LWN: Comments on "Day: Status Icons and GNOME"

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

immibis — Mon, 18 Dec 2017 22:43:31 +0000

I believe this has been an Android requirement for quite some time. Even back in 2.2 Froyo, your app was likely to be randomly terminated unless you created a special notification icon that says it's running in the background.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

flussence — Fri, 15 Sep 2017 05:24:14 +0000

>The way GNOME 3 does it is definitely superior.
E17 got this (and so many other things) right, the right way: each screen has independent workspace layouts and switching.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

efitton — Fri, 08 Sep 2017 20:09:40 +0000

I didn't even speculate on why GNOME is a default option on many distributions. If I did, it would probably be along the lines of poor choices by KDE, the prior popularity of GNOME 2 (inertia being a powerful force), and some peoples beliefs that version 3 must be better than version 2 because 3 > 2. I'd also speculate that the popularity of MINT is mostly because of Cinnamon and that GNOME Shell still seems less than universally loved.

What I meant to say:
1) At least some core GNOME members see GNOME as a place for experimental design. At least some core GNOME members see GNOME as culturally disruptive. This seems pretty well documented, although perhaps not the view of all core GNOME members.
2) At least some core GNOME members desire to see GNOME as a default or the default Desktop Environment. This also seems well documented.
3) My personal opinion (which might be a small minority opinion for all I know) is that trying for both an experimental desktop and being _the_ mainstream desktop is at best inconsiderate to users.

Obviously different people may have different opinions than me as to why GNOME is frequently a default and different people may have different opinions on the appropriateness of having an experimental and mainstream desktop.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

ovitters — Fri, 08 Sep 2017 11:55:31 +0000

Distributions put GNOME as the default because of various reasons. Pretty much what we're doing resulted in GNOME being the default on various distributions. That quite conflicts with your notion.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

madscientist — Fri, 08 Sep 2017 02:36:00 +0000

> no its not. its simply wrong. the correct way would be to have all display be part of the workspace and if you wanted to lock some application to be always visible on one display you would simply have an option in the window menu to set it to always display.

No. That's clearly the wrong way to do it. The way GNOME 3 does it is definitely superior.

One of the reasons people don't use multiple workspaces is that it's annoying to have to switch around between workspaces to find things, for cut and paste etc. Having a screen locked means that if you want things to stay always visible you just move things to that screen. This is trivially easy to use and easy to understand for even the least experienced desktop user. You don't even need documentation: it's obvious how it works immediately.

GNOME _does_ have an option in the window menu to set the window to always display, but asking people to figure out how to do it then making them do it every time they open the window is too complicated and annoying. If you learn enough to figure out how to pin a window to the screen, then you're certainly capable of figuring out how to disable the locked screen feature if you don't want it.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

efitton — Fri, 08 Sep 2017 01:43:26 +0000

If they want an experimental and disruptive desktop; more power to them. However, it then seems inappropriate to try and become the default desktop and market yourself for mainstream use. If you want to be the default, mainstream desktop then I absolutely agree with don't be disruptive.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

efitton — Fri, 08 Sep 2017 01:40:37 +0000

I wonder where we would be if we had had twenty four years of incremental improvement to CDE. Especially with the ability to take ideas that had proven successful from experimental/other desktops. I'm guessing we would be much further along than the constant rewrites and re-imaginings of desktops that market themselves as for the mainstream while simultaneously claiming to be experimental and disruptive.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

flussence — Thu, 07 Sep 2017 16:58:22 +0000

>Since when has it been okay to tell people what to do, unless you're paying them to do what you want?

Let's rephrase that in gnomespeak[1], then:

“It's time to decide whether GNOME wants to be a useful desktop, a Linux desktop, or a GNOME desktop.”

[1]: https://trac.transmissionbt.com/ticket/3685

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

flussence — Thu, 07 Sep 2017 16:40:33 +0000

>It *does not* work for millions of people
Millions of people chose GNOME 3 because a standard feature of other platforms, that many apps expect to be there, is badly implemented and now due to be removed entirely? Somehow I doubt that.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

mathstuf — Thu, 07 Sep 2017 12:48:01 +0000

I've used this setup since early 2010 from an eeePC to the triple monitor workstation. But, the keybindings are also very custom, so using anything else usually forces me to a mouse for more than basic things anyways.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

karkhaz — Thu, 07 Sep 2017 09:59:52 +0000

Or in i3 :) I do also have a tiny laptop (which looks hilarious next to my 6-monitor workstation) and use it mostly the way jem describes: one window per workspace, each one taking up the whole screen. But I do have uses for multiple small windows on one workspace, even with a tiny screen.

It's convenient for me because I can use almost all the same keybindings as on my workstation, although I do see that this is a less compelling argument for folks who only use a laptop---which seems to be more and more people nowadays.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

jubal — Thu, 07 Sep 2017 09:48:41 +0000

Why choose one or another when you can have both in gnome-shell? :-)

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

zdzichu — Thu, 07 Sep 2017 07:11:31 +0000

krb5-auth-dialog looks like stock GNOME 3 functionality. After you've configured your kerberos logins in GNOME Online Accounts, you will get notifications about expiring tickets with “Get ticket” option right in the notification bubble. There was some option to auto-renew tickets, IIRC.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

jem — Thu, 07 Sep 2017 07:05:07 +0000

> Yeah, I keep wondering if/when tiling WMs are going to become more mainstream. Most of them solve _all_ the problems that _everyone_ in this thread is complaining about.

Tiling window managers are not for everyone. If you value portability in a laptop, then you'll have to compromise on screen size. With a small screen you end up switching between full screen windows.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

karkhaz — Thu, 07 Sep 2017 06:44:38 +0000

Yeah, I keep wondering if/when tiling WMs are going to become more mainstream. Most of them solve _all_ the problems that _everyone_ in this thread is complaining about. But I suppose that folks in this thread already know/can find out how to fix these problems in GNOME, but are nevertheless complaining on behalf of less-competent users who would never change the defaults, so tiling window managers might not be so useful there either.

I have six monitors at work, and am using two of them for "per-project" workspaces that are chained together (i.e. when I press <Super-1>, one monitor jumps to workspace 1 and another jumps to workspace 11; <Super-2> changes to workspaces 2 and 12; etc). The other monitors either have a single workspace assigned to them, or (for my web browser monitor) I create and destroy workspaces dynamically. The workspaces on my browser monitor don't have a keyboard shortcut, since there are typically dozens of browser windows open that monitor (each on their own workspace), so I have a program that finds the titles of all of my browser windows, displays them in a dmenu, and whisks me to the workspace holding that browser window. Pure productivity bliss, not counting the millions of hours getting my setup to be this awesome. (Using the i3 window manager, but I'm sure any other tiling WM would work).

But the reason this works so well is that i3 has barely changed its default behaviour since the project started almost a decade ago. The project is mostly adding new features (like workspace saving and configuration options) and fixing bugs.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

TRS-80 — Thu, 07 Sep 2017 06:30:52 +0000

Ah, I missed that you were the person who switched to a Mac laptop. I did find krb5-auth-dialog although it's a bit underdocumented. On the Mac side, we deployed KerbMinder but that's no longer developed, NoMAD is what's recommended now.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Cyberax — Thu, 07 Sep 2017 04:24:37 +0000

A slightly modified version of https://github.com/viveksjain/heracles . I swear I saw a Linux port of it, but I can't find it now.

Before that I was using official http://web.mit.edu/macdev/KfM/KerberosClients/KerberosApp...

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

TRS-80 — Thu, 07 Sep 2017 04:19:05 +0000

Android is actually moving towards requiring notifications if you want to run as a background task: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/09/android-8-0-oreo-...

This is more about power saving though, so the user knows what is running and can stop it to save power. The section on notifications is also worth reading https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/09/android-8-0-oreo-...

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

TRS-80 — Thu, 07 Sep 2017 04:11:53 +0000

Ooh, what kerberos authenticator app is that?

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

sfeam — Thu, 07 Sep 2017 03:11:57 +0000

Opinions clearly differ on this point. Strongly. My vote obviously counts for nothing, but I prefer a status panel to notifications. I generally turn off all desktop notifications because they are more annoying than useful.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

bandrami — Thu, 07 Sep 2017 03:09:42 +0000

Yeah, I have read that. I try to place myself in a headspace where a huge balloon popping up is less distracting than a status icon blinking or changing colors, and I can't get there. But I stopped banging my head against this wall years ago, and haven't used Gnome since about 3.8. I wish them the best, but I have literally zero desire for a computer (on which I produce things) to have a similar interface to a phone (on which I consume things).

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

bandrami — Thu, 07 Sep 2017 03:07:14 +0000

> That made me snicker. Thanks.

I definitely enjoyed it, too.

That said: a decade ago, choosing "desktop system" in the Debian installer got you Gnome. Now it gets you a choice of Gnome, the old version of Gnome by another name, the new version of Gnome hacked up to look more like the old version of Gnome, or a desktop that is basically the old version of Gnome but with a much greater willingness to use external components.

Ubuntu coming back into the fold will be a big plus for Gnome, but I still am amazed at how much installbase the team has been willing to give up here.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

ocrete — Thu, 07 Sep 2017 02:08:29 +0000

> Does Gnome want to provide a way for application A to convey information that I can glance at at any time without leaving the context of application B, or am I right that Gnome is opposed to that on design principles?

One of the goals of the GNOME 3 design is to allow for distraction free work, and to force all notifications through the notification panel (and the notification API), so they can be controlled by the user (who can for example decide to ignore them all. So a status panel is just a bad idea.

The idea is basically to do the same thing that iOS/Android do. They don't have icons for all apps tha can work in the background, you only get a notification if something worthy happens.

Workspaces

corbet — Wed, 06 Sep 2017 21:07:48 +0000

The nice thing is that, if you want that behavior in GNOME, it's a simple configuration tweak away. I agree that having only one display participate in workspaces is weird, but I am happy to flip a switch and get something more usable for me. Everybody should of course set their defaults in a way that pleases me, but I've long since given up on convincing the world of that.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

mathstuf — Wed, 06 Sep 2017 20:51:49 +0000

While I appreciate the tag-based approach, it doesn't work for everyone. I use a fixed set of 9 workspaces (in XMonad) and have various amounts of monitors on my machines (1 for laptops, 2 at home, 3 at work). Generally, I have tmux on 1, browsers go from 9 on down, 5 is fixed, and temporary things grow from 2 on up. I then display 1, 9, and 5 on the three monitors up to the number of monitors. But this is why I use XMonad rather than any other window manager: I can make it do whatever I need it to do through a bit of code.

By the way, this works because my per-project workspaces tend to be realized through tmux sessions rather than X (or Wayland).

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

mathstuf — Wed, 06 Sep 2017 20:48:05 +0000

No, that's wrong too ;) . It's better to have N workspaces, each monitor displaying one of them. I never really liked the "all monitors change workspaces together" and I don't think I'd like the workspaces/fixed duality either.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

jubal — Wed, 06 Sep 2017 19:43:58 +0000

Not really. If you need this feature, there's a documented way to have it. If you don't, then you don't.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

jubal — Wed, 06 Sep 2017 19:36:38 +0000

Did I already mention the Bartender app? I think I did. That's how you solve the status icon problem on Mac.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

bronson — Wed, 06 Sep 2017 18:43:15 +0000

Agreed, the GNOME project does appear to be optimized for developer happiness. They certainly do ensure there are always fresh ideas to work on!

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

raven667 — Wed, 06 Sep 2017 18:00:41 +0000

> you don't need a status icon to know if it's running or not.

I think its more user-friendly if there is some obvious user-visible place that shows these background processes. Take a look at the new design standards for Android 8 Oreo and how they require a user-visible notification line if you are going to run in the background, so the user can make informed decisions and is aware of the state of their system.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Cyberax — Wed, 06 Sep 2017 17:34:00 +0000

> And that's why virtual desktops were commonplace on X Windowing systems at least twenty years ago.
And that's why Windows added ability to hide tray icons. Duh.

> That, by definition, is "scaling" compared to the overwhelming majority of desktops out there. (Note tha Linux is only a tiny fraction of those)
Windows supports tray management SINCE FREAKING WINDOWS 2000!!

Every, literally, every other desktop has some kind of tray/menubar indicators: Mac OS X, Android, Windows, iOS (though it's restricted there). Yet GNOME in its great wisdom decided that users don't need them. Facepalm.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

ken — Wed, 06 Sep 2017 15:46:05 +0000

> On the contrary, that's one of the best features

no its not. its simply wrong. the correct way would be to have all display be part of the workspace and if you wanted to lock some application to be always visible on one display you would simply have an option in the window menu to set it to always display.

then you can have your way of working and everyone else has a sane default and most importantly no need to go in and change some global state for anybody.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

madscientist — Wed, 06 Sep 2017 13:33:30 +0000

> and the decision to then only have worspaces on the primary display ??? unbelievable! I thought it was a bug until someone pointed out its was done on purpose.

On the contrary, that's one of the best features . I put a browser on the secondary (fixed) display and use the primary display workspaces for different types of work. These days you _always_ need a browser available and it's an incredible productivity-killer to have to jump back and forth between workspaces to use it. I can't work well without it anymore.

And of course, if you really don't want it you can disable it as has been pointed out: same with dynamic workspaces (I personally DO disable that and set a static number of workspaces).

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

bandrami — Wed, 06 Sep 2017 13:04:17 +0000

Bluntly, I believe Canonical when it ships and not before, at this point.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

bandrami — Wed, 06 Sep 2017 12:58:07 +0000

Sure, but what Gnome seems fiercely opposed to is allowing developers to supply arbitrary permanent, glance-able status icons; above you can see the repeated charge that too many applications do that if they are allowed to.

Does Gnome want to provide a way for application A to convey information that I can glance at at any time without leaving the context of application B, or am I right that Gnome is opposed to that on design principles?

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

jani — Wed, 06 Sep 2017 12:51:40 +0000

"As an X it's not your job to be Y. It's your job to be Z."

Since when has it been okay to tell people what to do, unless you're paying them to do what you want?

The GNOME folks seem to have strong opinions about where they want to take the project, and aren't afraid to make it happen, even if the changes are disruptive. The world is full of projects like that, open source or not. Arguably you need people and projects with strong vision to improve the way we work. Indeed some of the more interesting and disruptive projects are lead by rather opinionated people. (Intentionally not naming any.) Some of the disruptive changes are going to make some users unhappy.

But the people doing the work are free to do so.

You are free to move on to something else. You are free to start or fork or contribute to a desktop environment project with a kernel-like no regressions policy.

Of course, there's also the option of complaining about the state of GNOME 3 on LWN, but isn't that subject growing a tad stale? GNOME 3 is something like six years old now, and there are no signs of it becoming irrelevant despite what you might think based on the comments on this article.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

pizza — Wed, 06 Sep 2017 12:37:20 +0000

> the dynamic approach is not some sort of universal improvement. I have no idea what problem this solves and it makes using it a pain as you no longer can place windows in the workspace you want as that one may not exist yet.

The dynamic approach maps to the way I've always worked -- one desktop per active project. I'm immeasurably more productive with it as it maps to my mental model better than static workspaces. This isn't just my wearing rose-colored glasses either; I'm forced to use a G2-based system at $dayjob, and it's like night and day vs my G3-based personal laptop.

So while I'm not going to claim that the G3 approach is necessarily better for everyone -- yet, for many folks, the G3 approach is vastly superior. (And for those who don't like it, it can be disabled in favor of a static set)

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

pabs — Wed, 06 Sep 2017 12:15:32 +0000

I always thought awesome's tag-based approach to virtual workspaces was pretty cool, clearly that isn't something that is going to be useful for non-technical people though. GNOME's implementation seems much more useful for them.

There is an extension for solving the primary display issue.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

ken — Wed, 06 Sep 2017 11:55:11 +0000

> And that's why virtual desktops were commonplace on X Windowing systems at least twenty years ago.
> Gnome3 actually improves this paradigm with a dynamic stack-based approach.

the dynamic approach is not some sort of universal improvement. I have no idea what problem this solves and it makes using it a pain as you no longer can place windows in the workspace you want as that one may not exist yet.

and the decision to then only have worspaces on the primary display ??? unbelievable! I thought it was a bug until someone pointed out its was done on purpose.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

pizza — Wed, 06 Sep 2017 09:57:11 +0000

> 1. What is the Gnome team's theory for how to serve the need for "current status" display and interactions:
> a way to display permanent heads-up information like "your wireless is still connected" or "your battery is charging" or "while you were out of the room you received at least one chat message"

The first two are easy easy -- wireless connected, battery charging, etc have permanent icons in the upper right corner. They've been there (in one form or another) since the beginning of G3.

I can't comment on the third, though the TFA did mention the recommended mechanism for IM-type notifications.