GNOME 3.6 released
Linked by Thom Holwerda on Fri 28th Sep 2012 20:44 UTC
Gnome "Today, the GNOME Project celebrates the release of GNOME 3.6, the latest version of the popular free desktop, as well as the GNOME developer platform. GNOME 3.6 is the third major update of GNOME 3. It builds on the foundations that we have laid with the previous 3.x releases and offers a greatly enhanced experience. The exciting new features and improvements in this release include a new login experience, integrated input methods, a refresh of the message tray, support for more online accounts, improved accessibility, and many more."
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ndrw
Member since:
2009-06-30

You need a panel, a dock or a desktop gadget to access information that you need at all times. Be it a window list, a desktop pager, a CPU usage monitor etc.

Having modes in the UI is almost always a bad thing. They add complexity (you have to remember in which mode you are, how to switch between them, what you can find in each mode, and accept some functionality isn't available in the current mode) for no benefit to the user. Sometimes modes are necessary because of technological limitations (that's why original vi used them) but in most cases they are brought by laziness and lack of insight of the designer.

These are objective design flaws of Gnome Shell. It isn't just stubbornness and lack of appreciation of new ideas that is driving users away.

Cinnamon guys attempt to fix technical flaws but since they do not control the direction of Gnome they can't fix everything and, more importantly, they can't change the image of Gnome 3 devs working against the users.

All above doesn't matter if Gnome devs are happy with <20% of Linux desktop share (early adopters) but they won't recover their past position without changing the process and some of their technical decisions.

Reply Parent Score: 3

satsujinka Member since:
2010-03-11

GNOME has a dock and that top bar thing. You'd need an extension to get CPU usage, but otherwise all of those are provided.

Modes are almost always a good thing. Modes make operation simpler and faster. They concentrate concepts into logical units and reduce the distance to access them. You don't have to remember what mode you're in because the UI should indicate what mode you're in.

Now, maybe GNOME doesn't do a good job of indicating mode, I don't know. I don't use it, but I don't remember having any issues.

So no, those aren't objective issues. It really does sound like you just can't adapt.

Reply Parent Score: 3

phreck Member since:
2009-08-13

Instead of modes, I really like virtual desktops way more.

The implementations that exist are not perfect, e.g. I would like if applications would startup on the virtual desktop were you started it (double-click, terminal, whatever), but overally, I liked the my GNOME2, with 4x2 permament desktops.

Now I am not using virtual desktops anymore at all, because I permanently have to fight against GNOME3 creating and closing new desktops.

I am still homeless.

The argument is no longer "I choose Linux/Desktop because I love it the most", it has seriously become "I choose Linux/Desktop because it is the least evil" (mathematically the same, but you get it).

Edited 2012-10-01 11:39 UTC

Reply Parent Score: 2

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ssokolow Member since:
2010-01-21

Having modes in the UI is almost always a bad thing. They add complexity (you have to remember in which mode you are, how to switch between them, what you can find in each mode, and accept some functionality isn't available in the current mode) for no benefit to the user. Sometimes modes are necessary because of technological limitations (that's why original vi used them) but in most cases they are brought by laziness and lack of insight of the designer.


I generally agree. I'm a vim user, but it's not because it's modal. It's because I want a highly-extensible editor with a minimal UI (minimal distraction), minimal system requirements, and both GTK+ and ncurses UIs and vim is closer to how I naturally work than emacs.

Plus it's got things that'd be a major pain to implement myself like the :gui command and the SnipMate script.

If it weren't so hard to implement without breaking things, I'd set up my Vim so it behaves as much like a non-modal editor as possible and just prefix all my commands with Ctrl+O. (Among other things, it'd simplify my muscle memory to not have to keep one set of habits for vim and another for every other app which uses CUA keybindings because its vim-like mode is incapable of parsing the keybinds out of my .vimrc)

It still annoys the hell out of me that "cursor will stay in the viewport even if that means scrolling has to drag it along for the ride" is hard-coded into vim. I've taken to tapping undo and then redo to recover my old place since I can't tap left then right like in any other editor. (I never remember to set a mark before scrolling)

Reply Parent Score: 1

zima Member since:
2005-07-06

I'm a vim user, but it's not because it's modal. It's because I want a highly-extensible editor with a minimal UI (minimal distraction)

It quite possibly distracts you more, but on a more fundamental level so you don't notice it...
http://plan9.bell-labs.com/wiki/plan9/Mouse_vs._keyboard/index.html

Reply Parent Score: 2