5 ms·

I still really prefer GTK2 apps. The GTK3 file picker is awful, and I'm generally not a fan of apps that use the new fancy window borders like gedit. I'm glad

I still really prefer GTK2 apps. The GTK3 file picker is awful, and I'm generally not a fan of apps that use the new fancy window borders like gedit. I'm glad Mate is around to keep maintaining gtk2/gnome2.

j605 8y ago
Mate has ported all of its application and the DE itself to gtk3. It can still keep the old look but use current technology :)
app4soft 8y ago
> I still really prefer GTK2 apps. The GTK3 file picker is awful I rather prefer Qt4 apps. Some Qt4 apps look uglier after migrating to Qt5.
- laumars 8y ago
  That might be because you lost your qt4 theming config when you upgraded your DE to qt5, so qt4 has fallen back to defaults. On ArchLinux you can run `qtconfig-qt4` to configure the look and feel of qt4 applications.
  - livebsd 8y ago
    No, it's mostly because Qt5 apps also start to use QML widgets, which are quite a bit inferior in just about everything. Higher latency, a "touch like" feel (fatter borders in general, overall lower display density), respond in a different way (scrolling), and so on. I always was a great fan of both GTK2 (for the UI) and Qt4 (for the API). GTK3 made me switch to Qt4 for development. Qt5 brings some improvement, but as a user I absolutely hate QML.
    - laumars 8y ago
      I suspect your comment is tangical to the what myself and the GP were discussing as I don't really understand why qt5 using QML would affect the look and feel of existing legacy qt4 applications. Running qtconfig-qt4 and redefining the config I wanted did fix the "ugliness" of qt4 applications after I upgraded to KDE5 (or whenever it was KDE switched qt versions)
avian 8y ago
My gripe with GTK3 are tiny, auto-hiding scroll bars. After a long day at work they become impossible to use even with a mouse. Hitting them with a Wacom is basically impossible. What’s worse is that you can find many different recipes on the web on how to enlarge th scrollbars/disable auto-hide, and most of them don’t work or work only some of the time.
- omeid2 8y ago
  "What’s worse is that you can find many different recipes on the web on how to fix X and most of them don't work", that is basically Gnome/GTK3 in a nutshell.
- JasonFruit 8y ago
  I hate those scrollbars with a passion, and every time I copy over my configuration to get rid of them, I find it no longer works. I'm old and don't have my bifocals yet: don't make me squint for the scrollbars.
- danieldk 8y ago
  My gripe with GTK3 are tiny, auto-hiding scroll bars. And the abandoning of menus, which I guess is mostly encouraged by the GNOME HIG: Menu bars increase the vertical footprint of an application’s user interface, introduce a large number of disclosure points, and function as a fixed set of inflexible options. For these reasons, header bars and header bar menus are generally recommended over menu bars, along with other design patterns for exposing controls on demand, such as selection mode, action bars, and popovers. So, now that we have giant 4k screens, we are going to abandon menus. And I am not even a menu user, but they are great for discovering keyboard shortcuts and the the functionality provided by applications. Instead, we have header bar and hamburger menus that can only host a small subset of the items that normal menus could host. Shortcuts become hard to find and some applications provide some shortcut overlay, while in other applications you have to figure it out yourself. If vertical footprint is a problem, offer the user to put the menu in the system tray macOS style. Fun fact: the Xerox Star apparently had hamburger menus, application pull-down menus, and later the global menu are an evolution of the hamburger menu. It seems that we are going backwards again, without any clear rationale. Even if hamburger menus were more ergonomic, generations have been trained with the WIMP paradigm. [1] https://medium.com/@probonopd/make-it-simple-linux-desktop-usability-part-1-5fa0fb369b42 https://medium.com/@probonopd/make-it-simple-linux-desktop-u...
steanne 8y ago
https://github.com/TomaszGasior/gtk3-mushrooms https://github.com/TomaszGasior/gtk3-mushrooms
- livebsd 8y ago
  I really wished THIS would be the DEFAULT behavior of GTK3. If you read this in reverse, you realize how BROKEN GTK3 is compared to GTK2. It doesn't make any sense.
- djsumdog 8y ago
  Oh wow. That's an amazing set of patches. Those should be in mainline.
blattimwind 8y ago
I genuinely do not comprehend how that file picker is still a thing. It's usability is a show-stopping bug of the entire framework and desktop. > Windows' file open/save dialogues are so far ahead of everything else that the competition seems like unusable garbage to me. I'm glad KDE/Qt chose to emulate these very closely on Linux. Wouldn't want a desktop where my only choice is Gnome's take at this. Also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16324814 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16324814

j605 8y ago

Mate has ported all of its application and the DE itself to gtk3. It can still keep the old look but use current technology :)

app4soft 8y ago

> I still really prefer GTK2 apps. The GTK3 file picker is awful I rather prefer Qt4 apps. Some Qt4 apps look uglier after migrating to Qt5.

laumars 8y ago
That might be because you lost your qt4 theming config when you upgraded your DE to qt5, so qt4 has fallen back to defaults. On ArchLinux you can run `qtconfig-qt4` to configure the look and feel of qt4 applications.
- livebsd 8y ago
  No, it's mostly because Qt5 apps also start to use QML widgets, which are quite a bit inferior in just about everything. Higher latency, a "touch like" feel (fatter borders in general, overall lower display density), respond in a different way (scrolling), and so on. I always was a great fan of both GTK2 (for the UI) and Qt4 (for the API). GTK3 made me switch to Qt4 for development. Qt5 brings some improvement, but as a user I absolutely hate QML.
  - laumars 8y ago
    I suspect your comment is tangical to the what myself and the GP were discussing as I don't really understand why qt5 using QML would affect the look and feel of existing legacy qt4 applications. Running qtconfig-qt4 and redefining the config I wanted did fix the "ugliness" of qt4 applications after I upgraded to KDE5 (or whenever it was KDE switched qt versions)

avian 8y ago

My gripe with GTK3 are tiny, auto-hiding scroll bars. After a long day at work they become impossible to use even with a mouse. Hitting them with a Wacom is basically impossible. What’s worse is that you can find many different recipes on the web on how to enlarge th scrollbars/disable auto-hide, and most of them don’t work or work only some of the time.

omeid2 8y ago
"What’s worse is that you can find many different recipes on the web on how to fix X and most of them don't work", that is basically Gnome/GTK3 in a nutshell.
JasonFruit 8y ago
I hate those scrollbars with a passion, and every time I copy over my configuration to get rid of them, I find it no longer works. I'm old and don't have my bifocals yet: don't make me squint for the scrollbars.
danieldk 8y ago
My gripe with GTK3 are tiny, auto-hiding scroll bars. And the abandoning of menus, which I guess is mostly encouraged by the GNOME HIG: Menu bars increase the vertical footprint of an application’s user interface, introduce a large number of disclosure points, and function as a fixed set of inflexible options. For these reasons, header bars and header bar menus are generally recommended over menu bars, along with other design patterns for exposing controls on demand, such as selection mode, action bars, and popovers. So, now that we have giant 4k screens, we are going to abandon menus. And I am not even a menu user, but they are great for discovering keyboard shortcuts and the the functionality provided by applications. Instead, we have header bar and hamburger menus that can only host a small subset of the items that normal menus could host. Shortcuts become hard to find and some applications provide some shortcut overlay, while in other applications you have to figure it out yourself. If vertical footprint is a problem, offer the user to put the menu in the system tray macOS style. Fun fact: the Xerox Star apparently had hamburger menus, application pull-down menus, and later the global menu are an evolution of the hamburger menu. It seems that we are going backwards again, without any clear rationale. Even if hamburger menus were more ergonomic, generations have been trained with the WIMP paradigm. [1] https://medium.com/@probonopd/make-it-simple-linux-desktop-usability-part-1-5fa0fb369b42 https://medium.com/@probonopd/make-it-simple-linux-desktop-u...

steanne 8y ago

https://github.com/TomaszGasior/gtk3-mushrooms https://github.com/TomaszGasior/gtk3-mushrooms

livebsd 8y ago
I really wished THIS would be the DEFAULT behavior of GTK3. If you read this in reverse, you realize how BROKEN GTK3 is compared to GTK2. It doesn't make any sense.
djsumdog 8y ago
Oh wow. That's an amazing set of patches. Those should be in mainline.

blattimwind 8y ago

I genuinely do not comprehend how that file picker is still a thing. It's usability is a show-stopping bug of the entire framework and desktop. > Windows' file open/save dialogues are so far ahead of everything else that the competition seems like unusable garbage to me. I'm glad KDE/Qt chose to emulate these very closely on Linux. Wouldn't want a desktop where my only choice is Gnome's take at this. Also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16324814 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16324814