LWN: Comments on "GNOME 3.26 released"

Still no fix for showing location of mouse pointer in Wayland?

yodermk — Thu, 21 Sep 2017 12:27:12 +0000

Indeed that is correct, and I'm thankful that's the case.

Working on the code assumes I have time and knowledge about it. I might be open to it, but I'm not familiar with Gnome architecture and it looks like this involves a deep rewrite of a core component. I don't think I'm up to that.

Hiring someone else assumes I have several thousand dollars to throw at it. Sure, I've gained enough from free software that I perhaps should consider making that sort of an investment at least once in my life. Not an everyday occurrence though!

Still no fix for showing location of mouse pointer in Wayland?

yodermk — Thu, 21 Sep 2017 12:24:50 +0000

I hope so. Thank you!

GNOME 3.26 released

nix — Wed, 20 Sep 2017 21:35:27 +0000

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

rahulsundaram — Mon, 18 Sep 2017 14:46:33 +0000

GNOME Software can install it.

GNOME 3.26 released

pabs — Mon, 18 Sep 2017 12:41:55 +0000

Debian has 28 packages matching gnome-shell-ext:

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

GNOME 3.26 released

lamikr — Mon, 18 Sep 2017 08:57:41 +0000

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

Still no fix for showing location of mouse pointer in Wayland?

lamikr — Mon, 18 Sep 2017 08:55:42 +0000

So what did you need to do to get the tabs back to gnome-terminal?

GNOME 3.26 released

iive — Mon, 18 Sep 2017 00:21:54 +0000

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.

Still no fix for showing location of mouse pointer in Wayland?

jmclnx — Sat, 16 Sep 2017 17:53:10 +0000

You have a stronger psyche then me, that would drive me crazy :) There are 2 extensions I require and without them I would find GNOME3 extremely painful.

In anycase, I will not miss these statuses as I never use them. I am not even sure what they are, but if these are the Icons used for Notifications (via notify-send) I hope the new version is similar to what KDE4 does.

GNOME 3.26 released

jbicha — Sat, 16 Sep 2017 15:11:17 +0000

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

iive — Sat, 16 Sep 2017 14:49:28 +0000

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

jbicha — Fri, 15 Sep 2017 23:59:00 +0000

> 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.

Still no fix for showing location of mouse pointer in Wayland?

jubal — Fri, 15 Sep 2017 17:21:05 +0000

Go for tilix.

Still no fix for showing location of mouse pointer in Wayland?

xorbe — Fri, 15 Sep 2017 16:09:01 +0000

I wasted an entire evening yesterday trying to figure out why tabs were missing in my shiny new gnome-terminal (upgraded from older distro). When I did eventually figure out how to get them, the tabs can't be renamed. Wound up using mate-terminal or kde konsole.

They've made things hard by trying to make things simple.

GNOME 3.26 released

iive — Fri, 15 Sep 2017 10:15:42 +0000

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.

Still no fix for showing location of mouse pointer in Wayland?

raegis — Fri, 15 Sep 2017 08:56:42 +0000

I never knew of this feature. Just turned it on. Thanks!

Still no fix for showing location of mouse pointer in Wayland?

Uraeus — Fri, 15 Sep 2017 01:24:19 +0000

Making sure we got full accessibility parity for Wayland is next on the todo list, should be done in time for Fedora Workstation 28.

GNOME 3.26 released

coriordan — Thu, 14 Sep 2017 22:35:39 +0000

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

Still no fix for showing location of mouse pointer in Wayland?

Cyberax — Thu, 14 Sep 2017 20:42:37 +0000

Since I often have to work with uncustomized GNOME desktops - nope.

Still no fix for showing location of mouse pointer in Wayland?

DOT — Thu, 14 Sep 2017 20:39:59 +0000

Don't you get tired of all the hate?

Still no fix for showing location of mouse pointer in Wayland?

tuna — Thu, 14 Sep 2017 20:23:25 +0000

Gnome is free software and many of the developers are volunteers. You could always provide a patch yourself or hire someone to write that for you.

Still no fix for showing location of mouse pointer in Wayland?

Cyberax — Thu, 14 Sep 2017 17:53:28 +0000

In the next version they'll remove the mouse pointer altogether. It's too confusing for users, as evidenced by this bug.

Still no fix for showing location of mouse pointer in Wayland?

yodermk — Thu, 14 Sep 2017 16:27:57 +0000

*Whine*

Gnome's accessibility has an option to show the location of the mouse pointer when you press the Ctrl key. When you have a small pointer and a large screen and you don't have great vision, this is essential.

It has never worked in Wayland.

I reported it as a bug last December. https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=776214
It was combined to another bug: https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=690055
.... which hasn't been touched. A lot of people seem to be reporting things that this bug relates to. Why no love?

GNOME 3.26 released

yodermk — Thu, 14 Sep 2017 16:22:46 +0000

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

GNOME 3.26 released

drag — Thu, 14 Sep 2017 14:49:50 +0000

> 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

iive — Thu, 14 Sep 2017 13:27:50 +0000

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".