GNOME 2.22 released

Posted Mar 13, 2008 19:53 UTC (Thu) by tomd (guest, #881)
In reply to: GNOME 2.22 released by dulles
Parent article: GNOME 2.22 released

*Sigh* Apologies for feeding the troll...

> The changelog doesn't change the bugs Gnome is famous for.

So famous that they defy enumeration, apparently.

> I quit using Gnome years ago after Nautilus wiped out my research files.

You had non-backed-up research?

> Evolution is unusable in the real world and is full of bugs.

You mean "was", right? Since you quit years ago. Why bother posting a comment trashing a piece
of software *that you don't even use*?

GNOME 2.22 released

Posted Mar 13, 2008 21:13 UTC (Thu) by alecs1 (guest, #46699) [Link] (5 responses)

I think there are still some points about Gnome (I might be mixing Gnome with Gtk generaly
though):
The first, and the most important is the lack of development. Examples:
-the file chooser continues not to show convenient previews. As I can see now with GIMP 2.4.5
(fairly new version, I think) it does show the current file.
-nice and easy access to more settings continues to be missing
-the inactive button hover problem (here for example:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gtk+2.0/+bug/12246) , I think it more than 5 years
old, before I even heard about Linux.

This guy actually aknowledges that nobody wrote the code for some bugs:
http://prokoudine.info/blog/?p=60

When I complained about the lack of delete/rename functionality inside the same file chooser,
I got a polite reply actually stating that the lack of functionality was intended:
http://www.mail-archive.com/gnome-list@gnome.org/msg02173...
I gathered that instead of someone writing the code and offer a button to enable/disable the
feature (I guess they are not 10000 lines for that) people preffered to have a new politics
talk.

GNOME 2.22 released

Posted Mar 14, 2008 7:22 UTC (Fri) by Los__D (guest, #15263) [Link] (4 responses)

Although some of your points are valid (Preview and hover), the others are definitely
intended, added clutter and complexity to GNOME is NOT wanted for useless features.

GNOME 2.22 released

Posted Mar 14, 2008 7:50 UTC (Fri) by alecs1 (guest, #46699) [Link] (3 responses)

If people ask for those features then they are not useless. 
I can write C and even wrote a few hundred lines of C programs using GTK+ (though I had not
pleasure in that :( ). So if I would come up with a 500 lines patch adding that rename
feature, just to prove that this is not like writing a new Gnome or adding imense complexity,
probably some people would give up this smartass attitude "Gnome is not useless features and
clutter, it is user friendly". 
How much would add this feature? 2 KB of code and less than 1 KB executable size?

How about providing access to more settings? An extremely dirty example: drag and drop some
widgets, write some labels and some tooltip text, making some connections to the pool of
settings.

GNOME 2.22 released

Posted Mar 14, 2008 9:29 UTC (Fri) by Los__D (guest, #15263) [Link] (2 responses)

It has nothing to do with code size, or code complexity, it's an UI issue.

Take KDE's control panel (At least 3.5, haven't seen 4, but I've heard they're starting to
adopt some of GNOME's ideas for that), it's a complete mess.

Now, I agree that sometimes GNOME is erring too much on the side of simplicity, but I like
that a LOT more than on the side of complexity where it's not needed.

GNOME 2.22 released

Posted Mar 14, 2008 20:41 UTC (Fri) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] (1 responses)

Of course, a lot of us stopped using GNOME at the GNOME 2 transition 
because all that nice simplicity made it impossible for us to work the way 
we were used to: the configurability we were relying on had vanished, and 
we had to work the way the GNOME devs wanted us to.

Given how rarely the control panel gets used (personally I get my settings 
just right and then change them very occasionally), a bit of clutter in 
there, in exchange for extra configurability, is more than worth it.

GNOME 2.22 released

Posted Mar 15, 2008 5:27 UTC (Sat) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link]

> Of course, a lot of us stopped using GNOME at the GNOME 2 transition because all that nice
simplicity made it impossible for us to work the way  we were used to: the configurability we
were relying on had vanished, and we had to work the way the GNOME devs wanted us to.

And to a lot of us Gnome before 2.4 or so (including 1.x stuff) was a unstable and/or
confusing mess that was nearly unusable.

:)

GNOME 2.22 released

Posted Mar 13, 2008 23:26 UTC (Thu) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

Why bother posting a comment trashing a piece of software *that you don't even use*?

Don't be silly, this is the Internet and the age of Web 2.0. People can't be expected to *think* before typing!