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GTK+ 2.8.0 releasedGTK+ 2.8.0 releasedPosted Aug 14, 2005 23:06 UTC (Sun) by bojan (subscriber, #14302)In reply to: GTK+ 2.8.0 released by Zarathustra Parent article: GTK+ 2.8.0 released
Read pretty much this whole thread and it's shockingly childish. Look, if you don't like Gnome, don't use it. If you like Unix key bindings, use Unix (whatever that means to you).
On a more positive note about Gnome, my wife is what one would consider a "regular user". She uses her Fedora Core (4 at present) workstation to do EBay and related stuff. She cuts and pastes text between apps just fine (Epiphany, Gnumeric etc.). She also gets photos out of her digital camera just fine and does simple post-processing of those photos using same basic Gnome app (I think that's called gThumb or something). She also uses drag and drop to get images off the web and onto the machine (and uses, to me annoying, spatial mode of Nautilus to do that). She didn't have much Windows exposure and what she had was long time ago, so she doesn't even know what Windows is supposed to be like. And yet, she finds Gnome just fine and does her work. She never complained to me that she's being slowed down by something stupid on her system.
What she did complain to me about is the fact that the money we spent on my daughter's Windows based games is wasted now, with no more Windows PCs at home (my daughter liked the look of eMac - what can you do :-). Well, maybe some of them would work in Wine - I don't know - I'm simply to busy to even try. In essence, she's got a good point there, but it surely isn't the fault of Gnome, Linux or Fedora Core.
Gnome (just like everything else in life) isn't perfect, but it has gotten better over the years. In my personal view, much better. After all, if Nokia were able to get a piece of consumer electronics out the door based on Gnome, it probably isn't all that "unusable".
(Log in to post comments)
GTK+ 2.8.0 released Posted Aug 14, 2005 23:12 UTC (Sun) by Zarathustra (guest, #26443) [Link] Did you look at the title of this article? Yes, it reads "GTK+ 2.8.0 released", not "Gnome 8.4 released".
I do not use Gnome, and I will never use Gnome. But there are _many_ basic apps that depend on GTK and inherit it's braindamages(starting with Firefox).
So Gnome can do whatever it likes, but GTK, if it wants to pretend to be a Unix toolkit, it should play by the Unix rules.
GTK+ 2.8.0 released Posted Aug 14, 2005 23:22 UTC (Sun) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link] Yes, I did read it. And I checked GTK web site. On the home page, word Unix appears 0 times. Word Gnome appears 4 times. So, GTK has much more to do with Gnome than it has with Unix, it would seem to appear. And, as I understand it, Gnome is built on GTK - at least that's what they say on the GTK home page.
So, Gnome, being one of the GTK based "applications" (using mostly its defaults) appears to be just fine for regular users. At least that's my experience. As I said, nothing is perfect, but I think your complaint is that GTK isn't like something else. I guess that's because GTK isn't that something else, but GTK.
GTK+ 2.8.0 released Posted Aug 14, 2005 23:45 UTC (Sun) by segphault (guest, #27468) [Link] zarathustra said: "So Gnome can do whatever it likes, but GTK, if it wants to pretend to be a Unix toolkit, it should play by the Unix rules."
bojan said: "And I checked GTK web site. On the home page, word Unix appears 0 times. Word Gnome appears 4 times."
Darn right. It's also worth noting that it's a cross-platform toolkit, which has to be able to perform well and be comparably intuitive on both GNU/Linux and Windows systems. It's not a unix toolkit, and there is absolutely no reason why it should play exclusively by unix rules. While I think that optimal configurability is important, and I think that GTK should be able to integrate well with whatever platform it runs on, I would never characterize it as a 'unix toolkit'. It's an open source, cross-platform development toolk it, and it's portability is definitely an important feature.
GTK+ 2.8.0 released Posted Aug 15, 2005 0:07 UTC (Mon) by Zarathustra (guest, #26443) [Link] Lets see, I'm running a Unix system, I expect applications to behave by the Unix rules, not by the VMS rules.
It's that so hard to understand?
I could not care less what GTK does when runs on Windows, because obviously I don't use Windows, but when running on Unix GTK apps should behave like any other Unix application.
Should Unix users be pariahs that are not even respected at their own home?
GTK+ 2.8.0 released Posted Aug 15, 2005 0:31 UTC (Mon) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link] > It's that so hard to understand?
In fact, yes, it is. Who defines "Unix rules"? Why exactly should they be followed (apart to please you) in GTK? Do all applications on "Unix" (whatever that means) follow these rules? I was under the impression that Unix apps did pretty much whatever they wanted most of the time. That's why they created such an incoherent mess.
Yes, sure, with the introduction of GTK there is "yet another" set of rules to follow. Well, at least there is Gnome that is trying to introduce a "complete" desktop that follows the same rules all the time. It is not finished, sure, so we have to suffer through inconsitencies when other apps are fired up. And I'm pretty sure that GTK exists and is being developed primarily to fit into Gnome, not Unix. That's why the "Unix rules" are not a very high priority on the GTK "feature" list.
Again, if you want "Unix rules", stick to Unix applications. Don't run GTK, Gnome or whatever other applications that annoy you. Or better, patch your own GTK with "Unix rules" and enjoy.
GTK+ 2.8.0 released Posted Aug 15, 2005 7:08 UTC (Mon) by Ross (subscriber, #4065) [Link] Actually, GTK was written for GIMP, before GNOME existed.
But I get the picture. There is no room for new (or old in this case) ideas
GTK+ 2.8.0 released Posted Aug 15, 2005 12:06 UTC (Mon) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link] > Actually, GTK was written for GIMP, before GNOME existed.
As if that matters now. THE most important thing written in GTK is Gnome. Therefore, whatever happens with Gnome affects GTK.
> But I get the picture. There is no room for new (or old in this case) ideas in GNOME. I'm not welcome, and that's just fine.
Hey, if that's what you think the defaults are all about, that's OK. There is no requirement to use GTK or Gnome and as far as I know nobody is forced to used it because it is a "monopoly" like one other platform we know. So, feel free to be not welcome, welcome, not use it or use it.
GTK+ 2.8.0 released Posted Aug 15, 2005 12:49 UTC (Mon) by Arker (guest, #14205) [Link] And GNOME is supposed to be the GNU Network Object Model Environment.
Explicitly called into being as part of the GNU/OS.
And explicitly hell-bent, to judge from your post (and I'll say now it's not at all clear you can speak for the project here, but the project has made decisions in the past very consistent with what you're saying, so it fits) on alienating anyone that happens to like the keystrokes, conventions, and working models of the GNU/OS as it existed before GNOME. We aren't wanted or needed in your world, obviously.
Doesn't make much sense to me. Perhaps if that is really the official policy of the project, it should change its name?
GTK+ 2.8.0 released Posted Aug 15, 2005 14:14 UTC (Mon) by elanthis (subscriber, #6227) [Link] GNU's Not UNIX. :P
GTK+ 2.8.0 released Posted Aug 15, 2005 19:57 UTC (Mon) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link] Let me assure you, I cannot speak for the project at all as I haven't written a single line of Gnome code. So, all the comments are my own personal views and not those of the Gnome Foundation.
I think you are reading too much into this. I used Gnome since 1.x and when things started changing (i.e. being simplified), I protested that I miss this or that. The truth is that I don't. I was just used to doing things that way and they are just fine they way they are now.
I was just telling Ross that he's completely free to feel the way he does. It is officially OK. I personally got over it, some people can't because they probably really need those things, which is OK too. But, direction of GTK is dictated by GTK developers, many of which are Gnome folks these days. Nothing "hell-bent" about that, just reality.
GTK+ 2.8.0 released Posted Aug 15, 2005 17:47 UTC (Mon) by Ross (subscriber, #4065) [Link] Sadly all the modern Mozilla/Firefox type browsers use GTK exclusively. Ifnot for that I wouldn't really care because the only other GTK apps I regularly use are XMMS and GIMP. I don't do much text entry in either so they don't bother me. I don't like using KDE apps because they start all kinds of background daemons and do strange things to the terminal they started from. I'm open to trying other browsers though.
GTK+ 2.8.0 released Posted Aug 16, 2005 0:30 UTC (Tue) by njhurst (guest, #6022) [Link] Yep, and XMMS shows how a good Unix gui should work! I particularly love the subtle interplay between the gtk1 preferences dialog and file window, and the subtle precisely detailed main interface that is configurable and can even pixel double for those times when you can't steer your mouse down to the single pixel buttons.
GTK+ 2.8.0 released Posted Aug 16, 2005 1:57 UTC (Tue) by Ross (subscriber, #4065) [Link] XMMS works for me. I use it becuase is very configurable and has most ofthe commonly used controls visible in a small footprint. I'm not sure if it is a great example of a Unix-like program, but at least it's no emacs or Netscape.
I do have one complaint, which is that it likes to move windows around by
Other programs like xv which have nothing to do with GTK have similar
It would be nice to be able to resize the program too (to view longer track
GTK+ 2.8.0 released Posted Aug 15, 2005 14:04 UTC (Mon) by Arker (guest, #14205) [Link] And on the front page of www.gnome.org;
What is GNOME?
GNOME is a Unix and Linux desktop suite and development platform.
GTK+ 2.8.0 released Posted Aug 15, 2005 20:03 UTC (Mon) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link] Got me! Now they'll finally have to implement "Unix rules". Whatever that's supposed to mean...
GTK+ 2.8.0 released Posted Aug 15, 2005 1:06 UTC (Mon) by pengo (guest, #7787) [Link] Read pretty much this whole thread and it's shockingly childish. Look, if you don't like Gnome, don't use it. That sounds like a "parentish" response. Certainly not a mature one. The original poster in this thread (Zarathustra) was complaining about Gtk's disregard for his preferred key bindings, which originate with some old Unix apps. The "Free" part in "Free Software" is about the freedom to control your own computer. As Gtk is part of the GNU, you'd expect them to think about those other aspects of freedom other than freedom of the source code to run around naked. A short term solution would be to dig about and change keybindings (which sounds difficult and probably wouldn't help much or for long), an even poorer solution would be to stop using the software all together. A proper solution would involve creating a "preferred key-binding service" for GTK (and Qt?) which applications could query and negotiate proper key bindings with, or use their own defaults where no alternative is given. For example, a media player would ask the service "is there a preferred keybinding for fullscreen mode?" the keybinding service might respond "yes, please use F11 and never use Alt-Enter". The application would then use F11, and perhaps also its own default of ctrl-F. In Zarathustra's case, close window would be set to "never use ctrl-w" (or have ctrl-w set as "reserved only for delete line"), so at least if an application didn't support delete-line properly at least it wouldn't close the window. And in general it would mean redo, new tab, next/prev tab, and increase-font-size all had standard (abstracted/configurable) bindings too, and "multimedia" or "internet" keys might work properly on all keyboards, or be easy to configure if they didn't. Other features that may or may not be relevant to this discussion, would include: notification to applications when keybindings change, so apps wouldn't have be restarted when you change your config (or allow the keybinding serivce to take control of all incoming key inputs). Advanced features of the service might include moving around a bunch of keys together (e.g. for games) so if an application usually used "A, S, D & W" for left, down, right & up then it could see the "A" key was reserved and move the whole lot one to the right (S,D,F,E). but i digress. Apart from that, standard text editing widgets should be used across the board, which should be configurable inside and outside of applications using them. Frameworks should exist to make it easy for developers to create compliant applications that can fall back to good defaults when keybinding-services aren't available. Configuration files need to be portable across not only applications but across machines, so if you spend the time to set up things how you like them, you should be able to keep your config on an ftp site (or whatever) and use it when you sit down at any other computer. Have I gone too far into a fantasy world yet? Imagine ctrl-U working how you expect it to on any machine running Linux! wow. that's far out stuff. Zarathustra's request to use the keys he's learnt (and possibly grown up with) is hardly unreasonable. Generalised software-based solutions could reasonably be engineered, and allowing such a thing is the type of freedom that should not be shouted down, but emphasized more by the 'free software' community. I know actual software development takes a lot more work than just coming up with ideas, so I applaud the GTK team on another fine release :) Peter Galaxy.
GTK+ 2.8.0 released Posted Aug 15, 2005 2:04 UTC (Mon) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link] > Zarathustra's request to use the keys he's learnt (and possibly grown up with) is hardly unreasonable.
From his posts it is obvious that he is a smart and experienced user. And yet, he claims he's having problems mastering a convention. I just don't buy that. I also use different apps on my desktop and they have different key bindings and yet I somehow manage to go through the day without wrecking my brain.
What you talk about in your post is, of course possible, but it is highly complicated and probably unnecessary. GTK folks made up their mind as to what the default behaviour should be and they moved on. It is very hard to please everyone and have an endless number of choices available. That's why free software comes with the source - so that users that really, really, _really_ want their apps to follow "Unix rules", can do so.
GTK+ 2.8.0 released Posted Aug 15, 2005 2:32 UTC (Mon) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link] GTK folks made up their mind as to what the default behaviour should be and they moved on. It is very hard to please everyone and have an endless number of choices available.No. The GTK/GNOME people are too lazy and arrogant to care about giving people choices. They also show complete disdain, if not contempt, for UNIX tradition. Miguel De Icaza goes around saying that "UNIX sucks" at pretty much all of his talks. I've had a bug open against Evolution for 4+ years now complaining about not being able to use an external editor to compose mail. The responses varied from "Nobody needs that" to "it's too much work" to "if you really want it, write it yourself!" Nobody bought the argument that code reuse (via invoking an external editor) is a long-standing UNIX tradition that has served us well for decades. (Needless to say, I don't use Evolution. I use Thunderbird with the external editor extension. At least the Thunderbird authors found a way to give people "endless choices" with their system of plugins and extensions.)
GTK+ 2.8.0 released Posted Aug 15, 2005 2:57 UTC (Mon) by beoba (guest, #16942) [Link] They also show complete disdain, if not contempt, for UNIX tradition.Tradition for tradition's sake doesn't tend to work.
GTK+ 2.8.0 released Posted Aug 15, 2005 3:30 UTC (Mon) by Zarathustra (guest, #26443) [Link] Breaking tradition because you can't be bothered to learn and understand it works so much better!
GTK+ 2.8.0 released Posted Aug 15, 2005 5:42 UTC (Mon) by shahms (subscriber, #8877) [Link] Your perception of what defines "Unix behavior" is skewed. You say you don't want to use the Emacs keybindings and then proceedd to say that the GNOME Emacs key bindings are the "standard Unix rules" and that GNOME should follow them. First of all, there is no such thing as "standard Unix keybindings" for these things. Beyond C-c, C-d and 3 to 4 others related to signals and process control *at a terminal*, Unix applications have used entirely different key combinations for these actions. I personally prefer using 'dd' as the keybinding to delete all text on a line, less stress on my pinky. And if you want to tell me that's not the "Unix standard", I'll tell you to take you Emacs using pansy ass back where you came from because vi is and always has been the standard Unix text editor. And I'd be just as wrong as you have been throughout this entire thread.
Standard text editor Posted Aug 15, 2005 14:27 UTC (Mon) by Arker (guest, #14205) [Link] vi is and always has been the standard Unix text editor. Umm no, you must be confused, that would be Ed.
Standard text editor Posted Aug 16, 2005 1:52 UTC (Tue) by Los__D (subscriber, #15263) [Link] That last sentence was very hard to read, eh?
GTK+ 2.8.0 released Posted Aug 15, 2005 3:57 UTC (Mon) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link] Tradition for tradition's sake doesn't tend to work.Breaking traditions because you think you know better is almost always a bad idea, too. "Those who do not understand UNIX are condemned to reinvent it -- badly"
GTK+ 2.8.0 released Posted Aug 15, 2005 5:11 UTC (Mon) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link] You guys are very funny people.
Gnome and friends pick a default that will provide a usefull and expected functionality to the majority of the people.
A default, by the way, which _your_free_to_change_ any time you feel like it. (you didn't know that? What? are you to lazy to learn anything new?)
"Breaking Tradition" my ass. There is NO traditional Unix keybindings, its a fantasy that only exists in your mind.
Should I go around bitching that Evolution doesn't make it's end users hit j to cursor down and use yy to copy a line and p to paste it? Those are Vi's keys and vi is going to be the oldest and most traditional Unix application that ever existed and people still use today in a regular basis.
And that part about evolution not supporting external editors?
You know why they don't care?
Because nobody that is sane gives a crap, thats why. And the only people that do tend to be the type of people that just complain to give people a hard time and are generally to lazy to do anything about it themselves. (you know you could probably code it yourself)
You know why?
Because *gasp* Evolution already supports whatever freaking editor you could come up with!
How you say ?!
just open up whatever editor you want. Type out whatever message you want using it in any way you feel like.
Now copy your message....
Viola! Now evolution supports whatever editor you feel like.
GTK+ 2.8.0 released Posted Aug 15, 2005 7:26 UTC (Mon) by job (subscriber, #670) [Link] It is people like you who turn this into a flame war. Please refrain from posting completely if you have nothing to add but rudeness. This is LWN after all and has been pretty spared from it. I am sure he already knew about the copy-paste-functionality.
In fact, the posters in this thread pointed out some real problems with Gtk, that there are bugs (or accidental features, according to bugzilla) with the Emacs/X-style keybindings. It's there, it should work, but it doesn't. We have also learned about the bigger design problem that applications can bind accelerator keys which are the same as Gtk bound keys. It would be nice if that wasn't possible, Gtk should have precedence and the app should get an error code and not be able to bind it.
Nobody has yet commented on the horrible ineffencies of the toolkits (Gtk and Qt). Look at the paper behind NX, he's got some measurements. I can't see how X will compete with other graphical environments performance wise unless the toolkits gets cleaned up.
GTK+ 2.8.0 released Posted Aug 15, 2005 8:14 UTC (Mon) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link] sorry. I didn't mean to sound like a troll. But some of what people are complaining about is pretty petty.
And, realy, there are no traditional unix bindings...
But the problem is is that no matter how many people complain about GTK-bound keys not overriding application default keys you will get people complaining that application default key accels should automaticly over write GTK-set ones.
Anyways, I do acknowledge that there are problems with Gnome's theming features and there needs to be considurable polishing going on.
That's something that is a valid complaint for sure.
If you want to change some of the keybinds to suite yourself you have a few options right now.
Open up gconf-edit goto:
Now on many gnome apps like Epiphany you can change keybindings dynamicly to suite yourself.
All you have to do is open up the menu and hover the key over the function you want to change... like "Edit --> Paste" and hit the accelerator you want to replace it with.
Not all applications support this.. I don't think it's very hard to support and I think that many GTK developers are simply unaware of this very nifty little feature. I think it would be a good idea that if the app you like doesn't support it put it in as a feature request.
The other stuff you can do that has a much more far reaching effect is to enable your own key theme.. It's easiest to use the Emacs key theme for reference.
The emacs key theme is located in /usr/share/themes/Emacs
So you can modify that and make your own custom key bindings and stick them in your own home directory like:
or stick them in /usr/share/themes for system-wide access.
Next thing you do is open or create a ~/.gtkrc-2.0 file and make sure you have this line in it:
Then log out and log back in. In addition to that it may be handy to go into a gconf-editor and change gtk_key_themes in /apps/desktop/gnome/interface to whatever you named your theme in.
This, I think, then can have a wider range of effect.. even on non-to-gnome-friendly GTK-using apps like firefox.
GTK+ 2.8.0 released Posted Aug 15, 2005 9:40 UTC (Mon) by Zarathustra (guest, #26443) [Link] I did that over a year ago, I fail to see why should I do all that dance for every account/box I have.
I'm running Unix applications on a Unix system, it's so much to ask for a Unix behavior by default?
And no, I already have said I don't use Gnome, and no, most gtk applications are _not_ ported to non-unix systems. And using the proper default keybindings in Unix does _not_ make them less portable either.
GTK+ 2.8.0 released Posted Aug 15, 2005 14:26 UTC (Mon) by gravious (guest, #7662) [Link] I'm running Unix applications on a Unix system, it's so much to ask for a Unix behavior by default?For one with such a wise moniker, you seem intent on ignoring a number of posters. It has been pointed out to you, more than once, that there is no standard Unix behaviour. If you have been using Unix for any length of time, you would know this. Indeed, you probably do know it. What you want is _Emacs_ behaviour in all your apps. A small percentage of _all_ computers users know Emacs bindings, therefore for the moment, I fail to see why you shouldn't do that dance for every account/box you have. Having said that, if you tell GTK+ that your key preferences are such and such and then a GTK+ app ignores your choice then it should be flayed to within an inch of its life. Also, if you expect ctrl+u to to erase from the current cursor position rather than the whole line, well, fair enough, raise a bug. There appear to be workable solutions judging by what people have said, you are doing yourself no favours by causing such a stink Very kind regards, i Gravious
GTK+ 2.8.0 released Posted Aug 15, 2005 15:09 UTC (Mon) by Arker (guest, #14205) [Link] well, fair enough, raise a bug. Like he did almost a year ago?
GTK+ 2.8.0 released Posted Aug 15, 2005 15:32 UTC (Mon) by Zarathustra (guest, #26443) [Link] > What you want is _Emacs_ behaviour in all your apps.
Funny, I have not used Emacs in my life, I don't even know any emacs shortcuts, because ^U and ^W, like ^H, are _not_ from Emacs, they are from Unix, and about any Unix application that supports input has implemented them for many decades.
Unix bindings Posted Aug 16, 2005 3:47 UTC (Tue) by zblaxell (subscriber, #26385) [Link] A quick survey:
Xaw uses ^A, ^B, ^F, ^D, ^V, M-v, ^E, ^N, ^P as Emacs bindings, ^H as delete, and has no use for ^W or ^U at all. Interestingly enough, ^S and ^R activate text search and replace, which has proven quite handy in some Xaw applications like xpostit.
Tk uses the same bindings, except that it doesn't seem to respond to M-v, ^S, or ^R.
Motif uses...none of these AFAICT--not even ^H--they all seem to insert non-printing characters.
Readline (which is *NOT* an X toolkit) uses the above bindings, except ^S and ^R are incremental searches, plus ^W (delete previous word) and ^U (delete to beginning of line).
epic (a TTY-based IRC client) responds to ^A, ^D, ^E, ^F, ^N, and ^P as in Emacs, but ^B and ^W insert special characters. ^U is delete-entire-line, not delete-to-beginning-of-line. How nice that it supports forward-character but not the symmetrical backward-character!
The Linux kernel TTY driver is usually configured to accept ^H or Del as delete, ^W as delete-previous-word (where "word" means something slightly different from Readline), ^U is delete-entire-line, and ^D is EOF. None of the other bindings mentioned so far (^A, etc) do anything other than insert themselves.
Emacs of course *defines* the meanings of ^A, ^B, ^D, ^E, ^F, ^N, ^P, ^V, etc. Emacs also has keys bound to ^W and ^U, but they mean very different things than they do in Bash, a number of other X applications, and Unix TTYs. These bindings are quite possibly older than Unix.
Several popular applications that originated on or were ported to Unix (e.g. Netscape) do support Readline-like key bindings, despite the fact that they were based on toolkits previously mentioned here (e.g. Motif).
GTK-1 applications supported mostly Bash-like key bindings, but without the search functions. In addition, GTK-1 file open/save dialogs supported filename autocompletion with Tab, which is *really* nice. Modern GTK-2 file open/save dialogs support similar completion, but needing more keystrokes. For several months in GNOME's history, the Tab key just selected the next field.
The application I am using now (Galeon) supports almost none of these bindings, even when typing text into a text widget. I'm not sure why the Galeon developers think I might want ^B to open the bookmarks editor window in the middle of this sentence, but it does.
Personally, I really miss the GTK-1 application bindings, but I'm offended by the GTK *transition* more than the actual binding set at any instant in time. GTK-1 had IMHO the best combination of useful editing primitives with default key bindings, which made GTK-1 applications very attractive to me at the time.
I used to use a lot of GNOME applications, back when GNOME 1.4 was current. For reasons I still don't understand, the GTK and/or GNOME people decided to make sweeping, backward-incompatible changes that removed features from user-visible parts of GTK/GNOME programs, and they called this forward progress. It was almost as bad as being forced to use Windows in terms of features that just disappeared one dist-upgrade. Some of those features have returned, but not all, and many are often buried behind something that looks and feels like the Windows registry editor.
Today, I no longer trust GNOME to provide usable tools as I once did. I used to simply choose from one of the several GNOME 1.4-based alternatives (usually directly from the GNOME menu), and didn't really look for other software if my immediate needs were adequately satisfied. Now it's the other way around--I look everywhere *except* GNOME and/or GTK for various applications, and I apply a small but non-zero negative bias to GNOME or GTK-based candidates where competing implementations exist.
My trust in the GNOME organization was completely destroyed by that organization's behavior in the past. For all I know, next week they'll decide that GTK/GNOME 2.x was a bad idea too, and they'll discard it like they did 1.x. It seems to me that I shouldn't waste my time with their potentially-soon-to-be-unsupported software. I don't know how long it will last, and it seems I cannot rely on the rest of the open-source community to take over if the central GNOME organization fails again.
What really baffles me is that the GNOME maintainers and their apologists don't seem to *get* this. It's not about key bindings, it's about alienating your existing users to benefit users you don't have yet. It reminds me of that fable about the dog, a bone, and the dog's reflection in the river...
GTK+ 2.8.0 released Posted Aug 15, 2005 12:27 UTC (Mon) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link] Regarding external editor support: Because nobody that is sane gives a crap, thats why. You're wrong. External editor support is one of the most popular bugs in Evolution bugzilla. But the GNOME people have decided they know better and don't need to listen to people who were using computers since before the GNOME developers were born, and might have an idea or two that they've learned over the years. If GNOME were a commercial product, it would sink without a trace, because a commercial entity that showed such disdain for its "customers" would never last (unless it somehow became a monopoly like MSFT.) Now copy your message.... open up evolution, start a new message... now paste your message! That's a totally unacceptable solution, and you know it. Only a complacent, arrogant, know-it-all GNOME hacker would even suggest it. :-)
GTK+ 2.8.0 released Posted Aug 15, 2005 15:02 UTC (Mon) by elanthis (subscriber, #6227) [Link] Hardly. GNOME is among one of the most popular commercialized Open Source/Free Software projects around. Just ask Ximian. Your comparison is fairly pointless, though, because even commercial software projects are in no way dependent on the whim of their users - they are dependent on the whim of their *customers*. Free Software doesn't have customers, not unless you paid some company for a support contract. Did you pay a company for GTK/GNOME support?
The "users" you refer to that are upset with GTK and/or GNOME are infinitely small in number compared to the numbers of the users that GNOME targets and who are quite happy with it. It sucks being in a minority, but that's where you are. It especially sucks being in a minority when you're not in a democracy, but Free Software isn't a democracy; it's a meritocracy, perhaps a dictatorship, possibly an "action-cracy" (what's the correct word for that?) - you don't get what you want because you ask for it, you get what you want by doing it. Maybe somebody will care about your opinion and put forth the effort for you, maybe they won't, but they sure as hell aren't required to do so.
If you don't like something in the FOSS world, then you've got the source, go ahead and fix it. Write an Evolution plugin that invokes an external editor, or hack up GTK to allow you to invoke an external editor on any text entry. Do whatever you want. Why do you think the GTK/GNOME developers are required to satisfy you with features they don't want? You're not that special, your opinion is not superior to their own, your individual work habits are not more important than theirs or mine. They scratched their itch, they wrote software targetting a specific user base, they have zero incentive to target users like you, and nothing in the world makes that wrong, no matter how unfortunately irritating it may be for you.
<on-topic-rant>There is nothing, NOTHING, more irritating about being a FOSS developer than selfish and whiny users who demand that YOU spend the time and effort to fix THEIR problems for FREE all while insulting you and all the work you did and gave to the world for nothing in return. Developers that have given you free/Free software are in no way beholden to you. If you don't like something you got for free, and you can't accept that the developer may not agree with your priorities, that's your own damn problem, get over it.</on-topic-rant>
GTK+ 2.8.0 released Posted Aug 15, 2005 15:24 UTC (Mon) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link] Did you pay a company for GTK/GNOME support? No, because I don't use GNOME. I use some programs that use GTK, it is true. If you don't like something in the FOSS world, then you've got the source, go ahead and fix it. Why should I? I'll just switch to a FOSS product (Thunderbird, in this case) that works the way I like, and whose developers are not so touchy. There is nothing, NOTHING, more irritating about being a FOSS developer than selfish and whiny users who demand that YOU spend the time and effort to fix THEIR problems for FREE all while insulting you and all the work you did and gave to the world for nothing in return. If you have a DSL connection under Linux, you are almost certainly using free software I wrote to connect to your DSL provider. I am a FOSS developer, but that doesn't give me the right to ignore customer requests (I consider users of my free stuff customers too.) What bothers me about GNOME is that they are turning against 25+ years of experience. If the UNIX geeks hadn't doggedly persisted to keep Microsoft from owning computing, GNOME would not exist. It could not exist without the UNIX/Linux traditions. I don't use KDE either, but at least the KDE developers manage to make their system user-friendly for newbies without alienating long-time UNIX users. (kmail and knode both have excellent support for external editors.)
The pun compels me... Posted Aug 16, 2005 20:52 UTC (Tue) by zakaelri (guest, #17928) [Link] If you have a DSL connection under Linux, you are almost certainly using free software I wrote to connect to your DSL providerI run apache off of my DSL... and from here it looks like you've just been served. Zam! Just trying to lighten the mood. You all seem to be getting a bit to worked up about all of this ;)
GTK+ 2.8.0 released Posted Aug 16, 2005 7:51 UTC (Tue) by zblaxell (subscriber, #26385) [Link] The "users" you refer to that are upset with GTK and/or GNOME are infinitely small in number compared toWell, that's all we really need to read right there. It doesn't matter how the sentence ends, we now know We're Not Welcome Here Any More. This is the same line a proprietary software vendor gives when they terminate a popular closed-source product. As soon as those words are uttered, it's time for the users to move to another product. The funny thing is, I was once in the same room as Miguel when he was proselytizing that improving the desktop (particularly in the area of automated, or at least centralized, configuration) should improve it for dead-end users and sophisticated users alike, e.g. if your grandmother can just click two buttons to make her new WiFi card work, then you can too--and you would want to, because it would be quicker than downloading a patch from sourceforge CVS, adding your card's PCI ID to the driver, and rebuilding your kernel, even if you could do it. This enables even sophisticated hackers to be somewhat more efficient consumers of software, so they can be efficient producers of some other software (except maybe WiFi card drivers). It would be nice to get an exact quote of what Miguel said, if someone has it, from his OLS talk. That talk was what inspired me to download and install GNOME for the first time, and at the time, the applications were feature-rich and well designed, and there were a number of labor-saving conveniences even for a Unix hacker. Now it seems that the story has changed: GNOME is for dead-end users only, and applications are rediscovering what features they absolutely need one at a time. I spend a lot of time trying to coerce the few remaining GNOME applications I can actually use to behave properly. My threshold for configuration pain in GNOME is falling rapidly, and with few exceptions I now generally substitute 'dpkg --purge' for 'gconf-editor'. I thought the whole point of GNOME in the first place was to avoid having to edit strange configuration files in every application you used--now it seems I have to edit strange configuration files distributed across all of the applications I use and I have to use a specialized non-text editor to do it. Commented X resources files and vi are roughly equivalent to the current state of GNOME, except that vi is useful for other purposes as well.
If you don't like something in the FOSS world, then you've got the source, go ahead and fix it.Ordinarily this would be the appropriate course of action; however, in the GNOME case, this should not be necessary in the first place, and there are two reasons not to fix GNOME:
<on-topic-rant>There is nothing, NOTHING, more irritating about being a FOSS developer than selfish and whiny users who demand that YOU spend the time and effort to fix THEIR problems for FREE all while insulting you and all the work you did and gave to the world for nothing in return.Crap is still crap, even when it's free crap, and usually nobody wants another person's crap unless that person's name is Piero Manzoni. I gather that the GNOME project:
The good news is that if you behave this way in the FOSS world, eventually everyone who really cares about your project will be driven away, and they'll advise all their selfish and whiny friends to stay away too, so the problem is ultimately self-correcting.
GTK+ 2.8.0 released Posted Aug 16, 2005 13:54 UTC (Tue) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link] Hrm..
I don't know about you, but I am a long time Linux user also.
I thought that gnome 1.x sucked. I thought early kde sucked too. I avoided it like the plague.
I used enlightenment, then afterstep, then blackbox, then fluxbox...
It wasn't until 2.4 was when I actually got interested in Gnome and GTK in general and wasn't until 2.6 that I was sold on it. Now I am happy.
Early Gnome 2.x versions and especially 1.x versions were next to worthless for me. They caused me more grief then they helped.
As you pointed out there were never any such thing as traditional Unix bindings.. What the posters were pointing out just happenned to be the key bindings that they grew used to for whatever reason while the rest of the world used something else (including in Unix)..
Hell, I am a afraid to know what Sun thought was standard in CDE!
All this hate..
This is like when they made the switch from Explorer-like interface to the 'Spatial' interface for nautilus. Lots of people were freaking out... It doesn't make sense, Gnome still supports the file explorer interface!! you just have to change the configuration slightly, even after 2-3 official releases later, and with improvements too.
It's not like Gnome doesn't make allowances in configurations. They have the 'emacs' style key buttons, they still have given the program authors and end users to customize it to their heart's content.
I think it's more of instead 'gnome authors are corporate now and don't give a shit', I think it's a lot more far and a lot more accurate to say: 'they are human and don't have everything perfect for everybody'.
Newer versions Gnome specificly and GTK in general is a MASSIVE improvement over older releases.
Now I think it's perfectly acceptable to criticize, but to suggest that they are just corporate whores is just bullshit and not fair at all.
I am a happy user and gratefull for this high quality free software. I have nothing against corporations in general, as long as they are good business citizens, and I have no objections to free software authors making a living for their work.
Best thing we can do right now to resolve this is either try to get them to refine the themeing engines in general and for keycombos specificly by submitting bug reports and educating them were they need improvement or if your actually usefull: submitting code and patches to improve functionality.
GTK+ 2.8.0 released Posted Aug 16, 2005 14:29 UTC (Tue) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link] Best thing we can do right now to resolve this is either try to get them to refine the themeing engines in general and for keycombos specificly by submitting bug reports and educating them were they need improvement or if your actually usefull: submitting code and patches to improve functionality. Explain that to the Gnome-vim author. He did submit patches and the Gnome guys ignored him because external editor support doesn't fit into their world vision.
GTK+ 2.8.0 released Posted Aug 16, 2005 5:35 UTC (Tue) by zblaxell (subscriber, #26385) [Link] Now copy your message.... open up evolution, start a new message... now paste your message!Anyone know of an X application that will print the contents of the X selection on stdout, and copy stdin to the X selection? This would allow me to work around a huge number of highly broken applications (at least, the ones that can accept multi-megabyte "paste" requests).
dskoll's bug against Evolution. Gnome-vim as an option Posted Aug 15, 2005 18:13 UTC (Mon) by stfn (guest, #30357) [Link] Just for reference (I was curious) that bug seems to be
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=220122
and 3 others are marked as duplicates
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=216784
Also, and this was mentioned elsethread, there's vim-as-a-Gnome-component now
http://www.opensky.ca/~jdhildeb/software/gnome-vim/
but that's just vim and Gnome (which suits me fine), not $EDITOR and all GTK applications as some would like. I'm a little surprised this hasn't come up earlier (maybe it has) in the context of Gnome IDEs.
dskoll's bug against Evolution. Gnome-vim as an option Posted Aug 15, 2005 20:24 UTC (Mon) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link] Gnome-vim is cool, but I don't use vim, alas. :-( I'm an emacs guy. The Gnome-vim author's comments are interesting, though: Having noticed that it still hasn't been committed to CVS, I've sent two polite reminders to fejj asking if there are any further changes I should make, or whether there is anything else I can do to help. So far I haven't received any response. I guess I'm kind of at a loss for what to do next -- I don't know whether my emails have been spam filtered, whether fejj is ignoring me, or whether he just doesn't consider this patch a high priority. I'll try posting to evolution-patches once more to ask what's up -- hopefully I'll at least get a response. That speaks volumes.
dskoll's bug against Evolution. Gnome-vim as an option Posted Feb 3, 2007 5:24 UTC (Sat) by jpeter1978 (guest, #43118) [Link] I find it odd that when someone provides a good argument for their case that everyone just shuts up. Did this thread just get too long and so by the time this statement was made, very few read it? Or was it perhaps that it put all other arguments to shame? BTW dskoll, I don't think there exists a highlighter bright enough to showcase your point, which I wholehearted agree with. Too bad this post and others like it will get lost among all the flame wars.
GTK+ 2.8.0 released Posted Aug 15, 2005 23:14 UTC (Mon) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link] > Nobody bought the argument that code reuse (via invoking an external editor) is a long-standing UNIX tradition that has served us well for decades.
And that is the crux of the matter here. GTK, being primarily a toolkit for Gnome, is not interested in Unix tradition. These people (GTK and Gnome developers) want to build an easy to use desktop system for regular folks, most of which are most likely going to be Windows users converting to Gnome (at least that's who they are targeting with their software). I don't know if this will ever happen, but that's what they appear to be doing.
Obviously, they are upsetting a few people (well, maybe quite a few - time will tell) in the process. At least they have some kind of a plan and they are sticking to it.
We all need to ask ourselves hard questions from time to time and one of them is: "If Unix (whatever that's supposed to mean) is such a great desktop system, why isn't it on everyone's desktop?" I distinctly remember 40 MHz Sparc workstations being delivered to our lab that used to put Windows to shame. Doesn't appear that way any more...
I think Apple will have a few things to say about that (i.e. make it Unix where it works, make it something else where it sucks), KDE people may have their say (not a user, so don't know) and Gnome/GTK folks obviuosly have their own view. I am certainly not going to blame them for trying.
GTK+ 2.8.0 released Posted Aug 16, 2005 1:07 UTC (Tue) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link] GTK, being primarily a toolkit for Gnome, is not interested in Unix tradition. Thanks for being honest. Now tell me: From all I can see, the KDE hackers have more-or-less the same goals as the GNOME hackers --- an easy-to-use graphical desktop. The KDE hackers, somehow, have managed to support UNIXy things like external editors for years now. Are GNOME hackers incapable of it? I don't believe that for a second, so I can only believe they are willfully turning their backs on UNIX. That's fine up to a point, because I don't have to use GNOME. But when their decisions start contaminating other software (like Firefox) that doesn't have a viable alternative, then I get upset.
GTK+ 2.8.0 released Posted Aug 16, 2005 1:22 UTC (Tue) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link] > Thanks for being honest.
You are most welcome.
> I don't believe that for a second, so I can only believe they are willfully turning their backs on UNIX.
Yes, that is surely a valid point of view for a "Unix person". In other words, the glass is half empty. On the other hand, for "Gnome people", the glass may be half full.
> But when their decisions start contaminating other software (like Firefox) that doesn't have a viable alternative, then I get upset.
Well, I don't want to be a smartarse here, but the only real way to address these things is to get involved in the development process of Firefox. I don't have enough knowledge and time to do GUI development, so I had to get over things and eventually got used to "new defaults". I'm sure others will choose differently. And I'm sure you'll make your choices too. At least we all don't have to pay for the darn things, so nobody's robbing us.
However, when proprietary software vendors sell me a licence for a piece of software worth hundreds of thousands of dollars and then can't/won't fix segfaults in it, then I get really upset.
GTK+ 2.8.0 released Posted Aug 16, 2005 2:19 UTC (Tue) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link] However, when proprietary software vendors sell me a licence for a piece of software worth hundreds of thousands of dollars and then can't/won't fix segfaults in it, then I get really upset. Well, that's in a whole other league of evil. :-) I wouldn't dream of accusing the GNOME hackers of being that bad. But they are pretty arrogant: The Gnome-vim author has working code that does a pretty useful thing, and the Evolution maintainers are refusing to merge it, simply ignoring his (repeated) requests to put his code in the mainline version. For crying out loud: He did all the work! What more do you want? If you don't like his code, at least give him the courtesy of a response. That's almost (but not quite) as bad as your example.
GTK+ 2.8.0 released Posted Aug 16, 2005 2:33 UTC (Tue) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link] > Evolution
Actually, Evolution 2.2 is so full of bugs that it regularly crashes when used with Exchange connector (e.g. click on "Reply to All" crashed Evo pretty often). With IMAP it crashed occasionaly, but it is still pretty ordinary. So, I'm hoping they are just busy fixing the segfaults and simply didn't have time to do anything else... ;-)
Multiple conventions on one desktop Posted Aug 15, 2005 7:30 UTC (Mon) by farnz (subscriber, #17727) [Link] I get the impression that the vast majority of what Zarathustra uses is not GTK+ based; if you're using GNU Emacs, twenty xterms, and Firefox (not unreasonable if you're a developer who's used to Emacs), Firefox behaves "funny". It's like the trouble I have moving between Firefox on Linux at home, and Firefox on Windows at work; there's a few small differences in behaviour (e.g. my window manager uses Alt-F3 X for maximise rather than Alt-Space X), but because I don't use Firefox at home very often, I automatically try and make use of the Windows behaviour. This isn't because I can't handle multiple conventions, it's because Firefox is linked mentally to the wrong set for the machine I'm on.
Multiple conventions on one desktop Posted Aug 15, 2005 11:11 UTC (Mon) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link] > This isn't because I can't handle multiple conventions, it's because Firefox is linked mentally to the wrong set for the machine I'm on.
Well, I have had a few documents with ":wq" in them, so I understand what you mean. However, even if his wish was granted by GTK developers, it would give them (the GTK developers) almost no advantage in what they want to achieve. They _don't_ care about a few experienced Unix users being frustrated - their goal is entirely different. They are creating a toolkit that is the basis of the desktop system which is aimed to challenge Windows one day. They are after regular users and if they can't get them in big numbers, then they have lost anyway. Old "Unix rules" (whatever is that supposed to mean) are meaningless to them and I understand why.
RMS may believe that popularity is not important (and I may have agreed with that at some point in my life), but software that isn't popular is mostly irrelevant.
Multiple conventions on one desktop Posted Aug 15, 2005 11:29 UTC (Mon) by farnz (subscriber, #17727) [Link] Just for the record; I am not taking either side in this argument. I don't use GTK+ apps often enough to know whether this is a case of GTK+ not providing the user with the ability to customise stuff, or the user refusing to make that effort.That said, bojan claimed: "And yet, he claims he's having problems mastering a convention. I just don't buy that. I also use different apps on my desktop and they have different key bindings and yet I somehow manage to go through the day without wrecking my brain." I was merely attempting to point out that someone who mostly uses non-GTK apps may well have a mental model for their desktop that's completely broken by one application. Yes, they can get into the habit of switching gears from application to application, but it's easier to change the one "faulty" application to suit their mental model.
Gnome culture Posted Aug 15, 2005 14:42 UTC (Mon) by zooko (subscriber, #2589) [Link] It's hard to make generalizations about a group's culture without being unfair and inflammatory, but sometimes such generalizations are important.
The Gnome project has a long and extensive track record of refusing to accomodate the requests of sophisticated Unix hackers, on the grounds that it is more important to design a system for unsophisticated people who are new to computers or who are familiar only with Windows.
You can see evidence of this culture in comments made publically by leaders and hackers and supporters, in bug reports rejected, in features removed from new releases over the objections of users who wanted to keep using those features, etc..
It seems apparent to me that the Gnome folks value this idea of making their software simple and usable for unsophisticated users, and they think that this value is incompatible with design decisions to support sophisticated Unix users. This culture is regrettable, not only because it alienates sophisticated Unix users (who probably make up the majority of the Gnome user base), but also because if you get in the habit of being dismissive of the needs and desires of your users, then this is going to have a negative impact on the quality of your code in the long run.
Gnome culture Posted Aug 17, 2005 19:08 UTC (Wed) by GreyWizard (subscriber, #1026) [Link] The Gnome project has a long and extensive track record of refusing to accomodate the requests of sophisticated Unix hackers, on the grounds that it is more important to design a system for unsophisticated people who are new to computers or who are familiar only with Windows. Those unsophisticated people are the overwhelming majority of humanity. They outnumber us by about a million to one. I'm sorry but building a system they can use comfortably seems more important than saving supposedly sophisticated hackers from the inconvenience typing "echo gtk-key-theme-name \"Emacs\" >> ~/.gtk-2.0" into a terminal window. I grew up with Unix. I know it backwards, forwards and sideways but I have no problem using GTK+ and Gnome effectively. So forgive me if your I view your prophesies of doom and gloom for my desktop software of choice with some skepticism. Let's talk about culture. Given a choice between a Gnome culture populated by smart people who have created the powerful, accessible and visually compelling environment that allows me to focus on getting work done and a cranky bunch of bellyachers bent on dotting the i in "standard" Unix who inflate heresies against their sacred keybindings to epic proportions I'll take the former, thanks.
Gnome culture Posted Aug 19, 2005 7:24 UTC (Fri) by Arker (guest, #14205) [Link] The glaring problem with this assumption is that one set of key-bindings is just as good as another for your 'unsophisticated user' - which means that this rationale has no logical connection to the decisions we're discussing here!
A new user can learn *nix keybindings just as easily as Windows keybindings. Think about this.
So why does GNOME seek to indoctrinate new *nix users with Windows keybindings? What possible motivation is there?
The only real effect of this on the new user is that he'll find it easier to migrate to Windows after learning GNOME, instead of to another *nix based system.
Frankly I think that's doing your unsophisticated userbase a huge disservice, in addition to making the programs incredibly annoying to the more sophisticated user.
There's nothing at all wrong with aiming to make a system that is accessible to the unsophisticated, but there is something VERY wrong with making a system that is designed to keep the unsophisticated from becoming sophisticated. And I think that, in a nutshell, is the reason why GTK and GNOME are drawing so much ire on themselves from within the community. It's a betrayal of GNU, it's a betrayal of the poor souls forced to work with these programs, it's a betrayal of the people that supported and promoted GNOME from the beginning, it's a betrayal of the noble ideals that gave birth to the project.
Gnome culture Posted Aug 19, 2005 16:44 UTC (Fri) by GreyWizard (subscriber, #1026) [Link] A new user can learn *nix keybindings just as easily as Windows keybindings. Think about this. That's true only of people who have never used computers. Of those who have, around 98% are familiar with Windows or Macintosh. People who don't worship at the Temple of the One True Keybinding have no trouble making users who migrate from the remaining 2% who grew up with Unix tweak a configuration setting so that the rest can have what they're expecting by default. Think about this. There's nothing at all wrong with aiming to make a system that is accessible to the unsophisticated, but there is something VERY wrong with making a system that is designed to keep the unsophisticated from becoming sophisticated. Nonsense. Nothing about a default key binding choice prevents an unsophisticated user from learning about alternatives. In particular the configuration settings that enable Emacs key bindings are well documented. Since GNOME is free software nothing prevents distribution maintainers from changing the default either. It's a betrayal of GNU, it's a betrayal of the poor souls forced to work with these programs, it's a betrayal of the people that supported and promoted GNOME from the beginning, it's a betrayal of the noble ideals that gave birth to the project. Whoa! Dude, take a deep breath and come back to earth. GNOME was founded by Miguel de Icaza, a man known for saying things like "Unix sucks" and admiring Microsoft products. GNU is a project to create a free software complete operating system, not to preach keybindings to the heathen masses. Nobody is betrayed by trying to make the platform more inviting to people migrating from popular proprietary alternatives. Put down the holy water and get a sense of proporition.
Gnome culture Posted Aug 19, 2005 20:28 UTC (Fri) by Arker (guest, #14205) [Link] The vast majority of people on this planet have yet to use a computer. The ones that migrate from Windows should have no more difficulty tweaking a configuration setting the other way than we would have tweaking it to support their mode of operation instead so why shouldn't the default be *nix again? - BUT the fact is, as you would know if you'd read through the comments, the problem is deeper than that. The alternate keybindings DON'T WORK properly, and bug reports filed on the subject are consistently marked 'notabug' and those filing them dismissed in an insulting manner and told they don't matter.
Keybindings are not something you can just change back and forth at will without problems, as you imply. These are matters of muscle-memory, for those of us that do serious work with our machines at any rate. It's not comparable to a 'theme' change, but more comparable to switching from QWERTY to Dvorak keymaps. Once one set of commands are mapped to muscle memory and efficient in use, it is definately non-trivial to adjust to an entirely different set of commands, which means that most people are going to want to stay with whatever they originally learned. So yes, providing alternate key-bindings (that work, unlike the situation with GTK) for different users is necessary. But that also means the choice of defaults is a very important one. That means that, above and beyond the problems that make it impossible to actually implement proper keybindings with recent versions of GTK, the choice of default is also an issue. Deliberately setting the defaults to a windows style, making it relatively easy for new computer users trained on default GNOME-GTK apps to transition to windows, and relatively difficult for them to transition to traditional *nix apps, is a big deal.
This is not a matter of 'holy water' or religious conviction, simply of paying attention and pointing out the effect of the decision.
Gnome culture Posted Aug 19, 2005 21:37 UTC (Fri) by GreyWizard (subscriber, #1026) [Link] The vast majority of people on this planet have yet to use a computer. Indeed. That is a point I made earlier. This is an important group, but since they can as easily adopt one keybinding as another they are unlikely to care which one is chosen. GNOME developers are right to choose with migrating users in mind. The ones that migrate from Windows should have no more difficulty tweaking a configuration setting the other way than we would have tweaking it to support their mode of operation instead so why shouldn't the default be *nix again? Wrong wrong wrong. People who use Windows are on average less computer savvy than people who use Unix, so they are likely to have more difficulty discovering how to alter their settings. They are also far more numerous so it would be reasonable to make their likely preference the default even if they were equally able to change. Finally, many are still using Windows so making it easier for them to migrate is more useful than genuflecting to cranky people who obsess about compatibility with ancient non-standards. BUT the fact is, as you would know if you'd read through the comments, the problem is deeper than that. The alternate keybindings DON'T WORK properly, and bug reports filed on the subject are consistently marked 'notabug' and those filing them dismissed in an insulting manner and told they don't matter. As a matter of fact, I did read the rest of the thread. No one is really saying the bindings don't work -- at least no one who isn't simply wrong. I happen to know they work because I use them. People are actually complainging about things like accidentally closing a window due to typing Ctrl-W when focus is outside a text box for applications like Firefox. The default GNOME key binding for closing a Window seems to be ALT-F4, but many individual applications seem to hard-code Ctrl-W. That's probably worth fixing, but the default should still be what Windows users expect. I also read the bug report Zarathustra mentioned. This was clearly closed because he didn't bother to explain why the Emacs keybindings didn't satisfy his needs. When the developers decide to make Windows keybindings the default that is not a bug by defenition. That doesn't change just because some surly user says otherwise. Considering the attitude I've seen from you and your fellow travelers on this thread, I'll give the GNOME developers the benefit of the doubt where courtesy is concerned. Deliberately setting the defaults to a windows style, making it relatively easy for new computer users trained on default GNOME-GTK apps to transition to windows, and relatively difficult for them to transition to traditional *nix apps, is a big deal. No, actually it's not. A mass exhodus from GNOME to Windows seems more than a little silly. The userbase of GNOME is small compared to that of Windows, which comes installed on almost all new computers. Anyway, deliberately making it more difficult for users who want to leave GNOME for Windows to switch is not exactly admirable. I'd rather focus on getting people to GNOME in the first place and apparently so would the GNOME developers. Nothing about this is likely to change until you convince people like me that what you have to say amounts to something more than an ignorant rant about a sacred nothing.
Gnome culture Posted Aug 20, 2005 1:08 UTC (Sat) by Arker (guest, #14205) [Link] Indeed. That is a point I made earlier. Not at all. It's a point you're still not grokking, it seems. This is an important group, but since they can as easily adopt one keybinding as another they are unlikely to care which one is chosen. Exactly. GNOME developers are right to choose with migrating users in mind. And right there is where you are completely missing the point. Well, this particular subpoint. Listen carefully. Setting windows keybindings as the default gives absolutely no benefit to new users. Unless you consider making it easier for them to migrate to windows in the future a benefit. We've already agreed, the difficulty for them is the same regardless of which is chosen, so it makes no sense whatsoever for you to turn around, after agreeing on that, and claim that the choice of windows as the default benefits them! People who use Windows are on average less computer savvy than people who use Unix, so they are likely to have more difficulty discovering how to alter their settings. I think that's an insulting and not necessarily true assumption, but regardless, if it weren't for this recently developed fetish with the GNOME people for hiding configuration options, that wouldn't be an issue anyway. Last time I set up KDE, the first thing that came up was a dialogue asking if you wanted the look and feel set more like Windows, Mac, or Unix. Based on the answer to that, it configured a number of things, which you were then free to reconfigure to your hearts content through an easy little gui control panel. This is an approach that shows respect for the user. Gnome used to show that kind of respect. It was less polished then, for sure, but it was making an obvious and intentional effort to respect the users right to use their computers in the way that they chose - for instance it worked with any Gnome compliant window manager, there was a default but you could go to the control panel and change it at will. There was a real effort to expose as much control as possible to the user over their workspace, and to make those configurations easy to understand and easy to change. By comparison, KDE seemed to be taking the approach Gnome has now, of trying to force-feed the user a very particular setup that the developers had decided was what was best. That, along with the licensing issues, lead me to be a big fan and promoter of Gnome in the beginning. But now, they've switched places. KDE fixed their licensing problems, while GTK plays around with the LGPL far outside of its intended use. KDE gives the user a great deal of respect, while Gnome is busily doing the opposite, eliminating configuration options left and right, and hiding the ones they don't eliminate in the most obtuse place they can find. No one is really saying the bindings don't work -- at least no one who isn't simply wrong. What an incredibly arrogant reply! Are you a gnome dev? You certainly have the attitude down. If the toolkit doesn't have any provision for binding a key-press to delete from the cursor backwards to the beginning of the line, which it appears not to, that's a serious issue. I think anyone that does much text processing should realise that instantly. When this same toolkit did have such a command, bound to the standard keystroke, in an earlier version, but this was deliberately removed so that it is no longer possible to reconfigure the original functionality, and people that try resolve the issue are simply insulted and told to go away, it makes one wonder. And this does seem to be what's happened. Hardcoded applications are a different sort of problem with a different sort of solution, but deliberately removing functionality simply because it doesn't exist in windows, and then attacking users that need it for daring to complain, is an entirely different sort of problem.
Gnome culture Posted Aug 20, 2005 17:31 UTC (Sat) by GreyWizard (subscriber, #1026) [Link] Setting windows keybindings as the default gives absolutely no benefit to new users. I never claimed it did. However it does new users no harm (no, making it easier for them to transition to Windows does not count as harm) and it does have a benefit for users migrating from Windows. Go back and read what I actually wrote instead of pretending I wrote what you would prefer to attack. I think that's an insulting and not necessarily true assumption, [...] No, actually it's not insulting. You only think otherwise because you're a snob who regards less sophisticated computer users as somehow inferior people. Get over it. As for whether it's true, explain your evidence to the contrary if you have any and stop making spurious claims if you don't. Since you seem keen to twist things I'll remind you that I didn't say all Windows users were less sophisticated, only that the average Windows user is less sophisticated than the average Unix user. [...] if it weren't for this recently developed fetish with the GNOME people for hiding configuration options, that wouldn't be an issue anyway. Wrong twice over. Whether configuration options are "hidden" has no bearing on what the default should be. Even if there were a menu option in the control panel for changing the keybindings less sophisticated users will have a harder time finding it than sophisticated users. Furthermore, from the perspective of a sophisticated user the configuration options are not hidden. A moment with Google or the GNOME documentation is enough to find detailed information about how to change. As for why GNOME developers prefer to minimize the number of visible configuration options, go read a competent book on human computer interaction. People who take a rigorous approach to usability have proven that more options make it harder for unfamiliar users to discover the one they want. Reducing clutter is the kind of thing those who actually respect users do, even if it is sometimes painful. In comparison your ignorance and bellyaching is just not impressive. When this same toolkit did have such a command, bound to the standard keystroke, in an earlier version, but this was deliberately removed so that it is no longer possible to reconfigure the original functionality, and people that try resolve the issue are simply insulted and told to go away, it makes one wonder. And this does seem to be what's happened. That's your side of the story. What I see is a group of smart developers working to create software that satisfies the needs of as many users as possible and for the most part doing an excellent job. (An LWN editorial this week expresses that same sentiment.) When a minor feature a handful of arrogant people care about got lost in the shuffle those people started declaring GNOME developer decisions irrational and the project itself worthless and doomed. I see no reason why those developers shouldn't focus their efforts on the needs of larger and more appreciative groups. Maybe you can resolve your problem by learning some manners and patiently explaining your problem clearly and completely to the relevant maintainers. Until then you're just wasting your time.
Gnome culture Posted Aug 20, 2005 21:55 UTC (Sat) by Arker (guest, #14205) [Link] Whatever else you may think you've accomplished here, you've certainly proven that you are not competent to be lecturing anyone else on manners. Your inability to address my concerns without resorting to repeated, gratuitous insults is duly noted.
I would bet heavily that I'm far more familiar with the field of human interface design than you are, just based on what you've said here. Configuration controls with large numbers of options arranged in no particular order are a bad thing, yes. The proper solution, however, is not removing all control from the user, but simply better designed mechanisms for accessing them. It's not at all an impossible task, it simply requires a bit of knowledge and thought. I'd be happy to teach you the basics of interface design, but clearly you're not willing to learn, and this is not the place.
One of the many troubles with GNOME appears to be that they've read a book on interface design, only half understood it, and then rushed out to redesign their entire system based on a bit of half-digested, half-understood knowledge. So instead of, for instance, engineering an interface that presents their options in a manner that is easy to understand and navigate, they simply start chopping off options until so little is left the poorly designed interface is nonetheless usable.
At any rate, there's no point in continuing this discussion, you are clearly only here to throw insults and try to provoke an angry response, one which I am not going to give you.
Gnome culture Posted Aug 21, 2005 2:58 UTC (Sun) by GreyWizard (subscriber, #1026) [Link] I would bet heavily that I'm far more familiar with the field of human interface design than you are, just based on what you've said here. You would lose. Read the online essays of Jakob Neilson or any other usability expert on this subject. More to the point, read what the team of professional usability experts Sun Microsystems hired to work specifically on GNOME had to say about the very decisions you lament. Proclaiming yourself a master of usability is not enough to dispell the work of people who actually study user behavior. Configuration controls with large numbers of options arranged in no particular order are a bad thing, yes. The proper solution, however, is not removing all control from the user, but simply better designed mechanisms for accessing them. Gconf is exactly such a mechanism. No control is removed from the user, but it is placed where experts can easily find it and not where it is likely to confuse those unfamiliar with the system. The problem here is your own ignorance, not GNOME. At any rate, there's no point in continuing this discussion, you are clearly only here to throw insults and try to provoke an angry response, one which I am not going to give you. Let's not forget that you and your band of merry men have been posting angry rants on this thread well before I arrived, which is why an innocuous release notice for GTK+ turned into a pointless flamewar in the first place. To quote the editorial in the most recent LWN edition: "[GNOME] has made major progress in the creation of a powerful Linux desktop, and the whole thing is free software. There are limits to how much one should complain about that." Who do you suppose that was addressed to? You are right about one thing though: there is no point in continuing this discussion. Clearly nothing resembling sense will penetrate your foggy thought process and you're not going to change my mind about software I use every day by whining that GNOME developers aren't bending over backwards to address your self-righteous complaints. Go fill every thread that mentions GTK+ or GNOME with bile if you must but don't be surprised when people with more sense tell you where that really belongs.
Gnome culture Posted Aug 21, 2005 4:09 UTC (Sun) by Arker (guest, #14205) [Link] I've been reading usability studies and studying interface design principles for years. I've even done some minor work on the subject myself. I wonder if you can say the same? Or is your expertise limited to making unfounded assumptions and slinging insults? Of course, there is a fundamental philosophical difference between your SUN experts and myself, but to imply from the fact that I don't agree with them that I'm ignorant of their work isn't very smart, or logical. As to your characterisation of how the thread got so long, it doesn't seem horribly accurate to me. The posts of the fanboys intent on flaming anyone that dares to actually want their *nix machine to behave like a *nix machine, claiming that 'no one that is sane' would possibly want that, and therefore that those of us that do don't matter and should just go die (paraphrasing a bit, but it certainly seems accurate to the sentiments expressed) surely are at the least as much to blame as anything I have posted. And yours are some of the worst of the lot.
Gnome culture Posted Aug 22, 2005 19:18 UTC (Mon) by GreyWizard (subscriber, #1026) [Link] I wonder if you can say the same? As a matter of fact I can. But this is irrelevant because I supported my position with the work of experts who have studied the relevant problem rigorously. The best you can do for a response is to mutter that you still don't agree? Sorry, that doesn't cut it. This is a question of science, not philosophy. Support your dissent with evidence or pipe down. [...] fanboys [...] Here's a tip: when complaining about mean words that are hurting your widdew feewings, it's best to avoid casually peppering the very same sentence with insults. [...] anyone that dares to actually want their *nix machine to behave like a *nix machine [...] Exactly where in the Single Unix Specification are keyboard bindings for text entry fields in graphical widgets specified? Oh, wait, I remember: nowhere. Kindly cease trying to dress up your preferences with a veneer of standardization. [...] claiming that 'no one that is sane' would possibly want that, and therefore that those of us that do don't matter and should just go die (paraphrasing a bit, but it certainly seems accurate to the sentiments expressed) [...] What you've done is misrepresent, not paraphrase, those sentiments. No one has said or even implied that anyone should die. As I've noted before your sense of proprotion is sorely lacking. Some of the posts against your position have been inappropriate and the one that claimed "nobody that is sane gives a crap" is a good example. In fact, the person who posted that later appologized. (I'm trying to imagine you showing such civility... nope, can't picture it.) None of that excuses hijacking a simple informative article about a GTK+ release for the purpose of attacking the character of developers who are too busy doing useful work to defend their decisions on every existing internet forum. Nor does it excuse churlish and false statements such as "GNOME doesn't respect users!", "Making Windows keybindings the default keeps unsophisticated users from becoming sophisticated!" and "GNOME eliminates features just because Windows doesn't have them!" Clearly GNOME and GTK+ lack something you want. Clearly you are unable to engage the developers in a productive dialogue unlike innumerable people in a similar position who file bug reports that get fixed. Clearly you are determined to lay this at the feet of the GNOME and GTK+ developers. That's your problem. To me it's obvious that all those users who do get results know something about humility and interacting with others that you simply haven't grasped.
GTK+ 2.8.0 released Posted Aug 16, 2005 8:28 UTC (Tue) by zblaxell (subscriber, #26385) [Link] Maybe it's time someone sat down and actually solved the keybinding problem.
Ideally, I'd have keys reserved for various actions, like cut, paste, open, close, etc. Ideally, my word would be law and any application that doesn't close its window when I hit the close-window key will have its window closed for it.
Except those applications where I might want to save something first.
And things like full-screen games, machine emulators, maybe video players, and screen saver/lockers, which should not respond or respond differently.
And those applications where the thing being closed is a tab, not a window.
One major problem to solve is the namespace. Suppose we get VM migration in Linux 2.6.16 and suddenly every application wants a key binding for "migrate this application to another virtual machine". Does the first application to come up with a name win? Is it possible to write an application that can do this before the key binding services is updated? Remember, we didn't always have Internet, multimedia, and full-screen keybindings, so it's reasonable to assume we currently don't have some keybinding that will become terribly useful some time in the future.
There would also doubtlessly be wrinkles in cases such as e.g. popup menus that arise when you select one of many thousands of objects in the application, and the set of items in the popup menu is dynamically generate. Where do I find the universal keybindings then?
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