GNOME 3.0 May Not Come Until September 2010 [Archive]

BlackStar

11-04-2009, 03:53 AM

Between Windows 7, MacOS and Kde4...... what is the purpose of gnome? We don't need another Windows 98 user interface do we?

Guys, can someone please answer this? Why do KDE users see it fit to bash Gnome every instance they can get? Has it something to do with insecurity (small e-penis I guess) or is there something in KDE that turns otherwise normal people into trolls?

The funny thing is that the bashing is mostly baseless:

No, Gnome looks nothing like Win98.
No, KDE is not prettier than Gnome - don't try to project your personal opinion onto everyone. For example, I think that the default KDE4.3 theme is fucking dreadful in colors and design, with plasmids being the only part that looks nice. (Hint: see the I think part in there?)
No, KDE is not more usable than Gnome in any meaningful way.

Gnome 2.0 game out in 2002. In 7 years, can you honestly name me 5 major improvements?
Evolution, Accessibility, GStreamer (with automatic codec installer), Seahorse, Orca, Tomboy, Cheese, GVFS, Brasero, fast user switching, tabbed Nautilus.

Oops, went over the 5 mark there, didn't I? These are best-of-breed applications and major features that have been introduced gradually over the lifetime of Gnome 2.x. Gnome 2.28 looks nothing like Gnome 2.0 - unless you are a troll, that is.

Back on topic, I'd support a September release. Gnome shell is looking extremely promising even in 2.28, but there's a lot of work left until it can surpass the default desktop in usability.

ioannis

11-04-2009, 03:54 AM

It's nice to see overhauling the user interface, but in my opinion, the biggest problem of GNOME is under the bonnet. They need to modernise GTK+ and first and foremost start with the programming language in use.

There are endless debates on this subject. It all boils down to statements like "you can do with C anything you can do with any other 'modern' language" and "you can use one of the many language bindings if you wish".

statement 1: It is very frustrating to hear such a statement, especially from veterans. The expressiveness of a proper OOP is unmatched by any GObject hacks.
statement 2: Bindings are usually out-of-sync, but most importantly they merely expose the GTK+ API to the language, rather than integrate with it (i.e. take full advantage of the design paradigms the language brings). Take a look at Ruby and Python bindings for instance.

The KDE guys went with C++ and at the time it was a reasonable choice. Although, better than C, not being dynamically bind means they had to resort to their own little hacks (signals, slots, object-properties, etc with moc)

In my opinion, a modern Desktop/Application environment should be build on a dynamically bind language(e.g. Objective-C). I would go as far as saying, interpreted as well (Ruby, Python, etc)...

R3MF

11-04-2009, 03:59 AM

"Reload this Page GNOME 3.0 May Not Come Until September 2010"

Is anyone surprised?

Meaning no disrespect to the Gnome devs, the target was optimistic even if the goals of Gnome3 were not as ambitious as those of KDE4.

And while I am sure Gnome3 (aka 2.32) will be usable, I am pretty certain it will be usable in the same way that KDE 4.1 was usable.

Given lessons learnt and more modest ambitions I'll be charitable and say that Gnome will achieve their KDE 4.3 moment in spring 2010 with Gnome 3.1, which is still a shorter time than KDE managed with their 4 series.

Gnome - KDE
2.6.30 - 4.0
3.0 - 4.1
--- - 4.2
3.1 - 4.3

AliBaba

11-04-2009, 03:59 AM

In 7 years, can you honestly name me 5 major improvements?

Go and search yourself, lazy. ;) Gnome has evolved constantly in the last few years.

As far as W98-look-alike claims are concerned, it's IMHO stupid to compare a more than 12 years old operating system to a modern and highly flexible desktop environment.

Seriously, every user can easily make his system look like Vista/7 or give it a completely unique appearance on the other hand. There's no need to bash gnome developers for their decision to give it a simple and clean look that will make every user understand its elements functionality at the first look.

Btw, @next9, this is no "real and actual vanilla gnome", it's Debian's design (with only a few changes though).

val-gaav

11-04-2009, 05:14 AM

Guys, can someone please answer this? Why do KDE users see it fit to bash Gnome every instance they can get? Has it something to do with insecurity (small e-penis I guess) or is there something in KDE that turns otherwise normal people into trolls?

Nope it's because KDE is underminded by Gnome the same way Linux is by Microsoft and Windows. Using Linux changes people into trolls that bash Windows and using KDE makes them hate Gnome for various simliar reasons...

The funny thing is that the bashing is mostly baseless:

No, Gnome looks nothing like Win98.
No, KDE is not prettier than Gnome - don't try to project your personal opinion onto everyone. For example, I think that the default KDE4.3 theme is fucking dreadful in colors and design, with plasmids being the only part that looks nice. (Hint: see the I think part in there?)
No, KDE is not more usable than Gnome in any meaningful way.

Here we go into opinions and statistics... But seriously default KDE is a lot prettier then default gnome... Oxygen is by far the first default linux desktop environment theme that doesn't suck. Both gnome and kde3 deafaults imho were quite bad. Also I tested this on few windows users and showing them default kde4 and gnome the pretty one answer was kde and gnome looked to them like some old windows ...

BlackStar

11-04-2009, 06:04 AM

Nope it's because KDE is underminded by Gnome the same way Linux is by Microsoft and Windows. Using Linux changes people into trolls that bash Windows and using KDE makes them hate Gnome for various simliar reasons...
Makes sense.

Here we go into opinions and statistics... But seriously default KDE is a lot prettier then default gnome... Oxygen is by far the first default linux desktop environment theme that doesn't suck. Both gnome and kde3 deafaults imho were quite bad. Also I tested this on few windows users and showing them default kde4 and gnome the pretty one answer was kde and gnome looked to them like some old windows ...
Let's just agree to disagree here :)

This blog (http://jpobst.blogspot.com/2009/10/i-dont-get-kde.html) post summarizes my thoughts pretty well:

And then you open a window:

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_4IfYnHLEdnY/Ssway_E-AlI/AAAAAAAAAtw/Lg-Enb1W0yY/s400/kde2.png

It is.. gray. There is no glass. There are no gradients. There is no depth. There is no elegance. There is just gray. It says: "I am kicking Windows 95's ass! Barely!"

I just don't get it. How can half of your desktop (let's call it "Plasma") be so beautiful, while the other half (let's call it "the stuff that is always going to be covering up Plasma") be so ugly and uninspired?

kraftman

11-04-2009, 06:56 AM

kraftman

11-04-2009, 07:06 AM

It is.. gray. There is no glass. There are no gradients. There is no depth. There is no elegance. There is just gray. It says: "I am kicking Windows 95's ass! Barely!"

I just don't get it. How can half of your desktop (let's call it "Plasma") be so beautiful, while the other half (let's call it "the stuff that is always going to be covering up Plasma") be so ugly and uninspired?

In my opinion Dolphin is quite elegant. Who the hell wants gradients and glass in a simple file manager? :P Btw. what other file manager (or the stuff that is always going to be covering up desktop) looks better using defaults? Gnome not, xfce not, e17 not, so? :>

More from this blog:

Yes, there are some problems with it. The buttons do not highlight in any way on hover. There are no tooltips, so I don't even know what the top two buttons do. From what I can tell, they do absolutely nothing. But it really lives up to KDE's reputation of eye candy.Maybe few year old child would have problems to realize what mentioned buttons do (or it would be just obvious and yes, they do...) - resize, rotate and preferences, so why someone is lying?

NeoBrain

11-04-2009, 07:10 AM

This blog (http://jpobst.blogspot.com/2009/10/i-dont-get-kde.html) post summarizes my thoughts pretty well:
I've been thinking about this as well - e.g. plain "complete window transparency" just doesn't cut it*, we'd need some API like Aero for Linux to improve the window decorations, which apart from round window corners really didn't see much innovation in the past few years.

* what I mean with this: it's not the whole window which should be transparent, but only it's menus and borders and stuff.

L33F3R

11-04-2009, 09:22 AM

iight kde fanboys. show me a very sexy windows 98. come on. ;)

deanjo

11-04-2009, 09:39 AM

Well as far as the Gnome vs KDE war goes, I do believe the Gnome crew started that war long ago when QT was used and wasn't the "purists" definition of free.

As far as the blog comment "It is.. gray. There is no glass. There are no gradients. There is no depth. There is no elegance. There is just gray." I find it funny they bitch about something that is easily enough customizable with the settings options. No glass, heh, since when did compiz become part of Gnome?

Apopas

11-04-2009, 09:39 AM

Nope it's because KDE is underminded by Gnome the same way Linux is by Microsoft and Windows. Using Linux changes people into trolls that bash Windows and using KDE makes them hate Gnome for various simliar reasons...
Well the biggest and most trolls I've seen, even in this specific forums, are the ones who are married with windows. Probably because they are much more in number than the Linux users.
In the desktop environments happens something similar. KDE users tend to be quite more, so there is big chance, the trolling to come mainly from them. Simple mathematics.

Apopas

11-04-2009, 09:41 AM

i cant believe i had to do this. I mean, seriously.

http://www.embeddingwindows.com/graphics/8mb_windows98.gif
http://www.tux-planet.fr/public/images/screenshots/gnome-mockup/gnome-mockup-13-mini.jpg

Oh come on that's unfair...
I mean Gnome3 look so much better than win7 and it doesn't need 16GB :rolleyes:

BlackStar

11-04-2009, 10:20 AM

As far as the blog comment "It is.. gray. There is no glass. There are no gradients. There is no depth. There is no elegance. There is just gray." I find it funny they bitch about something that is easily enough customizable with the settings options. No glass, heh, since when did compiz become part of Gnome?

He isn't comparing with Gnome, so your point is baseless. What the blog post said was that the nicer parts of KDE are seriously pretty - but unfortunately many parts are lagging behind or are just plain ugly (like the Dolphin screenshot from the previous page), which makes the difference all the more jarring.

The "gray, flat and ugly" comment is spot on. Many people consider KDE as the pinnacle of UI design in the OSS world, but great UI design must be consistent: you piece shiny Plasmoids and a flat gray Dolphin together and expect it to look pretty.

Edit: Btw. what other file manager (or the stuff that is always going to be covering up desktop) looks better using defaults? Gnome not, xfce not, e17 not, so? :>
Personally, I consider Nautilus 2.28 to look much better than that Dolphin screenshot. I'll post a screenie when I get back home for comparison.

Maybe few year old child would have problems to realize what mentioned buttons do (or it would be just obvious and yes, they do...) - resize, rotate and preferences, so why someone is lying?

Consistency, man, the point is consistency. If I hover on a button, I expect it to shine. I expect a tooltip to unfold and explain its function. If neither happens, it's broken and should be fixed (at least in the Gnome world, but I doubt KDE views this differently).

deanjo

11-04-2009, 10:30 AM

He isn't comparing with Gnome, so your point is baseless. What the blog post said was that the nicer parts of KDE are seriously pretty - but unfortunately many parts are lagging behind or are just plain ugly (like the Dolphin screenshot from the previous page), which makes the difference all the more jarring.

Sorry I was only responding to the items referred to in the quote.

The "gray, flat and ugly" comment is spot on. Many people consider KDE as the pinnacle of UI design in the OSS world, but great UI design must be consistent: you piece shiny Plasmoids and a flat gray Dolphin together and expect it to look pretty.

Actually funny you mentioned that. There are people in either boat. My company just did a minor cosmetic change to it's UI to make it look more modern with a gradient header. When that update hit about 1/2 our customer's loved it, the other half hated it, and some claimed they couldn't find where stuff was anymore even though the layout was identical.

Edit:
Personally, I consider Nautilus 2.28 to look much better than that Dolphin screenshot. I'll post a screenie when I get back home for comparison.

See and I find Nautilus an absolute PITA with it's default settings. My personal workflow does not jive with Nautilus at all. Different folks, different strokes.

Joe Sixpack

11-04-2009, 01:25 PM

Well as far as the Gnome vs KDE war goes, I do believe the Gnome crew started that war long ago when QT was used and wasn't the "purists" definition of free.

It's great to hear from someone who was actually around long enough to remember :) Every other post was either KDE was ugly, or KDE was bloated - very few users actually just used Gnome and STFU. They just had to show people why the smaller desktop environment was better.

What he also fails to realize is a large percentage of those KDE users bashing gnome are disgruntled, ex-Gnome users.

Joe Sixpack

11-04-2009, 01:57 PM

Go and search yourself, lazy. ;) Gnome has evolved constantly in the last few years.

The problem I've always had with Gnome was they always told you something wasn't need - then added it later and tried to make a big deal about it when it should have been there from the beginning. Perfect example, alacarte menu editor.

No matter how much you love Gnome, you should have at least 2 undeniably major feature editions you can hang your hat on in a 7 year span. Try to be objective here.

See and I find Nautilus an absolute PITA with it's default settings. My personal workflow does not jive with Nautilus at all. Different folks, different strokes.

People mistake their favorite distro's Gnome with vanilla Gnome. That default theme and green leaf background is horrendous. And to add to what you said, Nautilus by default is a PITA. I forget the official term for it, but you click on a folder and another one keeps popping up - no side panel, no address bar, nothing. You have to manually go in and select "always use browser view". I mean seriously, in 2009 who the hell uses that interface anymore by default?

Just like they accused KDE users of being Gnome trolls, you can make a strong argument about a lot of Gnome users being borderline brainwashed. I mean seriously, you're actually going argue with a straight face that Gnome's come a long way in the past 2 years, or Nautilus is better by default than Dolphin?

bulletxt

11-04-2009, 02:07 PM

Hey guys... come on I was just joking :) Each DE has its advantage and disadvantages. There are a lot of areas where kde just rocks, but there are other "dark" spots where Gnome is better. I'm not sure when Windows DE is good :)

Again, I was just fooling around to make up a discussion and see what people think. It looked as a troll post I know, but what I wanted was a discussion. Discussion is always a good thing (but of course, my post wasn't a discussion. It was a crazy arrow to open one) :P

BlackStar

11-04-2009, 02:57 PM

I mean seriously, you're actually going argue with a straight face that Gnome's come a long way in the past 2 years, or Nautilus is better by default than Dolphin?

Gnome *has* come a long way in the last two years. Have you ever used Evolution? Nautilus? (tabbed browsing at last, dammit!) Totem can actually stream videos now (install a distro from two years ago - any distro - and try streaming rtsp or mms video). The bluetooth stack has been improved significantly (unlike, say, KDE's).

If you are not using Gnome you may have missed all this stuff due to the lack of a "big" release (here comes KDE 4.0 suckers!), but the improvements are visible and welcome. I, for one, would never go back to Gnome 2.16 or even 2.22 - these "little" changes make a world of difference in actual use.

Default Nautilus probably isn't better than default Dolphin (honestly, default Nautilus sucks, although I've never seen a default Dolphin to compare) - however Nautilus in mainstream distros definitely looks cleaner than the Dolphin 4.3 screenshot from the previous page.

Joe Sixpack

11-04-2009, 03:44 PM

Gnome *has* come a long way in the last two years. Have you ever used Evolution? Nautilus? (tabbed browsing at last, dammit!) Totem can actually stream videos now (install a distro from two years ago - any distro - and try streaming rtsp or mms video). The bluetooth stack has been improved significantly (unlike, say, KDE's).

If you are not using Gnome you may have missed all this stuff due to the lack of a "big" release (here comes KDE 4.0 suckers!), but the improvements are visible and welcome. I, for one, would never go back to Gnome 2.16 or even 2.22 - these "little" changes make a world of difference in actual use.

Default Nautilus probably isn't better than default Dolphin (honestly, default Nautilus sucks, although I've never seen a default Dolphin to compare) - however Nautilus in mainstream distros definitely looks cleaner than the Dolphin 4.3 screenshot from the previous page.

I respect what you are saying. Now, let me say a few things:

You also inadvertently proved my other point: Gnome adds features that should have been there from the beginning. Didn't Mplayer support streaming video 3 or 4 years ago with Live555 and mplayer plug-in? How long has Konqueror had tabbed browsing? These things have been in Linux, but some people have had their head in the Gnome sand for so long, they didn't know they existed until they were offered in the form of a Gnome app.

I haven't used bluetooh or Evolution for a while, so I can't comment. However, I have used Gnome a lot more than you think, and the day to day stuff has been, for the most part, stagnant. Minor tweaks have occurred, but the only major addition you've really name was bluetooth improvement - which I can't even debate because I don't use it. However, on the KDE 4.4 thread, users did mention that it has been greatly improved in trunk. Konqueror/Dolphin was the first to ask "Move, Copy, Link" when you dragged a folder to the desktop. K3B is still better than Gnome Baker. When burning an audio cd, Brassero normalizes the audio automatically. Amarok is better than Rhythmbox or Banshee. These things can hardly be argued. Klipper is rather handy, and Kwin has composition support built in. Several neutral sources say that KTorrent is the best BT client available for Linux.

I'm just saying... It wasn't like KDE had a major head start. Gnome 2 has been a 7 year platform, so they have no excuse for always lagging behind. By the time KDE 4.4 comes out, KDE would have completely rebuild and redesigned in only 2 years, with most of the bugs ironed out. Meanwhile, Gnome will either still be getting things stable, or lagging behind yet again.

(Edit: I should also note that I didn't start this discussion. While you made the comment about KDE users always trolling about Gnome, you neglect to mention that the conversation started when someone took a cheap shot at KDE4. I then responded by saying their progress justifies their decision and pointed out the contrast between KDE's momentum and that of Gnome.)

ioannis

11-04-2009, 03:59 PM

It is.. gray. There is no glass. There are no gradients. There is no depth. There is no elegance. There is just gray. It says: "I am kicking Windows 95's ass! Barely!"

I think this translucent/glass fever needs to come to an end. Since when did those define "elegance"? It's the GUI equivalent of the fashion statement "wearing glasses makes you look sophisticated" (pun not intended). This Vista/Aero/glass/whatnot plague has also spread into our laptop designs and made them all glossy (screens, body, everything, pure finger magnets). The old saying, "not everything that shines is gold", applies. Of course, equally, the "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" applies as well.

Since I ended up using all these idioms, I should also point out that 'everything in moderation' is the rule of thumb. Just as curved corners are considered attractive, but only in the right amount, so does transparency/reflection/gradients in some places. What we see lately is design decisions that took it too far and made the desktop look like a 'prostitute'.

BlackStar

11-04-2009, 05:31 PM

@Joe Sixpack: with the exception of Epiphany (which just plain sucks), I prefer the Gnome alternatives to the applications you posted: Brasero, Metacity (which also supports composition), Transmission (for torrents) - and in the wider GTK camp, there's Gnome Do, XBMC, Banshee, Tomboy. It could be simple familiarity that keeps me to the Gnome side (although I make a point to test every major KDE release), but I guess I cannot see how "Gnome is lagging behind" in practice...

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. :)

(Edit: I should also note that I didn't start this discussion. While you made the comment about KDE users always trolling about Gnome, you neglect to mention that the conversation started when someone took a cheap shot at KDE4. I then responded by saying their progress justifies their decision and pointed out the contrast between KDE's momentum and that of Gnome.)

Actually, it all started when bullext opened the discussion by likening Gnome to Windows 98.

_txf_

11-04-2009, 05:32 PM

Evolution, Accessibility, GStreamer (with automatic codec installer), Seahorse, Orca, Tomboy, Cheese, GVFS, Brasero, fast user switching, tabbed Nautilus.

Cheese is practically a replica of Photobooth, Brasero wants to be K3B, tabbed nautilus is a wannabe konq, fast user switching wasn't anything new and GVFS is a "NIH"ism of kio.

On Gstreamer, tomboy and Orca I agree.

Evolution...urgh...won't even bother

Joe Sixpack

11-04-2009, 05:47 PM

@Joe Sixpack: with the exception of Epiphany (which just plain sucks), I prefer the Gnome alternatives to the applications you posted: Brasero, Metacity (which also supports composition), Transmission (for torrents) - and in the wider GTK camp, there's Gnome Do, XBMC, Banshee, Tomboy. It could be simple familiarity that keeps me to the Gnome side (although I make a point to test every major KDE release), but I guess I cannot see how "Gnome is lagging behind" in practice...

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. :)

Actually, it all started when bullext opened the discussion by likening Gnome to Windows 98.

Fair enough :)

Only one correction: Contrary to the belief of a lot of gnome users, Gstreamer is not a gnome app. In fact, isn't Gstreamer the default backend of Phonon? (BTW, the entire Phonon approach is nothing short of freakin genius)

BlackStar

11-04-2009, 05:55 PM

I think this translucent/glass fever needs to come to an end. Since when did those define "elegance"?
Since Mac OS X (first) and Vista (second). Apple and Microsoft have spent many millions of dollars designing and testing these interfaces - yes, some people prefer the looks of Win98, but the vast majority of users appreciate elegance and - why not? - beauty.

I absolutely agree with your "moderation" comment. To me, it seems that the theming/design community has matured significantly over the last few years and modern themes tend to be more professional and "mature" than older ones. Just look at the new Ubuntu icon theme (Humanity, I think?) or the "New Wave" theme: these are works of art! Simple, elegant and beatiful, with curves and chrome that actually improves usability (e.g. strong button highlights, differentiating colors) and the right balance of "glossiness".

Of course, amateur designers will produce amateur crap 9 times out of 10, but design skills seem to be going up on average now that the initial "yay Compiz!" effect has worn off.

@__txf__: what's wrong with Evolution? Yes, it used to be pretty bad in the past but it has steadily gotten better, to the point where I prefer it over every other client I've tried. Thunderbird 2 sucks, KMail sucks worse, Outlook is way too slow, Windows Mail is laughable, Opera mail is awesome but it's missing GPG and it hits the disk too hard for my linux-on-a-stick installation.

BlackStar

11-04-2009, 06:03 PM

Fair enough :)

Only one correction: Contrary to the belief of a lot of gnome users, Gstreamer is not a gnome app. In fact, isn't Gstreamer the default backend of Phonon? (BTW, the entire Phonon approach is nothing short of freakin genius)

Wikipedia to the rescue:

GStreamer is a pipeline-based multimedia framework written in the C programming language with the type system based on GObject.
[...]
The GNOME desktop environment, the primary user of GStreamer technology, has included GStreamer since GNOME version 2.2 and encourages GNOME and GTK+ applications to use it. Other projects also use or support it, such as the Chameleo media platform, the Phonon media framework and the Songbird media player.

So while it's not a Gnome app per se (it's not hosted on gnome.org), it's pretty intricately tied with Gnome.

Phonon is indeed a great abstraction over the multimedia pipeline/codec issue.

Alejandro Nova

11-04-2009, 07:42 PM

Yeah! Delay that GNOME 3.0! Make it depend wholly on Mono, so Ubuntu 10.10 Masturbating Monkey can have finally a reason for its name! And, while you are at it, please rewrite GTK+ so I can, after 25 years of computing evolution, FINALLY change the colours of my applications with a GUI!

Just kidding.

I tried GNOME Shell and it is promising, but it isn't still there. You still need the rewrite; you'd love to do the kind of effects Clutter does with plain GTK+. And I'd love to see it.

Personally, I prefer KDE. But GNOME has that kind of attention to detail that makes me forget about it. GNOME doesn't get in your way, and that's a definite plus.

Ex-Cyber

11-04-2009, 11:29 PM

So while it's not a Gnome app per se (it's not hosted on gnome.org), it's pretty intricately tied with Gnome.As far as I can tell, it's no more "intricately tied with Gnome" than GTK+ is. That is, GNOME does use it as a component, but it doesn't depend on GNOME.

BlackStar

11-05-2009, 06:03 AM

As far as I can tell, it's no more "intricately tied with Gnome" than GTK+ is. That is, GNOME does use it as a component, but it doesn't depend on GNOME.

Never said otherwise. It's intricately tied in the sense that if you take it out, half of Gnome will break.

ioannis

11-05-2009, 07:30 AM

Since Mac OS X (first) and Vista (second). Apple and Microsoft have spent many millions of dollars designing and testing these interfaces - yes, some people prefer the looks of Win98, but the vast majority of users appreciate elegance and - why not? - beauty.

OS X is a good example of realising things went too far. In the early days of OS X (after MacOS 9), Apple fell for the same trap as everyone else with an overdose of transparencies. They gradually turned those down as the GUI design 'matured'. Microsoft is now experiencing the same symptoms with Vista and Win7, a perfect example of what I call the 'prostitute effect'. No, Vista's GUI is not elegant. It's the first attempt to escape from the ugliness of the Win98 GUI era.

Just look at the new Ubuntu icon theme (Humanity, I think?) or the "New Wave" theme: these are works of art! Simple, elegant and beatiful, with curves and chrome that actually improves usability (e.g. strong button highlights, differentiating colors) and the right balance of "glossiness".

Exactly. Another good example is Moblin. To some, a bit cartoonish, but overall represent an example of beauty and elegance by simplicity and minimalism. Non-obtrusive graphical design and effects that are soothing to the eyes.

Of course, amateur designers will produce amateur crap 9 times out of 10, but design skills seem to be going up on average now that the initial "yay Compiz!" effect has worn off.

This has traditionally been the problem, with code developers doing the graphical design work as well. It's like calling a house painter to do your portrait. These days, all major DEs and distros have dedicated professional graphics designer teams and it shows!

mat69

11-05-2009, 07:44 AM

Please don't generalize, there is no such thing as the typical KDE or Gnome user. :rolleyes:

Use what you want to use and be happy with that.

Evolution, Accessibility, GStreamer (with automatic codec installer), Seahorse, Orca, Tomboy, Cheese, GVFS, Brasero, fast user switching, tabbed Nautilus.
Well tbh Nautilus having tabs is not a groundbreaking feature -- rather a sign for the stubborness of the devs as that was a real old feature-request -- neither is fast user switching or Tomboy or Evolution (what groundbreaking changes were there, IMAP?).

Imo there are other, better examples that happened in the Gnome ecosystem, like PackageKit, ConsoleKit and DeviceKit. Great basis for future developement and used by other DEs as well. E.g. look at that new tool to manage your drives that uses DeviceKit, really nice that you can look at the S.M.A.R.T figures and make a test etc. from a nice gui. There happened a lot though imo Gnome devs -- or the ones deciding what comes in -- often are too conservative and don't use the potential Gnome could have --> options are not bad neither are they evil! Still their conservatism is also one of Gnome's strengths, its like Ying and Yang finding a balance and that is pretty hard.

On the window decoration part, nearly everything is possible with the changes Marco Martin (IIRC!) did, you could make the windows look like the plasma widgets etc. there just needs to be someone writing a theme for it. I have forgotten the name though.

Consistency, man, the point is consistency. If I hover on a button, I expect it to shine. I expect a tooltip to unfold and explain its function. If neither happens, it's broken and should be fixed (at least in the Gnome world, but I doubt KDE views this differently).
Don't generalize please. There are lot's of KDE devs that aren't really happy with situations you outlined above, there are also some who don't really like the new notifications etc. (heck I e.g. don't like the new "thingy" to add plasmoids, the dialog was not ideal either but could have been improved but that is just my opinion) but as it often is devs can be stubborn, especially on their brainchild. --> heck if I have compositing on I also want the option to turn transparency of my plasma widgets off, I don't like transparency.

On Gnome 3 what I'm missing is Gtk 3, there is nothing groundbreaking for Gtk 3 really, look at the changes of Qt, look at what we will have with Qt 4.6 in a few weeks --> animating has become so easy, I know there is Clutter, but clutter needs OpenGL Qt does not. On the Qt board there happened so much and in the following months there will happen even more (QMF for one).

BlackStar

11-05-2009, 12:03 PM

Well tbh Nautilus having tabs is not a groundbreaking feature -- rather a sign for the stubborness of the devs as that was a real old feature-request -- neither is fast user switching or Tomboy or Evolution (what groundbreaking changes were there, IMAP?).

I listed both evolutionary and revolutionary features to counter the claim that Gnome is stagnant.

Tabbed Nautilus is an evolutionary feature in itself, but it has actually revolutionalized how I use my computer (actually, this was the single KDE 3.x/4.x that I missed in Gnome).

Evolution: several features have been introduced over the years. For me, the biggest is exchange support (I haven't been able to get this to work on any other open source mail client). Laugh all you want, but this is the feature that allowed me to stay with Gnome/Linux while working for a Windows shop.

Tomboy: this is an innovative little application that packs a punch. It just keeps getting better with every version, with remote sync being the killer feature. Dammit, I used to enter my notes into version control just to be able to sync them between my workstations!

Imo there are other, better examples that happened in the Gnome ecosystem, like PackageKit, ConsoleKit and DeviceKit.
No argument from me here - I just listed a number of applications that have changed my day to day experience when using Gnome.

Consistency, man, the point is consistency. If I hover on a button, I expect it to shine. I expect a tooltip to unfold and explain its function. If neither happens, it's broken and should be fixed (at least in the Gnome world, but I doubt KDE views this differently).
Don't generalize please. There are lot's of KDE devs that aren't really happy with situations you outlined above, there are also some who don't really like the new notifications etc. (heck I e.g. don't like the new "thingy" to add plasmoids, the dialog was not ideal either but could have been improved but that is just my opinion) but as it often is devs can be stubborn, especially on their brainchild. --> heck if I have compositing on I also want the option to turn transparency of my plasma widgets off, I don't like transparency.

Don't take my comment out of context. I replied to a very specific comment, which roughly said that (a) a specific example of inconsistency is fine (posted in the blog I linked) and (b) any user who is thrown off by this inconsistency is an idiot.

I don't believe that KDE developers are happy with such inconsistencies either, nor do I believe they are the result of stubborness. In all likelihood, they will be fixed sooner rather than later.

I do believe, however, that Gnome developers take a more proactive approach to such issues - which is also why they are delaying Gnome 3.0. It's simply a different approach to development - release earlier with some issues (KDE 4.0) or hold back and polish (Gnome 3.0). (Note: both approaches have their merits, I'm not advocating one over the other).

On Gnome 3 what I'm missing is Gtk 3, there is nothing groundbreaking for Gtk 3 really, look at the changes of Qt, look at what we will have with Qt 4.6 in a few weeks --> animating has become so easy, I know there is Clutter, but clutter needs OpenGL Qt does not. On the Qt board there happened so much and in the following months there will happen even more (QMF for one).

An OpenGL dependency is not bad now that most (relevant) open source drivers have reached ~1.5 level. Given current trends, I'd expect more and more applications to use hardware acceleration as time passes (Qt included).

If you are willing to look out of the box, there's a lot of innovation going on on the Gnome side, too: Moonlight on the desktop is simply awesome - and it doesn't require OpenGL either. (I expect a Clutter-based renderer will be implemented in the future, right now there's a Cairo and a OpenVG(!) based renderer.)

Joe Sixpack

11-05-2009, 02:23 PM

Never said otherwise. It's intricately tied in the sense that if you take it out, half of Gnome will break.

I'm really not trying to argue with you, but that comment is completely insane and so is the reasoning behind it.

If you remove libjpeg or libxcb half of Gnome would break. The same for glibc. None of the aforementioned packages are part of Gnome or KDE. Let's not take it back to 2003 when every package written in Gtk+ or began with the letter "g" was called a Gnome app. The "g" stands for GNU - not Gnome.

BlackStar

11-05-2009, 07:37 PM

I'm really not trying to argue with you, but that comment is completely insane and so is the reasoning behind it.

If you remove libjpeg or libxcb half of Gnome would break. The same for glibc. None of the aforementioned packages are part of Gnome or KDE. Let's not take it back to 2003 when every package written in Gtk+ or began with the letter "g" was called a Gnome app. The "g" stands for GNU - not Gnome.

Note, I said "intricately tied" which means something different than "part of". Gstreamer is intricately tied with Gnome, because Gnome is its primary consumer. For example, I really doubt that Gstreamer would break its API/ABI without first communicating with the Gnome developers.

Gstreamer is obviously not part of Gnome in the sense that it relies on Gnome libraries or infrastructure - it is a depenency and a significant one at that.

bartek

11-06-2009, 02:17 AM

It would be nice if GNOME 2.30 would have the option to login in to GNOME 3.0 (alfa/beta/...) :)

So users will have the option to switch whenever they want from 2.30 to 3.0 and back. More people will test and give their opinion and comments on the upcoming 3.0 release..

mat69

11-06-2009, 05:55 AM

Don't take my comment out of context. I replied to a very specific comment, which roughly said that (a) a specific example of inconsistency is fine (posted in the blog I linked) and (b) any user who is thrown off by this inconsistency is an idiot.

I don't believe that KDE developers are happy with such inconsistencies either, nor do I believe they are the result of stubborness. In all likelihood, they will be fixed sooner rather than later.
Sorry, guess I completely misunderstood your initial post or maybe mixed something up.

An OpenGL dependency is not bad now that most (relevant) open source drivers have reached ~1.5 level. Given current trends, I'd expect more and more applications to use hardware acceleration as time passes (Qt included).
Qt can use OpenGL, the difference is that it is not a hard dependence. And as KDE strives to be multiplattform having a hard dependence on OpenGL is not a good idea. Also I'm not sure if Clutter supports OpenGL ES.

If you are willing to look out of the box, there's a lot of innovation going on on the Gnome side, too: Moonlight on the desktop is simply awesome - and it doesn't require OpenGL either. (I expect a Clutter-based renderer will be implemented in the future, right now there's a Cairo and a OpenVG(!) based renderer.)
Just to be sure that I don't misunderstand you here again, but what do you mean with Moonlight?

kwanbis

11-06-2009, 11:02 AM

Hello, new to the forum.

Long time COMPUTERS user (spectrum, ti994/a, commodore 128, ibm pc xt, amiga, etc, etc), and long time OSES user (DOS, CPM, DR.DOS, Windows, OS/2, BeOS, linux, OSX, etc).

As some have already say, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. For example, in general, y don't understand what is the obsession of some to "dark" themes.

If you ask me, i rather have the Windows 2000 look than the 7 look.

But then again, i like OSX look better.

I'm really not a heavy Linux user, but i use it from time to time.

I'n fact, i'm going to replace Windows7 with Ubuntu/SUSE/Fedora/other soon.

When i started, i tested both Gnome and KDE, and what i remember is seein KDE and think "ugh, 1000 options to do the same thing", and that it looked too much like windows. This was with kde3.

Since then, i've been using Gnome when i do use linux.

I would be checking kde4, but the point is i rather have simplicity and elegance oveer flashiness any day.

I prefer ThinkPads look over Alienware's or HPs ones: minimalism rules.

My 2cents.

BlackStar

11-06-2009, 11:11 AM

Qt can use OpenGL, the difference is that it is not a hard dependence. And as KDE strives to be multiplattform having a hard dependence on OpenGL is not a good idea. Also I'm not sure if Clutter supports OpenGL ES.

It does support OpenGL|ES. Given that OpenGL is supported pretty much everywhere, I don't see why a hard dependency is a bad thing. Even if you lack hardware support, you can always fall back a software-based OpenGL implementation (no, soft OpenGL doesn't have to be slow!)

I think that's much better than writing separate backends for GDI, XRender/EXA, Quartz, OpenGL, OpenGL|ES *and* a software rasterizer to boot. This hasn't been easy for Qt (check their blog) and - even after all those years - many of those backends are still lagging behind the software rasterizer.

Maybe it's a better idea to focus on a single, well-optimized OpenGL & OpenGL|ES implementation, rather than implement a dozen half-baked backends.

Just to be sure that I don't misunderstand you here again, but what do you mean with Moonlight?

(Donning armor)

http://www.mono-project.com/Moonlight

(Trolls incoming in three, two, one!...)

In all seriousness, this is a great project. Easy to animate. Runs on the desktop (on Linux at least). Runs on the browser (everywhere!) It can be used directly by many programming languages instead of just C or C++ (sidestepping the "sucky, outdated Qt/GTK bindings issue")

mat69

11-06-2009, 04:48 PM

I think that's much better than writing separate backends for GDI, XRender/EXA, Quartz, OpenGL, OpenGL|ES *and* a software rasterizer to boot. This hasn't been easy for Qt (check their blog) and - even after all those years - many of those backends are still lagging behind the software rasterizer.

Granted that makes sense

Maybe it's a better idea to focus on a single, well-optimized OpenGL & OpenGL|ES implementation, rather than implement a dozen half-baked backends.

In all seriousness, this is a great project. Easy to animate. Runs on the desktop (on Linux at least). Runs on the browser (everywhere!) It can be used directly by many programming languages instead of just C or C++ (sidestepping the "sucky, outdated Qt/GTK bindings issue")
I have no clue why this should be an innovative Gnome project.

ciplogic

11-06-2009, 08:46 PM

In 7 years, can you honestly name me 5 major improvements?

User features:
- taskbar overhaul: blinking notification to aplication, drag and drop, drag and drop between workspaces
- menubar reorganized to have much more clarity from two entries to three entries
- open-save dialogs are much better, can be added new sources (like search integration with beagle/tracker)
- standardized theme and set of icons that make any GNOME distro to give a non-distro specific Gnome look (Clearlooks)

Technology:
- support for composite (also cause of cairo) and which enable some applications as gnome-do to look nice on a composite desktop
- desktop search API
- help technology replaced
- improved accesibility with Orca
- telepathy framework
- PolicyKit integration
- Freedesktop integration

Gtk:
- toolkit: switching from Gdk to Cairo
- mono interoperability
- switching from gvfs to gio
- GtkBuilder replaces Glade (which went to version 3 that do not generate source-code as it's predecesors, but was a separate library)

Hardware API abstractisation:
- D-BUS to send notifications as low batery, but not only. Is a IPC framework that will be adopted later even by KDE
- swith hardware API to Hal (and maybe later DeviceKit, but may be a part of Gnome 3)
- switch from ESD to GStreamer

This seems to be all I remember, in short, sorry for what was skipped, but comparing GNOME 2.0 with Gnome 2.28 is plain silly. Is just like saying that GCC 4.0 is the same with GCC 4.4 and is use the same Gimple language and it stores it's definitions in SSA form, and we need to release GCC 5 as GCC 4.0 do not get enough fast binaries (compared with compiler X) and GCC 4 is based on the same bad technology.

val-gaav

11-07-2009, 06:26 AM

User features:
- open-save dialogs are much better, can be added new sources (like search integration with beagle/tracker)

Open/save file dialogs in gtk+ were always one big horrible joke on usability, features or whatever you want to name it.

Saying that those are much better now is just as saying that "hell has frozen".... and it's also untrue, because I'm watching this dialog right now on my PC and it still makes me want to delete every application that uses it.

As for other things I think we are living in 21 centry right now so putting drag and drop into major improvements is silly. It's not an major improvement it's a basic function that every DE should have and if it doesn't have it the devs should be just ashamed.

mat69

11-07-2009, 06:37 AM

@ciplogic well what you mention on the user side is not that thrilling at all (uuhh, drag and drop, come on that is a no-brainer and not sure on Gtk but should not take much time to code) [1] and you are highly inaccurate on the technology side. There is no such thing as "Freedesktop integration", fd.o is just a collection of "standards" people "agreed" on. [2]

D-Bus has nothing to do with hardware and btw. KDE 4 only uses DBus, nothing else. Funny somehow that Gnome partially still uses Bonobo, reminds me of the icon-fd.o-spec that KDE uses while Gnome still does not fully embrace it (sic?) or at least took way longer, despite the fact that both D-Bus and that icon-spec were started by devs that are close to Gnome. And to be honest I never understood that because I had the feeling that Gnome had more devs than KDE, but maybe I'm completely wrong on that or developing with Gtk was (! with all the bindings that for sure has changed) not that fast/easy compared with Qt.

[1] That is not to say that there weren't any thrilling changes, probably people just got so used to them that they can't imagine the absence of them in the past. And overall it is just hard to remember them and I do not urge anybody to look at all the changelogs, that would be a waste of time. Yet I still will mention when I see a change not as major improvement.
[2] Actually fd.o was/is heavily Gnome sided and highly inflexible, inconsistent and inconsequent, that is what started discussions from KDE devs to improve the decision-process, not sure if it worked out. Just one example, look how Akonadi was treated, months without an answer and then half-baked unfounded reasons to neglect it. Just ridiculous and brashness --> people working months on something and then putting them of with reasons like "some people think it has problems" (no quote, but the problems were not listed at all). Also galago anyone? That is not to say that I do not like fd.o, it could be a fantastic way to bring the whole Linux desktop foward, to make live for users and devs easier but in many occations it hinders just that.

ciplogic

11-07-2009, 08:31 AM

@mat69; I worked (as I'm a software developer) and I am aware of Qt4 that is a much improved over Qt3. I can agree that KDE4 shell looks like a revolution compared with KDE3. The point was that without breaking the user front look, GNOME changes almost in the same amount as KDE4 did. Gtk3 is expected to have a new theme engine but in rest, will be mainly Gtk2 with removed a lot of deprecated symbols. There are KillBonobo and Project Ridley that were about improving GNOME.

Making minimalist improvements, makes you feel that GNOME stays in place for ages, but as platform did improve. By FreeDesktop integration it just mean that GNOME implements specfications as folder locations, launchers, using HAL, etc. They are probably not revolutionary from UI standpoint, but at large taking GNOME 2.0 with GNOME 2.28, is a jump (in 8 years) as is KDE 3 to KDE 4. Don't get mislead by plasma itself (or any fancy UI). Think as a jump from Windows 98 to Windows 2000, meaning the same of Win32 API to be there, but a lot of internals to be much well better written, improved, etc.

Just the fact that GNOME 3 can run (as it's visible part: Gnome shell) on top of Gnome 2.28, simply means that technology on it may be considered one version above 2.0

I also agree with persons that say: Gnome is the same for ages in the ares like: Nautilus in general, Gnome-Panel look and feel that are the most visible parts of GNOME. A Nautilus rewrite I think may be desirable, but no one will do it very soon, so we will stay with it for now.

Probably, but at a smaller scale, is what OS X was from 10.0 to 10.6, but when you will go back on 10.0 stay 2 hours, you will say: how could someone liked that desktop?

L33F3R

11-07-2009, 04:34 PM

@ciplogic

thank you for that post. That will hopefully clear alot up, for alot of people.

val-gaav

11-08-2009, 04:35 AM

kraftman

11-08-2009, 07:16 AM

val-gaav

11-08-2009, 08:44 AM

Well I expect gnome 3.0 to be more of a marketing release: "competition had a major release so we will have one too" ...

The same way current Firefox was changed from 3.1 to 3.5 though it really is not so different from 3.0 ...

L33F3R

11-08-2009, 09:22 AM

Remember gnome 3.0 would not happen without kde4. Gnomers were so set on their incremental improvements and no 3.0 as we do not believe in revolution (there was a webpage on gnome.org called threepointzero arguing how next major release will not happen and why). Only KDE impact made them go 3.0 route.

please explain how the kde fanboys can both argue that the reason we will have a gnome 3.0 is because we need to catch up with kde; and on the flipside, its not really a 3.0 release at all.

gnome 3 adds a few major things. they dont want a total overhaul like kde4, which might i remind you sucked ass for about the first year as they crunched bugs. The kde fans here are debating that gnome is both a moderate change and an overhaul (not necessarily the same people arguing both). These are the same people that say windows 7 looks "ugly" or "disgusting", when a joe on the street will tell you default kde4 looks far worse.

kde fanboys (not to be confuzzled with kde users) are to desktop environments as republicans are to American politics...:rolleyes:

BlackStar

11-08-2009, 09:52 AM

please explain how the kde fanboys can both argue that the reason we will have a gnome 3.0 is because we need to catch up with kde; and on the flipside, its not really a 3.0 release at all.

gnome 3 adds a few major things. they dont want a total overhaul like kde4, which might i remind you sucked ass for about the first year as they crunched bugs. The kde fans here are debating that gnome is both a moderate change and an overhaul (not necessarily the same people arguing both). These are the same people that say windows 7 looks "ugly" or "disgusting", when a joe on the street will tell you default kde4 looks far worse.

kde fanboys (not to be confuzzled with kde users) are to desktop environments as republicans are to American politics...:rolleyes:

Well said!

Gnome 3.0 is not a "revolutionary" release, like KDE 4 was (with all the pain and suffering that brought). It's the culmination of years of gradual changes. It's also an effort to clean up the codebase from legacy features.

Gnome doesn't need "clean breaks" or "revolutions". This is its strength. This is why it's used almost exclusively in the professional/corporate world.

bugmenot

11-08-2009, 12:06 PM

Fair enough :)

Only one correction: Contrary to the belief of a lot of gnome users, Gstreamer is not a gnome app. In fact, isn't Gstreamer the default backend of Phonon? (BTW, the entire Phonon approach is nothing short of freakin genius)

Except that there are two forks of phonon - the qt version and the KDE version.

Not only that, Nokia is planning to abandon it for some upcoming abstraction framework yet to be announced...

kraftman

11-08-2009, 12:23 PM

please explain how the kde fanboys can both argue that the reason we will have a gnome 3.0 is because we need to catch up with kde; and on the flipside, its not really a 3.0 release at all.

Like someone mentioned it can be just for marketing needs... You can believe or not.

gnome 3 adds a few major things. they dont want a total overhaul like kde4, which might i remind you sucked ass for about the first year as they crunched bugs.

It wasn't recommended for production use, but they were so kind they let you use and test it.

The kde fans here are debating that gnome is both a moderate change and an overhaul (not necessarily the same people arguing both). These are the same people that say windows 7 looks "ugly" or "disgusting", when a joe on the street will tell you default kde4 looks far worse.

No, Joe will tell you KDE4 looks far better.

kde fanboys (not to be confuzzled with kde users) are to desktop environments as republicans are to American politics...:rolleyes:

And you're different.

val-gaav

11-08-2009, 01:57 PM

please explain how the kde fanboys can both argue that the reason we will have a gnome 3.0 is because we need to catch up with kde; and on the flipside, its not really a 3.0 release at all.
Gnome 3.0 is a marketing release. Just as Firefox 3.1 was renamed to 3.5 for a bigger impact the same goes with Gnome 3.0

gnome 3 adds a few major things. they dont want a total overhaul like kde4, which might i remind you sucked ass for about the first year as they crunched bugs.
First release 4.0 was market as for devs only. It's really not KDE fault that Fedora and few others decided to ship something that was intented just for Qt/KDE devs.
The second release 4.1 was marked as "early adopters" which IMHO also was a clear message to distros to not upgrade.

These are the same people that say windows 7 looks "ugly" or "disgusting", when a joe on the street will tell you default kde4 looks far worse.
... and that says a person that on the first page here posted a highly customized Gnome desktop pic instead of default upstream Gnome look and feel ... Are you really that ashamed of Gnome default look ? The fact is both Windows7 and KDE4 defaults look a LOT better then default Gnome ..

Zhick

11-08-2009, 02:38 PM

These are the same people that say windows 7 looks "ugly" or "disgusting", when a joe on the street will tell you default kde4 looks far worse.
Well, lets see what people on the street actually say: http://www.zdnet.com.au/insight/software/soa/Is-it-Windows-7-or-KDE-4-/0,139023769,339294810,00.htm
Look at that, they actually like KDE4 it seems. :P
Edit: Just to clarify: I'm not trying to say that Windows 7 is ugly. Haven't used it myself yet, and probably wont in the foreseeable future, but from what I've seen so far it does appear to be decent. This link just jumped to my mind when I read your post.

mat69

11-08-2009, 03:12 PM

please explain how the kde fanboys can both argue that the reason we will have a gnome 3.0 is because we need to catch up with kde; and on the flipside, its not really a 3.0 release at all.

gnome 3 adds a few major things. they dont want a total overhaul like kde4, which might i remind you sucked ass for about the first year as they crunched bugs. The kde fans here are debating that gnome is both a moderate change and an overhaul (not necessarily the same people arguing both). These are the same people that say windows 7 looks "ugly" or "disgusting", when a joe on the street will tell you default kde4 looks far worse.

kde fanboys (not to be confuzzled with kde users) are to desktop environments as republicans are to American politics...:rolleyes:
Yay for generalizing... :rolleyes:
Go and keep your trolling to yourself or come back if you have something else to say. I'm a KDE fan and what you generalized above simply does not apply to me neither some others I know (I won't speak for the rest).

If you disagree with something people said go and quote them and respond, instead of using a straw man argument or generalizing.

PS.: I really hate it when people come with "they", there is no such thing as "they". _Every_ group of many people has different kinds of people in it.

L33F3R

11-08-2009, 07:42 PM

looks like i stirred up the hive. Good :)

Ill just throw these in the abstract.

- default gnome is clean and simple. Nothing to be ashamed of. If you feel like defending windows 98 by all means please do. If you would like a side by side of gnome and windows 98 from the default install I would be happy to find you accurate images at your request.

-Gnome 3.0 is a marketing release. You are correct. But shell and the works are just evolutionary. which is how gnome works.

-The video towards kde vs windows is about as credible as any number of the stupid American videos you find on the internet. I argue a comparison towards win7 and KDE4, not kde posing as win7. Average people wont know the difference but perhaps a side by side comparison? find me that vid and props to you. No one here has denied that kde4 is nice on the eyes, which is basically what you prove.

-KDE4 4.1 was a piece of crap despite even being "early adopt", infact i wouldn't even consider using it on a production environment until at least 4.3. Now she runs well. Despite being "early adopt" it was a productive release, distros did pick it up. Some distros did the right thing and wait a while, Others diddnt. This doesnt mean that kde 4-4.2 diddnt suck.

@kraftman, i am a kde user ;)
@mat69, cant help you there my man. Im not very good with page long multi quotes. not worth my time.

ciplogic

11-09-2009, 08:28 AM

Open/save file dialogs in gtk+ were always one big horrible joke on usability, features or whatever you want to name it.

Saying that those are much better now is just as saying that "hell has frozen".... and it's also untrue, because I'm watching this dialog right now on my PC and it still makes me want to delete every application that uses it.

As for other things I think we are living in 21 centry right now so putting drag and drop into major improvements is silly. It's not an major improvement it's a basic function that every DE should have and if it doesn't have it the devs should be just ashamed.

Here I think you are somehow trolling as you said phrases biased probably on your experience and you said NONE of it's issues. I can state in reverse: "KDE is just an usability joke as you cannot copy your plasmioids in OpenOffice and the KDE4 is simply too confusing, mostly when you open Dolphin and the Desktop folder plasmiod. What's is the point to have three file-manager applications (plasmiod, konquerror and Dolphin)" (end trolling)

Ok, try to do a simple save/open dialog as yourself and you will see that "coverflow" or "column view" may not be as good as stated, and Windows 95-like ones have only one quality, shell integration. In rest, I am really pleased on this dialog. I cannot state the same on Open Font dialog. Dare to be different and minimalist is not "usability joke" as long you not come to Gnome team and show a better concept. May you give 3 usability issues you had? Excluding the "ugly look" or other biased arguments? By issues I will wanna hear: I cannot see preview of what I select, or I'm not able to pick a file in this case, or I cannot type directly to get a file I know, etc.

So my point is: can you get it better than just whine? Can you add functionality to it that you think that is a MUST HAVE, and without making this interface too intrusive and confusing?

I can say "success story" with my aunt, which is office user person, 55 years old and she could use Gnome really smooth. Dare to not be Windows doesn't mean that is a usability joke. The single feature I know I can do in Windows shell (but I cannot do it with OS X for example), is that I can filter (like: *.jpg) before I pick a file.

Did you used old GNOME 2.0 dialogs, to just see that the save/open dialogs are more usable?

val-gaav

11-09-2009, 12:26 PM

May you give 3 usability issues you had? Excluding the "ugly look" or other biased arguments? By issues I will wanna hear: I cannot see preview of what I select, or I'm not able to pick a file in this case, or I cannot type directly to get a file I know, etc.

You named it yourself :)

1) Up to this day uplaoding pictures with firefox or adding pictures to mail is impossible without knowing the files. GTK+ file picker uses list with one size and it's way too small for the previews to be useful ... Thus I have to use dolphin go to my pic folder and remember that photo0028 is the one I want, then go to back to FF/TB and attach it with the filepicker.
For me that is a major usability problem

2) Sorting the list is quite limited for example I cannot sort the list of files by file type ... Only size date modified and name are present oh and BTW I know size was not present in the past at all ;)

3) I find having only one view mode quite limiting because for example browsing a folder with pics would be possible if you could view them as normal sized icons. Oh and I know people who hate datailed list view, and prefer normal icons view.

Dare to be different and minimalist is not "usability joke" as long you not come to Gnome team and show a better concept.

The last gnome epic fail with removing icons in menu and buttons to make the buttons smaller is also a minimalist way ... lol the fact is they were just unable to make the buttons smaller with icons so they decided to switch them off by default... Now great way to solve issues : something doesn't work just turn it off instead coding a proper solution :)

Gnome devs often take that minimalist way so far that applications become simply useless to people that want to have a job done with them . One of a such examples I last tried is OGGConverter... The app to re-encode files into OGG Vorbis/Theora. I'm sorry but having just a quality slider file picker and a encode button simply doesn't cut it. To do as simple thing as changing the resolution of encoded video I had to go back to CLI ffmpeg2theora.