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Start by just reading pages 11 and 15Start by just reading pages 11 and 15Posted Mar 21, 2012 21:16 UTC (Wed) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330)Parent article: Fedora 16 And GNOME Shell: Tested And Reviewed (Tom's Hardware) The most useful parts of the article are page 11, GNOME 3 Pros And Cons, and page 15, Fixing GNOME 3. The author does a very good job of getting past the emotions and the flaming and explaining in a very clear way why the stock version of Gnome 3 is not usable for many, and how these issues can be worked around. Thanks to the article I think I'll be able to upgrade. The main reason I can't use the default Gnome 3 is that it does not support my workflow. As a programmer, I need to have several terminal windows, an Emacs window and a browser window around, plus whatever graphical application I might be working on (if any; as a language front end person most of my work is pure text). I also need to be able to quickly respond to colleagues via email, and be able to cut and paste between all those distinct windows. Because there are too many to have on the screen at once, I need to be able to selectively minimize windows, and to switch focus quickly to whatever task I need to work on next. Page 11 of the article clearly explains why you can't do this effectively with stock Gnome 3; Gnome 3 defenders should read it with an open mind. As page 15 makes clear, most of the problem can be fixed with published extensions, but because everyone will be running a different set of extensions, this fragments the platform and increases support costs. What should ideally happen is that the Gnome developers check out which extensions their users feel compelled to use, find out why (without preaching to people that they don't need what they clearly feel that they need), and migrate that functionality into core Gnome so that it is available to all.
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Start by just reading pages 11 and 15 Posted Mar 21, 2012 23:05 UTC (Wed) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link]
> everyone will be running a different set of extensions
Not to mention that there are extensions for removing icons or moving GUI elements to a different position. Truly mind boggling. Basic, _basic_, customisation is impossible without writing code. I guess autoexec.bat and config.sys are next.
It is also amusing to see how "better design" is getting "fixed" by gazillion extensions that essentially bring Gnome 2 look and feel back. Irony if full flight.
And finally, there are philosophical pearls, like "we don't want users getting distracted, so we have overview". Which then requires 276 clicks and mouse moves to change the workspace. As if Gnome 2 didn't have autohide already...
Brilliant, just brilliant.
Start by just reading pages 11 and 15 Posted Mar 22, 2012 0:28 UTC (Thu) by ovitters (subscriber, #27950) [Link]
If you have to use 276 clicks, then something is wrong with your installation.
Start by just reading pages 11 and 15 Posted Mar 22, 2012 0:35 UTC (Thu) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link]
Start by just reading pages 11 and 15 Posted Mar 22, 2012 0:39 UTC (Thu) by ovitters (subscriber, #27950) [Link]
So you agree it doesn't take loads of clicks. Good!
Start by just reading pages 11 and 15 Posted Mar 22, 2012 0:49 UTC (Thu) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link]
Oh please stop playing stupid - everyone knows that's not true.
It takes significantly more clicks and mouse moves to do that in Gnome 3 than it does in Gnome 2.
Start by just reading pages 11 and 15 Posted Mar 22, 2012 12:56 UTC (Thu) by ovitters (subscriber, #27950) [Link]
Mouse moves, yes. You said 276 mouse clicks, but it just takes once.
Move mouse to upper corner, go to overview, move mouse to new workspace, click on it.
That's just one click.
Again, mouse moves: yes. But if you care about that, either use the keyboard, or install an extension which makes it more convenient for you.
Start by just reading pages 11 and 15 Posted Mar 22, 2012 22:58 UTC (Thu) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link]
And again, more lame answers from Gnome 3 brigade.
Gnome 3 is supposed to be better, right? So, why does someone need to write an extension to make it (almost, but not quite) as good as Gnome 2?
> Move mouse to upper corner, go to overview, move mouse to new workspace, click on it.
Yes:
1. Move to upper left.
2. Wait for Activities to figure out what you want (if you hit the corner itself) or _click_ on text.
3. Wait to be attacked by unnecessary animation where UI elements you never wanted get displayed.
4. Move to there right (anywhere from top to bottom).
5. Find that damn workspace, because you cannot really see it during normal operation of the desktop.
6. Click
Wow! That's a real improvement to move mouse + click.
I won't even comment on the keyboard suggestion. You can also use keyboard to change workspace in Gnome 2. So what? Is that the justification for breaking the GUI?
PS. Please do not pretend that you do not understand what a hyperbole is.
Start by just reading pages 11 and 15 Posted Mar 23, 2012 3:46 UTC (Fri) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]
Hear, hear.
GNOME 3 for me was completely unusable on my touchpad because I had to constantly keep moving the cursor from one part of screen to another.
I guess there are extensions to make it work better now, but I've already switched to XFCE.
Start by just reading pages 11 and 15 Posted Mar 27, 2012 17:14 UTC (Tue) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link]
Glad you persisted here. bkor's snide comments usually just get ignored.
Start by just reading pages 11 and 15 Posted Mar 22, 2012 23:28 UTC (Thu) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link]
> Mouse moves, yes. You said 276 mouse clicks, but it just takes once.
My sentence:
> "Which then requires 276 clicks and mouse moves to change the workspace."
I don't think you read what I wrote correctly, hyperbole notwithstanding.
Start by just reading pages 11 and 15 Posted Mar 22, 2012 12:54 UTC (Thu) by daniels (subscriber, #16193) [Link] It is also amusing to see how "better design" is getting "fixed" by gazillion extensions that essentially bring Gnome 2 look and feel back. Irony if full flight. I'm not sure if I'm reading a comment explaining why GNOME 2 is the pinnacle of free software UIs and GNOME 3 is doomed to irrelevance because literally everyone who has ever used it hates it, or if this is actually 2002 and I'm reading the same thing about GNOME 1.4/2.x.
Start by just reading pages 11 and 15 Posted Mar 22, 2012 14:41 UTC (Thu) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]
Actually, you might be right. GNOME 2 really seems to be the pinnacle and everything goes downhill from there.
Start by just reading pages 11 and 15 Posted Mar 22, 2012 14:48 UTC (Thu) by daniels (subscriber, #16193) [Link] I get the sense the sarcasm was missed, so I should be clear. My point was that the exact same comments were being made when GNOME 2.x was first released, asserting that the kinds of radical changes they were enacting were horrific and unnecessary. What's more, they alienated power users by destroying their workflows and making them completely impossible, at the cost of supporting 'idiot users' who don't know what they're doing and just wanted to drool on their keyboard and have something happen. Those changes were obviously totally unnecessary, as GNOME 1.4 was perfect, and people didn't want a desktop designed for idiots. And now the exact same thing is happening, but with different version numbers.
Start by just reading pages 11 and 15 Posted Mar 22, 2012 15:36 UTC (Thu) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
when Gnome 2 was first released, they removed a lot of functionality that was in Gnome 1 and people screamed.
over time, most of the functionality that people were screaming for got added back in so people could work.
Gnome 3 is repeating this mistake and people are screaming again. Initially the response was the same as in the early 2.x days "you are wrong for wanting to do that", recently it's morphing into "we allow for extensions, fix it yourself in an extension, because we don't think that's a valid thing to try and do"
Start by just reading pages 11 and 15 Posted Mar 22, 2012 15:41 UTC (Thu) by daniels (subscriber, #16193) [Link]
Indeed: looking at GNOME 2.0 vs. 2.28 shows just how far it evolved, and often in a very good way. It's the same with looking at OS X 10.0 (ugh!) compared to 10.6 or 10.7.
I'm not convinced that starting with 1.4, eliding the radical step that was 2.0, and continuing on from there would've got as positive a result as 2.28 though.
Point-zero releases are always a bit hairy. I've been tracking 3.x from just after the 3.0 release to 3.2 and now 3.3.x, and it's been a massive improvement all the way through. It's not perfect, and certainly has its share of bugs and genuine design flaws, but it's a far better starting point for a great 2012-class UI than 2.28.
Start by just reading pages 11 and 15 Posted Mar 22, 2012 15:46 UTC (Thu) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
People get upset over bad .0 releases, but they do get over that.
The issue here is only partly that the features aren't there, Much more user anger is caused by the fact that the response to complaints isn't "we're working on that" or "we'll get around to that", it's more along the lines of "you are wrong for wanting to do that", or "you aren't in our target user type"
Start by just reading pages 11 and 15 Posted Apr 2, 2012 15:59 UTC (Mon) by hadess (subscriber, #24252) [Link]
> when Gnome 2 was first released, they removed a lot of functionality that
> was in Gnome 1 and people screamed. > > over time, most of the functionality that people were screaming for got > added back in so people could work.
No, it didn't.
Did that sort of thing get added back?
And yes, there were people that wanted the themable clock like it was the 90's, and I'm glad we didn't listen to them.
Start by just reading pages 11 and 15 Posted Apr 2, 2012 20:21 UTC (Mon) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link]
For GNOME2, at least some of the re-arrangement and simplification of the UI had been done based on input from HCI testing done by Sun, on a range of end-user subjects. As Sun were in need of a replacement for CDE for their desktop, and had decided to invest in GNOME. So, to some extent, there was an objective basis to believe in the GNOME2 changes being a step forward.
I havn't heard of the same kind of HCI testing work having been done as the basis for GNOME-Shell. (??)
Start by just reading pages 11 and 15 Posted Mar 22, 2012 5:16 UTC (Thu) by daglwn (subscriber, #65432) [Link]
> As a programmer, I need to have several terminal windows, an Emacs
> window and a browser window around, plus whatever graphical application > I might be working on (if any; as a language front end person most of my > work is pure text). I also need to be able to quickly respond to > colleagues via email, and be able to cut and paste between all those > distinct windows. Because there are too many to have on the screen at > once, I need to be able to selectively minimize windows, and to switch > focus quickly to whatever task I need to work on next.
I used to think the Emacs gurus were crazy, but once I tried it I found that I can do all of these things (perhaps not graphics applications) within Emacs really quite well. I don't touch the actual desktop much at all. It's really nice to be able to copy from a terminal and paste into an e-mail (or vice-versa) without ever leaving the keyboard or the editor.
I work on compilers so I think we probably do very similar kinds of stuff.
I'm not being snarky here. Emacs+TRAMP+eterm+gnus has changed my programming life for the much better.
Start by just reading pages 11 and 15 Posted Mar 22, 2012 15:30 UTC (Thu) by davide.del.vento (guest, #59196) [Link]
+1
I am in the same demographics as you and I agree with everything you said. The only sentence I would change is
> Thanks to the article I think I'll be able to upgrade.
that I would change to
Thanks to the article I might be able to upgrade.
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