GNOME 3.26 released

Posted Sep 14, 2017 13:27 UTC (Thu) by iive (guest, #59638)
Parent article: GNOME 3.26 released

Not even mentioning the Status Bar removal?

It did cause a huge controversy and discussion here in LWN.
It's very strange to not even mention such program breaking "feature".

GNOME 3.26 released

Posted Sep 14, 2017 14:49 UTC (Thu) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link] (11 responses)

> GNOME 3.26 no longer shows status icons in the bottom-left of the screen. This prevents the status icon tray from getting in the way and is expected to provide a better overall experience. The lack of status icons is not expected to cause serious issues for users. However, if you do find that you need to access them, they can be restored using the TopIcons extension. More information about this change can be found in a blog post on the subject.

From the release notes page.

GNOME 3.26 released

Posted Sep 14, 2017 16:22 UTC (Thu) by yodermk (subscriber, #3803) [Link] (2 responses)

Yay! The only thing those icons have ever done is annoy me....

GNOME 3.26 released

Posted Sep 14, 2017 22:35 UTC (Thu) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link] (1 responses)

I have to agree, I won't miss them. I only had two packages that used them and I never saw the utility.

GNOME 3.26 released

Posted Sep 20, 2017 21:35 UTC (Wed) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

I find them damn useful for realtime reports of things that vary outside user control like expected remaining battery lifetime, wifi strength, etc. You can't put that sort of thing in a notification pane! i.e. the status bar is useful for status reports. Who'd have thought?

(I'd find it useful to put things like CPU usage in there, only I have procmeter for that.)

GNOME 3.26 released

Posted Sep 15, 2017 10:15 UTC (Fri) by iive (guest, #59638) [Link] (4 responses)

Status bar removal is not mentioned in the announcement that is copied verbatim by this article.

It is a lot more important change than max/min animation or color emoji, so for a moment I thought they might have changed their mind. They did not.

They do mention it in the full release notes page, but even there it is literally at the end and it is formatted without a bullet point like the other "smaller improvements".

Well, I guess everybody who uses status bar already has TopIcons.

GNOME 3.26 released

Posted Sep 15, 2017 23:59 UTC (Fri) by jbicha (subscriber, #75043) [Link] (3 responses)

> It is a lot more important change than max/min animation or color emoji

I minimize and maximize windows and use emoji but I never use status icons, so I think that is subjective.

It's a press release so it makes sense to talk about some of the (several) new features available and not spend the limited space mentioning the one thing that was removed from the default install but has easy workarounds.

GNOME 3.26 released

Posted Sep 16, 2017 14:49 UTC (Sat) by iive (guest, #59638) [Link] (2 responses)

Having potentially application-breaking changes announced in the Changelog is much more important than the new cosmetics.

This is the most important function of the Change log - to warn users in advance, so they can prepare and find the most suitable alternatives, before things break. Otherwise user could easily get into "keys inside the locked car" situation.

For example, TopIcons need to be updated first, because the Status Bar removal triggers a bug in it.

Now, to you all that are telling me that you are not using status bar icons - Well, good for you.
But don't think that since it is not a problem concerning you, it is not a real problem.

GNOME 3.26 released

Posted Sep 16, 2017 15:11 UTC (Sat) by jbicha (subscriber, #75043) [Link] (1 responses)

This email is not a changelog!

See the Release Notes which mentions the removal of the status icons almost at the bottom of the page. It mentions the workaround and points to a longer article on the topic.

GNOME 3.26 released

Posted Sep 18, 2017 0:21 UTC (Mon) by iive (guest, #59638) [Link]

This email contains a short list of changes. It is used as change log, in the sense that it informs the readers of the most important changes from the new release. This is why this article uses it verbatim. This is why I've been calling it both "change log" and "the announcement". This is why I am complaining that it does not include an important and potentially application breaking change, that some users might want to know in advance.

Something more, I might not go to the "release notes" page, if the most important things they've done are some cosmetics. And even if I do, I might not go all the way to the end and read every little foot note. I mean, you would not expect an application breaking change to be placed under "smaller improvements", would you? It doesn't even have a bullet point, like the other changes there, I guess because it is neither small, nor an improvement.

GNOME 3.26 released

Posted Sep 18, 2017 8:57 UTC (Mon) by lamikr (guest, #2289) [Link] (2 responses)

Btw, are these extensions expected to be packaged to distros or do users need to install them over some gnome extension web page?

GNOME 3.26 released

Posted Sep 18, 2017 12:41 UTC (Mon) by pabs (subscriber, #43278) [Link]

Debian has 28 packages matching gnome-shell-ext:

https://packages.debian.org/search?suite=sid&keywords...

GNOME 3.26 released

Posted Sep 18, 2017 14:46 UTC (Mon) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link]

GNOME Software can install it.