‘Tis the Season for COSMIC Alpha 4! (System76 Blog)

[Posted December 5, 2024 by jzb]

System76 has announced the fourth alpha release of its Rust-based COSMIC desktop. New features in this version include the ability to set default applications, region and language settings, a new Accessibility applet, as well as support for variable refresh rate (VRR) in the cosmic-comp compositor and the display settings tool. See the blog post for a full list of fixes and performance improvements. LWN covered the first alpha release in August.

Really nice!

Posted Dec 5, 2024 22:07 UTC (Thu) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link] (11 responses)

I really like it.

It's very xfce-like, but with more modern graphics and built on a more modern foundation. The only missing part for me is the unified menu on top. But I don't think this is feasible in general for Linux apps :(

Really nice!

Posted Dec 6, 2024 13:20 UTC (Fri) by swilmet (subscriber, #98424) [Link]

> It's very xfce-like

For the architecture too, it's more modular than gnome-shell.

> The only missing part for me is the unified menu on top

I suppose you talk about the macOS type of menu. Most Linux apps draw the menu client-side, so it's inside the window.

It would be difficult to find a general solution. It would need some coordination between the different GUI toolkits, at the freedesktop.org level. However some toolkits already have the necessary ingredients. In the case of GTK apps, menus and actions can be exported on D-Bus. This was used for the "app menu" that some previous GNOME versions had.

Really nice!

Posted Dec 6, 2024 15:59 UTC (Fri) by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389) [Link] (9 responses)

> The only missing part for me is the unified menu on top. But I don't think this is feasible in general for Linux apps :(

A nightmare for focus-follows-mouse users. I detest the global menu bar (especially in full screen mode and getting it to show up is a dance in finding the cursor and then placing it correctly).

Really nice!

Posted Dec 6, 2024 16:18 UTC (Fri) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link] (6 responses)

Yes, the global menu bar is a terrible design decision, IMO. It stops you from effectively using two applications at the same time, or as close to the same time as you can whipping between windows.

Really nice!

Posted Dec 7, 2024 3:44 UTC (Sat) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link] (5 responses)

> It stops you from effectively using two applications at the same time, or as close to the same time as you can whipping between windows.

It really doesn't. It actually improves the usability because you immediately see which application is active, for keyboard shortcut purposes.

It does take some time to get used to, but once you do, it's hard to go back.

Really nice!

Posted Dec 7, 2024 4:21 UTC (Sat) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link] (1 responses)

It would not work at all for me. I use focus-follows-mouse, so presumably the global menu bar would reflect the last top-level window that had focus. If I'm in one window and move the mouse to the menu, but on the way accidentally enter another window, that window gets focus and the menu changes to one I don't want.

With each window having its own menu, this problem doesn't happen.

I've worked this way since I first started using GUIs on UNIX in the 1990s, so I'm unlikely to change now. 🙂

Really nice!

Posted Dec 7, 2024 7:15 UTC (Sat) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]

Sure. I don't insist that the top-level menu is the best option for everyone, but having it as an option would be great.

Really nice!

Posted Dec 9, 2024 12:28 UTC (Mon) by taladar (subscriber, #68407) [Link] (2 responses)

One of my Mac-using coworkers has a large screen (30 or 32" I think) and the unified menu bar just feels completely detached on that to the point where it might as well be on a separate screen when an application window is opened somewhere in the lower half of the screen. It is just visually very confusing as a UI design choice unless you use maximized windows most of the time anyway in which case it doesn't provide any benefit anyway.

Really nice!

Posted Dec 9, 2024 14:48 UTC (Mon) by geert (subscriber, #98403) [Link]

It's similar on multi-display Ubuntu. You can find the menu for the small window on the right part of the second display at the left-top corner of the unified menu bar on the first display.

Really nice!

Posted Dec 9, 2024 17:29 UTC (Mon) by raven667 (subscriber, #5198) [Link]

The design decision for fixed top menus was made for the original Macintosh, a small single screen device which primarily ran only single full screen applications. I don't hate this on Mac because it's pervasive, so you can develop muscle memory around it, it's when UX is inconsistent that every tool becomes and exercise in memorizing trivia that is grating

Really nice!

Posted Dec 6, 2024 20:11 UTC (Fri) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link] (1 responses)

I don't use focus following mouse. Typically, I just have one application maximized, so there is no issue with focus. I put different "types" of apps on different virtual desktops.

E.g. my IDE is on the lower left desktop, the debugged software is on the upper left. The communication stuff is on the top right, and the browser is on the bottom right.

Really nice!

Posted Dec 7, 2024 0:04 UTC (Sat) by rsidd (subscriber, #2582) [Link]

That's what I do too. With sway, 12 virtual desktops, 1 app per desktop (sometimes 2, vertically maximized, eg terminal + emacs). But then why have a unified menu on top? Your menu is anyway on top of that particular virtual desktop.

I do have focus follows mouse but I don't think that matters. And I rarely use the menu anyway, except in stuff like gimp and libreoffice where I can't quite remember the shortcuts for everything.