 so quickly that I barely saw it. :-) Why you'd want bars at top AND bottom of the screen is a mystery to me, but XFCE does support it. The same goes for desktop icons: you can have it if you want it.

I have my menu, my task switcher, my desktop switcher, my clock, and my xterm launcher. Life is good with XFCE.

Do you really?

[MrEricSir]

Plenty of people use tablets and phones that don't have multiple windows. And not to sound like an old fart, but let's not forget that up until the mid 80's most computers barely had any multi-tasking at all, let alone multiple windows.

And what do multiple windows really give you? Inefficient usage of your screen? The hassle of dragging titlebars and fiddling with window grips? A paradigm where dragging and dropping an object causes an unpredictable IPC interaction?

Seems to me multiple windows is more of a bug than a feature.

Re:Do you really?

[garyebickford]

Sorry, I take exception. :) I'm one of those old farts, and I've been using and advocating multiple screens since at least 1978. Some folks are visual thinkers, some are linear. I'm definitely in the visual group. Those others, I think, are in the linear group. And Emacs has supported multiple windows since the beginning, IIRC. So even the text-mode types are not necessarily linear either.

In 1979 I was using three graphics terminals side by side (each of them 640x480 to 1280x1024). I hacked up a custom RS232 switch to direct output from the mainframe output to each one as needed, while input to the mainframe was always from one of them for the keyboard. On one terminal I had the code I was editing, on the second was my command line interaction, and on the third was the 3D graphics output that resulted from running the code.

Today in my normal workspace (a Compiz cube on dual 1680x1050 monitors) I have four virtual 3360x1050 desktops, all visible in the background in my transparent cube (when there aren't working windows in the way). I can spin the cube with one middle click & pan. The first desktop has housekeeping - mail, timeclock, Pidgin, sometimes a web page open, sometimes a terminal as I deal with email and office matters. My second 'working desktop' has one (sometimes two) Terminal, usually with three tabs for three different machines I'm logged into, two GVim windows one of which is broken into from one to several separate subwindows (vertically and horizontally) for different class files and the other of which contains one to three output log files. At any given time there may be diffs of log files or diffs of code files. Then, because I don't have a third screen, I keep three Firefox windows rolled up except when I'm using them, each of which has several tabs. One of the three, visible on all four sides of the virtual desktop, contains database interfaces for two machines (phpMyAdmin), dotProject, Trac, Mercurial, and the development portal. The second contains tabs for various sorts of documentation, the third contains reference material for the project I'm working on - usually web pages that I'm either scraping or reviewing.

If I'm working on more than one project this week, I will have a similar setup open on the third face of the cube, and the fourth usually has some more casual stuff such as a webpage that shows Slashdot, the news, etc.

I'm seriously considering going to a third screen (and 1920x1200 monitors), so I don't have to flip between windows for the Firefox stuff and the logfile views. Why should I have to flip between windows instead of just scanning my eyes over to the right? I want CONTEXT, dammit! :D I guess my workspace is more analogous to the bridge of a ship than a computer terminal. There's a lot going on, and I want access to all of it right now, and a visual indication of everything that's going on while I work on each individual task.

If you have sufficient resolution, the only reason to use a single window full screen is to get the maximum amount of data for one application on there, temporarily. I sometimes do this with an editing file, because I need just 'one more line' of text for context.

I think the ideal progression would be to stop trying to squeeze everything into a single screen, and instead make that screen a true viewport into an unlimited virtual space. As we move to head-up displays, we should be able to hang a window anywhere in space. The real world is a big space that surrounds us - why not our 'desktop' as well? And why can't I read a virtual newspaper the same way I do a real one, with the full spread visible and readable? And other parts of my environment visible around it - the stove, the clock, the coffee pot, my SO, etc.

I didn't think it was possible

[erroneus]

Just when I thought I could maybe settle in with Gnome3 on my Fedora 16 running, 11" laptop, I read this and was reminded why I hated Gnome3.

They go on about the efficiencies of maximized windows? REALLY? I'm not one of those users. I prefer overlapping windows so I can see movement in them when something changes. Yes, I know I can still do that, but tweaks are necessary.

Another thing that's getting to me is the wild mouse movements required to navigate around. Go to one corner to change to the window changing mode, then go to the opposite corner to do something with the windows like move it to another virtual display or something. Did they consider what a pain that actually is for people with touchpads or those stupid keyboard joysticks? Worse, what does it mean for the disabled?

It's not just different. It's different without a cause or a purpose. It's really stretching things to assert "an old person's user philosophy" where windows should always be maximized over others where people like to be able to easily and more quickly select and work with objects between windows. (Ain't much drag-n-drop with maximized windows is there?)

Linus Torvald's words keep coming back to mind... "unholy abomination" I believe they were.

These "UI Designers" made me want to hurt people.

[FilthCatcher]

This particular rant is about Unity but the concept of "design" decision overriding utlity applies.

I really tried using Unity for a week or so but NEEDED to move the launcher / dock thingy to a different screen edge. (reasons below)
First, I tried the obvious click-dragging move - nothing happened
Ok, I told myself. This is open source software! must be a config file somewhere so I googled. Found a post from Shuttleworth himself saying:

I’m afraid the location of the Unity launcher is fixed by design. We want the launcher always close to the Ubuntu button.

Fixed by design? but I want to move it! I'm running ubuntu inside Virtualbox. I NEED both 'dowze and 'nix and the windows host / linux guest config works best for me. I also give that Linux guest a monitor to itself - on the right. Because it's on the right, the left edge of the linux screen jumps the mouse pointer back to the left screen and into the windows host system. So when trying to use the dock with autohide on (i want to use all of my screen when coding) I'd keep touching the edge of the screen and the dock would disappear.
I've got no problem with these design decisions from valuable end-user testing being used to setup defaults but both Gnome and unity seem hell-bent on FORCING you to use their new design paradigms and guess what? It just doesn't suit all use cases.

This being open source, it didn't take long for a whole bunch of options, wokarounds and custom docks to appear but for fuck's sake stop telling me how to use MY computer.
Am currently reasonably happy with KDE - Don't think I'll be going anywhere near Unity or Gnome for a very long time.

Re:BLECK!

[cgenman]

I use Windows, OSX, Linux, iOS, and Android. I have to say, I find that I generally want either one window maximized, 2 windows halved to move data between them, or 3 - 4 windows halved over 2 screens to move data between 2 windows while looking at reference materials. Virtual Desktops are fine, but in practice provide a functionality similar to minimized windows but with an annoying degree of toucheyness.

Of course, for Linux, I pretty much just want a command line and a phone with a browser. So I'm probably not the target market. But I can still understand the goal of moving to just maximized windows, and jumping between them. OS UI got stagnant for about 10 years in there, so I'm happy that they're experimenting with things... even if that means they'll occasionally Ubuntu it.

Re:BLECK!

[houstonbofh]

So Gnome does what it wants, not what I want it to do. And it takes me more mouse click and keystrokes to do anything than it did in Gnome 2. Why?!?

Because YOU ARE WRONG! At least that is the message I seem to be getting from Gnome and Ubuntu lately. "We are all about choice as long as you make the right one." Respectfully, gentleman, shove it!

Re:Top & Bottom

[xombo]

The rationale is that the bar being at the top of the screen provides an infinite targeting area. You just have to push your mouse up until the pointer will no longer move then go left or right until you've gotten to the right menu. I find myself spending a lot of time and concentration trying to target menus in Windows because they're so slight compared to the rest of the interface. I imagine that's one of the things the ribbon is trying to solve in light of high-resolution displays, a rather garish way to increase the targeting area.

Re:BLECK!

[Anonymous Coward]

Try KDE. It is perfectly usable and is making perfectly sensible decisions, while the same cannot be said for trinity:
http://blog.martin-graesslin.com/blog/2012/02/having-a-look-at-the-oldnew-desktop-environments/

Re:Dev

[Grishnakh]

There's a big difference between Apple and GNOME. Apple has a bunch of drooling fans happy to buy their crap. The Gnome devs think that by copying Apple stuff (badly), or perhaps by "being different" or "thinking outside the box" or whatever, they'll also gain legions of drooling fans. Except that it hasn't worked out that way at all; most Linux users just think they're full of shit, and the people who might actually want a UI like what the Gnome devs have put together don't use Linux.

Maximized by default?

[fahrbot-bot]

Sigh. While I understand that some may like this kind of thing and it may make sense in some circumstances. I have never - ever - run any application maximized in the 25+ years I've been working (or in college). Not on my Xerox 1108 Dandelion, Sun I (through present) workstations, SGI Indy, or any number of Unix graphical workstations or Windows/Linux/Unix PCs. With any sufficiently large display, running maximized is almost retarded. As a system programmer/admin, multiple windows are basically required to be efficient and effective. Just my well-worn $.02.

Re:BLECK!

[Lord of the Fries]

I've done this thought experiment before, the "how many apps do I need at once" one, and thought the same.

The problem I have with it, is that it doesn't hold up in real life. When I work with a desktop, or a countertop, or a workbench top, or any sort of work surface, I don't allocate a single rectangular area, and then set up my cooking utensils, or books, or tools, or whatever to occupy those perfect proportions that you describe. I shuffle stuff around, I pile stuff on other stuff, I unearth things when I need them again. If I was really obsessive, maybe I could work my tool bench in the garage the way you describe, but reality is, I wouldn't.

I think one of the reasons the desktop metaphor has been so lasting, is that it *is* a metaphor for a real world experience. It may be suboptimal and innefficient compared to what I could accomplish if I'd just organize everything just so. But it is a method of work management that I gravitate to again and again. I seem to be able to work that way instinctively. And because it is so approachable, as disorganized as it might seem, it actually works well for a computer interface because I've optimized in a million subtle ways how to work that way.

Re:BLECK!

[FireFury03]

Displaying multiple windows at the same time means that screen space isn’t used efficiently, and it means that you don’t get a focused view of what it is that you are interested in. Windows that aren’t maximised also create additional tasks for people. Often you need to adjust their size, or you have to move them around.

They are clearly on track to eliminate that in favor of maximized windows.

I do wonder what the Gnome developers are smoking sometimes... I actually quite like Gnome 3, so I'm hoping someone forks it before the Gnome devs make it completely unusable. I can only think of 3 real problems I have with Gnome 3:
1. The crazy modal application launcher buttons. These change what they do depending on whether the application is running. For example, if I don't have a terminal running, clicking on the terminal icon will open a new terminal window; conversely if I have 10 terminal windows open, clicking the terminal icon will bring them all to the foreground - this is something I never want to do; the only reason I'm going to click the launcher icons is to open a new window so why not allow me to make that the default?
2. No support for extra mouse buttons. I want my 4th and 5th mouse buttons to raise/lower windows... Gnome 3 won't let me assign these buttons to any thing.
3. Lack of configurability. This is something Gnome has suffered from for a long time - for some reason the Gnome developers thing that making people hack away at gconf/dconf to configure common things is more user friendly than giving them a user interface to do it. I can understand the need to reduce the complexity of configuration interfaces, and reducing the number of knobs to twiddle does this, but there are some functions that they seem to have removed for no reason. For example, in the power management preferences, Gnome 3 lets you configure how long until it turns your monitor off when the machine is idle. It has a drop-down listing times liek "5 minutes", "30 minutes", "1 hour", etc. There is no "Never" option - why not? Would it have made the UI any more complicated? It's obvious what "Never" would do, it would be in the place you expect to find it, I just can't see why this functionality was removed.

If they do take to maximising everything then I may as well be runing Android on my desktop - it would make the machine useless for what I use it for. I can't think of a time when I would ever want to maximise a window on my 24" screen. My work involves me having many windows open at once - this is the reason for having a large screen and if I were restricted to a single window at once I may as well replace it with a 14" monitor.

They say that using unmaximised windows is an inefficient use of screen space, and cite this picture as an example of efficient use of space through maximising all windows: http://afaikblog.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/music-album-playback.png - am I the only one who can see that about 50% of the screen area is wasted because the window is way bigger than the content?

They also say that it is an inefficient use of the user's time if they have to resize and position windows, but this is a trade off - it *is* an inefficient use of my time to organise my windows, but through spending a few seconds being "inefficient", I gain vast efficiencies in the following hours by being able to see and work on all the content I need. It would certainly be far less efficient and far more frustrating if I were constantly having to switch between maximised windows rather than having everything on screen at once. This isn't even limited to switching to windows I need to work on, it's as simple as switching to a window every few seconds to see if the contents have changed - I quite often have a terminal window open tailing a log file and, as it's on the screen all the time, my peripheral vision will pick up that something h

Re:Dev

[pmontra]

That mindset is called "cargo cult". I'm not sure they very so deluded but there are hints they are starting to listen. Quoting from one of the linked posts:

Judging by the comments it would seem that there is a bit of confusion about what is meant by maximising windows by default, so let me try and clarify:

• 1. Not all applications will use this behaviour – only those that have been designed to do so. If an app won’t work being maximised, it won’t be.
  1. Although these applications will maximise by default, it will still be possible to unmaximise them. If you want to be able to view more than one window at once you will still be able to do so.
  1. There will be mechanisms put in place that will adjust the behaviour to compensate for large screens. We are currently investigating a number of options here, including not automatically maximising windows on these large screens or adjusting their layout to make best use of the extra space. Everyone involved is well aware of the need to work well with large screens!

Maybe we'll get a Gnome 4 that works for us in some five years from now.

I believe that this new wave in the GUI design is due to the reductions of screen heights we experienced (suffered?) in the last years. On small screens maximizing windows and reducing the space for menus and toolbars is good design but probably the 4", 13" and 24" form factors need three different interfaces.

Re:To the Bone!

[CProgrammer98]

the < and > mathematical operators would disagree with you.

In what math or programming text book do you read "x < 6" as "x fewer than 6" rather than "x less than 6" ?

Re:BLECK!

[RubberMallet]

My toolbar has.. KMenu, Firefox, Chrome, Dolphin, and Pager.. on the far right I have a systray and it has a clock and a few key icons I want.. the rest are hidden. The default isn't much different (I added Chrome and removed the Activities pager)

Clean desktop... easy again... the default has nothing but the Desktop view widget... On click removes it if you don't want it there, or switch Desktop modes to something more suitable for you.

The default KDE4.8 from openSUSE has 2 virtual desktops defined and the virtual desktop pager as default on the toolbar. If Ubuntu devs remove/don't add it... well... what can I say? Yes Activities are promoted because.. they are actually VERY useful... if you use Virtual Desktops.. well.. they are basically the same but with a LOT more control and functionality.

Nepomuk is a core part of the desktop. You can disable it... at a cost. you actually lose out on a lot.. meta data, search, and a few other key desktop features that you would find quite useful if you tried them - it is especially key with KDEPIM. IF Ubuntu's KDE isn't allowing you to disable Nepomuk... then it's broken. I can and do disable Nepomuk on my netbook running KDE4.8 form openSUSE. I don't need that functionality there... so click and it's off.. and I never see it again.

Gnome has no way to modify things.. KDE has too many ways. You choose Gnome and get a desktop that is the way others think it shoudl be.. most Gnopme users just use the default.. and never change it... KDE on the other hand is all abotu tweaking and configuring.. if you don't like it.. change it.

I STILL don't understand the almost universal hatred for the cashew.. seriously.. I know people that almost go off the deep end over that... they've got 27 inch monitors, and the cashew is covered by apps 99.9999% of the time, yet it infuriates them... a LOT. The cashew is actually a core part of the desktop and about as fundamental as KMenu... no one freaks and hides the KMenu button... yet all they can do is soapbox about a tiny button in the top right corner... one you actually could just drag elsewhere... heck, you can even "hide" it under the taskbar/panel. I suspect it's a case of people can't find significant niggles to they pick on the insignificant and easily changed and bark about it - not saying you are.. just a general observation. On my system, the cashew is covered by another widget I've got stuffed in the top right corner... no one even notices it's there anymore

In the end.. I'd say your issues were... Ubuntu's rendition of KDE... I've tried that one over and over and over and had nothing but problems with it... openSUSE is NOT perfect by any means, but I've got to say that the KDE I pull from there (I use the "Upstream" KDE4.8 openSUSE repository, not the default KDE 4.7.2 you get from an install off the latest 12.1. DVD ISO) is rock solid, and works exactly as it should.

The reality is.. use the window manager that works for you. KDE is not the be-all-end-all and it is not right for everyone.. heck it' snot right for even half the users.. the beauty is you've got choices.. Cinnamon, Trinity, E17, KDE4, Gnome3, and on and on....

Re:Why does Linux self-destruct?

[equex]

I wonder why there's so much drive in Linux to abandon whatever is in the right track.

Been saying this for ages, my guess is that people deep within the 'community' are getting paid to damage Linux as much as possible, while keeping a smile for the public. It's just not possible to be so mindboggingly stupid. There has to be some cold cash somewhere. Linux almost had it right so many times, just to get 'reinvented' and pooof we have a new set of half assed beta software that is 10 years behind again.