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GNOME Shell, extensions, and control
It has now been three months since your editor posted his experience with GNOME 3 and
GNOME Shell. Much of the intervening time has been spent gaining more
experience with the system; it even included getting a better video card to
enable the full GNOME Shell experience. The time has now come to start
playing with the GNOME Shell extension mechanism. Some interesting things
can be done with extensions, but
it has also come out that parts of the project are hostile to the very idea of
GNOME Shell extensions. In the end, one may well wonder: who controls our
desktop software?
For the most part, your editor must conclude that GNOME 3 works well enough - though with some glitches. Moving the pointer too close to the upper-left-corner minefield and getting an unwanted overview mode experience still happens several times per day. It's still annoying to have to go through extra steps to get a second terminal or browser window. Workspaces must be set up with care to ensure that windows end up where they are expected to be. The top panel (the black bar at the top of the screen) still represents wasted space that could be put to better use. But, as a whole, things work well enough for a dot-zero release; one assumes that things will get better. GNOME 3 is not that bad. One thing that is happening is that the number of extensions for GNOME Shell is growing. The Rawhide repository now includes a number of them. One extension puts a music player controller into the black bar; a nice idea, but it seemingly does not work with audacious. Another claims to remove the accessibility menu, but that one does not work at all. There are others your editor has not tried, adding a "places" menu, restoring the "shutdown" option, adding a dock-style task switcher, and more. The "GNOME Shell frippery" extensions are not currently packaged by Rawhide, but your editor decided to give them a try anyway. With the full set installed, the down side of extensions quickly became clear; they simply crashed the shell altogether. The GNOME system was very helpful: the message read "Something went wrong, please log out and try again." One assumes that these extensions have fallen behind the current state of GNOME Shell. As it happens, there is no real mechanism (yet) for ensuring that the shell and extensions match; it seems likely that a number of extension users will run into this particular trap in the coming years. Happily, one of the extensions in that package works just fine: the one which adds the "favorite" applications to the top panel. Clicking on the terminal icon there simply yields a new terminal, just as $DEITY intended. That one little change has helped to make your editor's GNOME Shell experience quite a bit more productive.
The extension mechanism built into GNOME Shell is quite flexible, so one
could imagine that quite a few useful extensions will show up in the coming
months and years. In a normal world, one would expect that the GNOME
developers would welcome this development - others are making use of the
capabilities provided to make the platform better. In the world we
inhabit, the community has been somewhat less welcoming. Consider the
discussion that ensued after Jasper St. Pierre outlined his plans for a web site where users
could find (and post) their extensions. Allan Day,
Facilitating the unrestricted use of extensions and themes by end
users seems contrary to the central tenets of the GNOME 3
design. We've fought long and hard to give GNOME 3 a consistent
visual appearance, to make it synonymous with a single user
experience and to ensure that that experience is of a consistently
high quality. A general purpose extensions and themes distribution
system seems to threaten much of that.
He did admit that extensions can be "valuable as a crutch for our traditional users" and, perhaps, for experimenting with features. But, in general, it seems that, in his view, GNOME Shell users should accept what they are given and not seek to change the experience. Otherwise, all that design effort will have gone to waste, and, horrifyingly, the project's marketing might be impaired:
The point is that it decreases our brand presence. That particular
user might understand what it is that they are running, but the
person who sees them using their machine or even sees their
screenshots on the web will not. The question we have to ask
ourselves is: how do we make sure that people recognise a GNOME
install when they see one?
This is the point where one needs to ask what the purpose of the project is: to enable its users to be maximally productive and happy in front of their computers, or to increase the project's brand presence? One might actually think that those two goals should not conflict with each other, but, should that come to pass, one would hope that the users would win. The fact that they might not is cause for concern. Allan is not alone in his views, but neither are those views unanimously held; others have understood that extensions are going to happen regardless:
Those who are satisfied with original design won't even care about
extensions. Those who are not, well, you can't stop them
anyway. Why making it just harder? If the majority of users are
happy with original design, consistence will be there. If not, we
may need to reconsider the design.
Owen Taylor has also agreed that there will be extensions out there regardless of the project's wishes; he seems to feel that a central web site might help to bring some order and quality control to the situation:
An extension website *potentially* allows us to influence what
changes an extension can make by guidelines, requirements to be
listed as "featured", etc, though that's something we have to be
very careful about, because the whole idea of extensions is that
they allow people to try arbitrary things.
A certain amount of order and control will be wanted; among other things, extensions are unconstrained code that can do anything the user is allowed to do on the system. A way to collect useful extensions, review them, and provide access to those known not to be malicious could make life a lot easier for everybody involved. This model has worked fairly well for the Firefox browser's extension mechanism; it could probably be made to work for GNOME Shell too. In the end, this is not an Apple-style walled garden; we're the free software community, so chances are that the hackers will win out. We're not accustomed to letting others tell us how the software on our systems should work. That is doubly true when the system in question has an extension mechanism built into it. If the GNOME project does not create a mechanism by which extensions can be gathered, vetted, and distributed to users, somebody else will. One way or another, GNOME Shell will evolve in the directions its users want it to go. (Log in to post comments)
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 15, 2011 16:08 UTC (Wed) by davidw (subscriber, #947) [Link]
I haven't followed that closely, and I'm wondering what's happening with focus follows mouse with all these newfangled GUI shell things? They will pry that out of my cold, dead fingers.
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 15, 2011 16:27 UTC (Wed) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link]
Gnome is trying to bury FFM without actually killing it first. You can enable it using gconf but I forget how and unfortunately my Google Fu does not seem to be working this morning... Maybe browse Metacity in gconf editor?
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 15, 2011 16:38 UTC (Wed) by davidw (subscriber, #947) [Link]
Oh, I have FFM working now, I'm just fearful of upgrading someday and having it gone all of a sudden.
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 15, 2011 18:44 UTC (Wed) by ncm (subscriber, #165) [Link]
I'm keenly interested in FFM, but also wonder if they have finally done away with Emacs-style edit-key bindings -- ctrl-A to left-margin, ctrl-E to right margin, ctrl-K delete to right margin, etc. They have moved in that direction for some time, first removing the checkbox from the keyboard settings, then removing documentation of the feature from the Gconf-editor on-line help.
Time to fork?
Emacs bindings Posted Jun 15, 2011 18:52 UTC (Wed) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link] Emacs-style key bindings do appear to be on their way out. The option still exists, but fewer and fewer of the keys actually work. It is indeed a real pain.
Emacs bindings Posted Jun 15, 2011 19:50 UTC (Wed) by ncm (subscriber, #165) [Link]
Evidently Gnome 3 is the "Contempt for Users" release. In most projects that's the last one, so maybe there will be no Gnome 4. And we can't even blame Miguel! Well, we can, but the fun's gone out of it.
All this tragic waste would make little difference, except that the Gnome project also controls libGTK, which is used in everything else, too. GTK is where the Emacs edit key bindings actually live, if I'm not mistaken.
Emacs bindings Posted Jun 15, 2011 23:34 UTC (Wed) by jnh (subscriber, #69758) [Link]
I just did a comparison of the gtk 2 (2.24) and gtk 3 (3.0.10) Emacs theme key bindings and they're 1:1 implying that everything that worked in 2 should still work in 3, insofar as gtk is concerned. Do you have any specific examples of things that don't work? I'm currious if its something that is specific to gnome but not gtk or if gtk 3 is just buggy.
Emacs bindings Posted Jun 16, 2011 1:43 UTC (Thu) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link] ^A, ^D, and ^E no longer work as expected, at a minimum. Hitting ^D to delete a character in a browser form now yields an obnoxious bookmark dialog which must be banished with the mouse.
Emacs bindings Posted Jun 16, 2011 2:01 UTC (Thu) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link]
My experience was always that browser shortcuts took precedence over the GTK emacs keybindings. Ctrl+W always closed windows rather than deleting a word, for instance. Is it possible that you've also moved to Firefox 4, and that's added new shortcuts?
The real problem is that there's a fundamental collision between emacs shortcuts (which use ctrl) and the shortcuts now used in most applications (also using ctrl nowadays). Which should take precedence? If it's the application then emacs keybindings will often invoke unexpected behaviour. If it's the gtk widget then application shortcuts will stop working just because your input focus happens to be a text box at the time. Both of these are problems, and nobody's been able to come up with a clean solution as yet.
Emacs bindings Posted Jun 16, 2011 2:08 UTC (Thu) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link] Now that I think of it, I think most of the problems are, indeed, in the browser. But it's not just the browser.claws-mail and gnome-terminal have "normal" emacs-like behavior. glabels, "system settings," and gthumb do not. Emacs, at least, continues to have full support for emacs key bindings; beyond that, I don't claim to understand what's going on.
Emacs bindings Posted Jun 16, 2011 2:18 UTC (Thu) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link]
I think the behaviour's always been tied to the standard GTK text entry widgets. My recollection is that the functionality appeared pretty early in Gnome 2 (possibly even in 2.0), and as time passed the conflict between applications and the widgets became more commonplace. Once the option was downgraded to a config file rather than a visible UI, my suspicion is that people writing custom widgets no longer duplicated the behaviour.
I actually lobbied in favour of the UI for it being removed a few years ago. Nobody had come up with any rational way of handling the conflicts between applications and the keybindings (and just telling application authors that they can't use about half of the normal keybindings because 1% of users have enabled this option that makes them do different things instead isn't likely to work that well...) and I think it's better to not have an option than to have an option that works some of the time and can cause data loss in other situations. I still think this was the right choice.
And, honestly, I haven't found this to be a significant issue. It took very little time for me to transition from using emacs key bindings to using the ctrl/shift/cursor/backspace shortcuts instead. screen already eats all my ctrl+as. The only one I'm really missing is ctrl+t, but there's many terminal apps that implement most of the emacs bindings without that anyway...
Emacs bindings Posted Jun 17, 2011 10:27 UTC (Fri) by wookey (subscriber, #5501) [Link]
ctrl-U is the one I really miss. Being able to clear the browser address line without losing the selection (which is already the URL you want) is really useful. I guess the problem has been reduced by the way that many apps (especially xterms) make the URLs clickable now, which does the same job, but I still miss it regularly, and search out the magic runes for 'make ctrl-U work' every time I install new distro. It's more obscure every time. I really resent whoever thought that 'view source' was more important than 'clear current URL'
Emacs bindings Posted Jun 17, 2011 19:09 UTC (Fri) by cmccabe (guest, #60281) [Link]
It would be nice if the emacs key bindings could continue to exist in GTK, but using some other key than "control." For example, the windows key is virtually unused and right next to the control key. I don't even know one application-- not one-- that uses the windows key for anything.
So we could continue to have these highly useful shortcuts enabled at all times, without conflicting with the keybindings set up by the application. This would also resolve annoyances like when I get used to the shell's control-W behavior, and type control-W in the browser.
Emacs bindings Posted Jun 17, 2011 19:16 UTC (Fri) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link]
The Windows key is used to pop up the overview window in Gnome Shell, which makes it more problematic for shortcuts.
Emacs bindings Posted Jun 17, 2011 21:06 UTC (Fri) by cmccabe (guest, #60281) [Link] In that case, Gnome Shell users could use the menu key.This seems like the sort of thing where a GTK option would be entirely appropriate. Applications will never define anything to conflict with these keys, so a global setting would be easy to implement.
Emacs bindings Posted Jun 17, 2011 20:33 UTC (Fri) by jnh (subscriber, #69758) [Link]
Folks keep saying that they [custom key bindings] create conflicts with the application but that's really not entirely true. GTK+ bindings are done at a widet level, they're really very flexible. The need to override the key bindings for entry widgets in an application isn't that common. Providing shortcuts and special keys for particular tasks can still be done, it all comes down to an issue of focus.
Emacs bindings Posted Jun 17, 2011 22:21 UTC (Fri) by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389) [Link]
KDE, at least when I used it, tended to use the meta key for global bindings (e.g., multimedia controls with Amarok).
Emacs bindings Posted Jul 21, 2011 0:16 UTC (Thu) by bjartur (guest, #67801) [Link]
Songbird also does that on Windows (or did before my father's computer became a CD-ROM Linux MintÍs box).
Emacs bindings Posted Jun 20, 2011 13:39 UTC (Mon) by james (subscriber, #1325) [Link]
For me, alt-D selects the address line, but doesn't replace the X selection (Firefox 4 on Fedora 15, but I'm sure it worked before). So alt-D, followed either by backspace or delete, will leave the address line blank for you to centre-click your URL into.
Emacs bindings Posted Jun 16, 2011 2:21 UTC (Thu) by jnh (subscriber, #69758) [Link]
it sounds like you have a mix of gtk2 and gtk3 apps (which at this point is going to be expected... all the commonly used gtk browsers still use gtk2 afaik) which means you'll need to set up the configs for both to get consistent keybindings.
as I mentioned earlier GTK+ 3 emacs keybindings can be had with:
[Settings]
in your ~/.config/gtk-3.0/settings.ini
while GTK+ 2 emacs keybindings can be had with:
include "/usr/share/themes/Emacs/gtk-2.0-key/gtkrc"
in your ~/.gtkrc-2.0 file (that's the path Debian uses, ymmv). Maybe your distro prematurely removed, or moved the gtk2 central rc files? I'm gonna install rawhide in a virtual sandbox to see how all this stuff fits together there.
Emacs bindings Posted Jun 17, 2011 5:18 UTC (Fri) by nzjrs (subscriber, #35911) [Link]
Here is the bug for enabling this switch in gnome-tweak-tool
Emacs bindings Posted Jun 16, 2011 10:30 UTC (Thu) by gerv (subscriber, #3376) [Link]
I'm pretty sure there's a Firefox extension to enable more Emacs keys. Let me look...
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/firemacs/
Does that help?
Gerv
Emacs bindings Posted Jun 16, 2011 13:17 UTC (Thu) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link] Well let's see, I'm trying it now... Yes, it very nicely restores the emacs key bindings to forms, and that's nice. I should have known there would be something there if I just looked for it.However: it also breaks (at least) the use of ^F to search within a document, even when the focus is not on anything remotely formlike. That is annoying and, I would think, unnecessary. Oh well.
Emacs bindings Posted Jun 16, 2011 13:39 UTC (Thu) by gerv (subscriber, #3376) [Link]
Try using "/" instead of Ctrl-F.
Gerv
Emacs bindings Posted Jun 16, 2011 13:41 UTC (Thu) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link] That works, yes, I guess I can retrain my fingers - even if that is rather more of a vi binding than emacs :) (Actually, ^S works too now that I try it.)
Emacs bindings Posted Jun 17, 2011 18:18 UTC (Fri) by sorpigal (subscriber, #36106) [Link] Firemacs has pretty extensive options that should allow you to choose exactly which bindings should be emacsy and which shouldn't.
Emacs bindings Posted Jun 16, 2011 15:33 UTC (Thu) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link] Just for completeness...the extension, being an emacslike thing, allows for a fair amount of configuration. One nice option is marked "edit area only"; it makes the emacs key bindings work when editing, but doesn't mess with them otherwise. The best of both worlds :)
Emacs bindings Posted Jun 16, 2011 12:19 UTC (Thu) by jnh (subscriber, #69758) [Link]
OK, so I installed Fedora 15, and as I couldn't find any gui config helper to set up the Emacs key bindings for gtk 2 or 3 I configured them manually in my dot-files; tested firefox and gthumb, both gtk 2 apps, they worked OK ^D deletes from cursor, ^A moves to the start, ^E moves to the end, ^K kills to the end, ^U kills a line, etc. Tried a gtk 3 app like gedit... no love, which really rather surprised me as it works fine on my gnome-less system.
After some putzing about and comparing strace outputs between my Fedora host and my gnome-less Debian host I figured it out. When running gnome, the settings.ini files are (apparantly) ignored or overriden by the gio module backends, specifically gconf and/or dconf. I putzed around some more, wrote a possible patch to gnome-tweak-tool ... but the easiest way to affect an immediate change is is to run:
dconf write /org/gnome/desktop/interface/gtk-key-theme "'Emacs'"
(and yes, that goofy quoting is necessary). That will take care of gtk3 apps when running Gnome 3. Maybe you have to use gconf when running Gnome 2 or it ignores the user's dot-file settings too? I dunno, I don't run Gnome *exactly* because of this type of baroque behind-the-scenes conduct.
FWIW, the terminal portion of gnome-terminal is controlled by your shell (bash defaults to emacs mode) and your terminal line settings (stty), it really won't have much to do with the toolkit in use, though the toolkit will impact the text input fields from Search -> Find and similar.
Emacs bindings Posted Jun 16, 2011 20:09 UTC (Thu) by k8to (subscriber, #15413) [Link]
- Ignores the configfile
- Requires arcane tools - Broken by default
These are good features.
Emacs bindings Posted Jun 19, 2011 13:17 UTC (Sun) by ebassi (subscriber, #54855) [Link]
- Ignores the configfile
the configuration file has changed between 2.0 and 3.0.
- Requires arcane tools
dconf is not meant to be used, but gsettings is shipped by GLib, and it's the sanctioned tool for changing settings in Gnome.
- Broken by default
because it doesn't use emacs key bindings by default? your sense of entitlement astounds me.
I'd rather have those arcane incantation ripped out of the code base, the diff printed out and then burned at midnight in a forest. if nothing else, it would remove the whining coming from people like you.
Emacs bindings Posted Jun 20, 2011 8:41 UTC (Mon) by k8to (subscriber, #15413) [Link]
Yeah, why should the upgrade work with existing settings. What entitlement!
Emacs bindings Posted Jun 27, 2011 22:24 UTC (Mon) by obi (guest, #5784) [Link]
Following your reasoning, we could never remove a feature, ever. And after 10 or even 20 years of adding features, you'd end up with a monstrosity.
Sometimes features conflict, or simply don't work well together. The only thing we could do in such a case is not add anything any more.
I'd advocate giving people like the Gnomers the benefit of the doubt. Give them some time, give them some feedback and (constructive) criticism, sure. But try to objectively evaluate it after actually really using it for a while. Chances are they know what they're doing.
After trying Gnome3 fo a while, I've got a few complaints about it too (chief among them the "clicking on terminal/browser icon focuses existing instead of launching new instance", like our editor mentions). But all in all, I'd say I wouldn't want to go back to Gnome2 anymore, everything is a lot more cohesive.
Emacs bindings Posted Jun 28, 2011 11:29 UTC (Tue) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] Following your reasoning, we could never remove a feature, ever. And after 10 or even 20 years of adding features, you'd end up with a monstrosity.Actually, after 10 or 20 years, you end up with Emacs. :)
Emacs bindings Posted Jun 28, 2011 17:21 UTC (Tue) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
>> Following your reasoning, we could never remove a feature, ever. And after 10 or even 20 years of adding features, you'd end up with a monstrosity.
>Actually, after 10 or 20 years, you end up with Emacs. :)
isn't that what he said? ;-)
Emacs bindings Posted Jun 28, 2011 20:24 UTC (Tue) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
I just felt I had to amplify, to convey the true horror of not breaking backward-compatibility horrendously every few years. They have to do it: from their perspective they're saving us all from a fate worse than edlin.
Emacs bindings Posted Jun 20, 2011 8:49 UTC (Mon) by k8to (subscriber, #15413) [Link]
Trying again:
- I don't use this feature
Emacs bindings Posted Jun 16, 2011 5:08 UTC (Thu) by ajross (subscriber, #4563) [Link]
The configuration mechanism somehow got broken, but the actual Emacs key theme is there and works, even in Gtk+ 3.0. What I did ultimately was make symlinks from the key themes under /usr/share/themes/Default to the ones in /usr/share/themes/Emacs.
The lack of the ability to launch a new terminal hasn't bothered me yet, as I've always mapped Ctrl-Alt-T for that (happily the custom keystroke editor is still there!).
Add to that the gnome-tweak-tool fix to get Nautilus rendering into the desktop again (so I can recover easy access to all the sundry launchers I have around), and I find I'm actually liking Gnome 3. The shell is clean, I like the vertical stacked desktops, the "hot corner" and the auto-hiding status bar at the bottom right.
I do wish I could have back my custom metacity theme without title bars though. The gnome-shell javascript for window layout is a little opaque still...
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 15, 2011 23:01 UTC (Wed) by jnh (subscriber, #69758) [Link]
I don't use gnome at all, but I do use gtk+ apps and I've been doing some work with gtk+ 3 where one of my first headaches was figuring out how to get emacs-style keybindings enabled again. In ~/.config/gtk-3.0/settings.ini -
[Settings]
I haven't done a full comparison of functionality between the gtk+ versions when it comes to the keybindings though.
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 19, 2011 5:05 UTC (Sun) by rbrito (subscriber, #66188) [Link]
I'm not exactly sure what is the situation with GNOME 3 (I'm sticking with GNOME 2, and I think that GNOME 2 was already "hermetically closed" from the standpoint of users).
I do use the Emacs keybindings everywhere that I can and I have it set in two places: in my ~/.gtkrc-2.0 file and in my gconf settings. I see that the latter is being replaced by the dconf infrastructure (is it in binary form or in plain text, editable and easy to keep in a git tree?).
I do wonder if GTK+ 3 applications will still honor the ~/.gtkrc-2.0 configurations.
And my fianceé was using Windows in her company-provided notebook, trying to read stuff from one window and copying it to another. When I showed her focus follows mouse (without actually mentioning the names), she was instantly cursing Windows for not having it easily enabled (and she is a non-geek person, unlike me).
As I side comment, I do know that Microsoft has (still?) some tools to tweak the UI, but the company she works for (a bank) has very strict rules that she is not interested in breaking.
Well, in the same way that there are some people still keeping KDE 3 alive (in the form of the trinity project), it may be the case to keep GNOME 2 alive too...
Regards.
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 19, 2011 6:14 UTC (Sun) by jnh (subscriber, #69758) [Link]
GTK+ 3 will not honor GTK+ 2 rc files at all. Pretty much the entire GtkRc* infrastructure was deprecated and replaced with a CSS-ish implementation, including bindings. (It's arguably an improvement for a number of reasons, though there are a few minor gotchas still for folks looking to port themes and such to GTK+ 3. For example: background-images in GTK+ 3 only scale to the widget, never repeat. So you can kiss all those tacky marble, wood, and brushed aluminum texture mapped buttons goodbye until somebody writes an engine that supports them again---which somebody may have already done, I haven't looked real hard.)
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jul 21, 2011 0:24 UTC (Thu) by bjartur (guest, #67801) [Link]
Really, all she needs is copying by selection and pasting by middle click to become productive while keeping her workflow. Changing keyboard focus every few seconds without actually typing any text seems unnecessary.
Disclaimer: I rarely use middle click paste, except on the occasion I need two X buffers but have no clipboard manager, as I'm more of a keyboard person.
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jul 21, 2011 0:12 UTC (Thu) by bjartur (guest, #67801) [Link] You can still install your very own homebrew keythemes. Documentation is scarce, though. I made a vi-style (but not quite) keytheme based on two Emacs-style keythemes with the help of GTK+ documentation for C (or C++). ~/.themes/vi/gtk-2.0-key/gtkrc allows one to use (h)jkl keys to select items in menus, ^HJKL for navigating in text (and ^, to delete the current paragraph), etc. Create directories as necessary, link the above file to gtkrc and set the /desktop/gnome/interface/gtk_key_theme gconfig to "vi". The directory names may depend on XDG environment variables :(Note that this is governed by GTK+, not GNOME. Unless you were talking about keybindings in another component? They're quite close, though.
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 16, 2011 15:19 UTC (Thu) by ovitters (subscriber, #27950) [Link]
Focus follows mouse won't disappear. It is considered a tweak and unfortunate there is a bug with FFW and the alt-tab popup, but that's just a bug.
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 16, 2011 17:54 UTC (Thu) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link]
Since FFM is now just a tweak, is it any surprise that it's buggy? Unwanted, hidden features usually are.
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 17, 2011 9:23 UTC (Fri) by ovitters (subscriber, #27950) [Link]
You seem to be implying that it is buggy on purpose?
Well, that is not how things are done. The bug was reported a while ago, but, well, there was a GNOME 3.0 to be released and the fix is apparently hard.
We have *loads* of hidden settings in gconf and dconf. They are NOT buggy.
Lastly, focus follows mouse is not unwanted. If it was unwanted, it would've been removed. It obviously still exists.
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 17, 2011 11:53 UTC (Fri) by jrn (subscriber, #64214) [Link]
> You seem to be implying that it is buggy on purpose?
For what it's worth, I don't think bronson was implying that at all. Just that code that is not someone's priority is likely to rot.
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 17, 2011 15:49 UTC (Fri) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link]
Thank you jrn, precisely what I wanted to say. I'll try to be less glib. :)
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 17, 2011 15:47 UTC (Fri) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link]
> Lastly, focus follows mouse is not unwanted.
That's awfully hard to believe. Then why hide it from all but the most elite Linux users?
FFM used to be a full part of the Gnome desktop. Now it's just a half-hearted, poorly-tested tweak that apparently conflicts with the new global menubar vision.
That's how it appears to me. What am I missing?
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 17, 2011 22:58 UTC (Fri) by krakensden (subscriber, #72039) [Link]
I think you're confusing Unity and Gnome Shell. Remember, Canonical and Gnome are at war now, and have always been at war.
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 17, 2011 23:59 UTC (Fri) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link]
I wonder if Canonical and Gnome realize that...?
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 19, 2011 14:14 UTC (Sun) by daniels (subscriber, #16193) [Link]
> > Lastly, focus follows mouse is not unwanted.
> > That's awfully hard to believe. Then why hide it from all but the most elite Linux users?
... who else uses it?
I use it, and would be _gutted_ if it stopped working. But I can guarantee my uncle, aunty, grandmother, etc, who all use Linux (which came as a surprise to me) would never use it, and would probably find it confusing.
The sort of people who want focus-follows-mouse can find and enable it easily enough.
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 19, 2011 15:39 UTC (Sun) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link]
You are arguing that everyone who wants ffm will already know how to use gconf-editor? I find that hard to believe.
> The sort of people who want focus-follows-mouse can find and enable it easily enough.
Earlier comments on this article demonstrate that this is false.
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 19, 2011 16:13 UTC (Sun) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link]
I just want to clarify because I feel like this is getting really tedious...
If Gnome wants to drop FFM, that's fine by me. It's their project, they can run it however they see fit. All I want is for them to be clear about their intentions.
"We've banished FFM from the control panels and don't use it ourselves so you're on your own. File bugs if it doesn't work." seems like a good description of the current situation. Just say something like that.
But, when people claim that FFM is still a wanted feature, that's when I feel the need to hit the reply button. It used to be a checkbox in the Windows control panel, now it's an esoteric feature only for the elite. That doesn't sound very wanted to me.
Right?
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 23, 2011 13:44 UTC (Thu) by ovitters (subscriber, #27950) [Link]
I didn't say it is wanted. I said it is not unwanted. Currently it is considered a tweak, but it is supported.
Please read my post more carefully.
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 23, 2011 15:20 UTC (Thu) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link]
I said:
> (Gnome:) "We've banished FFM from the control panels and don't use it ourselves so you're on your own. File bugs if it doesn't work."
From your reply, it sounds like we're saying the same thing. Yay!
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 23, 2011 15:31 UTC (Thu) by daniels (subscriber, #16193) [Link]
In fairness, file bugs if it doesn't work is hardly unique among free software projects
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 23, 2011 23:49 UTC (Thu) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link]
Haha, very true. But it does imply that a feature is outside the needs of the core developers so it probably won't see the same quality of testing. Totally understandable.
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 23, 2011 13:54 UTC (Thu) by daniels (subscriber, #16193) [Link]
> You are arguing that everyone who wants ffm will already know how to use gconf-editor? I find that hard to believe.
Yes.
> > The sort of people who want focus-follows-mouse can find and enable it easily enough.
I'm taking it as axiomatic here that any LWN commenter is capable of googling for how to enable focus-follows-mouse and pasting a few commands into a terminal.
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 15, 2011 23:20 UTC (Wed) by nzjrs (subscriber, #35911) [Link]
I added a switch to turn this via gnome-tweak-tool (git master)
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 15, 2011 16:36 UTC (Wed) by davecb (subscriber, #1574) [Link]
Losing "focus follows mouse" as a settable feature would ensure I chose a different "brand" straight off.
The patterns for using it effectively have long since become reflex arcs, and I don't want to try reprogramming my spinal column (;-))
--dave
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 15, 2011 18:18 UTC (Wed) by blitzkrieg3 (subscriber, #57873) [Link]
I use focus follows mouse and used preupgrade to go to Fedora 15, and the setting was still there.
It's more the lack of consistent minimize and the window shading bugs that are killing me.
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 15, 2011 16:20 UTC (Wed) by ssam (subscriber, #46587) [Link]
i wonder if there will be a project to pick up and maintain a more traditional gnome desktop.
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 15, 2011 16:36 UTC (Wed) by aigarius (subscriber, #7329) [Link]
I have a feeling that Unity is more traditional than GNOME Shell at this point. And also more welcoming of contributions.
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 15, 2011 16:54 UTC (Wed) by jjmarin (guest, #53201) [Link]
Yes very welcoming, specially if you agree to assign copyright to Canonical
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 15, 2011 17:06 UTC (Wed) by ssam (subscriber, #46587) [Link]
no need to worry about that. write patches and keep them in a bzr tree (why is there no bzrhub). people who like them can use them. canonical can ignore them if they dont want to drop their copyright policy.
once your fork has enough momentum and extra features the canonical version will become obsolete. see go-oo and libreoffice for a worked example.
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 15, 2011 19:06 UTC (Wed) by tseaver (subscriber, #1544) [Link]
> write patches and keep them in a bzr tree (why is there no bzrhub)
You can publish changes as "personal" branches to launchpad. E.g.,
$ bzr push lp:~yourid/unity/branch_name
Those branches will then be browsable from the main Unity project area[1], and you can submit merge requests for them.
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 15, 2011 16:57 UTC (Wed) by kh (subscriber, #19413) [Link]
Ubuntu certainly picked a brilliant time to switch to Unity.
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 15, 2011 18:35 UTC (Wed) by clump (subscriber, #27801) [Link]
Exactly my thoughts.
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 16, 2011 9:20 UTC (Thu) by fb (subscriber, #53265) [Link]
> Ubuntu certainly picked a brilliant time to switch to Unity.
Indeed. While I have my issues with Unity, I have the impression that its developers are at least still in contact with their user base.
The description that Corbet gives of Gnome 3.0 seems more akin to version 0.3 of something (extensions bringing down the whole desktop).
As it is often the case with desktop FOSS software, the desire to rewrite (and the utter contempt for actual users) leads to software that is permanently locked into "zero point something" quality.
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 16, 2011 8:31 UTC (Thu) by Seegras (subscriber, #20463) [Link]
Unless, of course, you want to use Focus Follows Mouse. because that is totally unuseable with a common menu-bar at the top of the screen.
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 16, 2011 9:36 UTC (Thu) by mgedmin (subscriber, #34497) [Link]
If's perfectly usable, as long as you don't use menus. :-)
More seriously, I live with it by either using my keyboard to select menu items, or maximizing my windows so there's nothing else between them and the menu bar.
I'm more irritated by the global menu bar taking up space in which I can't middle-click to send a window to the background.
Yes, there seem to be at least two... Posted Jun 15, 2011 16:58 UTC (Wed) by michaelkjohnson (subscriber, #41438) [Link]
xfce and lxde...
Yes, there seem to be at least two... Posted Jun 15, 2011 17:36 UTC (Wed) by skvidal (subscriber, #3094) [Link]
I cannot emphasize this comment enough. XFCE is all the things you liked out of gnome2 w/o all the pretense.
change to it, enjoy.
Yes, there seem to be at least two... Posted Jun 15, 2011 18:24 UTC (Wed) by moochris (guest, #58536) [Link]
I'd like to add another recommendation for XFCE. I have it set up with no icons on the desktop - a nice RMB applications menu there instead, with click to focus but not raise windows, window buttons where I want them etc.
All this is configurable through some nice preferences dialogs - no having to run gconf-editor or anything like that.
Yes, there seem to be at least two... Posted Jun 15, 2011 21:37 UTC (Wed) by elanthis (guest, #6227) [Link]
I will add to this recommendation.
I had considered forking GNOME for all of a night, but reason won out and I realized that splintering the small developer community further is more harmful than helpful. XFCE is quite decent but it lacks developer manpower and hence has a lot of rough edges. Instead of creating a new silo to work on, getting people to contribute to XFCE is a much better goal.
I've posted some patches to XFCE to bring it up to GTK3, but those are languishing unused as the XFCE project is aiming for a very conservative release schedule due to their lack of manpower. I was disappointed by that, but it makes sense. They need more folks working on the code to be able to deliver an aggressive 6-month release cycle like GNOME does.
If you want a GNOME-2-like experience and you disagree with the GNOME community's new direction and don't want to hack on "fallback mode" components then XFCE is your best bet. They could use all the support and help they can get. Please go join them and make XFCE rock.
Yes, there seem to be at least two... Posted Jun 16, 2011 9:28 UTC (Thu) by NRArnot (subscriber, #3033) [Link]
I tried XFCE and liked everything except for one killer bug. The terminal application verged on unusable. Acted like I was typing on a 110 baud modem - echo was way behind my keystrokes, especially the last character.
I don't believe this can be a general experience of XFCE. Anyone know what's up? (Fedora 15 underneath, Gnome 3 also installed).
Yes, there seem to be at least two... Posted Jun 16, 2011 10:06 UTC (Thu) by elanthis (guest, #6227) [Link]
I'm not experiencing that, but I vaguely recall running into the problem before on gnome-terminal, indicating that it may be something with VTE or the shell. Sorry that I can't remember what the fix was for me.
As a work around, at least, just remember that nothing in the world forces you to use XFCE's terminal when inside XFCE. If GNOME is still installed on your system, try gnome-terminal. Or one of the many other terminal emulators available.
(As an aside, it's always kinda irritated me that the Linux desktops not only have their own idea of a desktop but also keep infinitely rewriting all of the other apps that work just fine; why does every single desktop need its own web browser, terminal emulator, mail program, etc.? Trying to make a single meta-project that handles both the UI for managing my applications/data and the applications themselves just muddies the water and splits resources with little benefit... all the desktop-specific browsers suck compared to Firefox/Chrome anyway :p )
Yes, there seem to be at least two... Posted Jun 20, 2011 11:42 UTC (Mon) by nye (guest, #51576) [Link]
>all the desktop-specific browsers suck compared to Firefox/Chrome anyway
To be fair, if KDE had not made their desktop-specific browser then Chrome would not exist as we know it, and the current browser landscape could look quite different.
Yes, there seem to be at least two... Posted Jun 16, 2011 16:29 UTC (Thu) by Frej (subscriber, #4165) [Link]
In general the XFCE applications are pretty useless. Even thunar is a toy compared to nautilus. But I guess most XFCE users just need a browser and terminal.
Yes, there seem to be at least two... Posted Jun 17, 2011 11:29 UTC (Fri) by wookey (subscriber, #5501) [Link]
I've been using XFCE for a few years now as primary desktop on all my machines. I have never regretted giving up on gnome. I've had a lot less agravation from thunar than nautilus too - it works, and I can configure it. The only important thing missing is the nice SMB/server integration.
Yes, there seem to be at least two... Posted Jun 17, 2011 19:21 UTC (Fri) by cmccabe (guest, #60281) [Link]
I actually couldn't disagree more. I like the xfce applications.
I like thunar much better than nautilus. For example, I like the fact that when I press the slash key in thunar, it immediately opens an "open location" dialog box and starts allowing me to enter a path-- which I can use tab completion on.
As far as xfce-terminal goes, I haven't seen the slowness problem you describe. No doubt it's some kind of deep, dark Xorg foo. Rather than wasting your time debugging that, just install one of the hundred other terminal emulators that provide equivalent functionality. I use GNU screen so I'm hardly aware of what terminal emulator I'm using at any given time.
Yes, there seem to be at least two... Posted Jun 16, 2011 15:28 UTC (Thu) by tjc (subscriber, #137) [Link]
> I will add to this recommendation.
I'll add my voice to the chorus as well.
I've been using Xfce for less than 2 months, so it still seems alien from time to time, but overall I like it. A few more developers could really move it along. On the other hand, I'd hate to see it become bloated like Gnome and KDE, so maybe being short on help is a blessing in disguise.
XFCE Posted Jun 16, 2011 17:26 UTC (Thu) by jmorris42 (subscriber, #2203) [Link]
Well I switched after seeing F15 Alpha. There are some issues.
First off you must remove gnome-power-manager if you allow XFCE to act 'gnome like' and prep a gnome session, otherwise you get two power icons in the tray and things don't work.
Second, the xfce power manager is slightly broken in F15. You can configure it to only go to sleep on lid closure if on battery but it isn't smart enough to sleep if AC is removed while the lid is already closed. Yes you have to either open the lid, remove the power and reclose or yank the power, notice it didn't sleep before putting it in the bag and open/close the lid. Somebody is gonna get burned on this one.
Launchers that work in GNOME don't in XFCE. If you don't check the box for a Terminal most of the normal environment won't get passed to the launched process, including the ssh agent. Even if the launcher is invoking gnome-terminal with a ssh command in it.
You could embed the better gnome time/date/calendar widget in F12-F14. Doesn't work in F15, apparently because it is gone from GNOME.
If you use the traditional ~/Desktop as icons on the desktop they rearrange themselves seemingly at random upon login.
These are all fixable problems, after which there will be zero reason to care what the GNOMEs do in the future. Good luck with their tablet interface, hope they find the multitude of users they are seeking.
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 15, 2011 19:00 UTC (Wed) by spaetz (subscriber, #32870) [Link]
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 15, 2011 16:33 UTC (Wed) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link]
> how do we make sure that people recognise a GNOME install when they see one?
When you see a mostly useless gray bar at the top of the screen with a ticking clock dead center looming over you, that's Gnome 3.
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 17, 2011 5:24 UTC (Fri) by elanthis (guest, #6227) [Link]
One person who is a paid marketing spokesperson _does_ speak for GNOME, though, quite literally.
If not, he had better be fired really darn quickly.
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 17, 2011 6:57 UTC (Fri) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link]
Let us not overstate things. Even if he is a spokesperson (I think the contract work was not for being a spokesperson but other jobs), it doesn't mean that every email he sends becomes official voice automatically. Marketing people can have personal opinions not reflective of the project and at this point, I suspect there is no one single opinion that can be called as official since they haven't formed any consensus yet on the approach to take.
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 17, 2011 9:29 UTC (Fri) by ovitters (subscriber, #27950) [Link]
No, a mailing list post is not the same as speaking on behalf of GNOME.
FWIW, I am not paid by GNOME and I do speak on behalf of GNOME every once in a while. People make it clear when they speak on behalf of GNOME.
Lastly, just because you can follow the entire decision making process doesn't mean everything has been decided.. just decision making and people voicing opinions.
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 15, 2011 16:40 UTC (Wed) by AlexHudson (guest, #41828) [Link]
I think the "brand presence" thing is badly worded, but an entirely valid concern. You just need to compare the Ubuntu 10.10 install to stock Gnome 2.30 (I think I have those versions right...), and the differences are stark. It's not just background, and colour, but key UI fixtures are gone/changed/moved, the various panel bits work very differently in some cases, etc.
While they're perfectly entitled to do that, it's not Gnome by any meaning of the word that would be understood to an end-user. You couldn't write a book about Gnome 2 for such users and have it be *useful* for them without the literary equivalent of #ifdef's against large swathes of it.
I think that's an appalling shame, and it's pretty obviously contrary to what Gnome is trying to do - which is to deliver something that would appeal to end-users.
I'm not against the various extensions, and I think maybe Gnome worry too much - look at Firefox as an excellent example (which also has many of the same weaknesses wrt. API/version control). It works great, and most people only need a small hit of crack. It's just that different people need a different hit. I think it would be a sad day if any significant extensions started shipping by default, though.
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 15, 2011 21:43 UTC (Wed) by elanthis (guest, #6227) [Link]
If GNOME doesn't want people to make extensions then it needs to deliver a very high quality desktop experience out of the box. The same goes for KDE, XFCE, LXDE, Unity, and so on. Make extensions pointless by virtue of quality rather than by fiat.
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 16, 2011 16:31 UTC (Thu) by Frej (subscriber, #4165) [Link]
Don't assume one person is GNOME or speaks on the behalf of GNOME.
Gnome is not for end users Posted Jun 16, 2011 15:47 UTC (Thu) by mpt (guest, #53303) [Link] Why would anyone want a book about Gnome 2? Or, for that matter, a book about Gnome 3? On Amazon I can find dozens of books about Ubuntu, dozens about Fedora/RHEL, and a fair few about Suse/Opensuse. I can imagine real people buying those. In contrast, I can find only three books about using Gnome, and all three are literally from last century. This is because knowing that an OS includes Gnome doesnt tell either users or developers what they need to know. It doesnt tell users how to install applications, or browse the Web, or create presentations, or set up a Bluetooth device because the default interfaces for those things are chosen by the OS vendor. And it doesnt tell developers how to package their software, or create an init script, or write software that works well with touch screens because the technology for those things is chosen by the OS vendor too. This will always be the case, as long as multiple operating systems use Gnome, because they compete through differentiation. Gnome is an enormously valuable set of components that are shared by several operating systems. The more code those OSes share, the less work all of them have to do. And its great that Gnomes developers have end users in mind. But trying to market Gnome, or making engineering decisions based on marketing Gnome, is a waste of time. It is not a useful brand for end users. (Disclaimer: I work for Canonical, but I dont speak for them and they dont speak for me)
Gnome is not for end users Posted Jun 16, 2011 21:24 UTC (Thu) by sciurus (subscriber, #58832) [Link] knowing that an OS includes Gnome doesnt tell either users or developers what they need to know. It doesnt tell users how to install applications, or browse the Web, or create presentations, or set up a Bluetooth device because the default interfaces for those things are chosen by the OS vendor. And it doesnt tell developers how to package their software, or create an init script, or write software that works well with touch screens because the technology for those things is chosen by the OS vendor too.Perhaps some within the GNOME project would like to take control of those decisions? That sounds like what the GNOME OS idea could be about. From Jon McCann's "Shell Yes!" slide notes: We don't have that. Where should it go? Ubuntu / Fedora / Suse? I don't think that will work. Those boundaries are guarded jealously and they fight over the smallest (one) percentage of the market and mindshare. We have divided and conquered ourselves. And I think it is time that we reunite. If we want to change the game, think big, and demonstrate that we can truly be relevant we need to work together. If we want to change our approach from mere assembly to something that we design and construct with consideration in a unified and coherent way - then we need to start at the source. We need to start with GNOME.
Gnome is not for end users Posted Jun 17, 2011 2:31 UTC (Fri) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link]
"Perhaps some within the GNOME project would like to take control of those decisions? That sounds like what the GNOME OS idea could be about. From Jon McCann's "Shell Yes!" slide notes"
No. It isn't. It is about developers working on more than just GNOME and be willing to work on system components inorder to provide the user experience they want to deliver. Think D-Bus, systemd, udev etc.
Gnome is not for end users Posted Jun 17, 2011 20:28 UTC (Fri) by sciurus (subscriber, #58832) [Link]
I took mpt's contention to be that GNOME defines too little of the user experience to be stand alone as a brand and that distributions are what is relevant. My impression was that the term GNOME OS is being used as a rallying cry to change this by expanding the reach of GNOME both in the lower levels of the stack (e.g. Lennart's proposed dependency on systemd) and in the higher levels (e.g. Jon's mockups for software like a problem reporter and software updater).
Summation - central planning fails Posted Jun 15, 2011 16:42 UTC (Wed) by ndye (subscriber, #9947) [Link] One way or another, GNOME Shell will evolve in the directions its users want it to go. GNOME SHOULD heed our grumpy editor's summary: Even before the "experimenting" use case for extensions, our users' needs (perceived or otherwise) vary over both population and time. As he said, this world is blessed with the "Planners of the One True Way" GNOME.
Summation - central planning fails Posted Jun 15, 2011 17:37 UTC (Wed) by tjc (subscriber, #137) [Link] One way or another, GNOME Shell will evolve in the directions its users want it to go. Or maybe it will just peter out and slip into irrelevance. It's hard to predict whether any given free software project will evolve into something better, or be replaced by something better. That "something better" will be the eventual outcome—one way or the other—is a safer prediction, I think.
Summation - central planning fails Posted Jun 15, 2011 18:09 UTC (Wed) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]
> As he said, this world is blessed with the "Planners of the One True Way" GNOME.
If Gnome really was that then they would not of built a scripting window environment for power users to play around with.
Summation - central planning fails Posted Jun 15, 2011 18:22 UTC (Wed) by mstefani (subscriber, #31644) [Link]
I really doubt that:
a.) Power users are not Gnome's targeted audience. b.) The extensions seem to be there for rapid prototyping of new ideas. Not providing nor aiming for a stable extension API is not a problem for rapid prototyping but it is annoying for the power user.
Summation - central planning fails Posted Jun 15, 2011 20:18 UTC (Wed) by nicooo (guest, #69134) [Link]
What is Gnome's target audience? "People who have hands" * "people who use computers?" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48TR0vUPQCs
Summation - central planning fails Posted Jun 16, 2011 15:23 UTC (Thu) by ovitters (subscriber, #27950) [Link]
It is for people to play around to extend GNOME shell if they want. There is just 0 guarantee at this moment regarding API. But stuff won't break on purpose.
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 15, 2011 16:43 UTC (Wed) by rvfh (subscriber, #31018) [Link]
> Facilitating the unrestricted use of extensions and themes by end users seems contrary to the central tenets of the GNOME 3 design. We've fought long and hard to give GNOME 3 a consistent visual appearance, to make it synonymous with a single user experience and to ensure that that experience is of a consistently high quality. (...)
> The point is that it decreases our brand presence. (...)
Is this guy smoking crack? I mean, since when does open-source try to lock its users? Ah, since Gnome 2.0, ok... glad I remained on the KDE boat then.
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 15, 2011 17:11 UTC (Wed) by Tara_Li (subscriber, #26706) [Link]
Yeah - I was having flashbacks to Microsoft's "Where do you want to go today?" ad campaign, and how it actually meant "We'll tell you where to go." Seriously - we need to get back the separation between "desktop environment" and "window manager". Right now, I am scared spitless to upgrade to Ubuntu 11.04, as I use Enlightenment 16 as my window manager, and from the sound of it - I'm very unsure if I'll be able to continue doing so. It sounds like they've completely deprecated the whole *idea* of a Window Manager, and just stuck us with MS Windows 3.11. Tell me again why we're going *BACK* to what MS does?
(Oh, and Gnome3 people and your anti-configuration kick? See the article Tech Report recently put out about 10 Gaming Commandments - http://techreport.com/discussions.x/21105 )
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 15, 2011 17:49 UTC (Wed) by tjc (subscriber, #137) [Link] Right now, I am scared spitless to upgrade to Ubuntu 11.04, as I use Enlightenment 16 as my window manager, and from the sound of it - I'm very unsure if I'll be able to continue doing so. I tried that, as a matter of fact. Neither E16 or E17 seemed to integrate that well with the Unbuntu 11.04 desktop, so I reverted to Compiz. Or tried to anyway. Gnome persisted in loading E16, so I uninstalled it, after which it persisted in starting up without any window manager at all. I eventually fixed this, but I don't remember how—there were so many other things that I had to fix that I've forgotten the details. I've since retreated to Xfce, which is a bit rough around the corners but otherwise a sane place from which to work. If you're an experienced E16 user (I'm not) you might be able to get this to work.
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 15, 2011 19:03 UTC (Wed) by charris (subscriber, #13263) [Link]
And back in the day, one of the selling points for GNOME was that it was more configurable than KDE; it was the desktop recommended for the cool hacker. Of course it crashed every ten minutes or so...
Pure arrogance Posted Jun 16, 2011 9:37 UTC (Thu) by NRArnot (subscriber, #3033) [Link]
The huge trouble for me is that Gnome 3 has Microshafted Gnome 2 (c.f. XP to Vista/7) . I cannot install both Gnome 2 and Gnome 3 on a system, and let each user choose between them. Whereas I can install Gnome 3 and/or XFCE and/or KDE.
This is the single worst thing about Gnome 3 by far. They aren't content to let users move to it as and when they decide it meets their needs. They've killed the Gnome 2 interface stone cold dead (or at least until someone works out how to fork Gnome 2 into a form that *can* co-exist with Gnome 3, which I'd probably then choose over XFCE or KDE).
Extreme arrogance, and an immediate loss of a large number of users. They are forced to change loyalties, what makes you think they'll ever come back?
Pure arrogance Posted Jun 16, 2011 12:19 UTC (Thu) by ovitters (subscriber, #27950) [Link]
If you do not want GNOME3, then just either use the fallback mode, or keep GNOME2. GNOME developers are developing GNOME3, made a fallback mode which (if you care enough), can be made to look like GNOME2.
But the fact is, GNOME3 is there and that is where development is happening.
Arguing that development should happen in GNOME2: well, nobody has stood up in the *various* times I said they're welcome to have a GNOME Git account if they do concrete work.
Pure arrogance Posted Jun 16, 2011 20:11 UTC (Thu) by uravanbob (subscriber, #4050) [Link]
Yep, Pure arrogance. Gnome 3 completely breaks the ability to use multiple screens and workspaces as separate entities - somewhat useful when utilizing multiple virtual machines. So I am migrating to XFCE - it needs work but I don't see the utter disregard for established users in that community and it supports my old man workflow developed since 0.98
It would be one thing if the 'so called' Gnome2 fallback actually worked, but it doesn't (at least not for my use case). Frankly, it is not so much that you broke the interface as you refuse to admit that it might be broken, your 'my way or the highway' - guess what - highway it is. Have fun, that is what is all about - except of course for those who are trying to get something else done.
BTW, I reinstalled using the XFCE spin and that is a much cleaner base to work from vs the default F15.
Pure arrogance Posted Jun 16, 2011 20:55 UTC (Thu) by ovitters (subscriber, #27950) [Link]
Your way of arguing is a bit pointless. Summarizing my friendly reply as arrogance is, well, your opinion.
The various designers and developers have listened to a lot of feedback. But it takes time change all of their ideas into reality.
Suggest to be specific on what is not working for you and you'll see that people will listen.
But I don't see anything of substance in your post. Vague things like 'arrogance', 'disregard' and 'broken'.
If that's your way of communicating, then ideally nobody would respond as the discussion could never lead anywhere anyway.
If you're honestly interested in making this better, then just write a clear message to gnome-shell-list.
Pure arrogance Posted Jun 16, 2011 21:18 UTC (Thu) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link]
Let's see if I understand what you're saying... Gnome devs have abandoned Gnome 2 completely because nobody cares to work on it. Good enough.
That's no big deal, they claim, because you can just use fallback mode. However it appears nobody is working on fallback mode either. I didn't manage to get working back in April and I haven't heard of anybody using it since then either. Fallback mode really sounds like a dead end.
So, even though this makes sense to you as a Gnome dev, bkor, can't you see how it might sound dismissive to Gnome 2 users like me or uravanbob?
Not sure I see any point in writing to gnome-shell-list... From your description, it doesn't sound like there's any chance of changing anything. Not without discovering a busload of devs interested in working on non-cutting-edge technology. Ah well.
Pure arrogance Posted Jun 17, 2011 2:34 UTC (Fri) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link]
"However it appears nobody is working on fallback mode either. I didn't manage to get working back in April and I haven't heard of anybody using it since then either. Fallback mode really sounds like a dead end."
Doesn't make any sense to me. A cursory look at the appropriate git repositories would show people working on "fallback mode" includes a lot of work done on GNOME Panel and lots of people use fallback mode just fine.
Pure arrogance Posted Jun 17, 2011 9:37 UTC (Fri) by ovitters (subscriber, #27950) [Link]
You try to speak on what is happening within GNOME and make statements which are so easily refuted that I recommend reading the 'fallacy' wikipedia page.
Example of the work that went into the fallback mode:
If you could not get fallback mode from working, file bugs! It works for me, I've seen it working for a lot of people. I've seen emails from people who had to use it.
Suggest if you want to have a discussion to at least assume the person you're having a discussion with means well. Your post comes across as needlessly negative.
Pure arrogance Posted Jun 17, 2011 16:25 UTC (Fri) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link]
You're right, I was wrong to say that fallback mode doesn't appear to be getting much work. I had a negative experience and extrapolated too far. I apologize for that.
The rest of my post has merit though, no? Trying to show how people can feel abandoned even when there's no intent, and the futility of one programmer joining a mailing list to try to swing a project in a direction that it has clearly rejected.
As far as needlessly negative goes, how about "you make statements which are so easily refuted that I recommend reading the 'fallacy' wikipedia page"? :)
I'm sure we both mean well and, while acrimonious, I've found the discussion enlightening too. I appreciate the work the Gnome devs are doing even if I'm not the biggest fan of the end result. I expect I'll be a Gnome user again one day.
Pure arrogance Posted Jun 23, 2011 13:48 UTC (Thu) by ovitters (subscriber, #27950) [Link]
Apologies. I wanted to word it better than 'fallacy', but couldn't find the right way to describe it in English. It sounds too negative compared to what I meant.
Pure arrogance Posted Jun 17, 2011 7:41 UTC (Fri) by spaetz (subscriber, #32870) [Link]
It would help already if I knew how to invoke Fallback mode or if it were documented more prominently :-).
http://library.gnome.org/users/gnome-help/stable/fallback... certainly doesn't tell me. And googling "gnome3 fallback mode" site:gnome.org (excluding mailing list discussions) certainly did not either.
Googling some more, I now found (http://www.marcusmoeller.ch/gnome/try-gnome3-with-fallbac...):
> "Fallback mode will also be automatically activated on low-end graphic cards and so within virtualized environments. Just open System-Settings / System-Information / Graphics and activate Forced Fallback Mode if you got a powerful hardware but still prefer a classic layout."
Ahh, I should have looked in "System Settings-->System-Information" to set activate this special mode. Obvious ;-P.
I wish the Gnome3 developers good luck, I tried it for 3 weeks and it wasn't made for me. This were my main issues:
- No way to disable the "Accessibility" icon (even via a dconf settings would have been fine). I filed a bug which was closed as WONTFIX.
- Multi-Monitor setup was totally broken. The bottom bar was sometimes displayed on one monitor but it could only be activated on the other monitor. New windows consistently popped up spanning both monitors. The "half split screen" window sizing did not work. I reported this on IRC, and was told: "ahh, NVIDIA, yeah sorry they don't implement xrender. Nothing we can do about". (nouveau doesn't work for me, so I am forced to use the binary drivers). XFCE copes fine with the same setup.
- My graphics card is pretty fast, but GNOME3 would make all apps behave really, really slow. After switching to XFCE I was delighted how fast all my GTK apps (such as evince) were. In addition, in one about 5 wakeups from suspends I would get a totally corrupted screen when logged into Gnome. Suspending from gdm or XFCE works fine. I see how this is the fault of the graphics driver, but the bug to allow a "shutdown" menu item rather than only displaying "Suspend" when gnome thinks that suspend *should* work, was also closed as WONTFIX (if I remember correct). This way, I had not easy way to cleanly shut down my laptop without having first to log out and then clicking Shutdown in gdm (or suspending from there).
-I loved the "Something has gone wrong, please log out and log in again" screen that I would see about every 10th log in (without ANY extension activated). Of course logging out and in again would lead to the same screen, only a reboot (or XFCE session) would work.
- I hate the new ALT-TAB behavior. It took me a while to find out that ALT-<key above TAB> actually meant ALT-ESC for me. :-)
- Nautilus will keep drawing the background despite /desktop/gnome/background/draw_background being set to False and it fights with the XFCE background drawing leading to a flickering background whenever I open Nautilus.
Much of this is Gnome3 teething problems and will probably be solved just fine, but for now I am much more happy with XFCE, and I currently don't see a reason to go back.
I am not resisting change per se and I gave it 3 weeks to get used to the quirks. I'll probably try Gnome 3.5 again.
Pure arrogance Posted Jun 17, 2011 9:42 UTC (Fri) by ovitters (subscriber, #27950) [Link]
If you use nvidia binary drivers, then you need one of the latest drivers otherwise it indeed is very slow. Get any driver which was released approx. 1 week after the GNOME 3.0.0 release.
Some of the other points you raise I totally agree with. Some of the error messages aren't perfect (understatement ;)), multi monitor situation is far from perfect, etc. Those should be improved.
For the Nautilus taking over the background, please file a bug. Latest nautilus should not draw to the background by default. Maybe it's looking in dconf instead of gconf? Anyway, gnome-tweak-tool should have a switch for it.
Pure arrogance Posted Jun 17, 2011 11:16 UTC (Fri) by spaetz (subscriber, #32870) [Link]
> If you use nvidia binary drivers, then you need one of the latest drivers otherwise it indeed is very slow. Get any driver which was released approx. 1 week after the GNOME 3.0.0 release.
Thanks for the info. I am using 270.* something and I see nvidia has 275.* out, so I might try that.
Pure arrogance Posted Jun 17, 2011 20:41 UTC (Fri) by coulamac (guest, #21690) [Link]
"...the bug to allow a "shutdown" menu item rather than only displaying "Suspend" when gnome thinks that suspend *should* work..."
I don't agree with this change either. However, there's a work-around: if you push the alt key while in the menu, the shutdown option becomes visible. Also, I believe there is an extension to put the shutdown option in the menu without pushing the Alt key. I hope that helps.
Pure arrogance Posted Jun 20, 2011 13:48 UTC (Mon) by james (subscriber, #1325) [Link] No way to disable the "Accessibility" icon (even via a dconf settings would have been fine). Does yum install gnome-shell-extension-remove-accessibility-icon(or the appropriate equivalent) help?
Pure arrogance Posted Jun 20, 2011 13:54 UTC (Mon) by spaetz (subscriber, #32870) [Link]
> yum install gnome-shell-extension-remove-accessibility-icon (or the appropriate equivalent) help?
In theory, it might. But given that I even filed a bug:
Pure arrogance Posted Jun 20, 2011 14:08 UTC (Mon) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link]
Upstream have no interest in providing a mechanism to remove the accessibility icon, but do provide functionality that allows people to implement their own mechanism to remove it. That seems like a reasonable compromise.
Pure arrogance Posted Jun 20, 2011 18:49 UTC (Mon) by spaetz (subscriber, #32870) [Link]
> Upstream have no interest in providing a mechanism to remove the accessibility icon, but do provide functionality that allows people to implement their own mechanism to remove it. That seems like a reasonable compromise.
What you call compromise was actually called "extension misuse" on IRC when I first told people about the plugin. Designing a desktop which is supposed to be distractionless but do not provide a way to remove some distractions (but options to provide others), is not exactly helpful. Telling people on IRC to file bugs which then are closed as WONTFIX is not exactly motivating to provide more constructive feedback either.
But this discussion is getting pointless and could go infinitely, so I'll refrain from discussing GNOME3 any further here. Sorry for the noise.
Pure arrogance Posted Jun 23, 2011 13:52 UTC (Thu) by ovitters (subscriber, #27950) [Link]
Was the person telling you to file a bug and the one closing the same?
Might that one was a user (or a developer not working on gnome-shell), the other a triager (in case of resolving as a duplicate) or a developer.
gtk+ and nvidia multimonitor Posted Jun 23, 2011 15:44 UTC (Thu) by mikachu (guest, #5333) [Link]
If you use nvidia, you have to compile gtk+ without xrandr support. Unfortunately there is no configure switch for this, you have to temporarily move away the xrandr.pc file while running configure, then move it back later. This way gtk+ will use the working xinerama interface instead, and windows will not appear split across monitors, hopefully.
Pure arrogance Posted Jun 18, 2011 13:08 UTC (Sat) by hp (subscriber, #5220) [Link]
You could certainly install both, but you'd have to build one with --prefix=/opt/somethingelse rather than putting both in /usr
Still, it's very feasible.
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 15, 2011 17:19 UTC (Wed) by jjmarin (guest, #53201) [Link]
Right now GNOME shell is on its early stages and the API is not stable enough. For this reason, _I_ think GNOME shouldn't encourage people to use extensions. I find extensions a easy way for experimenting new ideas that eventually will be accepted in the core GNOME Shell.
I don't think that extensions should be a priority for the GNOME project now and they should focus their scarce resources in adding more and better features in the core GNOME shell.
Anyway, it's true that maybe a better mechanism for managing extensions is a good idea, but the developers of the extensions should be the only people responsible of updating and fixing bugs of their own extensions.
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 15, 2011 20:23 UTC (Wed) by nicooo (guest, #69134) [Link] According to their website: "The current stable version of GNOME is GNOME 3.0, released in April 2011."
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 16, 2011 5:34 UTC (Thu) by jjmarin (guest, #53201) [Link]
GNOME 3.0 is stable but the API for the extensions isn´t. Firefox API for plugins wasnt stable, only after several Firefox stable releases it started to be stable.
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 16, 2011 5:38 UTC (Thu) by geofft (subscriber, #59789) [Link]
"stable" means that the software itself is releasable, i.e., not a development snapshot. It doesn't mean that all APIs in it are necessarily stable.
OpenAFS, for instance, is releasing the 1.6.0 stable release (and Linux-style ending development on the 1.4.x series), but some of the more experimental features like a FUSE client are demonstrably nowhere near stable. They're still included nonetheless. Stable releases of VMware's ESX include experimental Python bindings to the SOAP API. And so forth.
I've tried to get on with gnome-shell, but I have better things to do with my time Posted Jun 15, 2011 17:40 UTC (Wed) by amtota (guest, #4012) [Link]
I wished them luck, but I can't help but think that they've tried too hard to simplify/clean the looks and in the process they have left behind many of their existing users.
Maybe this new minimalist approach will attract new users, maybe it won't, it's just sad that you have to abandon so many loyal users in the process. They've tried a revolutionary approach, and I believe a more gradual evolution would have served them better.
Some random examples:
I've gone through the pain of restoring the "shutdown" option and all customisations possible^W required to get a half decent environment, but this just isn't working.
I was quite happy using gnome2 without compiz, and now I can't even have that option: in Fedora 15, the fallback more seems to be gnome+compiz.
I haven't used KDE since the good old 3.5 days, but I have now switched back. It is not painless - far from it, but at least KDE allows me to make the decisions rather than impose them on me without recourse.
I've tried to get on with gnome-shell, but I have better things to do with my time Posted Jun 15, 2011 21:07 UTC (Wed) by chrisV (subscriber, #43417) [Link]
"And all this wasted space in the bar, but no - my status-icon (aka tray) application cannot be shown there!? Seriously? It has to be hidden in the bottom right corner, and virtually unusable there (and will never be found by new users there). Right, it's better this way. Of course."
Although they don't like to tell you, you can get round this as well with an extension. This spell in the extension file (extension.js) will put the icon in the top panel, where my_prog is the name the program gives itself in the notification area when the mouse hovers over it:
function main() {
imports.ui.statusIconDispatcher.STANDARD_TRAY_ICON_IMPLEMENTATIONS['my_prog'] = 'my_prog';
}
The free software ecosystem will soon deal with gnome if they insist on dictating to users how their computers have to be used: they will move to xfce or kde probably, or possibly a gnome fork. So none of this concerns me too much, except I don't like to see people on power trips.
I've tried to get on with gnome-shell, but I have better things to do with my time Posted Jun 16, 2011 9:28 UTC (Thu) by Frej (subscriber, #4165) [Link]
>The free software ecosystem will soon deal with gnome if they insist on dictating to users how their computers have to be used: they will move to xfce or kde probably, or possibly a gnome fork. So none of this concerns me too much, except I don't like to see people on power trips.
I just wanted to quote that :(, no need for anything else.
I've tried to get on with gnome-shell, but I have better things to do with my time Posted Jun 16, 2011 12:24 UTC (Thu) by ovitters (subscriber, #27950) [Link]
Like I've said various times before: Anyone wanting to continue GNOME2 development (or something based on GNOME3 which looks like GNOME2) and does concrete work can easily get a GNOME Git account.
Up to now I only notice websites, not any commits (anywhere).
I've tried to get on with gnome-shell, but I have better things to do with my time Posted Jun 16, 2011 13:23 UTC (Thu) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link] Anyone wanting to continue GNOME2 development (or something based on GNOME3 which looks like GNOME2) and does concrete work can easily get a GNOME Git account. Yes, but why would anyone bother? It's so much easier just to switch to XFCE. It's silly to ask your users to commit to large amounts of work when they can much more easily retain a GNOME-2-like experience without doing any work at all.
I've tried to get on with gnome-shell, but I have better things to do with my time Posted Jun 16, 2011 15:28 UTC (Thu) by ovitters (subscriber, #27950) [Link]
I didn't suggest that to users. This is LWN, I expect a certain degree of knowledge.
Furthermore, I am not suggesting that anyone does anything. Just that if anyone wants something to happen which is not being done anymore (the "fork" mentions), then I am open to assisting in the ways I can. Which is providing Git accounts and so on.
If you read this thread you see a few vocal people saying 'fork'. My response is nothing more than: "go ahead, what do you need?".
Further, someone did make a website a few months back. But no commit.
I've tried to get on with gnome-shell, but I have better things to do with my time Posted Jun 17, 2011 13:42 UTC (Fri) by marcH (guest, #57642) [Link]
> If you read this thread you see a few vocal people saying 'fork'.
Must have been really a few; I missed them. Many more have said 'drop'.
I have been using XFCE for years. Just a few glitches here and there. Never looked back.
> I am open to assisting in the ways I can.
Nice offer but too late? The free software world is just too cruel. As opposed to paying customers, its users very seldom feel like they have to stick to an inferior solution just to try to justify their initial investment.
Good luck with your tablet project. You might need it: tablets are all the rage, but the market is already crowded.
I've tried to get on with gnome-shell, but I have better things to do with my time Posted Jun 23, 2011 13:57 UTC (Thu) by ovitters (subscriber, #27950) [Link]
I've made the same offer multiple times over about a ~6 months period.
Free software wise, GNOME is a success. I don't understand why it wouldn't be. It uses the GPL, LGPL in places, etc. We seem to have more developers than before, etc. I don't see how free software is cruel to GNOME.
I've tried to get on with gnome-shell, but I have better things to do with my time Posted Jun 23, 2011 19:02 UTC (Thu) by Pawlerson (guest, #74136) [Link]
Maybe you shouldn't fear the Free Software, but evolution - it kills those who don't fit to this world.
I've tried to get on with gnome-shell, but I have better things to do with my time Posted Jun 17, 2011 20:08 UTC (Fri) by chrisV (subscriber, #43417) [Link]
"Like I've said various times before: Anyone wanting to continue GNOME2 development (or something based on GNOME3 which looks like GNOME2) and does concrete work can easily get a GNOME Git account."
Or they could just go to System Settings -> System Info -> Graphics -> Forced Fallback Mode -> On.
(What possessed the gnome-pure-GUI guardians to put a mutable setting under "System Info" is beyond me.)
I've tried to get on with gnome-shell, but I have better things to do with my time Posted Jun 23, 2011 14:01 UTC (Thu) by ovitters (subscriber, #27950) [Link]
I totally agree on the weird location of that setting. IMO fallback is good enough (well, we needed gnome-applets, but that work is underway for 3.2), but just in case anyone really wants the gtk 2.x stuff, I want to ensure that they're free to do so.
Also, since this article I did see someone complain about e.g. the need for the alt-key in fallback more, and the use of black. A fork could even consist of changing some defaults.
I've tried to get on with gnome-shell, but I have better things to do with my time Posted Jun 16, 2011 12:47 UTC (Thu) by ovitters (subscriber, #27950) [Link]
Regarding your comments:
* wasted space at the top: is going to change. There are design plans to make use of that space, it just hasn't been fully thought out and developed * tray icons: yes, not wanted. goal is to have better ways of interacting rather than tray icons * virtualbox issues: file bugs.. bugs should just be fixed.
I've tried to get on with gnome-shell, but I have better things to do with my time Posted Jun 18, 2011 17:46 UTC (Sat) by csigler (subscriber, #1224) [Link]
(Disclaimer: Despite early interest in GNOME Shell I haven't switched. [If I find time I'm going to try to build Unity for Gentoo. I'm guessing I'll have a few obstacles to surmount as no ebuilds have been put together so far.] I've held back because I'll need time to customize the new environment to my workflow, and because the main criticism I've read -- despite the promising Tweak Tool -- is that ease of customization is lost.)
> wasted space at the top: is going to change.
If such space is unused, why is it even set aside? On today's smaller displays why is any screen real estate wasted, even if only for the 3.0 series? Can this possibly be a wise, well thought-out UI design decision?
> tray icons: yes, not wanted. goal is to have
If I understand correctly, the bottom message tray area also serves as a system tray until this idea is fully developed?
> virtualbox issues: file bugs
+1. In all projects with bug tracking systems, bugs that get fixed first, quickly, are bugs that get filed.
Thanks.
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 15, 2011 18:04 UTC (Wed) by rgmoore (✭ supporter ✭, #75) [Link] If the majority of users are happy with original design, consistence will be there. If not, we may need to reconsider the design. Yes and no. Users will only be happy with the design if they bother to try it. There's always a substantial learning curve when switching to a new way of doing things, so people will be less productive with the new system for a while whether or not it's a better system overall. Some people will refuse to switch to avoid that short-term productivity hit even if the new system would be better for them in the long term. Providing extensions that let them restore the old behavior will enable them to switch to the new system without really switching, so watching how users treat the system will just tell you that all of your new stuff sucks. That seems like a reasonable justification for avoiding a powerful extension mechanism in the first release. Without extensions, users experimenting with the new system will be forced to try it out as is and learn its quirks. After the forced adaptation period, you provide an extension mechanism that lets people bypass parts of the design that are genuinely interfering with their work. That way you can learn something about problems with the new design without it being contaminated by too much pure conservatism. The extensions also let the true stick-in-the-mud users who have stuck with GNOME 2 switch without losing the parts of the old system they depend on.
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 15, 2011 18:45 UTC (Wed) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]
It's also the x.0 release. The fact that people are already using it enough to build extensions means that it's already very successful compared to any other early Linux desktop release from any other project.
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 15, 2011 20:25 UTC (Wed) by mstefani (subscriber, #31644) [Link]
No wonder it is "successful" as Fedora "forces" Gnome3 upon their users in F15. It is the default Fedora spin after all.
Nonetheless it is an interesting technology so it's kinda cool to hack on it. Though is saying a lot that most of those extensions target the less then optimal marketing and branding^W^W^W "UI experience" forced upon the users. We'll have to see which faction inside Gnome will win the extension battle. I for one have followed the natural Gnome2 => XFCE upgrade path rather then running into the extension problem.
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 16, 2011 0:09 UTC (Thu) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]
I switched to Fedora 15 specifically because they are using Gnome-Shell. It's far and away better then Gnome 2 or XFCE or Unity.
Nobody is forcing anybody to do anything. I don't know how everybody here has all of a sudden acquired such a spoiled little shit attitude of entitlement. It's their project and they can run it how they want. It's really disappointing.
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 16, 2011 3:20 UTC (Thu) by skvidal (subscriber, #3094) [Link]
The 'they' here is an interesting question....
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 16, 2011 7:41 UTC (Thu) by jku (subscriber, #42379) [Link]
They is actually a personal pronoun, not a question.
That said, I understand your reluctance to hint more directly at the existence of the mysterious GNOME cabal -- they have Powers after all.
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 16, 2011 8:53 UTC (Thu) by dgm (subscriber, #49227) [Link]
Think of it as free advice. GNOME people can freely chose to ignore it, but the project's future is at stake. Should they make the right decision, GNOME will grow. If they make the wrong one, GNOME will stagnate or fade away.
To me, ignoring users is not a good decision unless there's a powerful reason. After all even the majority of people can be wrong. But if that were the case, initial critics should be changing into converts quickly, something I don't see happening right now.
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 16, 2011 12:30 UTC (Thu) by ovitters (subscriber, #27950) [Link]
I don't really notice too many complaints for such a drastic change. There is also a lot of very positive feedback.
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 16, 2011 21:47 UTC (Thu) by dgm (subscriber, #49227) [Link]
It's OK if you consider "positive feedback" all the people that has announced that they have ditched (not planing to abandon, but actually abandoned) GNOME for XFCE (just like myself).
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 17, 2011 9:45 UTC (Fri) by ovitters (subscriber, #27950) [Link]
I don't get why you've replied. You're trying to say I'm lying when I said I've seen a lot of positive feedback? I did not do that.
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 18, 2011 16:12 UTC (Sat) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link] I'm sure you have heard a lot of positive feedback. But I also believe you are a victim of confirmation bias. Obviously, if you glean comments from the gnome-shell mailing list, you're unlikely to see many people who want to ditch gnome-shell.
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 19, 2011 0:51 UTC (Sun) by nzjrs (subscriber, #35911) [Link]
It would be interesting to do a proper survey, but in my experience the gnome-shell mailing list contains mostly negative reactions, or much closer to 50/50 love/hate. And a terrible S/N ratio.
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 23, 2011 14:26 UTC (Thu) by ovitters (subscriber, #27950) [Link]
It is not about confirmation bias. I don't know if the majority likes it or not. I am just saying that I had a lot of positive feedback. I'd like to know if it is considered something positive or not, but just don't know.
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 23, 2011 19:13 UTC (Thu) by Pawlerson (guest, #74136) [Link]
You've got to be kidding. Didn't you read some previous lwn articles about gnome shell? Don't you read Phoronix? As far I can see these 'positive feedback' comes from gnome developers and some gnome hardcore fanboys. When someone tries to base on rational arguments and says why 'gnome shell' sucks you say it's not aimed for you. I'm really happy you made gnome shell, because KDE and xfce user base is getting stronger and stronger.
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 16, 2011 13:26 UTC (Thu) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link] I switched to Fedora 15 specifically because they are using Gnome-Shell. It's far and away better then Gnome 2 or XFCE or Unity. That's your opinion. My opinion is that XFCE is far superior to GNOME 3 in that it lets me get stuff done without having to change 20+ years of workflow habits. The GNOME developers are naturally free to push GNOME in any direction they choose. But if (when?) users abandon GNOME for alternative systems whose developers actually listen to users, the GNOME developers should not be surprised.
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 16, 2011 15:33 UTC (Thu) by ovitters (subscriber, #27950) [Link]
There is a lot of feedback coming via GNOME shell list and other ways. So feedback is being listened to. Just sometimes there are disagreements on where to go.
There is also a lot of positive feedback.
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 16, 2011 18:01 UTC (Thu) by imitev (subscriber, #60045) [Link]
+1
I can't understand why so many people are complaining here on LWN; a few topics - ubuntu, gnome - just seem to trigger anger, it reminds me of slashdot (haven't been to that site for years, maybe it has changed since). It's like the recent article on systemd - it has its quirks but most of the complaints are because people don't want to change their habits.
After installing F15 and trying gnome-shell it was the *first* time I thought "wow, nice !". And believe me, I've been through RH5.1, 7.3, 8, 9 and a lot of the Fedoras. It's just so different from the usual improvements that it might just get a much larger user base at the price of loosing "half-power" users; "full power" ones will go on and dig into the shell's internals.
As for me - I won't use it; I'm too used to my openbox/bbkeys setup. But yet I won't criticize the direction gnome is taking and I would strongly recommend gnome-shell to people. The F15 install I did was for a friend with minimal computer knowledge and extensive testing for its planned use (the usual media/office apps + sound recording) showed that it was very stable for a .0 release.
Kudos to the gnome team/community.
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 17, 2011 13:45 UTC (Fri) by marcH (guest, #57642) [Link]
> most of the complaints are because people don't want to change their habits.
A very valid reason.
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 17, 2011 14:55 UTC (Fri) by imitev (subscriber, #60045) [Link]
Everybody agrees that some/many people are opposed to change. But that's not a *valid* reason to flood LWN with non-constructive criticism. When reading comments here I expect to learn something, but the huge amount of similar "WTF why did they remove feature X, damn them" comments is boring and hide the insightful comments.
The fact you're using a web browser to reply instead of sending me a letter would (should) indicate you are not opposed to change, and you were just acknowledging the resistance to change. Is that what you meant by "valid" ?
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 18, 2011 1:38 UTC (Sat) by rgmoore (✭ supporter ✭, #75) [Link] The fact you're using a web browser to reply instead of sending me a letter would (should) indicate you are not opposed to change, and you were just acknowledging the resistance to change. Is that what you meant by "valid" ? This seems like a strawman argument. If somebody is replying through their web browser rather than through a letter (phone call, yodeling, smoke signals, etc.) it's because they find the benefits of that change more than outweigh the costs. That decision is independent of their cost/benefit analysis of changing desktops. I'm currently a GNOME 3 skeptic. I'm not convinced it's going to be an advance over my current system, which is the main thing that's kept me from updating my desktop from Fedora 14 to 15. I guess in the long term I'll probably update and adapt, but questions about usability, especially on large monitors, are definitely slowing me down. That said, the large volume of complaints seem to be coming from a small set of users complaining a lot, rather than a really broad-based group, as I got the impression was the case with the ill-managed KDE 4 move. Reading the replies here makes my nasty, suspicious side think it's mostly a group of people trying to recruit XFCE users.
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 18, 2011 22:06 UTC (Sat) by elanthis (guest, #6227) [Link]
I'm not trying to recruit XFCE users, at least. :) I had never even touched XFCE until about 4 months ago, and only did that because GNOME 3 simply did not work for my needs.
I will attempt to recruit XFCE _developers_ out of anyone who says that forking or contributing "fixes" to GNOME is a good idea, though. Yes, people can contribute to the "Fallback Mode" components, and if you believe that's a better use of your time so be it, but I at least would not contribute to code bases that exist in spite of rather than because of the project's vision. (As in, if Mutter/gnome-panel had the foresight to use a toolkit that didn't demand hardware accelerated GL drivers or if the GNOME predictions about Linux graphics drivers had come true, there wouldn't even be a Fallback Mode; it exists as an official part of GNOME out of necessity, not out of desire.)
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 20, 2011 20:33 UTC (Mon) by utoddl (subscriber, #1232) [Link] As in, if Mutter/gnome-panel had the foresight to use a toolkit that didn't demand hardware accelerated GL drivers or if the GNOME predictions about Linux graphics drivers had come true, there wouldn't even be a Fallback Mode; it exists as an official part of GNOME out of necessity, not out of desire. This. I have about 7 computers of various friends/family that I nurse along, most of which run whatever is the current Fedora or Ubuntu. That means they're now saddled with GNOME3. I've yet to see this "GNOME Shell" except in screenshots on the web, because none of these machines can run it. None of these machines are used for gaming or visually intensive stuff; their chances of getting a video upgrade just to run a Desktop is exactly zero. The default install of GNOME 3 in Fedora 15 doesn't include the double handful of packages necessary to make fallback mode anywhere close to as usable as prior GNOMES. While the idea of a fork or running your own builds is intriguing, the sad fact is, with real work to do, most users will have to settle for whatever the leading distributions include plus a couple hours tweaking. From what I've seen of GNOME3's fallback, that leaves a pretty unsatisfying desktop experience. I'm really curious to know how many Fedora 15 or Ubuntu 11.04 boxes out there can't even run GNOME Shell. I'm batting 0 for 7 so far.
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 20, 2011 21:48 UTC (Mon) by nzjrs (subscriber, #35911) [Link]
I'm batting 5/5 for my family (all 2-5 year old laptops, integrated intel/radeon down to i915/R300). Ubuntu 11.04.
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 21, 2011 8:21 UTC (Tue) by marcel.oliver (subscriber, #5441) [Link] Same here. I think the biggest mistake Fedora made was disabling any reasonable fallback (Gnome classic with compiz is just so horrible that it does not qualify). I am having problems on both of two machines, one with NV4E grahpics is completely unusable under Gnome shell and unstable under compiz (random crashes), my laptop with Intel graphics (two years old) gets a working Gnome shell, but has a number of killer bugs in dual head mode which make it unusable for professional use. (I filed some bugs and will file some more.)I tested both extensively and concluded that I have to stick with F14 for getting actual work done. I have to say that do like most of the design of Gnome 3, except that the mouse handling seems to be optimized for small screen devices and increasingly breaks down with big screen/multi head setups. But I suppose I can get used to keyboard shortcuts. But why is it necessary to have accelerated graphics to implement this rather simple concept? Is it "we do because we can" (on our fancy new machines)? Nothing seems to be so revolutionary that simple conventional 2D shouldn't be able to handle it. The missing Minimize button is a bit funny. I suppose I could get used to working with the keyboard shortcut (which might be faster in the long run anyway), but I wonder about the logic behind. The overview screen now makes it much nicer to find the right window quickly from a mess of open windows, so it appears to invite an aggressive "leave everything open on one virtual desktop and switch windows when you need" workflow. So a prominent Minimize function would help to keep distracting windows out of sight. So I am not sure which kind of workflow Gnome 3 people were actually thinking of when implementing the new shell, there seems to be some disconnect here. Aesthetically, Gnome 3 on F15 looks like a regression compared to the clean and pleasant desktop of earlier Fedora releases. In particular, font sizes seem too small relative to the surrounding space. In particular, the window title bar seems too big (wasting vertical screen space) while the window frame is so small that it is difficult to grab. Colors look a bit depressed, but maybe it's just me. Also, while I am generally supportive of the strategy that setting good defaults is worth more than a hundred configuration options, I would like to see official support from the Gnome project for keeping focus-follows-mouse alive and supported from within the GUI. It's a mode of working with a long tradition on Unix. Over the years I have stopped bothering about changing many settings from defaults, but focus-follows-mouse is one I always come back to. In fact, I believe that pretty much the only reason for not having focus-follows-mouse is that some users use different operating systems at different times, and the mouse focus strategy is something deep in the subconscious that one would like to be as uniform across machines as possible. But for a user not spoilt by prior expectation, I bet that focus-follows-mouse would come out the preferred choice in direct comparison. So my personal conclusion is that the regressions (the most serious being graphics-driver related) appear fixable. I am worried whether they are fixed on time for F16 in a way that does not introduce new regressions (such as a complete removal of focus-follows-mouse). But for now F15 is not ready for serious use on existing pretty standard hardware. I have been using Fedora since FC1, and this is the first time that, after careful evaluation, I cannot upgrade to the latest version for production use.
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 21, 2011 11:36 UTC (Tue) by jubal (subscriber, #67202) [Link] Oh well; don't exaggerate. My TPR61e, dated 2007, with a typical Intel card, is running Gnome Shell happily. All in all, Gnome Shell itself was a pleasant surprise it is really slick and convenient it's not cluttering the screen and is much more pleasant to use than Unity. (Unity is chaotic and in my view completely counterintuitive. I'm tempted to call it an usability disaster, really.) On the other hand, Gnome Shell also a bit rough:
(I do hope, that the GNOME marketroids won't be able to destroy the nice extension mechanism; while it wouldn't be the first software project destroyed solely by self-important marketing people, it would be probably the first free software project suffering that fate.)
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 21, 2011 0:07 UTC (Tue) by cmccabe (guest, #60281) [Link]
Xfce is free software. I don't see why anyone should feel bad for advocating it.
At the same time, I respect the work the GNOME people have done and will give GNOME shell a try at some point to see what it is like. I doubt that it will really fit my work style, but I will keep an open mind.
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 21, 2011 10:39 UTC (Tue) by dgm (subscriber, #49227) [Link]
I think most of us do respect the work that GNOME people put into GNOME 3. Even more, I agree that a 3D accelerated desktop may be the way of the future, just like the graphics desktop was an improvement over only having the text console.
BUT, I cannot agree with he way this all has been managed. We all know how immature are 3D drivers on Linux. We all know that there's plenty of old hardware that cannot run OpenGL 1.4 or 2.0, and that will not be upgraded in the short term.
Frankly, being a volunteer should not mean you have "carte blanche" to do whatever you want. Working in a big project with lots of users means a big responsibility, even if you do it for nothing. If you want the freedom to experiment, start a new project.
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 19, 2011 0:11 UTC (Sun) by marcH (guest, #57642) [Link]
> Everybody agrees that some/many people are opposed to change.
Change has a cost and practically no one likes wasting his time or money for no good reason. If the reasons for change are not convincingly good, then people will not change (why do I even need to explain that?)
Now you can always find a couple of people enjoying new things just for the sake of change. But I doubt GNOME's ambitions are restricted to such a minority.
Maybe GNOME is focusing on brand new and computer-illiterate... Linux users (?!) A incredibly brave agenda, unsurprisingly irritating older users like LWN readers.
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 19, 2011 0:15 UTC (Sun) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link]
I'm not irritated at all.
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 21, 2011 21:30 UTC (Tue) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
That's because you used all your irritation up on EFI and related horrors. I'm not surprised you don't have any left. ;}
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 19, 2011 8:43 UTC (Sun) by imitev (subscriber, #60045) [Link]
> (why do I even need to explain that?)
No need, it's implicit.
I agree my comment on change was a bit provocative but it was meant to show that we change things all the time. Do you think using a browser is more convenient than sending a letter ? Of course you do, as we all do *here on LWN*. But go explain that to my old grandma. See, there will always be a subset of people not happy with change. Now, whether this subset is huge or not for gnome-shell is the main missing piece of information: reading bkor's comments seem to show it's small ; reading other comments from *some* LWN subscribers seem to show it's large. But you shouldn't put all "older users like LWN readers" in the same bag; I'd think there's a silent happy majority, but I have no figures to back this up, so let's agree to disagree.
[off-topic: as with "LWN users" == "not happy with gnome3", not everybody will agree with the "computer-illiterate" != "Linux users" assumption ]
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 15, 2011 18:21 UTC (Wed) by nwidger (subscriber, #53118) [Link]
After reading this article I'm a little confused. Why did the GNOME Shell team create an extension mechanism if they're so opposed to them in the first place?
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 15, 2011 18:29 UTC (Wed) by mstefani (subscriber, #31644) [Link]
Rapid prototyping.
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 15, 2011 19:17 UTC (Wed) by coulamac (guest, #21690) [Link]
That point has been made by several of the Gnome developers. People should read Owen Taylor's email (http://mail.gnome.org/archives/gnome-shell-list/2011-June...) fully. He comments that a website for Gnome shell extensions was planned from the very beginning.
My feeling from reading the thread is that the website automating installation of extensions will happen, possibly by Gnome 3.2.
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 15, 2011 23:33 UTC (Wed) by nzjrs (subscriber, #35911) [Link]
But in that same thread mccann hardly seems supportive of the idea.
Who knows what the plan it. I would like to hear it.
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 15, 2011 19:46 UTC (Wed) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]
So they can disable it later, duh.
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 15, 2011 20:24 UTC (Wed) by hp (subscriber, #5220) [Link]
I think maybe people are blaming a whole team for only some people's comments. Remember nobody's email is an Official Statement, it's just email on a discussion list.
Desktop Anxiety Posted Jun 15, 2011 19:37 UTC (Wed) by rknize (guest, #6917) [Link]
As a long time Debian/Ubuntu user (I use Debian on servers but switched to Ubuntu Breezy for my desktop because it "just worked"), I've been trying to wrap my head around Unity and GNOME Shell. Even with a powerful graphics card and a fast machine, I find myself constantly wishing the desktop UI out of my way for many of the same reasons of the editor. I also use work spaces as brain contexts. My desktop machine at work has 10 of them and they all have very specific purposes to workaround my brain's multitasking deficiencies.
I also have a MacBook for work and I can't get over the feeling that Unity/GNOME Shell take all the things that drive me nuts about Mac OS X and force them on me on my desktop too. At the same time they both take away features that I rely on.
I recently tried Linux Mint (Ubuntu derivative), but I really don't see how they are going to "keep GNOME 2" in the long term. Their version 11 inherited a couple of really annoying bugs from natty (like completely broken session support). Also, Mint's upgrade path is completely hosed, IMO.
I recently fired up my old backup rig, which runs Xubuntu, and felt my desktop anxiety level drop significantly. I'm finding myself wandering in the direction of Xfce.
Desktop Anxiety Posted Jun 16, 2011 3:09 UTC (Thu) by pj (subscriber, #4506) [Link]
Agreed - I tried out default Natty and lasted all of 3 weeks before the crashing bar and slow Alt-tab and menus stuck in the top bar got to me. Then I fixed it all by switching to xubuntu, which lets me put the bar where I want and add the panel apps that I want and is snappy enough to never get in the way.
Let's pull a OO.org on this one Posted Jun 15, 2011 19:50 UTC (Wed) by iq-0 (subscriber, #36655) [Link]
One can only dream for some people to step up and maintain a parallel branch which *does* enable people to customize and tweak the user experience. A place where those that care about enduser experience, not from the philosophical standpoint, but from the pragmatic one.
Somewhere in the discussion someone called Firefox as an example of a basic "shell" that offers a basic set of features on which others, who have the desire to do so, can build their own experience. This was sort of rejected because a desktop is not like a webbrowser. But I think it's exactly like a webbrowser, in that it is a means for people to interface with other things.
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 15, 2011 20:21 UTC (Wed) by jonabbey (subscriber, #2736) [Link]
I've been quite irate that a recent Fedora update to Gnome Shell broke the 'alternate-tab' extension that gives back sane alt-tab behavior.
I hate (*hate*) working in one terminal, then hitting alt-tab to try to go back to the last terminal I was working on, only to find that Gnome Shell thinks I must surely intend to go some application. What took one keystroke before now takes three, and I have to actually hunt for the right terminal instance in the sub-menu of the alt-tab popup.
The alternate-tab extension fixed that nicely, but it just won't work anymore.
Other than that significant P.I.M.A., I find Gnome Shell quite nice. I can't tell you how many times I've been on my Mac laptop when I tried to hit the left Windows (command) key to bring up the Activities view. That speaks well of Gnome Shell that it has trained into my fingers a new keyboard reflex that I really *want* to be there when I'm not using it.
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 15, 2011 20:22 UTC (Wed) by jonabbey (subscriber, #2736) [Link]
that I must surely intend to go to some *other* application, I mean to say.
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 16, 2011 10:53 UTC (Thu) by Frej (subscriber, #4165) [Link]
I think there is a per application switcher. Ie, ALT+<key above TAB>
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 15, 2011 21:27 UTC (Wed) by bpepple (subscriber, #50705) [Link]
Have you tried using the 'Alt ~'? That allows you to switch between application windows like 'Alt Tab' used to.
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 15, 2011 21:30 UTC (Wed) by jonabbey (subscriber, #2736) [Link]
Yes, but it doesn't do anything in the version of Gnome 3 Shell that my up-to-date Fedora 15 box has.
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 15, 2011 21:41 UTC (Wed) by bpepple (subscriber, #50705) [Link]
Hmmm, just tested it on my laptop (F15 Shell w/o any extensions), and it worked fine. You might want to uninstall any extensions you have, and verify that it still doesn't work for you before filing a bug.
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 15, 2011 22:17 UTC (Wed) by dgm (subscriber, #49227) [Link]
You forgot to mention that maybe restarting his comupter may help.
</sarcasm>
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 15, 2011 22:18 UTC (Wed) by robinst (subscriber, #61173) [Link]
The shortcut is <Alt>Above_Tab, actually. But on some keyboards/layouts, it may not be detected right. You can configure it manually like this:
- Open gconf-editor (in Alt-F2 dialog or Terminal)
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 15, 2011 23:55 UTC (Wed) by jonabbey (subscriber, #2736) [Link]
Thanks for that. Setting the switch_group to <Alt>~ didn't seem to do anything useful, but I saw that cycle_windows was set to <Alt>Escape, which seems to be after all closer to what I want.
I didn't have any extensions installed, but I do have a home directory that I've had continuously since before there was such a thing as a Fedora Core, and there's undoubtedly some old and strange stuff in the bowels of my gnome configuration settings.
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 16, 2011 0:14 UTC (Thu) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]
Probably.
Your installation has been broken in some way. Alt-~ works as advertised.
It's probably time you did the needful:
mkdir ~/backup
Then log back in. Then you can copy back important configs at your leisure.
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 16, 2011 0:21 UTC (Thu) by jonabbey (subscriber, #2736) [Link] It's probably time you did the needful: log out of GUI, log in to the terminal, make sure everything is dead (otherwise it will just recreate the setup) and go:
mkdir ~/backup mv ~/.??* ~/backup cp -r /etc/skel/* ~/ Then log back in. Then you can copy back important configs at your leisure.Ah, no, I won't be doing that, but thank you.
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 16, 2011 16:44 UTC (Thu) by Frej (subscriber, #4165) [Link]
Another way is just to test with a newly created user, in most cases user switching shouldn't interfere.
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 16, 2011 20:27 UTC (Thu) by k8to (subscriber, #15413) [Link]
Ah, the Mac OS 6 tech support pattern. I know it well.
shortcuts are exposed in the Settings... Posted Jun 16, 2011 14:42 UTC (Thu) by jku (subscriber, #42379) [Link]
These things can be set up in the Keyboard-section of GNOME System settings as well, no need for the gconf-editor exercise.
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 15, 2011 23:41 UTC (Wed) by ringerc (subscriber, #3071) [Link]
I think he forgot that he wasn't using a Mac.
Command-TAB and command-~ . Sound familiar? Sigh.
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 16, 2011 7:47 UTC (Thu) by nim-nim (subscriber, #34454) [Link]
If that's an official shortcut, someone needs to force gnome shell devs to use something else than a qwerty keyboard.
i18n is harder than just dumping an accessibility menu on everyone
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 16, 2011 9:21 UTC (Thu) by ekj (guest, #1524) [Link]
Indeed, there's no single key that will produce a ~ on my Norwegian or my German keyboard, I strongly suspect that means the same will be true for several other common keyboard-setups.
Ctrl+PgUp/PgDown works for swapping between tabs in a program though, atleast with my Gnome-3 setup. It's not entirely optimal since PgUp and PgDown typically requires moving your hand further, but atleast it works. Thus I can use Alt+Tab for switching application and Ctrl+PgUp/Down for swapping between the tabs of a single application.
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 16, 2011 11:39 UTC (Thu) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link]
qwerty has little to do with it - ~ changes position between US and UK keymaps, for instance. The shortcut is supposed to be bound to the keycode rather than the keysym, so it should be alt+(key above tab) on all keyboards.
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 21, 2011 21:32 UTC (Tue) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
That key is Ctrl on my keyboard. I doubt that will work. (All Kinesis, Maltron, and related keyboards will be similarly broken.)
Attempting to base things on keyboard geometry is just a bad idea.
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 21, 2011 21:40 UTC (Tue) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link]
Maybe I should rephrase this as "Whichever key on your keyboard sends scancode 1", unless you're on non-x86 in which case the answer will be a little more complicated. If you have a ctrl key that sends scancode 1 then obviously we have a problem, but since that also means ctrl+alt+delete won't work in the BIOS I think that it's reasonable to say that this is really not something that can be expected to behave without additional configuration.
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 23, 2011 14:49 UTC (Thu) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
Ah, that's different, of course. Scancode 1 on standard PCs sends ESC, always. I've never seen a keyboard for which that was different, so why you didn't simply say 'use ESC' is beyond me.
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 23, 2011 14:56 UTC (Thu) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link]
Sorry, 41, not 1.
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 23, 2011 18:21 UTC (Thu) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
Well, what that is depends on what scancode set you're using. In set 1, scancode 41 is the key labelled 1/!; in set 2, the key labelled ,/<; in USB, it is escape. However, you can't easily get scancodes directly from X, so I don't see how you've implemented this without going below X completely. On most UK keyboards at least, the key above tab has the backtick and strange alternative pipe symbol on it, which X shows as keycode 49 unless shifted. That's another reason why this should be avoided: the scancode->keycode mapping varies, often radically, between national keyboard layouts.
More generally, the whole area of scancodes is a confusing and ill-thought-out mess replete with historical horrors, best avoided. At this point I have no idea *where* GNOME Shell gets its codes from, and no clue what key is used for this feature at all, only that the key above tab doesn't generate any of the codes you've suggested (not scancodes, nor X keycodes) on any keyboard I have access to, conventional or not. I'd have to look at the code... (I'm fairly sure it's not actually using scancodes, though, because that would require raw access. Are you talking about X keycodes? They're quite different.)
Why not just make this stuff an option so people can set a key and know what it is without having to go through all this trouble? Or use a keysym like every single other X app since the dawn of time?
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 23, 2011 18:27 UTC (Thu) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link]
The scancode->keycode mapping is fixed in Linux now, assuming you're using evdev (and if you're not you're doing it very wrong). X keycodes are simply the Linux scancodes plus 8 for historic reasons. You can't use a keysym because then the key moves around the keyboard, and the desire is for it to retain some degree of spatial locality to the tab key. The default can be overridden in the settings.
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 23, 2011 21:26 UTC (Thu) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
Ah, so this is evdev-specific? That explains things: I have substantial Xkb customizations and so far haven't got around to rejigging them for evdev (not least because the last three times I tried to start X using evdev as the keyboard driver I ended up with no keyboard at all: the next time I try it I think I'll track it down far enough to report a bug rather than pathetically giving up and going back to kbd).
If the default can be overridden, then I have no complaints: most users *are* indeed using evdev (even users of obscure keyboards): that I am not is entirely my own damn fault.
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 16, 2011 12:33 UTC (Thu) by ovitters (subscriber, #27950) [Link]
It is not, it is the key above tab. The exact shortcut will differ depending on your keyboard layout.
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 16, 2011 13:48 UTC (Thu) by cesarb (subscriber, #6266) [Link]
> It is not, it is the key above tab. The exact shortcut will differ depending on your keyboard layout.
Well, let me test. To my side I have an EeePC 701 with a Brazilian keyboard layout (ABNT-2) running Fedora 15.
I open one terminal and duplicate it to test. Alt-Tab stays on the same terminal, as expected. The key above Tab on this EeePC 701 is 1/!/¹. Try Alt-1... Nope, it makes bash show (arg: 1).
The exact shortcut on this EeePC is Alt-'. The '/" key is two rows above tab and one key to the right (mostly above 2/@/²).
I think you are assuming too much that, on a laptop keyboard (especially for the smaller ones), the layout will match the layout for a full-sized keyboard of the same type.
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 16, 2011 16:00 UTC (Thu) by ovitters (subscriber, #27950) [Link]
Nope. You'll have to configure your keyboard layout so that it can figure out what the key above the tab is.
If your keyboard is so small that it only has a 1, then there you can change the keyboard shortcut. But that is only because there is no such key..
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 16, 2011 20:34 UTC (Thu) by cesarb (subscriber, #6266) [Link]
Why would I have to configure the keyboard layout, if Brazilian (ABNT-2) works perfectly?
All the keys except //? are there (though PgUp, PgDn, Home, End, and \/| need the Fn key), and all keys send the correct codes for an ABNT-2 keyboard.
The keys just have been rearranged a bit to save space. In this case, '/" was pushed up to between Esc and F1, freeing space for the number row.
(To help better visualize the situation: on a full ABNT-2 keyboard, the first row starts with Esc, F1, F2, the second row starts with '/", 1/!/¹, 2/@/², and the third row starts with Tab, Q, W. On the EeePC 701, the first row starts with Esc, '/", F1, F2, the second row starts with 1/!/¹, 2/@/², and the third row starts with Tab, Q, W.)
Of course, now that I know the mnemonic is "the key which would be above Tab if it was a full-sized desktop keyboard", I can simply memorize that it is "Alt-' if on an ABNT-2 keyboard, Alt-` if on a US-International keyboard" (the two kinds of keyboard usually found on Brazil), and hope it works even when ` is a dead key (which it would be on a US-International keyboard layout).
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 16, 2011 20:46 UTC (Thu) by ovitters (subscriber, #27950) [Link]
Thought I explained: GNOME can only know which key is above tab, if it knows your keyboard layout. This you need to configure anyway.
If you do not have a sane key above the tab, the obviously you'll need to configure it differently.
This is so logical to me that I fail to see what you're trying to object against..
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 18, 2011 0:17 UTC (Sat) by nlucas (subscriber, #33793) [Link]
It's obvious to me what is the objection: using "volatile" keys as a default main shortcut.
It shows the decision to use that key didn't take into account the reality of the world.
Nothing new there, really. I never could use emacs in a sane way because the default shortcuts didn't make sense in my keyboard, and having to reprogram the shortcuts every time tends to end if there is a viable alternative (like vi, which suffers from the same problem, but not with the most used shortcuts).
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 20, 2011 9:09 UTC (Mon) by jschrod (subscriber, #1646) [Link]
On German keyboards, the key above tab is an accent key (a.k.a. deadkey) that often needs a space to be entered.
Did you (meaning "you" as a substitute for some anonymous GNOME devs) anticipate that?
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 20, 2011 11:38 UTC (Mon) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link]
The dead key behaviour is down to the keymap, not the keyboard. A grab based on the keycode should behave independently of that.
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 20, 2011 12:46 UTC (Mon) by jschrod (subscriber, #1646) [Link]
Ah, thanks for that info. I didn't know on which level the xkeyboard extension works.
Shaming Works Posted Jun 15, 2011 23:17 UTC (Wed) by nzjrs (subscriber, #35911) [Link]
On a more positive note, it appears a public shaming on LWN was all it took to get https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=650971 fixed (thus making extensions with CSS actually work).
Sad really.
Shaming Works Posted Jun 16, 2011 12:40 UTC (Thu) by ovitters (subscriber, #27950) [Link]
That's not how things should be done.
Further, I don't see anything in that bug other than normal development and suddenly a bunch of useless comments.
Please do not disrupt bugreports with stuff like 'this is important' or 'me too', nor encourage such behaviour.
Bugzilla is meant for development. Encouring behaviour like that will not be appreciated by me (rather not take action).
Shaming Works Posted Jun 16, 2011 12:51 UTC (Thu) by nzjrs (subscriber, #35911) [Link]
I'm not suggesting it is how things should be done. Nor do I think useless commnts help. But it was sad the the bug sat unloved for so long both after fixes were posed, and after fpmurphy and I confirmed the patch worked. We had skin in this game (gnome-tweak-tool and theme selector) an getting angry emails from users tellin me I broke their life is not optimal either.
I'm just happy it is fixed now.
John
Shaming Works Posted Jun 16, 2011 16:01 UTC (Thu) by ovitters (subscriber, #27950) [Link]
I've ignored loads of bugreports. All unintentionally.. it just happens. Sometimes a friendly ping is all that is needed.
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 16, 2011 2:48 UTC (Thu) by rspanton (subscriber, #31330) [Link]
We know how to patch code.
Patching "design" is harder, especially when it's not written down in a well-defined, concise manner in one place. Patching "brand" is even harder.
*sigh*
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 16, 2011 10:26 UTC (Thu) by ibukanov (subscriber, #3942) [Link]
I second the suggestion already expressed few times above about using XFCE. I tried to use GNOME Shell, but my workflow just does not fit it. It is strictly slower to switch between windows especially when there are many of them. I tried some extensions that comes with Fedora, but they either do not restore the experience or just crashes the shell (like one that restores the Alt-Tab behavior from Gnome-2).
Another issue is inability to enter a custom DPI for horizontal/vertical resolution. The Gnome Tweak UI tool has an option to enter the scale factor, but it is too coarse for the purpose and assumes that DPI is the same in both directions. But this is not case (on my laptom the values are 125 and 119 which is different from 115 reported by the system) resulting in not so good fonts.
With XFCE the only thing that is missing is a quick access to the volume control from the panel. But it was easy to add keybindings to launch Pulse audio one that fixed the issue and restored pretty much my Gnome-2 experience.
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 16, 2011 23:02 UTC (Thu) by cas (subscriber, #52554) [Link]
With comments like that, it's perfectly clear that Allan Day needs to learn about an obscure concept called "Free Software" or a similar concept called "Open Source"
Once Again, I Feel Old Posted Jun 18, 2011 17:12 UTC (Sat) by csigler (subscriber, #1224) [Link]
< bad joke >Some of this is just sad. I remember when GNOME stood for GNU Network Object Model Environment, not Geniuses Now Order My Experience< /bad joke >
/ducks
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 24, 2011 3:08 UTC (Fri) by slashdot (guest, #22014) [Link]
But... what's wrong with the GNOME 2 gnome-panel?
BTW, the most widely used GUI is that of Windows 7, and you can get something identical with gnome-panel and a suitable applet for the taskbar (e.g. DockBar); the user can then choose either metacity or compiz (similar to how Aero can be enabled or not).
Why would there be any need to replace this working system with a barely extensible one that doesn't even work at all without 3D is beyond it (remember that while 3D effects are awesome for cool demos they are a NEGATIVE for actual use since they waste time with animations, distract the user or slow the actual 3D apps).
Not to mention that most of the time a desktop is used with a single window maximized, which is usually Firefox, or more rarely a terminal or text editor, so no idea what added value a fancy desktop brings at all.
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 24, 2011 5:50 UTC (Fri) by elanthis (guest, #6227) [Link]
> they are a NEGATIVE for actual use since they waste time with animations
Animations are ridiculously important.
It's the difference between a UI like the XBox and the Roku. On the Roku, you hit a button on the remote and now the screen is different. Especially if you're not piloting the remote it's hard to tell what the hell just happened and why.
On the XBox UIs for media, when you hit left, everything slides off to the right. Your brain's ability to process the new information is not being slowed down by a 0.25 second animation (if you think it is, you are either super-human or just daffy) but your brain's ability to process what just happened (where the old information went and where the new information came from) just increased many times.
If you want to argue that excessive, silly, overly long, or poorly thought out animations are bad, I'm with you. To say that animations in general are negative is just wrong. Provably so, if you want to go dig into the extensive research done by the UX engineers at Apple, Microsoft, Sun, just about every game company ever, etc.
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 24, 2011 17:28 UTC (Fri) by slashdot (guest, #22014) [Link]
IMHO it's better to design the GUI so that each screen frame is fully informative stand-alone.
In your slide example, simply displaying a page number allows to achieve that: if the page number decreases you pressed left, otherwise you pressed right (and you also know how many times you pressed it).
Also, you can do that with Cairo, no need to require 3D.
In fact, I guess a good rule of thumb is that if any desktop effect cannot be done with just Cairo but needs a 3D API, it's most likely unnecessary and detrimental for actual use, especially if it is an animation.
As for distraction, the issue is that you'll tend to think about the animation instead than directly about the new data, and most of the time what happened is very clear, because the user made it happen on purpose.
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 26, 2011 15:13 UTC (Sun) by kleptog (subscriber, #1183) [Link] Your brain's ability to process the new information is not being slowed down by a 0.25 second animationThe thing is, when moving to a new screen there is very little new information since you already know what the new screen looks like. So you don't notice the 0.25 second, except when it's preventing the screen matching your expectations. I do accept that is certain situations the animation gives useful feedback about what happened, but it's only useful if you didn't expect it. Menus which always fold out the same list of items don't need animation, they need to get to their final state ASAP so I can move to the next step. Minimise indicating visually where in the taskbar it went is useful. For maximise however it is not, you know it's going to fill the screen. I guess the unpredictability it what's changed over the years. It used to be that you had a good internal model of the system and knew exactly what effect each button had. You had to, when machines really were slower than you (or slow network links). But I find personally animations most annoying when they simply slow down actions where you already know what the result is going to be and thus add zero usefulness. I wonder if the disorientation is like dizziness, your brain is telling you one thing and your eyes something else...
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 26, 2011 20:44 UTC (Sun) by elanthis (guest, #6227) [Link]
> Menus which always fold out the same list of items don't need animation, they need to get to their final state ASAP so I can move to the next step.
Again, if you're assuming you can or will move to that next step in any way that's slowed down by a _reasonable_ animation then you're kidding yourself. You can't be affected by the difference in an animation that takes a reasonable amount of time. You're being like one of the gamer nerds who thinks that turning off v-sync makes them able to play better, despite every last bit of research showing that the 16ms savings is pretty much swamped by the ~200ms of latency between the keyboard response, monitor response, CPU processing time of game updates, and very large latency in the human brain.
Most of the Compiz effects are too long, btw, if that's what you're using for your basis. I recall the menu popups taking about a full second, when they should be down closer to 1/4th of a second.
GNOME Shell, extensions, and control Posted Jun 26, 2011 22:14 UTC (Sun) by kleptog (subscriber, #1183) [Link]
I think we're agreeing here. There's no need for animations that take a second. You're not going to notice a delay of 16ms, though I do wonder if you'd notice the difference between an animation that took 100ms and one that just appeared in its final state. Possibly you'd just get the sensation of movement.
Yes, I was using Compiz as a base. Perhaps they just implemented it badly.
Still, the decision by your brain to activate the menu was done well in advance of the moment the computer noticed you clicked the mouse. By the time the menu can be drawn your brain has had plenty of time to anticipate it. Interacting with a computer does not require higher level brain functions all the time, many tasks can become reflexes. And one second is way too long in those situations.
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