[HN Gopher] Gnome 40
___________________________________________________________________
Gnome 40
Author : pbui
Score : 302 points
Date : 2021-03-24 15:30 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (forty.gnome.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (forty.gnome.org)
| dopeboy wrote:
| I was brought up on Gnome but after using Cinnamon, it's hard to
| go back. Better applets, better window management, easier default
| keyboard shortcuts. Little slower, though.
| naranha wrote:
| I was a bit sceptical, but I have to say that the horizontal
| workspaces work pretty well. Working with GNOME 40 is both
| efficient and aesthetically pleasing. And as a side note
| performance is much better too on Fedora 34.
| dsego wrote:
| > the horizontal workspaces work pretty well
|
| Like on all the other desktops?
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| AFAIK, most DEs place virtual desktops horizontally or in a
| grid, and I'm actually not aware of any other DEs that
| dynamically add new desktops as you use them rather than
| statically defining them up front.
| naranha wrote:
| My concern was more about the animations switching workspaces
| being too jarring, but they are pretty smooth.
| throwaway123x2 wrote:
| Still no match for Gnome 2's UI. RIP that old interface, the best
| of the *nix desktops.
| probably_wrong wrote:
| You should give Mate a try then [1]. It's essentially Gnome 2
| but actively maintained.
|
| [1] https://mate-desktop.org/
| greatgib wrote:
| So far i'm using Linux Mint with Cinnamon for a few years, and
| it really good.
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| Gnome 2 and GTK 2 have no support for HiDPI.
|
| It is possible to mitigate some of that inconvenience by using
| a theme where everything is scaled up (and there are tools to
| generate them), but there will be still GTK 2 software that
| looks bad.
| WoodenChair wrote:
| It looks heavily inspired by macOS. Especially if you scroll down
| to the "Core Apps" section. Not that there's anything wrong with
| that.
| joana035 wrote:
| It was inspired by webOS, a Linux based OS for Palm.
| zserge wrote:
| As the one who works simultaneously with macOS and Linux, I
| would be happy to see some unification. I'm not speaking about
| visual differences or look-n-feel of the apps, but common tasks
| like desktop switching or window switching - things you do
| hundreds times a day. Those IMO should involve as little brain
| as possible and rely on muscle memory.
| happymellon wrote:
| I want to be able to set Super+C/V to copy/paste in Linux,
| including the terminals rather than different key
| configurations depending on the context. Is this now
| available in Gnome?
| ziftface wrote:
| This is my favorite thing about this update. That along with
| that mac hotkey tools for linux should make the transition
| back and forth easier.
| pseudalopex wrote:
| Mac hot key tools?
| caslon wrote:
| GNOME has, unfortunately, been on this train before macOS was;
| when Big Sur came out there were many threads on other sites
| pointing out how strange it was that macOS seemed to be taking
| after GNOME 3.
| greatgib wrote:
| So not ergonomic and osx copycat compared to gnome 2.
|
| So sad...
| canada2us wrote:
| There is little usability in Gnome, just I think it is better.
| rubyist5eva wrote:
| I installed the Fedora 34 Beta yesterday, and I am really
| impressed. I thought the move to a horizontal workspace from
| years of using the vertical one would be a big change but it
| really feels quite a lot better. Everything is also just
| snappier, more responsive and smoother overall - probably in no
| small part due to GTK4 being hardware accelerated now.
|
| Overall system performance is fantastic so far with Fedora 34,
| super excited to keep tinkering with it.
|
| Great work by the Gnome Team, and I'm super excited for the
| future of Gnome!
| pentagrama wrote:
| Ubuntu user here.
|
| Was looking for when this GNOME version will be integrated to
| Ubuntu to check them out, it will not land in the next Ubuntu
| version.
|
| > Ubuntu 21.04 will NOT include GNOME 40. Bew Ubuntu releases
| typically include the newest GNOME release but this time it
| won't. Why? Well, GNOME 40 features bold design changes that
| Ubuntu devs feel they need more time to 'adapt' to. [1]
|
| Overall I like the refresh, but for me the real UX test is when
| you use it for a week/month. Will have to wait!
|
| [1] https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2021/01/ubuntu-21-04-release-
| fea...
| Shared404 wrote:
| I like the look of a lot of these changes.
|
| if the Pop!_Shell extensions get made mainline in addition to the
| changes here, I will probably go from disliking/tolerating
| vanilla GNOME to possibly daily driving.
| loloquhwonedeo wrote:
| "Switch workspaces faster than ever with the handy new Super +
| Alt + Scroll shortcut." that's going to suck for left-handed
| mouse users as "super" tends to not be accessible with the non-
| mouse hand on most compact keyboards.
| onnnon wrote:
| It's interesting to see the focus on these desktop management
| features. I've been a long time macOS user and have never found
| "Launchpad", "Mission Control / Expose", or "multiple Desktops"
| useful in practice. I just use multiple monitors with everything
| I need on them in the same workspace. Do you guys actually use
| these features? I find the contextual switching distracting.
| elros wrote:
| I've been using Macs full time for almost a decade now.
|
| I never use Launchpad, but Mission Control is the main way I
| switch between applications. I find it convenient that it's
| bound (not sure if by default) to the "four fingers towards the
| screen" gesture on the trackpad.
|
| I use multiple desktops constantly, it's the main way I
| organize my work. I also find them convenient to switch between
| since they're mapped to the sideways flick four fingers
| gesture. I guess using virtual desktops is something I was
| doing before I started using Macs anyway.
|
| I keep most of my apps full screen which I guess fits this
| workflow better. Before I used Macs I was using tiling window
| managers on Linux such as AwesomeWM and XMonad, so I had some
| resistance to using full screen a lot, but somehow I adapted.
| My terminal is still tiled and it's what matters the most.
| cmiles74 wrote:
| I used MacOS for years, out of your list the only feature I
| ever really used was "multiple desktops". I would group apps
| roughly by function (email and messaging was on one desktop,
| the code editor was on another). I definitely wasn't pushing
| the boundaries and never used more than three desktops.
|
| In my opinion, your skepticism about the general appeal of
| these features seems reasonable. I would expect the average
| laptop owner uses these rarely if ever. People who spend a lot
| of time with their machine may use only one or two, I bet.
| Spotlight in particular seems to be eating Launchpad's lunch.
| JD557 wrote:
| It's funny, because as a MacOS user I pretty much never use
| multiple desktops, although I used it a lot in GNOME 2, because
| of how obvious it was that there was something in another
| desktop[1]. I think it really help multiple desktops feel more
| "grounded in space", like another monitor.
|
| In MacOS, other desktops feel like a background thing that it's
| easy to forget (kind of like having a process running on
| another `screen` session).
|
| 1: The widget in the bottom right corner
| https://help.gnome.org/misc/release-notes/2.32/figures/gnome...
| onnnon wrote:
| That does seem useful to have some sort of UI to see your
| open desktops.
| progman32 wrote:
| KDE user, but I do the same thing in any WM. I use multiple
| desktops more than I use the task switcher bar. I find a
| spatial arrangement of related windows much more practical to
| maintain. Multiple monitors don't scale beyond 2 or 3.
| vsviridov wrote:
| When on MacOS I really enjoy full screen apps with multi-finger
| virtual desktop switch. My workflow usually limited to one full
| screen browser and one full screen terminal window (with tmux
| inside).
| shrimp_emoji wrote:
| I have three monitors, and recently started using multiple
| desktops. I can hit Meta+{1,2,3,4} to go between them or
| Meta+Tab on KDE. It's amazing.
|
| If my main desktop has tons of windows open, and the panel is
| crowded as heck with browser, file manager, text editor, and
| terminal windows (all of which can occupy all of your monitors
| when you're doing a given thing because there's that many of
| them), it's overwhelming. It's like browser tabs piling up out
| of control, except the tabs are also windows you have to
| maximize and minimize. Dedicating multiple desktop to multiple
| task (main, tinkering, work, etc.) is so much better.
| eyelidlessness wrote:
| I don't personally use Launchpad but I can definitely imagine
| it's useful for some. While it obviously took its design from
| iOS, it's also a throwback to At Ease[1], which I definitely
| saw used widely when it was available.
|
| And I no longer use Mission Control/Expose, but I certainly did
| find it useful on smaller screens (I now use a comically large
| 43" 4k@1x).
|
| Same with multiple desktops, and I've seen it used on nearly
| every screenshare I've been on this past year.
|
| My workflow now is probably more fussy than it could be, but I
| pretty much just use cmd-~ and cmd-` now.
|
| Edit to add: I think it also depends quite a bit on input
| device. Seeing others mention trackpad gestures, I remember
| finding Mission Control/multiple desktops much more useful when
| I primarily used my MBP on my lap.
|
| 1: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/At_Ease
| onnnon wrote:
| Screen sharing does seem like a very good use-case for
| multiple desktops.
| eyelidlessness wrote:
| I just meant, I see a lot of coworkers switching desktops
| in general, which I see on screen shares because we're all
| remote.
| onnnon wrote:
| Ah, gotcha.
| coldtea wrote:
| > _I just use multiple monitors with everything I need on them
| in the same workspace._
|
| Well, many of us use a single monitor or a laptop to get work
| done. Thus multiple workspaces make more sense.
|
| Virual workspaces have been in Unix/Linux/X-Windows since the
| 90s (or even before) anyway.
|
| > _Do you guys actually use these features? I find the
| contextual switching distracting._
|
| Yep.
|
| Why would it be more distracting than looking to another
| monitor (and thus having to physically turn your gaze/neck as
| opposed to a single keyboard shortcut)?
|
| For me, the purpose of multiple desktops is to reduce
| distration. Instead of many things visible to you all the time
| (in one or more monitors) and competing for your attention, you
| can have several things open, but only focus to one at a time,
| separate them by work, or program type, or workflow step, etc.
| throwaway744678 wrote:
| Not using Launchpad nor multiple desktops (like you, I find two
| monitors are enough), but expose mapped on hot corners is very
| useful, to either switch to an invisible app, or access the
| desktop. A quick mouse move to the top-right (with mouse
| acceleration, you don't need the movement to be long, just
| fast), and there you go.
| Aardwolf wrote:
| The open windows don't even have visible taskbar buttons in the
| fancy presentation it shows at the top
|
| I have no idea how you can productively work that way
|
| The reason for getting 4K monitors is not to have _less_ stuff
| that can make you productive visible
|
| KDE 3.5 was the top of OSS desktops, in my opinion
| JorgeGT wrote:
| I think I'm missing something... Where is the taskbar? Do you
| need that "overview" animation each time you want to bring an
| application to focus? And where are the menus of the focused
| application?
| pmontra wrote:
| The menus should be in the hamburger menu on the top right of
| each window. A time waster and a recent fad coming from small
| screen devices.
|
| I can't answer your other questions. Not only I don't have
| GNOME 40 but I greatly tweaked Ubuntu 20' GNOME to disable
| all animations, remove the launcher, move the top bar to the
| bottom, use those very same horizontal virtual desktops they
| introduced in 40 (hurrah) and add an old Windows like
| taskbar. It feels much more productive than the default
| settings.
| beowulfey wrote:
| Any reason why you did all that vs. trying something like
| KDE?
|
| I like Gnome default, but KDE does most of what you
| described by default too.
| pmontra wrote:
| I gave a try to KDE for a couple of months in 2014 and
| didn't like it. I felt I was clicking twice as much as in
| GNOME to accomplish the same thing. Furthermore I liked
| the look of GNOME more than KDE's.
|
| I kept using GNOME fallback (or flashback?) until 2018
| because it worked as I like. I knew there were GNOME
| shell extensions to suit my needs by then so I switched
| to GNOME shell with Ubuntu 18.04.
|
| I never researched KDE so I don't know what became of it.
| A total change of DE is a big thing and could take a lot
| of time.
| Aardwolf wrote:
| No, that's not at all what I mean. I prefer no animations and
| no hidden things at all!
|
| I prefer a taskbar at the bottom with one button per window
| in it, so that I can have an overview of which windows are
| open, which document each has, and quickly switch to it with
| mouse (when not using alt+tab to switch between recent
| windows).
|
| What I do not want is to have to activate something, or have
| some animation, first, before seeing what I want to navigate
| to.
| JorgeGT wrote:
| Sorry if it wasn't clear (not a native speaker), I agree
| completely with all your points. I also don't want hidden
| things or animations each time I want to focus on another
| app. It was an open question, I'm wondering if anyone using
| Gnome 40 can answer? Also, just hovering over the Unity
| taskbar and scrolling with the mousewheel to cycle between
| windows is fantastic, I miss that a lot on Windows!
| Aardwolf wrote:
| Oh, understood now, the question was to Gnome :)
| ufo wrote:
| If you have an app that is hidden under other windows, you
| have to use the overview or alt+tab to bring it to the front.
|
| However, often we don't need to do that because GNOME
| encourages us to spread our windows over several workspaces.
| The animation for switching workspaces is practically
| instantaneous.
| christophilus wrote:
| I guess that's why we have options. I like Gnome. It's by far
| my favorite DE. I don't want my screen cluttered up with stuff.
| I know what I've got running, and finding anything is really
| easy: Super + type whatever I'm thinking, and presto, it's
| there.
| tasuki wrote:
| > Super + type whatever I'm thinking, and presto, it's there.
|
| I often have several windows of the same application open at
| the same time (particularly browser and terminal). When I
| want to switch from say the IDE to the _right_ browser
| window, how do I do that in Gnome? (I use Workspace Matrix[0]
| as I'm a visual type, and that works for me, but perhaps
| there's a better way?)
| Delk wrote:
| This might be just a matter of what I've gotten used to, but I
| have the "Activities" view (which shows previews of open
| windows, as well as the dock-like thing for launching
| applications) bound to the super/windows key which is nearly
| always very easily accessible.
|
| If I'm switching windows and I'm not alt-tabbing, I usually
| just hit the super key and select the window from the
| thumbnails/previews.
|
| I don't find that to be unproductive, but then, I haven't
| really been even trying to change the basics of my desktop or
| experimenting much in a while, so it might be that I've just
| settled for it to some extent.
|
| If I had to first move the mouse to one location in order to
| get a list of windows, and then again to another location to
| select the window I want, I don't think that would work at all.
| But with a very easily accessible keyboard shortcut for the
| first part it does.
| ufo wrote:
| I love that they are making the compose key feature more
| discoverable. It's the best way to type strange characters like
| a, r or (c).
| renke1 wrote:
| Let's hope it actually reads the available combinations from
| ~/.XCompose. I am pretty sure that this was not the case (at
| least at some point in the past).
| ufo wrote:
| GNOME 3.38 allows adding custom sequences using the .Xcompose
| file. The only thing that doesn't work are include
| directives. I'd imagine it will be the same with GNOME 40.
| anthk wrote:
| If you are a Romance language speaker you get tired of the
| local layout fast, specially for programming. A lot of people
| use the US+compose key for accents/n.
| qwerty456127 wrote:
| If it's meant to be distraction-free then why the panel? In
| traditional WMs it could show running apps or the application
| menu you would use somewhat actively, now it only shows the clock
| (which I find useful but unnecessary - not worth dedicating an
| entire panel) and some indicators I certainly don't need to see
| all the time. The whole dash is also an additional entity of
| questionable value - I never felt like I need a full-screen
| launcher nor a full-screen workspace switcher.
| dgan wrote:
| am I being too conservative using stock XFCE?.. maybe missing
| something
| dsego wrote:
| support for hidpi maybe? not sure about the current status
| lproven wrote:
| IMHO, no. I give GNOME a re-assessment every time there's a new
| Ubuntu release, and it seldom takes more than an hour or so (if
| that) to find a reason why I'm glad my work boxes run Xfce and
| my home ones run Unity.
| calvinmorrison wrote:
| What's with the change over to these '40' style naming schemes? I
| absolutely detest it if it's not done for a real reason.
|
| Firstly, without major versions it does not single anything to
| end users and end developers. Is '40' still mostly compatible
| with the gnome 3.x.x API? Is there a major divergence between 40
| and 41? Is 41 and 40 a total rewrite?
|
| 3.x.x works and there's a reason why. It conveys a lot of
| information quickly and is well understood.
|
| reducing things down to a single number is meaningless and
| clearly branding drivel. I guess they want to obfuscate as much
| as possible and dumb things down for users like they have been
| doing for close to a decade.
|
| Yawn
| ximm wrote:
| As far as I understand "40" is just short for "3.40.0". The
| expectation is that they will remain compatible with the 3.x.x
| series for a long time, so the 3 is somewhat redundant. This
| release contains more UI changes than usual, but it is very far
| away from the change from gnome 2 to 3.
| ufo wrote:
| Not much point in keeping the "3." around when we don't
| expect a "4.0" version to happen in the foreseeable future.
| AshamedCaptain wrote:
| And when Gtk4 inevitably happens, or the gnome-shell toolkit
| is changed again, breaking about all the gnome-shell
| extensions, we'll just call it Gnome X.
| mixedCase wrote:
| Gtk4 already happened. Not sure if Gnome apps to it,
| however, but I'm pretty sure they'll just break extensions
| as they've always done. Most use internal APIs AFAIK after
| all, so they're designed to break.
| BearOso wrote:
| Gnome shell doesn't even use Gtk, or at least not for
| drawing and such. If it's there, it's completely
| abstracted away in their JavaScript layer. And yeah, most
| extensions broke from 3.38-40 already anyway.
| tasuki wrote:
| > pretty sure they'll just break extensions as they've
| always done
|
| This is so frustrating! They never stop! I don't care for
| any of the new features, I just want things to continue
| working!
| hojjat12000 wrote:
| I think GTK4 is in Gnome 40 Weather App.
| ac29 wrote:
| Nope, the version numbers on GNOME 40 packages are 40.0, not
| 3.40.0.
| freedomben wrote:
| Your question is valid (and I have the same one) but this is
| about as uncharitable a thing to say as you can, especially
| without providing evidence/examples:
|
| > _I guess they want to obfuscate as much as possible and dumb
| things down for users like they have been doing for close to a
| decade._
|
| The Gnome project has done an enormous amount to push the open
| source and _free_ desktop forward. The least we can do is not
| impute sinister motives to them. What do they stand to gain
| from "obfuscat[ing]" their version number when their code is
| all open source?
| fiddlerwoaroof wrote:
| I strongly disagree: the gnome project and the systemd mess
| are both severely damaging Linux. The good thing, though, is
| that KDE Plasma seems to have recovered nicely from the KDE
| 3->4 mess.
| freedomben wrote:
| I'm not trying to argue, I'm surprised and legitimately
| interested at your comment and would really like to
| understand where you're coming from.
|
| Are you a current Linux desktop user? How long have you
| been? What distros do you use?
|
| If Gnome had just paused or become what MATE is today,
| would we be better off? If you were suddenly emperor of the
| Gnome Foundation, what would you direct them to do?
| fiddlerwoaroof wrote:
| I've been using Linux on the desktop since Mandrake 7. I
| mostly use Debian these days (ever since Ubuntu switched
| from Gnome 2 to Unity). For a while I just used tiling
| window managers (xmonad, stumpwm) because I couldn't make
| Gnome 3+ work for me. Recently I tried Plasma again and
| I've mostly settled on that being good enough. At this
| point, I have no confidence in most of the people
| involved in the Linux desktop initiatives: I'd probably
| fund MATE and maybe even the Trinity Desktop environment:
| the best Linux desktop setup I ever had was KDE 3 apps on
| Gnome 2
| fiddlerwoaroof wrote:
| This page is a good example of everything I dislike about
| modern Linux desktop developers:
| https://stopthemingmy.app/
| dvirsky wrote:
| Actually this numbering scheme conveys to me, intuitively, that
| changes are more gradual and hints at backwards compatibility.
| If there's no major/minor/patch semantics I just assume
| versions are small incremental additions. I could be wrong but
| that's what the browser versioning schemes have instilled in
| me.
| antihero wrote:
| Which is bizarre, because if you do want to have a breaking
| new version, what exactly do you do?
| dvirsky wrote:
| Improve existing stuff, add new stuff. That can be done
| with backwards compatibility if you have a well defined
| API. I haven't looked at Gnome's API in years so I'm not
| sure what's its state, but one shining example for this is
| Redis which is backwards compatible to 11 years ago.
|
| Another great and more relevant example is browsers.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| > if you do want to have a breaking new version, what
| exactly do you do?
|
| You change the name. Like "Raku" instead of "Perl6". Once
| you've reached a certain level of stability and usage, any
| substantial breaking change is going to inevitably result
| in a fork, so embracing that up front is going to result in
| a much better experience.
| fiddlerwoaroof wrote:
| Yeah, I like Rich Hickey's critique of semantic
| versioning. Major version changes just overload the name
| and cause confusion: if you must break compatibility,
| fork and rename.
| josefx wrote:
| You change the name of the software, like consoles? The
| next big Gnome version could then be called Gnome 360
| followed by Gnome 1, Gnome 64 or Gnome 3.11 for work
| groups.
| willtim wrote:
| > and hints at backwards compatibility.
|
| To me it communicates no commitment to backwards
| compatibility, i.e. no semantic versioning. This might be
| enforceable if one is Apple, but doesn't sound good for an
| open-source platform.
| geofft wrote:
| What would semantic versioning for a UI even mean? What's
| the API promise?
| xorcist wrote:
| It could mean that all applications still run unmodified
| and can show all the dialog boxes they used to.
|
| That may not sound like much of a promise, but it is.
| Applications written for GNOME 2.x won't run under 3.x.
| aembleton wrote:
| x.y.z
|
| x would increment on the removal of a feature
|
| y would increment on the addition or change of a feature
|
| z would increment on a bug fix
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| To me it communicates a commitment that they'll never have
| any significant breaking change ever again without changing
| their name, fork style.
| willtim wrote:
| An insignificant breaking change is still a breaking
| change; and over time they build up. This may explain why
| so many developers have been unhappy with GTK3.
| npteljes wrote:
| Yeah like how Firefox got rid of XUL extensions in
| version 57.
| yepthatsreality wrote:
| Agreed it's very shallow backwards logic that will only cause
| issues when an actual Gnome 4.0 is released. The irrationality
| will have to be fought similar to Iphone by using "Gnome 3.40"
| when discussing it.
| clircle wrote:
| Is it faster though?
| ogre_codes wrote:
| Been a few years since I've used Gnome, I hadn't realized they'd
| pivoted so much to following MacOS.
|
| It looks like they've taken a lot of the best parts of MacOS and
| built something really nice atop it.
| legulere wrote:
| I have the feeling it also happened the other way around as
| well. When Gnome 3 came out the big buttons and huge whitespace
| seemed ridiculous, especially with Big Sur MacOS looks very
| similar.
| pseudalopex wrote:
| Apple doing it doesn't make it better.
| joana035 wrote:
| s/MacOS/webOS/g
|
| from Palm
| ogre_codes wrote:
| You need to check your dates.
|
| MacOS's fundamental look has a pretty consistent chain all
| the way back to NextOS in the 90s. The Dock, the dot
| indicator, and many other core pieces are visible in versions
| of MacOS which predate the launch of webOS. MacOS borrows
| some bits from webOS as well, but the fundamental Dock layout
| is right out of NextStep.
| dgllghr wrote:
| Yea gnome gets a lot of hate, but I've been using it as a daily
| driver for a few years and I have a slick, productive workflow
| with minimal customization. It's free software, it looks nice,
| and every release is a nice improvement.
| symlinkk wrote:
| It's been like this since Gnome 3 was released in 2011. This is
| why I've always been confused by people who say Linux has an
| "ugly, inconsistent, unprofessional" UI - to me this looks and
| feels better than Windows.
| ogre_codes wrote:
| Looking and feeling better than Windows is a low bar. Or at
| least it was a low bar in the Gnome 3.0 days.
|
| I was mostly stricken with how much many of the features they
| are highlighting look straight out of stuff which was
| unveiled in MacOS about 5+ years ago. Extensive gesture
| support being a biggie.
| reader_mode wrote:
| Gnome is just one part of the story - the gnome shell was
| always decent looking and had good themes.
|
| But the apps and the ecosystem really is ugly, messy and
| inconsistent. For example if you look at the controls you got
| with GTK out of the box in GTK3 era (when I last tried to
| build something with it) I remember huge paddings,
| unintuitive UX (the GTK file picker is the worst I've used)
| and poor layout controls. Go check out an app like
| https://inkscape.org and compare it to something like
| Illustrator or Gnome to Photoshop. The messy jumbled stacks
| of options with huge icons and paddings instead of being
| condensed and easy to use - most of it stems from GTK
| controls being bad.
|
| Now this is all with a huge disclaimer that I haven't used a
| Linux desktop in over 5 years at this point, maybe things got
| better but I doubt it - I still use Inkscape for example from
| time to time and Gimp on OSX and putting the non-native
| issues aside the apps look terrible on their own because of
| what I already said.
| ogre_codes wrote:
| Unfortunately, it feels like everything is turning into
| what Linux was 10 years ago. MacOS is better, but the
| increasing dominance of Electron and Java apps which bring
| their own UIs into whatever eco-system they encounter is
| very frustrating. If you are stuck running MS apps on the
| Mac, they are their own micro-cosm as well.
| vetinari wrote:
| This was always the case: MS Office used its own widgets
| since about 1995 on both platforms; Adobe has their own
| UI controls, and even Apple used custom/dark themes and
| controls for their pro apps since about forever.
|
| The current state of Apple App Store app is just the
| cherry on the top.
| ogre_codes wrote:
| I don't use Adobe, so for me, the big culprit has always
| been MS Office and I've been able to mostly avoid it for
| years. I'm looking more at Slack, VSCode, and other
| "Essential" apps which have displaced Mac Native tools
| like BBEdit and if you squint hard, Adium.
| reader_mode wrote:
| I don't think it's inconsistency that bothers me in this
| case - I don't really care if an app isn't using the same
| kind of widget design as long it's functional (I spend
| most of my days in apps that are entirely non-native and
| I'm fine with them).
|
| The problem is more with GTK design which is crap for 80%
| of PC applications with dense control layouts, the high
| padding touch style widgets it offers out of the box work
| for low density stuff not complex editors).
|
| Even non-native OSX apps integrate into OS in a
| predictable manner (use toolbar, shortcuts, native file
| dialogs, etc.)
| hctaw wrote:
| Text rendering still looks awful, and it's only getting
| worse with newer displays at higher resolutions that use
| scaling.
| go561192 wrote:
| Maybe you might break the 5 yrs gap with KDE Neon? :)
|
| https://neon.kde.org/
| reader_mode wrote:
| KDE was never my cup of tea - it more configurable than
| Gnome but I always liked the Gnome look (well 3.0 that
| is, 2.0 wasn't that attractive to me).
|
| Nowdays I need to develop stuff that deploys to iOS so
| I'm kind of stuck on a mac.
| longstation wrote:
| I just want to mention, if you feel there's some excessive
| padding and it's a waste of space (especially vertically), I
| suggest you take a look at a compact theme at GNOME Look.
|
| Currently, not all themes work properly with GTK 4, but they will
| eventually get there. Personally, I use the Mojave-gtk-theme. It
| wastes no space and is beautifully designed.
|
| [edited for grammar]
| Perizors wrote:
| yeah, that is one of the things I do after a fresh install. I
| am using Nextwaita from gnome-looks. It changes very little
| from the vanilla gnome, except for a slighter grey color scheme
| and less padding.
| hedora wrote:
| Have they fixed the file chooser yet?
|
| Specifically, I want to be able to click around on directories to
| choose where to save a file, type the file name, then press
| enter. This should save the file, not filter the directory
| listing.
|
| Also, I don't want it to default to overwriting some file I saved
| last week.
| stockerta wrote:
| Probably they will deprecate it soon, and gnome apps will
| randomly open a file for you. Just to be easier to use. A file
| picker dialog can confuse the user.
| hallarempt wrote:
| Well, given that that's what macOS Big Sur has done, it's a
| dead cert. You no longer get a file picker dialog by default
| when saving, but a place where you can type a name and a
| label that says where saving will happen.
| gh-throw wrote:
| Where do you see that? I tried hitting cmd+s in Safari,
| Terminal, and Pages and got a normal macOS file-save dialog
| in all three cases. Looks more or less the same as it has
| for quite a while. I haven't touched anything related to
| file save settings (I probably should, as I'd like the
| arrow-down-to-browse-files to always be expanded, and I
| know there's a setting for that somewhere, just haven't
| bothered to yet).
| amelius wrote:
| Also, the file chooser should show previews, like in Nautilus.
| dasweffar wrote:
| I've lurked on HN for more than a decade but created an account
| to concur with this comment. Accidentally filtering for folders
| (who even wants this) instead of typing a filename is truly
| awful and affects me daily. I would bail on gnome for this
| issue alone if I didn't have to use it on a work machine.
|
| Does anyone know of an issue in their tracker with an official
| stance on it?
| hollerith wrote:
| >I would bail on gnome for this issue alone if I didn't have
| to use it on a work machine.
|
| Both Google Chrome and Firefox use GTK's file picker (at
| least when "saving link as..." at least on Fedora 34
| Prerelease) so what would you do for a web browser?
| MarkyC4 wrote:
| Probably something like[1]:
|
| Because of the release of GNOME $next, and the lack of
| interest in maintainership of GNOME $prev, the gnome-core
| product is being closed. If you feel your bug is still of
| relevance to GNOME $next, please reopen it and refile it
| against a more appropriate component. Thanks...
|
| [1] adapted from: https://www.jwz.org/doc/cadt.html
| brian_herman wrote:
| I also want them to just make it so I can right click and
| create a new empty file. Linux is file based right? If I right
| click on a opened folder I want to create a file.
| turbinerneiter wrote:
| You can do that, make a folder called Templates and put your
| templates in there.
|
| Or maybe I'm misunderstanding.
| wayneftw wrote:
| Agreed 100%. As soon as the dialog opens, I usually just want
| to start typing the file name to save and then press enter to
| save.
|
| The workaround is that I must remember to hit Alt+N to focus on
| the filename box before typing. Usually I forget though.
| superkuh wrote:
| No. I actually went to GNOME's IRC network the other day to
| talk to them about gtkfilechooser's multiple problems. Yours,
| and then the lack of text input for typing or pasting file
| paths. https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gtk/-/issues/938 . They
| said they have no one assigned to gtkfilechooser bugs and none
| will be addressed.
|
| I was able to download the debian source for a couple gtk
| applications (ie, gedit/pluma) and apply community sourced
| patches to them to get back the text/file path entry box. But
| there's no way I am going to be able to fix Gtk itself. And
| fixing every application on my system by compiling from source
| and making new debian packages, well, I might as well linux
| from scratch.
| nerdponx wrote:
| Purely out of curiosity, what else is the Gtk team currently
| working on? People have been complaining about the file
| chooser for years.
|
| I'd be willing to donate a good chunk of money just to
| support "basic UX" improvements to FOSS software and toolkits
| like Gtk.
|
| Should we start a "Fix the Gtk file chooser" Gofundme?
| turminal wrote:
| > Purely out of curiosity, what else is the Gtk team
| currently working on?
|
| Probably redesigning the entire interface. "For your
| convenience".
| merb wrote:
| which they also do for years.
| ahartmetz wrote:
| It's more like decades, not years, by now. Seems
| worthwhile.
| acqq wrote:
| And now everybody should look for a text from 2003 written by
| jwz mentioning the "Cascade of Attention-Deficit Teenagers
| model" and slowly read it again, then think how much time
| passed since.
| mseepgood wrote:
| Shouldn't they be in their 30s by now?
| nine_k wrote:
| Most Gnome developers, I suppose, are on RedHat payroll and
| are not teenage.
|
| They are busy working on various things, this is certain,
| and these things are apparently more important for them.
| Like, well, GTK4.
|
| I suppose most Red Hat customers are corporate, and when
| they ask for featureful Linux desktop, they likely mean
| playing nice with corporate systems. This is why Evince is
| such a good PDF viewer, compared to a lot of others; it can
| even fill in forms. This is why the file chooser without
| image preview is fine as is for corporate use, because I
| suppose that 0% of graphic designers choose a Linux machine
| in a corporate setting.
| xiaomai wrote:
| the main text entry ("Name", the one that starts out focused)
| lets you type/paste paths.
| swiley wrote:
| I'm glad to hear putting hamburger menus in all the window
| title bars is prioritized over having a functioning UI.
| christophilus wrote:
| Gnome is my daily driver, and overall I'm a fan. But this is
| one of the dumbest file pickers I've seen.
| imbnwa wrote:
| I dunno which it is, but the typography/font rendering is just
| jarring in these screens. I imagine there's a bunch of hacking
| you can do to make it look crisper/aligned but no way I'd have
| time for that.
| vetinari wrote:
| Cantarell. Some consider that font a crime against humanity, on
| the level of MS Comic Sans or Papyrus.
|
| Canonical, could you please make the Ubuntu font really-SIL-
| free, so that Cantarell can be taken behind the barn and shot?
| Pretty please?
| JellyBeanThief wrote:
| God yes. I don't know why I hate it so much, but I do.
| Switching to Apple's San Francisco font is one of the first
| things I do.
| Perizors wrote:
| I used to do the same but even the San Francisco wouldn't
| look very good. I am now using Inter [1] as my system and
| browser font and it looks great.
|
| [1] https://rsms.me/inter/
| devit wrote:
| Back in the GNOME 3 debut days, the joke was that GNOME 4 would
| be just a black screen, the ultimate result of removing
| superfluous options and features and making a system that is as
| easy to use as possible.
| oshanz wrote:
| GNOME has no thumbnails in the file picker
|
| https://jayfax.neocities.org/mediocrity/gnome-has-no-thumbna...
| 411111111111111 wrote:
| i dont even remember the last time i used a file picker to
| select a picture on a desktop......
|
| i couldn't care less about this "issue", which supposedly shows
| that desktop linux is a "joke". he's not really convincing.
|
| (it would be a nice to have feature, yes. but his reaction is
| way overblown)
|
| > _This is why Free desktop operating systems are a joke and
| haven't been popularly adopted_ [...] GtkFileChooser remains
| broken
| hctaw wrote:
| Clearly this isn't an issue that people care about enough to do
| anything about, otherwise someone would have gone and
| implemented it.
| dleslie wrote:
| The people most likely to be impacted will be artists,
| photographers, and similar.
|
| This is a useless viewpoint when the grief is held by mostly
| non-devs.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| I loathe this line of thinking.
|
| Yes, "It's FOSS, go fork it" and all that malarkey.
|
| Painting with broad strokes: MacOS and others make money on
| things being polished, consistent and understandable. They
| don't get to use their hacker blinders and say "Who needs a
| GUI for that" or act like Firefox and rearrange the UI every
| six months.
|
| Thus, often times, the usability of OSes with a financial
| incentive for broad accessibility will be the most polished.
|
| Ubuntu for a period wanted to break into the desktop OS
| market. They focused on polish and went so far as to create
| their own desktop environment (and display server)! They
| didn't fully succeed, but the point stands: There are many
| people outside the hacker community who are not going to
| write their own DE, who nevertheless hold the valid (and
| often, IMO, correct) opinion that Linux UIs blow more often
| than Windows/Mac.
|
| PS: This isn't an argument about rights and obligations; I'm
| not saying randomGnomeDev123 has some moral obligation to do
| as randomUser345 asks. Just don't confuse "lack of
| obligation" with "being right".
| k_bx wrote:
| "Stop being poor" kind of an argument
| hctaw wrote:
| Not at all? This is FOSS. If this was a critical issue that
| blocked people from using the software, or aggravated a
| developer enough, then someone would go fix it or be paid
| to fix it.
|
| Developers don't have an obligation to implement every
| feature request. Clearly this is a nothingburger
| tmountain wrote:
| > Clearly this is a nothingburger.
|
| Hrm, I don't think so. It's probably more a matter of
| people that are accustomed to Gnome having accepted
| and/or habituated to the fact that it doesn't display
| thumbnails in the file manager. The same folks may have
| devised clever work arounds (opening the filesystem in a
| browser for example) or otherwise solved the problem in a
| way that it's not an impediment.
|
| The problem with this line of thinking is that it ignores
| a huge cohort of potential adopters that would be stopped
| dead in their tracks at this issue. I think about
| scenarios where I might introduce an older family member
| to a Linux desktop for all the benefits it would bring
| (low cost, stable, secure, etc), and then how it would
| feel having to explain that they can't easily preview a
| photo when navigating the filesystem (like I was making
| excuses for a platform with a gaping hole).
|
| In any system, it's heard to measure losses from things
| you don't have. A business might get that feedback from
| prospects that don't close, etc ("you don't have widget
| X, so we won't sign"), but it's harder to measure those
| feedback loops in the FOSS word. In short, I think not
| having this is a big deal, and folks that won't admit to
| that probably aren't considering a bunch of adoption that
| can't/won't happen until the issue is fixed.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| > This is FOSS. If this was a critical issue that blocked
| people from using the software, or aggravated a developer
| enough
|
| Ah, there it is. It hasn't aggravated a _developer_
| enough, so it is a non-issue. And people wonder why the
| Linux Desktop is unpopular.
| generalizations wrote:
| For me, it's less trouble to just use other tools that
| suck less.
| [deleted]
| jeroenhd wrote:
| I'm annoyed but not annoyed enough to learn proper Glib C for
| so I can fix it. I can probably make it work if I tried, but
| my attempts would never get accepted back into the code base
| because of the terrible mess I'd turn the code into.
|
| This issue is one of the things that a normal, non-technical
| user would run into if they'd ever try Linux. If the file
| picker can't even get feature parity with Windows XP's,
| you're not attracting a lot of growth.
|
| I'm fine with waiting for someone to eventually fix it in
| Gnome 8 or 9, but this is a real usability issue that
| indicates an entire area of the framework can use some work.
| hojjat12000 wrote:
| This is a dead meme. Boring and annoying specially to the Gnome
| developers. I have used Gnome for many years now. Never have
| this been an issue. If you look at the issue tracker[1], they
| are open to pull requests to add the thumbnail, we just need
| one person who cares about this feature!
|
| There are many other issues with Gnome that actually is their
| decision and it is a problem. This specific one is a GTK issue.
| But for example their decision on window decoration in wayland
| is just wrong and makes the whole environment look weird[2].
|
| [1] https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gtk/-/issues/233
|
| [2] https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/mutter/-/issues/217
| Aengeuad wrote:
| Various patches have existed for at least a decade but every
| time they're proposed some issue is found and they're not
| merged so the goal posts shift from 'just write your own
| patch' to 'just become a Gnome maintainer' with no guarantees
| that you'll get the assistance you need to implement the
| feature or whether it'll even be merged, and fair enough, the
| Gnome team really don't owe anybody anything, but in that
| case getting annoyed that the community keeps referencing a
| 17 year old issue is just a natural part of the exchange.
| Saris wrote:
| Why are people so dismissive about this? It's a significant
| usability problem among many, many others that gnome has.
|
| It _should_ be annoying that the issue keeps coming up.
|
| It's not a 'meme' that gnome lacks an extremely basic feature
| that is incredibly common in other GUIs.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| That seems excessively dismissive; it's hardly a dead meme
| while the issue remains open, boring only to the GNOME
| developers who have decided that little things like what
| users want is irrelevant, annoying only _because it 's been a
| decade with zero attempt at a solution_. It's nice that you
| never use this feature, but unhelpful to others who do. And
| yes, it's terribly generous of them to be willing to consider
| merging a fix if someone else does the work.
| JasonFruit wrote:
| But, you know, that's how it works: the problem doesn't get
| fixed unless someone both a) cares, and b) can do something
| about it. Why would a developer who isn't getting paid do
| work they don't care about? If you're interested, maybe you
| can finally be the person who cares and does the work.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| Giving something away for free doesn't mean that no one
| can criticize it. It's a severe shortcoming, it's been
| there for over a decade, and no obligated to fix it but
| that doesn't mean anybody is obligated to stop
| complaining about it either.
| cosarara wrote:
| > we just need one person who cares about this feature
|
| Uh no. There have been at least 3 separate attempts at
| implementing this. One of them actually lives as a fork on
| github, and it works. None of them have been merged. The gtk
| devs don't care.
| dleslie wrote:
| This is an issue for me; I don't enjoy having to work around it
| by finding the file in a separate file browser window.
| Aengeuad wrote:
| Also an issue for me, it does nothing for the already abysmal
| photography/image editing workflow. I try to use Qt programs
| where I can or xdg-desktop-portal where it's supported but
| some programs like Gimp still don't support it.
| als0 wrote:
| Kind of interesting and surprising that Gnome has gradually moved
| from a traditional Windows desktop look to a more macOS style
| with gestures and expose included.
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| Interestingly, if you take a look at old screenshots of Gnome
| 2.x, GTK apps have had more "mac like"
| layout/distribution/whitespace of controls within application
| windows for a very long time, even if the Gnome itself took
| more after Win9x in other aspects (like having a taskbar).
|
| By contrast KDE/Qt has always had a stronger Win9x feel through
| and through.
| mikevm wrote:
| Gnome really needs a way to restore windows after restart
| (especially Nautilus windows with tabs), otherwise using multiple
| workspaces becomes annoying as soon as Ubuntu performs an upgrade
| that requires you to restart. Mac OS handles this pretty well.
| O_H_E wrote:
| Not dismissing you comment. Just FYI.
|
| Well the nice thing is Ubuntu never forces you to restart
| (unless _you_ want to use a newer kernel). You can always press
| "later" until you are done with the work you are doing.
| Dig1t wrote:
| This looks really cool, but how do I get it? Is it out yet? The
| page is pretty unclear.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| on some of the rolling distributions (suse tumbleweed, arch,
| fedora rawhide) it's probably in the repos soon. Technically I
| guess you can go to gitlab and try to build it from source but
| I think that's pretty adventurous and likely going to break
| stuff
| ufo wrote:
| It should eventually trickle down to the various Linux
| distributions. I'm waiting for Fedora 34, which is just around
| the corner.
| SamuelAdams wrote:
| Can they add a toggle that switches between these "fat" top
| window bars and "skinny" top window bars? Basically strip out
| about 90% of the extra padding from buttons and bars and compress
| the UI down to what OS 10.6/7/8 use. Otherwise I always have to
| tack on a theme just to fix this one issue.
|
| Realistically, how many people are using Gnome on touch screen
| displays? Personally I always use it on a laptop so 90% of their
| touch screen optimizations, like bloated bars, end up wasting
| screen real estate.
| jeroenhd wrote:
| Gnome and GTK are heavily opinionated towards client side
| decorations. That means the fat borders are part of the
| application, not necessarily of the desktop manager.
|
| You can make your own themes pretty easily though, if you want
| to change the theme. There's some quite-good-but-not-quite-
| there macOS themes that aren't too bad, especially with the top
| menu bars that Ubuntu used to have.
| ungzd wrote:
| Topmost bar still consists of lots of unused space with clock in
| the center -- a design decision surely copied from old mobile
| phones. Too much of screen space is wasted, in the most
| "expensive" area, where "Rule of the infinite edges" of Fitts's
| law applies.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| You used to be able to stick a global menu bar up there in
| GNOME 2, similar to the one on macOS. I switched to Plasma
| because you can still do that.
| offtop5 wrote:
| I feel really stupid to ask , but can I install this on Windows.
| ht_th wrote:
| Yes, sort of. Use WSL2 and a Xserver like
| https://sourceforge.net/projects/vcxsrv/ that runs on Windows.
| offtop5 wrote:
| Any way to get it to run Windows applications. Would it be
| possible to build something like that
| MayeulC wrote:
| Not sure about Gnome, but one used to be able to install KDE on
| windows https://www.maketecheasier.com/install-kde-in-windows/
|
| IIRC even KDE plasma worked. But these days there are a few KDE
| apps on the microsoft store or on kde.org.
|
| Even if you could install that on windows (compiling everythong
| with cygwin?), it wouldn't really be windows, mind you.
| iulian_r wrote:
| You can only install this on windows in a VM (like Virtual
| Box). You also can't install it directly, you would need a
| Linux distribution as well. It would be easier to wait until
| Ubuntu or Fedora releases a new version which contains this
| version of GNOME. Desktop Environments on Linux are basically
| GUI themes.
| EarthIsHome wrote:
| Not only are they GUI themes, some desktop environments come
| packaged with different utility software. (e.g. Gnome comes
| with GTK-based utility software like Gedit, and KDE comes
| with KDE-based utility software like Kwrite.
| offtop5 wrote:
| Has anyone ever made a Windows gui them. I need the
| functionality of windows, but I much tire of the way Windows
| looks now
| go561192 wrote:
| Maybe this is what you are looking for?
|
| https://www.microsoft.com/en-
| us/store/collections/windowsthe...
| [deleted]
| ceronman wrote:
| I would like to thank the Gnome community for this release! I
| can't wait to upgrade to Fedora 34 to use it.
|
| I use Mac OS daily on my work computer and Gnome daily on my
| personal computer. Yes, I know there are a lot of Linux open
| source applications that are not very polished, but the quality
| in Gnome and its core applications is extremely high. There are
| even some things that Gnome does better than Mac OS.
|
| Now, you might not like Gnome and that's perfectly fine.
| Fortunately, Linux is the land of choice and there is an
| alternative for every person. It baffles me to come here and read
| so much negativity! Come on! this is a big milestone for a
| community that has been working a lot to bring you something of
| quality for free! They have been doing this for decades already
| and they have put a lot of effort and love into this. How many
| open source projects fail to abandonment after just a few months?
|
| Why is it that so many people in internet communities such as HN
| can't take a minute to appreciate the effort and instead the
| _only_ thing that they are motivated to do is to nit-pick
| something and trash. Criticism is always welcome, there are even
| some appropriate channels to do it, but seriously why is this the
| _only_ thing that you are able to say about a community driven
| product? Why is there only space for negativity? Why not a small
| "thanks" or "I liked that feature" before your criticism? They
| are bringing this thing for you for free, why can't you at least
| say something nice?
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| Is GNOME as a community project? My reading of
| https://hpjansson.org/blag/2020/12/16/on-the-graying-of-gnom...
| is that it is driven largely by Red Hat and to some degree
| other companies.
|
| To your general point (why attack the project): GNOME has a
| reputation (IMO deserved) for aggressively not caring about the
| opinions of users or outside projects (ex.
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23795901). So at some
| point it comes to "GNOME hates everyone else, so everyone else
| hates GNOME".
| ehwhyreally wrote:
| Companies that charge you for their distribution are only
| charging for support. not really the distro, for this reason
| if you have a UI that shits itself on every corner it does
| not look good and ends up costing you more time and money,
| that's why it's largely driven by them.
| loudmax wrote:
| GNOME is the default desktop for nearly every major Linux
| distribution. It's the desktop that nearly everyone experiences
| if they decide to give Linux a try. As such its shortcomings
| are much more apparent than for something like, say, Xfce that
| you have to go out of your way to experience.
|
| My frustrations with GNOME are not about polish, they're about
| reliability. Users don't care about polish when they update
| their OS and suddenly wifi doesn't work. I sincerely hope GNOME
| is more reliable now than it was in the past.
| staplung wrote:
| Can you use Super (Cmd) as the modifier key yet? E.g. Cmd-c to
| copy?
| Zren wrote:
| Is Meta+Alt+Left/Right a new standard? Last I recall was
| Ctrl+Alt+Left/Right in Gnome2 days (which is what I have
| configured it to in KDE).
| z77dj3kl wrote:
| One of the best things about macOS is how well integrated the
| touchpad is with the desktop environment. As in, I can do the
| four-finger swipe to move between workspaces, and if I drag it
| slowly and halfway, then yank back, the animation will follow my
| movements exactly.
|
| Seems Gnome now has a bunch of those features. Are there any
| touchpads for which it's this well integrated and works? Or is it
| the same that it's always been: there's some kind of binary
| "gesture" recognizer that is then executed with a pretty
| animation?
|
| This is one of the biggest things keeping me on macOS at the
| moment.
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