A New Development Release Of GNOME Shell

[urfe]

It's a really refreshing concept

What's so refreshing about losing basic usability? Adding a huge Activities launcher that covers huge portions of the screen (just search other videos of Gnome Shell and see how that Activities thing expands odver the workspaces), not being able to change workspaces with a single click, having to drag'n'drop applications from a workspace to another instead of a single key shortcut or click, not being able to set a vertical or horizontal stacking of workspaces, being GPU dependent without a non-GPU fallback, useless animations etc.

That's all eyecandy done without any usability studies.. Gnome 3 will be a disaster.

[Cyberdemon]

What's so refreshing about losing basic usability? Adding a huge Activities launcher that covers huge portions of the screen (just search other videos of Gnome Shell and see how that Activities thing expands odver the workspaces), not being able to change workspaces with a single click, having to drag'n'drop applications from a workspace to another instead of a single key shortcut or click, not being able to set a vertical or horizontal stacking of workspaces, being GPU dependent without a non-GPU fallback, useless animations etc.

That's all eyecandy done without any usability studies.. Gnome 3 will be a disaster.

100% agree.
Gnome Shell isn't the feature that gnome desktop needs.

[nanonyme]

That's all eyecandy done without any usability studies.. Gnome 3 will be a disaster.

I'd consider the current state more of a pilot venture. Don't judge the actual release by it.

[Dragoran]

What's so refreshing about losing basic usability? Adding a huge Activities launcher that covers huge portions of the screen (just search other videos of Gnome Shell and see how that Activities thing expands odver the workspaces), not being able to change workspaces with a single click, having to drag'n'drop applications from a workspace to another instead of a single key shortcut or click, not being able to set a vertical or horizontal stacking of workspaces, being GPU dependent without a non-GPU fallback, useless animations etc.

That's all eyecandy done without any usability studies.. Gnome 3 will be a disaster.

First it no longer does that, second judging a project "a disaster" when it is in such an early state does not make much sense.

Read the design document to see how it is supposed to look like / work in the end: http://www.gnome.org/~mccann/shell/d...l-20090705.pdf

Also the non GPU (you mean opengl) fallback is metacity+gnome-panel (they aren't going away)

[V!NCENT]

What's so refreshing about losing basic usability?

If you want 'basic functionality' then use XFCE. If you want the most functionality then use KDE. Gnome has never been about functionality anyway; it's about easy to use.

Adding a huge Activities launcher that covers huge portions of the screen (just search other videos of Gnome Shell and see how that Activities thing expands odver the workspaces), not being able to change workspaces with a single click, having to drag'n'drop applications from a workspace to another instead of a single key shortcut or click, not being able to set a vertical or horizontal stacking of workspaces,[...]

Only when you click on it. But really, did you thought about "hey I'm going to check my email"(activity) or "Hey I'm gonna turn on my computer and click on the firefox icon so that I could browse with tiny buttons to phoronix and then react to posts here with the reply button"("basic functionality")? The Gnome shell is modeled after human thinking and not towards the structure of a device.

[...]being GPU dependent without a non-GPU fallback, useless animations etc.

Next thing you know is that they are going to make programs that also depend on a CPU and RAM! Dude every computer has a GPU. And these animations are for clarity, so they are not useless. They actually serve the very purpose of the Gnome desktop: easy to use, understand and learn.

That's all eyecandy done without any usability studies.. Gnome 3 will be a disaster.

It will be more than fit for it's purpose and therefore a huge leap forward. The glass is not always half empty... Get a little joy in your life

[urfe]

But it is a disaster. For users like me, who don't like it when the abundance of eyecandy, animation effects and application menus are intruding and constantly modifiend the entire desktop you're using. That's absurd.

Gnome Shell is a nice addition, but for another type of users. I've used Gnome for 7 years but 3 is just not what I expected. And I know that gnome-panel will still be around, but it's not the future and they will deprecate it soon enough...

[V!NCENT]

But it is a disaster. For users like me, who don't like it when the abundance of eyecandy, animation effects and application menus are intruding and constantly modifiend the entire desktop you're using. That's absurd.

Do you have a disability related to learning? That's no pun intended!

I've used Gnome for 7 years but 3 is just not what I expected. And I know that gnome-panel will still be around, but it's not the future and they will deprecate it soon enough...

If you have been able to use Linux back in 2002 then that means that you are not stupid. Why can't you learn XFCE? It can be moddeled to look just like Gnome. It also uses GTK. All the Gnome apps and volume managers etc just work on XFCE too and it's even a lot faster.

You learn a new GUI everytime you get a new phone, tv, dvd-player, etc etc. Sow does it really matter if you could also use KDE4 for example? There are also a lot o0f positive things about other DE's...

[urfe]

If you want 'basic functionality' then use XFCE. If you want the most functionality then use KDE. Gnome has never been about functionality anyway; it's about easy to use.

So functionality is not one of the main criteria for a working desktop? We can't have both?

Only when you click on it. But really, did you thought about "hey I'm going to check my email"(activity) or "Hey I'm gonna turn on my computer and click on the firefox icon so that I could browse with tiny buttons to phoronix and then react to posts here with the reply button"("basic functionality")? The Gnome shell is modeled after human thinking and not towards the structure of a device.

Have you seen the Applications menu? Why do you need:
1 click on Activities
2 - animation - (expose-like effect)
3 click on more to see all current registered menu items
4 - get a menu that covers all your workspaces -
5 find what you were looking for?

Just look at it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MkBSF4I5lw

Easy to use? What if I was reading some instructions of how to launch a specific applications from a website? I won't be able to read the text next step (in the tutorial) as soon as I press Activities -> The workspace will be resized so something smaller. Even if I set a huge font in firefox, just so that I'll be able to read it, the expanding activities menu will cover most of my screen as soon as I want a detailed look of it.

Next thing you know is that they are going to make programs that also depend on a CPU and RAM! Dude every computer has a GPU. And these animations are for clarity, so they are not useless.

We don't have a working GPU backend for cairo but you agree that pushing an entire desktop that needs GPU for nice animations only (!) is sound? And that assuming that the drivers provided by nvidia, ati and the community will all work fine.


Edit: I know that what I've tried so far is only pre-alpha and that things can change. What I disagree with, is that cover-all concept of the activities menu. Maybe other applets will be able to replace it - that's not the point.

[thefirstm]

GNOME get more and more like the dreaded M@c each day....

[BlackStar]

But it is a disaster. For users like me, who don't like it when the abundance of eyecandy, animation effects and application menus are intruding and constantly modifiend the entire desktop you're using. That's absurd.

Gnome Shell is a nice addition, but for another type of users. I've used Gnome for 7 years but 3 is just not what I expected. And I know that gnome-panel will still be around, but it's not the future and they will deprecate it soon enough...

You are speaking in the past tense, as if Gnome 3 was released already. Wait until it's ready before judging it, as a 7-year Gnome user you owe the Gnome developers at least that much respect.

I've been a Gnome user for 6 years and throughout this time Gnome has steadily improved without losing its roots. Seriously, the biggest "regression" I have hit is the removal of the font:/// handler in nautilus - now compare that with KDE 4.

Personally, I trust the Gnome developers to deliver a 3.0 that will maintain this tradition. It is way too early to judge Gnome shell.