Quotes of the week [LWN.net]

Quotes of the week

Posted Aug 4, 2011 21:48 UTC (Thu) by ebassi (subscriber, #54855)
In reply to: Quotes of the week by slashdot
Parent article: Quotes of the week

Exactly: if a desktop environment cannot accomodate the extremely modest GUI demands of someone who just wants terminals, what does that say about its ability to accomodate more sophisticated GUI users?

who said it doesn't accommodate "launching multiple terminal windows"? I count at least five ways to achieve that:

use the Ctrl + Shift + N shortcut when the terminal is active (which is by far the most likely scenario at any given time);
go to System Settings → Keyboard → Shortcuts and define a global shortcut to launch a terminal (I personally use Ctrl + Alt + t);
go to the activities overview and drag the terminal icon from the dash to the desired workspace;
go to the activities overview and middle click the terminal icon from the dash to have a new window on the last workspace;
go to the activities overview and right click to open the menu and choose between opening a new window or focusing any other one.

but, obviously this is a false metric; if we put a gigantic icon to launch the terminal in the middle of the screen we'd obviously placate the ires of people launching terminals all day, at the expense of the absolute majority of people that don't need, or want, or have the skills to use the terminal.

this is, by the way, what the most vocal individuals in the vocal minority of users that are constantly pissed off at Gnome define as "dumbing down the UI at the expenses of the experts". personally, if aiding the majority of potential users, and improving their life, comes at the expense of a vocal, angry minority of a minority of the denizens of the Intertubes that scream and cry murder because they can't, from the height of their tower of terminal windows, feel superior to the rabble of common users any more, then I'll not only take the insults - I'll wear them as a badge of honour, as they mean that we're doing something right.

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Quotes of the week

Posted Aug 5, 2011 0:10 UTC (Fri) by Zizzle (guest, #67739) [Link]

Nice rant. The vocal minority is ruining it for everybody!

But all people are asking for is to be able to drag a terminal launcher into the panel and have single click launching. Like you can on previous incarnations and most other desktops in existence today.

Hardly breaks the desktop for "the majority of potential users" - and I suspect refusing to allow it will not likely induce a flood "of potential users".

Like others have pointed out, that fact that you guys kick and scream against such a simple feature will hardly fill "the majority of potential users" with the sense that you will listen to their needs either.

Just to give some insight in to why people think this is important: after I launch a terminal window I typically want to place it where I want it. And usually it's just after I've used a click to change workspaces. Both of which mean the mouse. My hand is already on it. So it makes sense to be able to switch workspace with a single click, launch a terminal with a single click, and then place/resize the terminal.

Quotes of the week

Posted Aug 5, 2011 20:04 UTC (Fri) by elanthis (guest, #6227) [Link]

"Three users" is not statistically relevant.

I'm quite obviously no fan of GNOME 3, but at least base arguments against it using technical arguments (like the mouse strain mentioned by someone a few posts earlier) rather than just "some dudes I know don't like it for some indeterminate reason." :)

Quotes of the week

Posted Aug 6, 2011 5:03 UTC (Sat) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link]

Right. They only show that the dichotomy was false.