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GNOME 3.8 Released Featuring New "Classic" Mode
Hot on the heels of the Gtk+ 3.8 release comes GNOME 3.8. There are a few general UI improvements, but the highlight for many is the new Classic mode that replaces fallback. Instead of using code based on the old GNOME panel, Classic emulates the feel of GNOME 2 through Shell extensions (just like Linux Mint's Cinnamon interface). From the release notes: "Classic mode is a new feature for those people who prefer a more traditional desktop experience. Built entirely from GNOME 3 technologies, it adds a number of features such as an application menu, a places menu and a window switcher along the bottom of the screen. Each of these features can be used individually or in combination with other GNOME extensions."
Personally, I wonder if there are any use metrics for Gnome3's default mode, vs running on fallback/classic.
Personally, I can't stand either Unity or Gnome3-standard modes. One of the first things I do with Ubuntu boxes is nuke LightDM and Unity from orbit, and replace them with something less resembling a botched ST:NG computer interface. I actually happen to LIKE menus. That Gnome has listened to the sound of angry feet stampeding to XCFE and KDE over the issue makes me happier, but still displeased over the "No, we don't do it that way anymore, nanaananananannaa" mantra they were using for so long previously.
You're like an Ubuntu user that shuns Debian.
Moved on, XFCE and it's at least replaced all uses for what Gnome was doing for me. Instead of creating a rich unified DE for all to use (with small enhancements and extensions), they flushed down all their good will in re-inventing something that many/most? of their community didn't seem to want.
I wish you well, but this is one ship I simply refuse to sail on (In the same likes as Windows 8 and unity alas).
Bye!
I used Mint 14.1 and I found the alternate but included MATE interface to be far more stable than cinnamon.
When I realized they took away my minimize button I damn sure needed some free beer
"He's using a quantum encryption scheme! That'll take hours to break!"
Wait, wait, wait... wait, just wait... I thought the world DIDN'T end in 2012 like those crazy Maya believers said. The gnome team listening to feedback... wow what's next, no wait don't tell me. Microsoft will realize the folly of Windowz 8 in time to 'add' a feature in Windowz 9 SP1 that'll make the IT industry happy again. There it is, you heard it first here kiddies!
Over at datamation.com they have two reviews worth reading. One general review on GNOME 3.8 and a separate review on the all new GNOME Classic.
I tried Cinnamon on Mint 14.1 and found it to be freezing frequently
Very little I install on my computer does not just work. I don't mind Unity, and prefer it to Gnome shell but Cinnamon has been an incredible project. I am more than happy to provide you with a working video of my desktop :) I suspect your overstating the position. BTW you can install cinnamon on Ubuntu.
It looks plasticky and cheap
Don't use the 'Plastick' theme, then.
/* No Comment */
They keep breaking keyboard switching every release. Here's the story in 3.6:
https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=681685
https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=684210
(If you read the comments, you'll see the usual attitude of Gnome devs - bilingual users who actually use this functionality are telling them that it's been broken, while devs who don't really use it but own it reply by coming up with invented reasons as to why the new behavior is the right thing, and everyone else should just shut up and learn it.)
You'd think they would pay more attention to this area in the new release, but apparently they have emasculated (the official press release calls it "simplified", in the usual Gnome bullshit-speak) it even further in 3.8, and there are bugs reported about erratic behavior of the new switcher. All that because XKB is, apparently, not good enough anymore.
With this kind of attitude towards their users (of which the above is but a single example), how come they still have any?
It's terrible with multi-monitor, relative to windows anyway.
add an external monitor to my left, It's automatically the primary, my plasma desktop and panels resize and move to it to my left. Ok, fine, I add a new panel (i actually like one on each monitor), but when I remove the monitor, my panels stack on top of each other on the laptop (right). Now when I re add the external monitor I have 2 panels on the left, on top of each other.
also, I've lost windows off screen and couldnt get them back on an unplug. It makes me miss windows.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
How do you launch something when you don't know its name? Sit a newbie down in front of gnome panel and they'll never find all of the "hidden" programs.
One of the things in Gnome 2 that I rely on every day is the fact that in the pager applet, I can see the outlines of the windows on that desktop, and if the app is big enough, it's icon. This is invaluable feedback to me. I can tell at a glance where things are if I should forget. I typically never alter my desktops use, but it's nice to be able to see this. Cinnamon fails completely in this regard. It's pager is nothing but a dark square to identify which desktop I'm on. It gives no feed back other than this and may as well be just a number, which the screen shot of the new classic mode appears to do.
If either Gnome classic or Cinnamon could do this one small thing, I'm ready to switch. Until then, It's still Mate for me. That and I really like the way I have compiz set up with Mate.
Same here. Xfce is mature, and everything just works. I don't have time to beta-test in my everyday work.
It's still impossible to do very essential things in GNOME Classic, such as moving the panels around or fully configuring them. So, in many ways GNOME 3 hasn't reached feature parity with GNOME 2 or Xfce.
That said, it's really nice to see GNOME listening to users. An especially important part of GNOME 3.8, in my view, is that more options were added to the settings rather than removing them. This shows that the team really is trying to stabilize the core before adding more features, which is really the right way to go about things. I think in a few years GNOME 3 will be a great desktop, suitable for various work styles.
Change for change's sake is hardly progress. When I have to search for a damned TERMINAL window, one of the more used things in Linux, it's pretty damned sad. Why must I remember the name of every app I might want to use? Why can I not be given a selection of apps so that I can find that one I use least often who's name escapes me? Why must I be trapped in a Win8 like HELL trying to use my computer?
Sorry, the "new" Gnome sucked ass and I along with MANY others avoid it like the plague. Enough apparently that the Gnome team heard the cries of agony and gave us a way to, in theory, alleviate the damned pain. Should that not be evidence enough that it was a bad damned UI decision?!
Build it, Drive it, Improve it! Hybridz.org
It "just works" if you have 3d graphics hardware. It's useless on a toughbook. Unity is an epic failure that it requires a 3d acellerated video card.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Why should he have to go hunt for something that was a standard feature since about 1995?
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
1. having search boxes on menus and windows is just a crutch. the whole point is to see what you're looking for in a graphically intuitive way. Adding search boxes is just admitting the design sucks.
2. Hotkeys easily make window/menu based search boxes redundant, but if you want a keyboard only experience, just dump your gui entirely and run applications from the shell, using xinit when you need a gui application. bash and its brothers are a lot more powerful than some idiotic 'semantic' search box.
How do you launch something when you don't know its name? Sit a newbie down in front of gnome panel and they'll never find all of the "hidden" programs.
The type to search applications feature searches more than just application names -- it searches a number of fields in the .desktop files, including application descriptions. Thus a search for "spreadsheet" will bring up LibreOffice Calc for example. Type what you want to do, and you'll find what you want ... that's the theory.
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
I realize justifying change for its own sake based on emotional needs is the current trend, but it's led us to interfaces that are frustrating to use for even the most basic tasks. Things like pointless whitespace, huge, low density text, extra clicking/dragging/touching/searching, and long winded, laggy animations and transitions do little but add stress and time to the process of getting things done. For example, what the hell happened to the basic control panel, with simple, logically named areas and which contained the whole sum of just about anything that 99% of users would want to tweak? The windows 2k/xp control panel was nothing to write home about, but compared with the overdesigned crapola that's in vista/7, it's a godsend. This is not better. It's worse.
Perhaps it's time to demote the 'designers' a bit in development hierarchies as these people obviously care more about appearance and bottom barrel 'accessibility' than capability and efficiency. In fact, many of those up and coming people you mentioned have trouble with the new designs as well. It's just that fewer and fewer of them have relevant experience with the traditional menu-in-a-corner+modeless window desktop to compare the two. It's fine to keep the interface simple for fixed function devices like media players or ATMs, but workstations are different as they're used for complex, user-defined workflows. These cannot really be optimized for. Attempts to do so cause more problems than they solve. The people who do want their interfaces on rails really don't need workstations in the first place.
It's not just gnome that suffers from this. Microsoft, apple, and google are guilty as well. In their race to the bottom, they're not differentiating at the top, where innovation happens.
I'm not sure that's true - plenty of folks such as myself had the hardware that could run it but barfed when we saw it and hated it. This had little to do with apps, my apps ran on it but finding them or finding apps who's name I couldn't recall was a joke. I hated the experience and I stopped using it - simple as that. In fact of the Linux users I know all of them, in unison, pretty much tell me they HATE Unity and recommend everything from Kbuntu to Mint to other options just to get rid of it. Hell I've still got a box on 10.04 just so I don't have to deal with this mess of a UI.
Build it, Drive it, Improve it! Hybridz.org
So we're back to playing "guess the verb"? Is it called a "console", a "command prompt", a "shell", or a "terminal"?
"They redundantly repeated themselves over and over again incessantly without end ad infinitum" -- ibid.
If Gnome users aren't the target audience for gnome 3 who the hell did they think was going to use it?
This is a joke. I am joking. Joke joke joke.
If Gnome 3.8 still has application popup windows that are "pinned" below the app's window bar, then it still reeks.
This started at Gnome 3.0, and [as far as I can tell from a quick perusal of the source code] they removed the code [from metacity, mutter, gnome-whatever] that corresponded to the config option to allow these windows to float.
For an example, play gnomines. When you complete a game, the popup comes up and obscures the top part of the board. You can't see your time [or a portion of the board]. This can't be overridden.
As a far worse example, do an "open file" [ctrl-O] in Firefox. See how much information is obscured (tabs, toolbar, url, etc.).
To remove working code that provided a useful option to force "A Brave New Paradigm" is just asinine.
Like a good neighbor, fsck is there
Ask the assistant. You have obviously never been to Walmart! Hint: the most successful store in the USA.
What you do is go down an aisle of relevant stuff, till you get to the section which has that kind of thing, and then look up and down. This is like having a menu bar with drop-downs with slide outs.
Your mileage may suck!
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII