Questions for deployments of GNOME [LWN.net]

Questions for deployments of GNOME

Posted Jun 12, 2006 10:45 UTC (Mon) by xtifr (guest, #143)
In reply to: Questions for deployments of GNOME by Arker
Parent article: Questions for deployments of GNOME

> You can get unix shortcut keys

You can with GNOME too.

> you can get somewhat sensible window controls

You can with GNOME too.

> you can get separate focus and raise/lower behaviour

You can with GNOME too.

> It even comes up the first time you run it and ASKS what sort of
> behaviour you prefer.

Now there you get to the heart of the matter. GNOME wants to avoid confusing newbies, while still retaining all the flexibility for the experts. I, personally, think that's an excellent approach to take, even if GNOME hasn't quite mastered it yet. Unfortunately, some people seem to have been brainwashed by Microsoft and KDE into thinking that if an option isn't out there in plain sight at all times, it must not exist.

I actually used to prefer KDE; now I prefer GNOME. Neither one has yet become a system I would want to use myself, but GNOME at least looks like it's headed in the right direction (more or less), while KDE seems to simply be getting more cluttered and annoying.

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Questions for deployments of GNOME

Posted Jun 12, 2006 12:00 UTC (Mon) by Arker (guest, #14205) [Link] (22 responses)

> You can get unix shortcut keys
You can with GNOME too.

Umm no, actually, you really can't. Not unless they've totally reversed direction recently at least, which seems extraordinarily unlikely.

What you *could* do, after the transition to GTK 2, if you could find and follow some complicated, arcane, and difficult to find instructions, was set a so-called 'emacs keymap' - but it's full of bugs and unusable. Go ahead, try it out sometime, it's utterly worthless. The editing keys don't even work properly in text fields in many cases, and most apps have ctrl-w HARDCODED to close window, ignoring any user-set keymaps anyway. And this is called 'improvement.'

One can only conclude this is *deliberate* as those of us that raised the issues have been consistently told things like 'no one sane wants that' (nice way to talk to your users) and the bug reports filed consistently ignored or marked 'not a bug.' We who up to that point had been their only audience were suddenly defined as 'not our target audience' and our needs and desires not just ignored but actively belittled and disparaged.

If you want to know why so many *nix users hate gnome, that little episode has a lot to do with it. It's just anecdotal evidence, but EVERYONE that I knew that used to use GNOME and promote it have shunned it since shortly after that.

> you can get somewhat sensible window controls
You can with GNOME too.

How? Certainly not in any easily discoverable way. And again, when the decision to require Metacity and forbid alternatives was made, this was presented as a 'feature.'

GNOME wants to avoid confusing newbies, while still retaining all the flexibility for the experts.

This is nothing but patronising elitism. As if only people that somehow magically know what occult file in what place takes what magical invocation to change things deserve to have that capability. This is EXACTLY the kind of nonsense that building a friendly GUI environment for *nix was _supposed_ to get us away from.

Questions for deployments of GNOME

Posted Jun 12, 2006 13:00 UTC (Mon) by Los__D (guest, #15263) [Link] (21 responses)

"This is EXACTLY the kind of nonsense that building a friendly GUI environment for *nix was _supposed_ to get us away from."
Friendly GUI's has nothing to do with bombing people with useless features, quite the opposite.

Questions for deployments of GNOME

Posted Jun 12, 2006 13:03 UTC (Mon) by Arker (guest, #14205) [Link] (20 responses)

And there it is again.

Just because YOU don't understand it doesn't make it useless.

If the users find it useful, it's not useless, and no amount of arrogant bombast will change that.

Questions for deployments of GNOME

Posted Jun 12, 2006 14:43 UTC (Mon) by Los__D (guest, #15263) [Link] (19 responses)

There's always a few percent that finds even the most stupid feature useful... This is definately no good reason to add it.

Questions for deployments of GNOME

Posted Jun 12, 2006 15:02 UTC (Mon) by wilck (guest, #29844) [Link] (18 responses)

Unless I am missing some subtle irony, this comment is the most beautiful example for the blatant arrogance of many in the GNOME camp that I've ever seen.

Questions for deployments of GNOME

Posted Jun 12, 2006 15:04 UTC (Mon) by Los__D (guest, #15263) [Link] (1 responses)

Arrogance is demanding that everyone put up with the feature that YOU like, and whining when the devs says no.

Questions for deployments of GNOME

Posted Jun 15, 2006 14:52 UTC (Thu) by lysse (guest, #3190) [Link]

Arrogance can also be found in trying to turn a legitimate difference of preference into a right/wrong issue...

Subtle Irony Indeed

Posted Jun 12, 2006 15:38 UTC (Mon) by GreyWizard (guest, #1026) [Link] (15 responses)

Try participating in software development sometime. Since you're presumably not "arrogant" you'll be sure to add every feature anybody ever asks for, right? Good luck with that.

Subtle Irony Indeed

Posted Jun 12, 2006 17:28 UTC (Mon) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] (14 responses)

Providing proper support for Emacs keybindings would be a good idea; thanks to readline and Emacs, a *lot* of people are used to them. It's only 'not sane' if you consider the entire set of Emacs, XEmacs, uEmacs et al users to be irrelevant. (I know I regularly vape documents in Windows thanks to its evaporatingly stupid binding for ctrl-A...)

Customizable keybindings are *not* a really high-tech mega-techies-only feature, yet they can't even get that right.

Emacs Key Bindings

Posted Jun 12, 2006 18:28 UTC (Mon) by GreyWizard (guest, #1026) [Link] (13 responses)

GNOME does provide proper support for Emacs key bindings. I know because I use them. What Arker and wilck want is support for what they call "unix" key bindings (no actual Unix related standard enumerates these but they originated in early X Window System toolkits). I'm sure they'll be happy to articulate the arcane details along with a rant about a vague and obnoxiously worded bug report that was rejected by the GNOME developers.

More to the point though, you drastically overestimate the number of users who care about this. Noisy is not the same as numerous.

Emacs Key Bindings

Posted Jun 12, 2006 20:47 UTC (Mon) by Arker (guest, #14205) [Link] (11 responses)

Oh how horribly unreasonable to expect ones Unix system to behave like a Unix system.

I suppose the many Mac users that asked for a native port (NeoOffice) instead of struggling with an X based OpenOffice that didn't behave anything like a Mac program should be derided as whiners too?

Moan Moan Moan

Posted Jun 12, 2006 20:52 UTC (Mon) by GreyWizard (guest, #1026) [Link] (10 responses)

Again you pretend those key bindings are somehow part of Unix. Show me the Unix standard which supports this claim or pipe down.

Moan Moan Moan

Posted Jun 12, 2006 22:36 UTC (Mon) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] (9 responses)

Your reasoning is fallacious.

No Unix standard documents the existence of mount(8) or fsck(8) (look in POSIX, they're not there, nor have they ever been). Yet they are unquestionably standard, present in all but the most baroque Unixes. Nor are /etc/passwd nor even the root user documented there. Again, they are ubiquitous.

There are a *lot* of de-facto standards in Unix systems. POSIX has better coverage than ever these days, yet it is not remotely complete.

Moan Moan Moan

Posted Jun 13, 2006 13:56 UTC (Tue) by Arker (guest, #14205) [Link] (5 responses)

Of course you're right. Just because our standards generally evolved rather than being dictated from on high hardly means they don't exist. But the GNOME core appears to have decided not only that 'unix sucks' but that the best path for them is to pretend that Unix standards don't exist, so they can dictate a new set of standards they like better, from on high.

I think the case of NeoOffice is analogous (and I use Mac as well as Linux) but really, it's minor compared to what's happened with GNOME. OpenOffice was a *nix/X11 application from day one. Someone noticed that OS 10 can support X11 and X11 apps with very little work required, so boom, OpenOffice runs on OS 10. Very suboptimally, since it's avoiding the native display and UI system entirely, but hey, that's better than nothing, right?

Then a lot of Mac users got together and let it be known that they'd *really* love to have a version of this that actually looks and acts like it belongs on their system. And I don't remember anyone calling them names or putting them down for it.

GNOME, on the other hand, is a *nix/X11 project from day one. It doesn't, in fact, run on any other kind of system. It's not like their primary focus is somewhere else, and they just don't want to be bothered putting in a lot of extra effort to support X. That's ALL they support. Nonetheless, after awhile, they suddenly decide that 'unix sucks' and they're going to deliberately make their system at least as alien to the ONLY system they run under, as the Mac/X11 version of OpenOffice was to the Mac, without any of the excuses that existed for that. Furthermore, rather than make excuses, they determined to brazen it out, telling all of us *nix users that we didn't exist or that we're 'insane' if we aren't overjoyed and grateful for them making a steaming pile of crap out of the software we were relying on and calling it an improvement.

The arrogance is unbelievably offensive.

Moan Moan Moan Moan

Posted Jun 13, 2006 17:19 UTC (Tue) by GreyWizard (guest, #1026) [Link] (4 responses)

Are you claiming to be part of some Unix priesthood that decides which defacto standards are important and which aren't? Or do you mean that every habit anyone has ever developed on Unix is standard and should be implemented in all related applications? There are no standard Unix key bindings. The X Window System was designed to be platform independent from the start. And even X doesn't specifiy what various keys should do in text fields. Get over it.

By the way, your analogy with NeoOffice and GNOME key bindings doesn't work. In the former case, people put forth actual effort to achieve what they wanted. That's the key to the mystery of why no one puts them down for that. I don't see you or your fellow travelers doing anything constructive about your problem -- whining about the choices of developers you don't actually pay doesn't count as constructive, sorry.

The only arrogance here is yours.

Moan Moan Moan Moan

Posted Jun 13, 2006 19:34 UTC (Tue) by Arker (guest, #14205) [Link] (3 responses)

So if we take you seriously for a moment, and say these standards never existed, just how is it that GNOME managed to support something that never existed, and support it fairly well, for so long? Eh?

Anyone that's worked on a *nix workstation has become accustomed to the common keybindings we're talking about. They're the same keybindings I learned in '93 on an HP box, the same ones that I've been using on Linux and SCO unix machines since about '94. They weren't set down on high, they evolved on their own, over years of experience, which has advantages and disadvantages. GNOME started out codifying and rationalising them, which was needed, and they were doing a good job of it. Then one day they decided to go a totally different route instead. Well ok, that's their prerogative. But *lying* about it and insulting their users is above and beyond.

And, btw, just because I can't code doesn't mean I made no contributions. Another arrogant, insulting assumption, but par for the course out of you, it seems.

Moan Moan Moan Moan Moan

Posted Jun 14, 2006 9:25 UTC (Wed) by GreyWizard (guest, #1026) [Link] (2 responses)

Try reading what you respond to. I never claimed your precious key bindings don't exist but that they are not a standard part of Unix in any meaningful sense. That some early desktop environments supported them is that's no reason to consider them sacred since the set of features Unix workstations once offered includes a monumental pile of useless bloat.

By the way, cut the "set down on high" crap. Documenting a technology works even when it's not the product of divine intervention. Most of what the Single Unix Specification covers has evolved over time, for example.

I don't assume you've made no contributions because you can't code. I didn't know you can't code (though it's not surprising since you seem to have difficulty comprehending ordinary text). I assume that because you haven't mentioned anything you've contributed to GNOME. Feel free to disabuse me of that notion if you can but otherwise it looks like my arrogant, insulting assumption is also true.

Finally, your claim that GNOME developers lied is unsubstantiated and probably false. More likely you're casting a simple misunderstanding on their side in a sinister light. This is precisely why GNOME doesn't support your precious key bindings: rather than politely and patiently explaining how they work and why the Emacs key bindings are not a substitute you assume bad faith and attempt to defame the developers for changes other users appreciate. Everyone who disagrees with you is unbelievably arrogant and the irony there is lost on you. In their place I wouldn't bother helping you either.

Moan Moan Moan Moan Moan

Posted Jun 14, 2006 13:03 UTC (Wed) by Arker (guest, #14205) [Link] (1 responses)

If you're really as ignorant as you're portraying yourself as being here, taking a few hours to read through the various GNOME lists of the time period should enlighten you. This issue (and many other related ones) were subjects of debate and discussion for an extended period of time. The vast majority of it completely civil. And there was a strong conservative consensus on a lot of it, among developers and users.

The decision to completely break with all that had been built before and impose a fisher-price imitation UI from on high instead wasn't made in such a public manner. It doesn't appear to have taken notice of those discussions at all, or to have placed any value at all on the consensus that had developed. It appears to have been made by a handful of people in a closed room. It was presented to the GNOME community - users and developers - as a fait accompli. And users that, at first very calmly and politely, questioned the wisdom of it were simply insulted, called crazy, and told to shut up. Something like you've been doing to me here.

Open your eyes. This isn't about mythical 'KDE trolling.' The KDE users are happily using KDE and don't care. The people that taste bile whenever GNOME is mentioned are the people that loved and supported GNOME until one day GNOME decided to sell out and tell them to go to hell.

Moan Moan Moan Moan Moan Moan

Posted Jun 14, 2006 16:42 UTC (Wed) by GreyWizard (guest, #1026) [Link]

KDE trolling? When have I accused you of that? You are confusing this with another thread.

Anyone inclined to call other people ignorant because they don't follow every discussion about key bindings on GNOME mailing lists has no business accusing anyone of arrogance. Since you can't be bothered to post a link I can't be bothered to hunt down what you're talking about, but I'll take your word for it that such things were discussed. So what? This sort of thing happens all the time in most projects. A group informally agrees to do something, then someone comes along and says "nevermind all that, this thing over here is more important" and off everybody goes. When everybody includes most or all of the people actually contributing, that's a change in direction and not a lie. I suspect the insults you mention are directed at the hysterical response from your side, rather than your desire for the original feature. That's certainly the case here.

Contrary to your assertion, I have never called you crazy for wanting your key bindings. I'm not impressed that you elevate them to some kind of holy Unix standard, but I can respect the fact that the GNOME community has moved in a direction you don't like and you would be justified in seeking an alternative desktop environment for that reason. That doesn't mean the whole project is garbage because it doesn't serve your needs. GNOME has a large user community for whom it works well and if you can't restrain the urge to insult such people then get used to being insulted yourself.

Your reasoning is worse.

Posted Jun 13, 2006 16:36 UTC (Tue) by GreyWizard (guest, #1026) [Link] (2 responses)

Are you seriously claiming anything most Unix derived systems ship is part of Unix? That might please SCO but it won't pass for reasoning. Utilities like mount and fsck were designed to be part of Unix back when Unix was a product shipped by AT&T, so you would be justified in claiming they are part of Unix. These days there is no such reference platform, so if Unix means anything it means what the various standards specify. That's still true if the standards aren't complete.

When the standards are complete they certainly will not include any key bindings for text fields because the X Window System itself is most definitely not part of Unix. While most Unix derived systems use it, X was designed from the start to be a platform independent display system and runs on things like OpenVMS and WindowsXP too.

I don't object if you prefer key bindings GNOME doesn't support and I have no problem if for that reason you choose another desktop environment, such as KDE or even fvwm. But let's not pretend your preferences are part of some sacred Unix Way, okay?

Your reasoning is worse.

Posted Jun 14, 2006 21:08 UTC (Wed) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] (1 responses)

I'm afraid I don't understand *what* you're talking about anymore: it appears to bear little relation to the text it follows.

Of course the GNOME devs aren't *required* to support the same keybindings that the Unix terminal library has supported since V6, or the Emacs/readline keybindings, or any others. But failing to support *any* of them, when they were supported reasonably well in earlier releases, and insulting those who ask for them... well. Is it any wonder I avoid GNOME nowadays?

(As for your `if it's not standardized nobody should pay it any attention' nonsense, or the `there is no reference platform therefore no existing systems' behaviour should be noted' nonsense, I'll give it the consideration it deserves, i.e., none.)

Good Grief

Posted Jun 14, 2006 21:33 UTC (Wed) by GreyWizard (guest, #1026) [Link]

Standards came up in the context of wanting "a Unix system to behave like a Unix system." I was arguing against a specific justification for demanding specific key bindings, not claiming that no one should implement anything that isn't a standard. Take the trouble to understand what you're replying to or don't bother.

(As for your cheer leading for unsubstantiated allegations against people who aren't present and lame chest thumping about avoiding GNOME, I'll give these the consideration they deserve, i.e., none.)

Emacs Key Bindings

Posted Jun 14, 2006 12:05 UTC (Wed) by dannyyee (guest, #10147) [Link]

I've been using Unix/Linux since 1988 and I've never heard of these "Unix key bindings". Mind you, I'm still using 9wm (a minimalist 1991 vintage window manager) on my main desktops...

Questions for deployments of GNOME

Posted Jun 12, 2006 14:55 UTC (Mon) by wilck (guest, #29844) [Link]

> You can with GNOME too.

Would you care to explain how, or point a resource that explains it? Please, no gconf hand-editing.