The GNOME 2.4 Desktop & Developer Platform is the latest release of the popular, multi-platform free desktop environment. GNOME 2.4 includes 11 new applications and more than 100 user-requested enhancements. You can use a script like Garnome, CVSGnome or (if on Slackware) Dropline to build. Update: Ximian releases beta of its upcoming Ximian Desktop 3 product, currently losely based on Gnome 2.4, but targeting 2.6 for its final release.
GNOME Desktop & Developer Platform 2.4 Released
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
Its pretty impressive. Too bad many do/will focus on the shortcomings of GNOME rather than on the accomplishments.
Every free software project has shortcomings, and I think people should accept that.
In the beginning Id oubted GNOME, but I have found they provide a very complete vision of what they intend to it, and they stick to it. And of course, they have been true to their roadmap too. Spot on to the date of release it seems. Hope to see more good stuff. And Kudos for GPDF and Epiphany, now I can at least render pdf’s well, instead of using acrobat.
I really like Gnome’s philosophy and their desktop is a reflection of that. They aren’t as concerned with adding all sorts of nifty features as they are with making each feature they add polished to the kind of professionalism that open source as a whole lacks. We can make anything work, but most projects don’t work well.
I am really sick of debates about Nautilus vs. Konqueror, the file selector, etc. Open up Konqueror and select some files with the mouse. Do it in Nautilus. It’s smoother, has less flickering, and looks better in one of them, and the other has an entire framework designed to be extended in any possible way. I personally prefer something that tries to do less and takes time and effort to get those working perfectly than having all sorts of really cool features that lacks that feeling of professionalism. You may not; choose whatever works for you.
Kudos to the Gnome team!
I just proved this new relase, and it’s very fast. and nice
the screen resolution tools its welcome, no more relogin its needed =)
look at those shoots. are gnome with next bluecurve
http://www.dialnet.net.co/quin/Screenshot-1.png
http://www.dialnet.net.co/quin/Screenshot.png
Dude, your fonts look great
Have never been able to get fonts in Linux to look that good.
This is the normal gnome font that also redhat uses (forget the name atm), and they are far away from “great”, font-rendering-wise-speaking. Look closer and see how the characters are colliding…
However, I think it is mostly the font’s problem and not the rendering engine’s. This is why I always change my fonts to either Arial or Bitstream’s free VERA fonts each time I do a new installation of Gnome. Because the default one is just not good.
BTW, download the Vera fonts here:
http://www.gnome.org/fonts/
Weird, I like those fonts as well although personally I use either Verdana from Win2000 or Bitstream VERA.
I am really sick of debates about Nautilus vs. Konqueror
Have you tried ROX-Filer? If all you need is a small fast filer without any bells and whistles, you should try ROX.
http://rox.sourceforge.net
Do they have the icon lining up thing solved now? That was the one thing that really, really got on my nerves. I want my icons arranged like this, not in alphabetical order, but I want them lined up, goddammit!
Whoa, I have to download and try. I might switch to GNOME for good. Btw, is that really GNOME? It looks more like XFCE…
Tahoma and Vera fonts are the best for an UI IMO. Too bad that Tahoma isn’t in the corefonts package.
Will the next release of redhat include Gnome 2.4?
Also – will it include kernel 2.6 if it is mark ‘stable’?
>Will the next release of redhat include Gnome 2.4?
Most probably, yes.
>Also – will it include kernel 2.6 if it is mark ‘stable’?
Most probably, not. The kernel’s release has being pushed back, plus Red Hat applies its own special patches and then requires 1-2 months of full testing on them, so 2.6 won’t make it in the upcoming RHL release.
I think it’s the other way around, XFCE looks a lot like gnome (the newest one anyway, XFCE 4). 3 didn’t look much like the screenshots. Plus if you use the Morphix Light GUI version of XFCE 4 the default theme is blue curve.
http://arstechnica.com/reviews/003/software/gnome-2.4/gnome2.4-1.ht…
Quite a big review but I only skimmed through it.
what is the one major feature/improvement/etc in this release?
Agree, I was talking of XFCE4, too.
i wonder when gnome can get the ability to dock the menubar into its top panel a la macos and kde….
that is the only feature i truly miss in gnome… otherwise its just perfect for me!
>what is the one major feature/improvement/etc in this release?
I think D-BUS makes its first release with Gnome, and also the inclusion of Epiphany…
I think D-BUS makes its first release with Gnome…
Is this D-BUS?
http://www.freedesktop.org/software/dbus/
Yes, that’s what I am reffering to.
The reason the Aquiles Cohen screenshots look like XFCE is because their is now only one panel in Gnome 2.4 but can be customised to look and act like all the old panels of 2.2.
Richard James above posted a link to Arstechnica,
http://arstechnica.com/reviews/003/software/gnome-2.4/gnome2.4-1.ht…
which OSNEWS reported about a few days ago.
If you read that article you would learn about the new things, and know what I am talking about with the panel. You can now put Applications and Actions in any panel instead of a menu panel.
This is the normal gnome font that also redhat uses (forget the name atm), and they are far away from “great”, font-rendering-wise-speaking.
Well, whatever the case, they’re much better than anything I’ve ever seen personally
I have installed RH9, and I don’t remember OSNews looking near that good.
> I have installed RH9, and I don’t remember OSNews looking near that good.
That’s because you haven’t installed the core webfonts (Arial, Verdana, etc)?
or maybe because you might not have the latest version of fontconfig installed? (there was a release in April, after RH9 released, which helped rendering)
In my opinion, Gnome is far less polished than KDE. It takes about one second for it to display menus, Nautilus is slow, and you can’t configure the icon sizes or the desktop fonts.
Also, I like single-click but the desktop ignores my settings and insists on double-click. Plus, it doesn’t have support for using the mouse wheel to switch desktops and there’s no way to get the window list in metacity. If you’re going to have multiple desktops then you need a way for beginning users to know what happened to their windows when they switch desktops.
Also the icon themes are far less complete. Oftentimes they only include about 10 different icons which makes for a very jumbled aesthetic.
In reality, about the only area where KDE is unpolished is in that it puts too many icons in Kicker by default and that some of its menus are cluttered. I also apreciate its extensive cusomizability as it allows me to configure it exactly to suit the needs of the disabled senior citizens whose computers I maintain in my free time.
>It takes about one second for it to display menus
Yes, and this is a GTK+ problem, because GTK+ 2.x is just that: much slower than GTK+ 1.x.
I have filed a bug report on that
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=113040
, but developers with faster machines can’t see, or can’t “feel” the slowness. It is not nice to have a toolkit that can’t draw fast enough on a 500 Mhz machine (that’s without the overhead of the rest of the apps and the DE)…
Regarding your other notes, I don’t agree with… for example single click stuff, or change desktops with wheel. This is not good for the general audience, and adding such options to preferences you end up like KDE, bloated…
If you want some really nice fonts, do a Web search for News Gothic Bt or just News Gothic. They have much better kerning and hinting than any M$ font or the Vera fonts. If you disable the bytecode interpreter in freetype2 they look even better because they can be scaled to any size and don’t become thicker or thinner.
I’ve seen some screenshots of Gnome 2.4, and i’m missing one thing: where are the rounded edges of the top panel? Please, don’t tell me they removed that! I *love* those rounded edges…
Victor.
Eugenia you are just plain wrong about double click. There have been numerous studies showing that for non-computer users, the idea of double-click is one of the most difficult concepts to master. Double-click is actually just a carry over from the Xerox PARC days and no one until KDE has seen fit to actually pay attention to good usability.
I have tutored hundreds of people with no computer skills and have found that almost every single person prefers single click. Plus, double-click is unergonomic and can cause carpal strain.
Maybe. But the thing is, Gnome is trying to do as all “products” do: get more users (“customers”). The current Windows and Mac users are used to double-click, so if that what market has dictated, then “what’s right” doesn’t always win.
Please keep the correct headline when replying.
Another area where Gnome has failed to take beginners into account is that they have not worked very hard on making the application’s menu bar appear at the top of the screen à la MacOS. This can be very handy for beginners. And KDE has improved upon the Mac idea by making it so that if the last window of an app is closed, the program exits. The number one problem I encounter with beginning Mac users is that they think if they close their windows, the application exits, then they complain that they run out of memory.
> they have not worked very hard on making the application’s menu bar appear at the top of the screen à la MacOS.
For your information, even Apple wanted to get rid of the menu bar for Mac OS X, but the MacOS beta testers back in 1998 said “no way”, because *that’s what they were used to.* The Macos bar is a step behind IMHO, not forward.
Ah, you contradict yourself Eugenia. You are often fond of saying that options to configure the interface should not be added even if the users want them since it’s correct to not have too many options. Now you say that even though single-click is correct, it shouldn’t be enabled because the users don’t want it.
Besides, it’s really quite an embarassment for Gnome to not apply single-click preferences to both the desktop and file manager windows.
>Ah, you contradict yourself Eugenia.
I don’t see any contradiction at all.
> Besides, it’s really quite an embarassment for Gnome to not apply single-click preferences to both the desktop and file manager windows.
What are you talking about exactly? Most gnome prefs don’t require an “ok”.
For your information, even Apple wanted to get rid of the menu bar for Mac OS X, but the MacOS beta testers back in 1998 said “no way”, because *that’s what they were used to.* The Macos bar is a step behind IMHO, not forward.
I was one of those beta testers actually. For the advanced user, menu bar at the top is less convenient, as well as on higher-res displays where document windows are not maximized.
However, for beginners and for those with lower-res screens, menubar at the top is better. For smaller screens, it helps conserve real estate and for beginners it’s more convenient. KDE is smart enough to realize these two points. That’s why they allow you choose.
Ah, you contradict yourself Eugenia. You are often fond of saying that options to configure the interface should not be added even if the users want them since it’s correct to not have too many options. Now you say that even though single-click is correct, it shouldn’t be enabled because the users don’t want it.
You really don’t see any contradiction there? I can’t believe I have to explain it further. In the first case, you argue that user desires should be ignored because the correct principle of not having too many options should rule. In the second case, you insist that the correct principle (single-click) should yield to user preferences. That is a complete contradiction.
While it’s possible to have too many options, this point can be avoided by organizing them better or having a seperate application to configure the more advanced options. Options by themselves are never bad provided they work.
You never answered my point about the built-in icon themes not having enough images. This is a point that any UI designer could tell you.
Your allowed to choose in gnome as well, the panels are fully configurable. If you don’t want a top bar right click on it and delete it, or middle click and drag it to the bottom. The same can be done with any of the items on the Panel.
> In the second case, you insist that the correct principle (single-click) should yield to user preferences.
I never said that, I don’t want a single-click option at all! I don’t understand why you think that I said that single-click should become part of an option!
Options are good to be, but not to be too many. The best defaults “win” on a DE, not the most available options.
>You never answered my point about the built-in icon themes not having enough images.
I generally use Red Hat and I have not noticed any such problem, sorry. It works fine for me as it is.
No, you can’t make the application menu be at the top of the screen. You can have a panel up there but it is not an application menu bar. By default, Gnome has THREE menu bars to confuse the user with: one at the top, one at the bottom and then each app’s menu bar. With KDE I can narrow it down to one.
Which themes. Are you talkin of the default themes, or which. Extra themes are usually incomplete. I think the problem is precisely that people like to use custom icons everywhere. GNOME development encourages you to use certain icons which should be available with the default theme. I think other apps should provide their own icons anyway. Hope I got your point though.
> you can’t configure the icon sizes or the desktop fonts.
Desktop font is the second option in the Font Preference
>Also, I like single-click but the desktop ignores my settings and insists on double-click.
Works for me 2.4 did you actually try the new version
>Also the icon themes are far less complete.
This doesn’t seem to be as much of an issues to the themese shipped with gnome 2.4 though there is lots of this with the themes on art.gnome.org
Nothing wrong with having opinions but you might want to try 2.4 and not rehash your bugs from 2.2 since in many cases there already fixed
No, you can’t make the application menu be at the top of the screen. You can have a panel up there but it is not an application menu bar. By default, Gnome has THREE menu bars to confuse the user with: one at the top, one at the bottom and then each app’s menu bar. With KDE I can narrow it down to one.
Menu at the bottom? I have only 2 here – the one at the top (the DE menus) and the application’s menu… and with KDE is the same: there’s the DE menus, and the application’s menu; i don’t see your point here…
Victor.
PS: Where is the rounded edge panel? What have they done to it?! :0
I never said that, I don’t want a single-click option at all! I don’t understand why you think that I said that single-click should become part of an option!
Options are good to be, but not to be too many. The best defaults “win” on a DE, not the most available options.
If you really believe your second paragraph, then you can’t logically say the first one. Single-click is by far the “best default” option so by the logic of your second paragraph, it should be the (sole) default.
I can’t believe you actually would deny people the ability to change this very important option. Even Microsoft is not so authoritarian.
Very important to you. For the rest of the users (see: majority) who have spent years with double click, is a no-issue.
Menu at the bottom? I have only 2 here – the one at the top (the DE menus) and the application’s menu… and with KDE is the same: there’s the DE menus, and the application’s menu; i don’t see your point here…
You must not use the stock Gnome. By default it includes an application menu at the top, a taskbar at the bottom and app menus in each window. It’s quite a disaster IMHO. Red Hat realizes this fact and doesn’t ship their Gnome that way.
“No, you can’t make the application menu be at the top of the screen. You can have a panel up there but it is not an application menu bar. By default, Gnome has THREE menu bars to confuse the user with: one at the top, one at the bottom and then each app’s menu bar. With KDE I can narrow it down to one.”
Its not supposed to be there. That is a design decision. Its like saying Windows doesn’t have one, and you start complaining. GNOME is not supposed to have one. The menu bar, as it was called before it was dropped, provides the system menu, not the application menu. I think it is not such a good idea to provide an application menu like that because many apps are not able to use it. Only GTK apps would be able to use it, or KDE/Qt if it was under KDE. When I used KDE, i never used the menu bar anyway.
I would have much prefered it as a right-click menu ala NeXTStep, others would have prefer it in the main window, ala Windows. Some may like it on top the screen. I think what Mac OS should have done is make it customizable. Keep, let’s say, menu on top the screen as the default one, and those who want to change can do so easily.
Very important to you. For the rest of the users (see: majority) who have spent years with double click, is a no-issue [sic].
Eugenia you are being rather inconsistent tonight. One of the things you’re always saying is that user interfaces should be designed to accomodate the least knowledgable people. If you actually believe that (instead of just sticking up for your antiquated way of doing things), you’d recommend a switch to single-click automatically. Microsoft’s numerous UI professionals realize that many users want single click. You, in your infinite wisdom, would never allow them to get what they want and what the beginning user needs.
“You must not use the stock Gnome. By default it includes an application menu at the top, a taskbar at the bottom and app menus in each window. It’s quite a disaster IMHO. Red Hat realizes this fact and doesn’t ship their Gnome that way.”
Does GNOME really ship like that. I just use the bar up the top and the icon switcher on that bar – ala MacOS up to 10. Works fine.
I take it you don’t like GNOME?
You must not use the stock Gnome. By default it includes an application menu at the top, a taskbar at the bottom and app menus in each window. It’s quite a disaster IMHO. Red Hat realizes this fact and doesn’t ship their Gnome that way.
Oh, you’re talking about the taskbar (didn’t know that was a “menu” too…). Well, i like it the way it is. And i *hate* Red Hat’s Gnome. Oh come on, RedHat’s Gnome is like a “KDE using GTK+”, it’s just like KDE, with that bluecurve crap…
well, i guess it’s just a matter a taste.
Victor.
I side with Eugenia here. I have seen too many people doubleclicking on urls in web browsers. Seriously, double click is very ingrained. I know no one who uses single click. Even I use double click.
I agree wholeheartedly, Rajan. For optimum performance, right-click (w/pinnable menus) is the best. But that should definitely not be the default. That’s why choice is good. Some people think they should be able to choose for you
… this MacOS menu issue… i, too, wish that Gnome had the ability to place the application menu at the top, just like MacOS does.
Victor.
Also, how much of a dumbass do you have to be to struggle with the double click concept.
You’re a troll, Bob.
I thought the issue there was to make KDE and GNOME look the same by default. But then, KDE doesn’t have a menu bar like GNOME, so they took it out. Consequently its actually very hard for a new user to distinguish between KDE and GNOME on Redhat.
There’s no reason to argue about single-click vs. double-click, you can have either. Go to Nautilus select Edit -> Preferences -> Behavior -> Single click to activate items.
Does GNOME really ship like that. I just use the bar up the top and the icon switcher on that bar – ala MacOS up to 10. Works fine.
I take it you don’t like GNOME?
Yes, it does ship like that go to the web site and look at the screenies.
As far as my liking Gnome, I used to be a Gnome user back in the 1.x days when it was more responsive to the community. Ever since the suits at Sun, Red Hat, etc. took control of things, the project’s gone downhill, IMHO. Do we really want advice on UI from the team that brought us CDE? I think not.
Also when I found out that KDE had copied fluxbox’s switch desktops w/the mouse wheel, I jumped over to it as my primary environment. KDE is so configurable I can make it look like fluxbox or Windows or Mac or my own designs. It’s truly in the time-honored tradition of Unix. Gnome used to be that way, no longer.
“Consequently its actually very hard for a new user to distinguish between KDE and GNOME on Redhat.”
That is the point, y’know?
so y exactly cant we have the menu in a macos style menu bar? i m assuming its a gtk issue… shouldnt it just be easy to make it undockable menu and then serve the undocked menu as a panel applet? or am i oversimplifying the process here… hmmmmmm….
“That is the point, y’know?”
Yes, I know. That is the point I was making to bob who seems to think that the reason Redhat changed from the default GNOME setup was because GNOME’s one sucked. It was to reach some form of middle ground.
I see no harm in Red Hat making KDE and Gnome look similar. That’s certainly their prerogative.
“so y exactly cant we have the menu in a macos style menu bar?”
Not just about can’t, but do they want it. Do the developers think it is a good UI solution. Only Apple used it, before KDE joined the Fray. I do think it makes the UI very dynamic in a way that can be confusing to new users, especially those coming from Windows. Each app on Windows implements it own menu bar, included in the app window. It probably could be done, but a lot of apps only use GTK and are not GNOME, so things could get messy.
In GTK 2.4, they had a menu code rewrite. There’s a little discussion about a MacOS style menubar on the Usability Devel List http://mail.gnome.org/archives/usability/2003-September/msg00021.ht…
Yes, I know. That is the point I was making to bob who seems to think that the reason Redhat changed from the default GNOME setup was because GNOME’s one sucked. It was to reach some form of middle ground.
You have the right to think that way but Red Hat could have just as easily configured KDE to have the same setup as default Gnome. All they need to do is add a child panel at the bottom and move the main one to the top. But that’s a waste of space and potentially confusing; so it didn’t do that.
so then u dont the developers leave no mac menu bar the default and leave a config option to turn it on if u want to… put it in gconf or something where it doesnt stick out except for the people who really want to find it…
wouldnt that work?
Redhat configured it that way to ease the transition for Windows users.
“You have the right to think that way but Red Hat could have just as easily configured KDE to have the same setup as default Gnome. All they need to do is add a child panel at the bottom and move the main one to the top. But that’s a waste of space and potentially confusing; so it didn’t do that.”
In GNOME 2.2, the menu panel had a few things the KDE one wouldn’t have, like the split menu, which was joined in the bottom menu. The menu separated entries like Run, logout, etc from the rest. I don’t know how to do this in KDE without making KDE people scream. Besides, KDE was not meant to look like that, so it shouldn’t. The setup Redhat came up with was a good, probably the best, compromise.
or am i oversimplifying the process here… hmmmmmm….
Yeah, something like that. Oversimplification.
That’s another possibility. But considering that Red Hat employees virtually run Gnome, why didn’t they make it that way in the stock Gnome? I’d like to know how many people actually like the two panel setup. Most intermediate/advanced users I’ve seen do not. But I’m interested to see if anyone prefers it and why.
I’d also like it if Gnome would make a way to make the menu appear by clicking a blank space on the desktop.
In GNOME 2.2, the menu panel had a few things the KDE one wouldn’t have, like the split menu, which was joined in the bottom menu. The menu separated entries like Run, logout, etc from the rest.
KDE has always looked like that. The system options are separate from the applications.
“I’d also like it if Gnome would make a way to make the menu appear by clicking a blank space on the desktop.”
Overload. You can make the menu appear anytime by [Ctrl]+[Esc]. In any windows too. or is it [Ctrl]+[Alt]+[Esc]. There is no need to have ten different ways of accessing the menu. The desktop should be concerned with what is right on it. Besides, you always have access to the menu, unless it has crashed or something.
> Do the developers think it is a good UI solution.
One mistake people usually make. GNOME is communitywork where many people participate. One developer think that way, the other a different way. Even Havoc Pennington or Owen Tayloer, to name a few examples, seem to be not happy with many solutions but they went the way because it was claimed to be for the better. The way you sound in that sentence makes me belive that only one small number of people direct it. So what I like to say is that not everything in GNOME got blessing by ALL developers or contributors.
If you look closer to the GNOME Usability stuff then you find a lot of similarities to Apple’s. Button re-ordering, Look of widgets, simplification, top Panel, bottom Panel and so on. Even Evolution2 will look quite similar to Entourage and yet a bunch of people believe that this is innovative in GNOME while other people (including me) belive it’s simply a total ripoff of what Apple does but slightly different to not violate their IP. Sometimes I think it would have been easier to simply ring up at Steve Jobs’ door and simply ask him to hand over their HIG and freely license it to be adopted by GNOME.
I also belive that those who are working on the Usability Issues around GNOME are nothing more than theoreticians who read the one or other book about what imaginary users should be allowed to do and what not, what may be good for them and what not and most of the time it doesn’t really reflect the needs of real life people.
To make things simple in my opinion means ‘do not change proven things’. And GNOME goes a complete new way of doing things which is everything else than simple. Good example is when building up a house, you always start with the fundament, walls, next floor (itterative) and finally end with the roof. Proven for many hundred of years to be a good solution.
With GNOME it’s like brik the roof, plank the walls, dig the cellar, mix the cement, scatter the cement over the house, wait until it rains so it gets hard. You have a house at the end, no doubt
With KDE it is like, f**k the plans, let’s just build something. Mess.
That statement doesn’t make any sense. First you say that Gnome is just copying Apple, then you say that it should stick to what’s proven. If it’s copying Apple, then it is sticking to what’s proven.
Overload. You can make the menu appear anytime by [Ctrl]+[Esc]. In any windows too. or is it [Ctrl]+[Alt]+[Esc]. There is no need to have ten different ways of accessing the menu. The desktop should be concerned with what is right on it. Besides, you always have access to the menu, unless it has crashed or something.
I certainly don’t think that that should be enabled by default but if Gnome wants to attract advanced users, it should be an option. I find it much more productive when browsing not to have to reach down to the keyboard (it’s a two-handed keystroke, after all, Microsoft and Mandrake make it one) to get my app menu.
The management of the Win key is actually one of the nicer things about Windows, IMHO. It can function as a modifier key (like it does in non-Mandrake Unix) or it can pop up the system menu. That’s a nice way of doing it. No Unix DE/WM has copied this feature. Mandrake remaps Alt+F1 to Win but then makes it so it can’t be a modifier.
In the single versus double click argument I agree with Eugenia. Double click is ingrained. Plus, in my experience teaching people how to use computers they end up clicking on things on accident, or the wrong things, and then all this stuff starts popping up and they click somewhere else and that opens something else up, etc. etc. I’m not saying anyone that is experienced with computers would do that, but your argument is that it is better for new users. More intuitive I guess. I’m not sure. Plus the new users are going to be calling up friends for help and they’re going to be saying “Now double click on the icon that looks like a little house” and it will open it twice and everything will be mass chaos! Well, that’s my opinion anyways.
That statement doesn’t make any sense. First you say that Gnome is just copying Apple, then you say that it should stick to what’s proven. If it’s copying Apple, then it is sticking to what’s proven.
I think what he meant to say is that Gnome does try to copy Macs but doesn’t do a good job of it sometimes. To an extent, I agree with that, especially on the menubar issue. If you’re going to crib from Steve, at least get your menubars right.
//
Sometimes I think it would have been easier to simply ring up at Steve Jobs’ door and simply ask him to hand over their HIG and freely license it to be adopted by GNOME.
//
You can’t copyright/patent a HIG. Apple’s HIG is right on their website, any person can use it.
That’s why Fitt isn’t a billionare.
The book Macintosh Human Interface Guidelines is sitting on my bookshelf as we speak, and I didn’t even have to steal it. You can get it on Amazon (not too bad a read, though a bit outdated by now).
Evolution’s UI for v2 is not decided on yet to the best of my knowledge. What we saw are just mockups, and yes, similarity is to be expected. Even KDE PIM when aggregated looks quite a bit like current Evolution. Besides, the UI bits can be reordered anyway. Not an issue.
And no one said 100% of developers have to agree for things to move on.
I find it rather amusing that you say that there is no design in GNOME. That HIG is rather comprehensive, much more than KDE has to offer, yet you like to claim that with GNOME tings are just thrown together. I have seen things being discussed to great length about GNOME. Like the new file selector for GTK. GStreamer is a thoroughly designed suite too.
Epiphany was designed with the HIG in mind. Along with a few nifty features of its own. I thnk you are trolling seriously.
What was first ? The egg or the hen ? They should simply have sticked to what’s used most in the IT business.
KDE, Windows, AmigaOS, MorphOS (a lot of other OS’s) on the one side and Apple on it’s own on the other side. I rather belive going with the flow makes sense rather than ‘experimenting something new’. If Apple is proven to be a good thing then why didn’t it have full market domination by now ? And what was/is wrong with the way KDE, Windows, AmigaOS, MorphOS and other OS’s did ? Why do you think that the Apple Usability Guides are better than those from Microsoft for example ? (to name 2 famous companies) or the one from KDE ? Do you think the people working on Windows or KDE are not skilled or educated enough to make good design decisions ?
I don’t get it when people say that the mac-os style application menu bar at the top is better for beginners. When I was a beginner the mac was the first computer I used that had a real GUI, and I found the menu bar at the top rather confusing. I think it’s better to have the menu bar in the application window, where it’s clear that the menus belong to the application not the operating system. The only menus that should be outside an application’s main window are the operating system’s (or “desktop enviromnent’s” for those who say an OS is just a kernel) own menus.
Please show me the KDE HIG, and I WILL show you that Apple’s are more advanced. I mean, Apple’s are more advanced IMO, than even GNOME’s. That is not an argument. KDE has no proper HIG. GNOME has documentation from how to create interfaces to how to write manuals. Very thorough. Only some people do not appreciate this.
Josh: In the single versus double click argument I agree with Eugenia. Double click is ingrained.
Among those coming from Windows or Mac. New users automatically try single-click.
Plus, in my experience teaching people how to use computers they end up clicking on things on accident, or the wrong things, and then all this stuff starts popping up and they click somewhere else and that opens something else up, etc.
You mean like people who constantly double-click on Web links or on HTML form elements? That is a big problem for those of use who have to design Web sites. It makes no sense at all for people to double-click on some icons (in their file manager or desktop) but single-click on others (images in Web pages). It’s damn confusing for a beginner to understand not to do this. Some users I’ve tutored call me up complaining that they accidentally double-clicked a link or button with bad results (i.e. making online bill payments, subscribing twice to lists, etc.)
Plus the new users are going to be calling up friends for help and they’re going to be saying “Now double click on the icon that looks like a little house” and it will open it twice and everything will be mass chaos! Well, that’s my opinion anyways.
That is a flaw of KDE compared to Windows. In Windows, if single-click is activated, it will automatically ignore double-clicks. KDE doesn’t do this and that is unfortunate, esp. when dealing with USB devices where repeated mount requests can lock up some systems.
It is a fact that almost all UI studies show that single-click is the best way of doing things. In fact, the first Web browsers used double-click for link activation, this was abandoned as unintuitive and annoying, besides being unergonomic.
Apple
http://developer.apple.com/documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/…
GNOME
http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gup/hig/1.0/
Please, show me KDE’s.
If you want some really nice fonts, do a Web search for News Gothic Bt or just News Gothic. They have much better kerning and hinting than any M$ font or the Vera fonts. If you disable the bytecode interpreter in freetype2 they look even better because they can be scaled to any size and don’t become thicker or thinner.
I did a google search, and
“This server is currently operating at capacity and cannot accept your request. Please try again later.”
it looks like it’s been OSNews’ed
[i}What was first ? The egg or the hen ? They should simply have sticked to what’s used most in the IT business.
KDE, Windows, AmigaOS, MorphOS (a lot of other OS’s) on the one side and Apple on it’s own on the other side. I rather belive going with the flow makes sense rather than ‘experimenting something new’. If Apple is proven to be a good thing then why didn’t it have full market domination by now ? And what was/is wrong with the way KDE, Windows, AmigaOS, MorphOS and other OS’s did ? Why do you think that the Apple Usability Guides are better than those from Microsoft for example ? (to name 2 famous companies) or the one from KDE ? Do you think the people working on Windows or KDE are not skilled or educated enough to make good design decisions ?[/i]
You sure did get a lot from my little 2 line reply. I have been trying not to get into the whole Gnome vs. KDE battle. It does no good at all. I think the main reason people use Apple is because of OSX, the reason that it doesn’t have majority marketshare is (IMO) not because of the UI design. Of course, that’s another discussion all together.
Sadly, Apple doesn’t do very well at following their own guidelines now. The proliferation of the ghastly metallic look to some apps is ruining the platform. Originally the Mac HIG says that metallic widgets should only be used for apps mimicking functions of real-life objects. But since Safari, this admirable rule has been thrown into the trash. Macs are beginning to look like the mish-mash of toolkits that X interfaces are just now starting to move away from.
Finder now is absolutely atrocious looking IMHO.
yes, thats right… its just your opinion, bob… some of us enjoy the metalic on aqua contrast… it aint all that bad; and most people get adjusted to it after a period of time….
Redhat’s KDE is far more than just looking similar, many applications won’t start or crash far more often, there are so many subtle but defasting problems with amount of problems with it.
Well, you’re welcome to like it but it’s certainly a violation of the Apple HIG. There’s probably ways to change it though, I’ll look around a bit.
Redhat’s KDE is far more than just looking similar, many applications won’t start or crash far more often, there are so many subtle but defasting problems with amount of problems with it.
I didn’t remark on that. I think you are correct that there is some breakage in the Red Hat KDE. If, however, RH had just made it and Gnome look similar, I see nothing wrong with that.
actually there are quite a lot of third-party shareware or freeware apps that can “demetallize” your desktop… so if u REALLY hate it that much, u r welcome to do that… but it doesnt look THAT bad… and it still looks good unlike kde apps which look kludgy… but thats what i think like u think whatever u think….
I don’t remember who wanted News Gothic but you can get it here: http://nextstuff.info/mirrors/ftp.peak.org/next-ftp/next/fonts/n/00…
Mandrake better wait and package GNOME 2.4, KDE 3.1.4, OpenOffice 1.1, Abiword, GIMP 2and GNUMERIC 1.2 at the very least.
Otherwise, they have made a huge mistake, all of this software will come out in late september, MAndrake should have an october release and just include all of this.
I like the metallic look when combined with aqua. It looks cool and fits in with the brushed metal style Apple is using with the powerbooks and G5. When OS X was all aqua it seemed too white to me, so metallic makes a nice contrast, IMHO.
I see, you didn’t get my point at all.
It’s ok that Apple and GNOME do have a HIG. If KDE has one is far from my knowledge because I do not develop or use right now KDE. But I bet they use something close to the one from Microsoft. Writing a HIG doesn’t mean that everything written in it is throughly tested or correct. As I wrote earlier the people working on GNOME’s usability stuff are more or less theoreticans who have read the one or other good book describing what a users should see, how an interface may look like and stuff like that (please read my context again before replying the next time). I doub that these people have a clear idea of what the real user likes because they only deal with immaginary people and theoretical concepts.
For Apple they may have written a nice Usability Guide, they paid professional IT specialists and investigated a lot of money for proper research and many testcases. The result is THEIR Usability Guide in which they belive is right in. Microsoft probably did the same for their, paid 10 times more than Apple for their Usability Guide, made 200 times more testcases and so on. Do you think they are wrong ? They found their way of doing things and many of what they adopted are going back in pre Microsoft times and many other Operating Systems share the same ideas and roots.
The GNOME HIG is written but it’s also known that the GNOME HIG is not complete nor does it cover many aspects around GNOME. (Here a context):
http://mail.gnome.org/archives/usability/2003-July/msg00117.html
Here a direct reply I got on one of my mails on GNOME’s Usability List proving that the GNOME HIG is far from though through or cover all cases.
Now what benefits do you have from a written HIG (on the paper) when nobody cares rats arse for it ? E.g. not following it carefully enough ? Most of the UI gladefile fixes are done by a friend of mine (Manny) who I know good enough and he is definately NO Usability expert, simply a normal user (contributor) who try to HIGify the things that developers or maintainers of the module didn’t cared for. What if the HIG changes again from 10 pixel padding to 20 pixel padding ? All work needs to be done again over and over again.
I made an UI review for GNOME 2.2 february this year which you can read here:
http://www.gnome.org/~chrisime/random/ui/
And many of these issue are still valid. The Toolbar issue luckely got fixed in recent GTK+, libgnomeui and libbonoboui (Three Toolbars and the one from libegg which recently made it’s way in GTK+ HEAD).
Let’s forget the above criticism around GNOME. What I wanted to tell you is, GNOME may have a HIG, you can raise your finger and use it as argument against other people but having a HIG doesn’t mean that it’s followed or that it’s though through. KDE may have no real HIG or simply following Microsoft’s path here but their interface is much more consistent and pixel exact layouted than most of the stuff inside GNOME.
Um, Bob, I don’t want to troll, but if you don’t like GNOME, why not just use KDE or another WM? Discussions are great, but I feel this one is getting nowhere. You want options, the GNOME team want to stay minimalist… You won’t agree together.
Btw, I prefer double-clicks over single-clicks… Perhaps it’s a complex concept for beginners to grasp, but there’s a learning curve in everything, no? Anyway, if you develop carpal strain because of double-clicking… You’re weak. I’m sure typing on a keyboard is stressing your muscles 100x more.
http://developer.kde.org/documentation/standards/kde/style/basics/i…