8 ms·
Introduction to Gnome 3
- thedeuce 16y agontroducing?
- drivebyacct2 16y agoI'm sorry, but that Metacity theme and even the GTK+ theme are really lacking. They lack the polish that Meerkat's Ambiance theme has (everytime I post a screenshot of stock 10.10 I get comments asking what the themes are). It's a shame, I think Gnome-Shell looks cool and I think GNOME3 brings a lot of UI/UX changes that have been needed for a while, but they're not doing themselves any favors giving the actual appearance a real chance to shine. The "GNOME" default icons are a pity, too. edit, I guess it's not Metacity any longer... Mutter.
- junkbit 16y agoThat is an old gtk theme. The GTK3 look fits better with the new titlebar http://www.flickr.com/photos/jakubsteiner/5201953378/sizes/o/in/photostream/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/jakubsteiner/5201953378/sizes/o...
- drivebyacct2 16y agoIt's getting better, but that screenshot has plenty of it's own problems. That titlebar, menu, icon row and tabs takes up like 200+ px. Versus like 60 with Chrome. What's the deal?
- jamesgeck0 16y agoLarge objects are easier to target. (That, and Chrome doesn't have a menu bar, which would at least bump it up to 80px.)
- md81544 16y ago"AN OVERVIEW AT A GLACE (sic)" ???
- apakatt 16y ago"Simply Beautiful". It feels weird that the fonts on the site are better than on the screen shots. The font on the top and in the "Messaging built-in" is really grandma-sized and not really beautiful. As said before, the theme and icons are really really lacking. I'm sure however that it will work great (and look great after some modifications like adding the Ubuntu font and Faenza Icons).
- generalk 16y agoIs this information still relevant? From the Try It link (http://www.gnome3.org/tryit.html http://www.gnome3.org/tryit.html): GNOME 3 is under active development and will not be completed until April 2010. We hope to be able to provide live USB images really soon. Watch this space!
- antimatter15 16y agoIt appears the date has changed to April 2011
- kingsidharth 16y ago>Simply Beautiful? Seriously? Since when Beauty is that top priority for GUI? Usability, Gnome, Usability!
- drivingmenuts 16y agoHow much of the eye-candy (IM, etc.) is so woven into the desktop that it's impossible to remove? With OS X and Windows, I add the extraneous stuff - it doesn't come pre-installed and pre-enabled. I'll stick w/XFCE, thanks. It's based on Gnome, but it doesn't have the cruft.
- archangel_one 16y agoWhat? In Windows 7, the contemporary version to GNOME 3, all the flashy effects come on by default - or at least they did on this machine. You have to turn them off if you don't want them. IIRC OSX is basically the same... isn't it a little counter-productive having a whole lot of pretty effects if they're off by default?
- ugh 16y agoI don’t really see the contradiction.
- puls 16y agoThey're trying to sell "simply beautiful" but all of the images on the front page have serious antialiasing problems. Huh.
- rbanffy 16y agoStable software or a beautiful website... Tough choice when you have limited resources... I'm glad their priorities are right.
- mikedouglas 16y agoNot that I want to beat up on a open source project, but for a desktop environment focused on ease of use, there are some very odd things overlooked. 1. How am I supposed to know what these icons do? Why even title them? https://img.skitch.com/20110118-biweei4eyuey217fisi7ks2d9f.png https://img.skitch.com/20110118-biweei4eyuey217fisi7ks2d9f.p... 2. Eight of the eleven icons in the dock have significant title clipping. Did no one notice this? https://img.skitch.com/20110118-e1ykw7u3qf3gwmuhxaug28p5mr.png https://img.skitch.com/20110118-e1ykw7u3qf3gwmuhxaug28p5mr.p... Usability isn't minimalism. It isn't translucent windows, rounded corners, or stark blacks and gradients. It's these details, and about a hundred others that I'll run into while using your software. These details can either add friction to whatever problem I'm trying to solve (and therefore add marginally to my bad mood), or they can remove it. If you don't ask these questions, you aren't even giving your users a chance.
- acabal 16y agoPeople like to beat up on MS a lot, but the differences between the Windows 7 GUI (or iOS GUI) and Gnome 3 really highlight the disadvantage that a bunch of spare-time developers who say to themselves, "well, I think our users will like text truncation, let's throw it in tomorrow!" are at versus a big company with millions to spend on thoughtful UI design, graphics, research, and focus groups. Windows 7 has its problems too, but it's clear to me that the changes Gnome 3 is bringing are nothing more than what some out-of-touch developers think is what users want, without having actually asked users. Maybe I'm wrong on that assertion but that sure is the feeling I'm getting from this project. Gnome 3 would have benefited greatly from a series of focus groups before development started or from snagging a high-profile UI expert to rap them on the knuckles whenever they had a bright idea like using 12 different font colors, sizes, and styles on the already-overwhelming dashboard screen.
- cturner 16y agoI think there's no substitute for clued-in developers. Focus groups produced the interface overhaul to Windows Vista and 7. Rather than building on an existing, successful interface, they decided to be more mac-like, and managed to make the interface prettier but much yet less usable in the process. I agree, gnome fonts are yuck. Even in the screenshot on the frontpage the fonts look awful - both in the text document and the dropdown menu headings.
- bouncingsoul 16y agoI'm amazed by how dumb and severe the icon label truncation is. That screams to me that it was designed without testing it with real content. How can anyone see Network C…, Network P…, Network P… in the preference panel and not wonder if the truncation is too agressive?
- rsl7 16y agoTruncation like that also happens on the Mac when the Finder's grid spacing is set too tight. They may have overlooked it for the screenshot.
- bouncingsoul 16y agoI'm not criticizing truncation. You need to do it on long names. I'm saying it looks like the designers of the GNOME UI are using truncation as a quick fix for a flawed design. Besides, truncation in OS X is much much smarter: http://i.imgur.com/MN3Q2.png http://i.imgur.com/MN3Q2.png Notice how the tracking (spacing between letters) in the first item gets tightened to make it fit? It looks a little squished, but it's much preferable to reading dots. The last item had to be truncated, but it happens in the middle and keeps the useful end information visible. I was being honest when I said I was amazed at the GNOME truncation. I think an operating system UI that can't handle the names of its killer apps (e.g., OpenOffic…) lost its way somewhere.
- rbanffy 16y ago> Besides, truncation in OS X is much much smarter: Don't forget Apple (among others) has tons of silly patents regarding text rendering that Gnome developers have to program around while everybody else can just cross-license with their own silly little patents. It may be possible they simply cannot afford the risk of doing the obvious thing.
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- cmeiklejohn 16y agoUbuntu's decision to move to Unity made me go back to Debian for GNOME/Clearlooks for the first time in a while, but what am I going to do now with the way GNOME 3 looks?
- npaquin 16y agoI'm totally with you on this one. XFCE is an excellent option to avoid this design madness.
- cmeiklejohn 16y agoXmonad
- viraptor 16y agoIt seems that you switched before you tried. I don't know much about unity, but I was following the beginnings of gnome shell and I can't wait to get it in my hands. Activities / creating desktops as you need them is exactly what I wanted. But there are other cool things included too.
- cmeiklejohn 16y agoNo, I used unity in the netbook edition in both 10.04 and 10.10. I switched when I heard it would become the default.
- cmeiklejohn 16y agoNo, I used unity in the netbook edition in both 10.04 and 10.10. I switched when I heard it would become the default.
- cmeiklejohn 16y agoNo, I used unity in the netbook edition in both 10.04 and 10.10. I switched when I heard it would become the default.
- vilya 16y agoA lot of effort has gone into this; it's a shame to see so many disparaging posts here. I think the developers should be applauded for their work. Between this and Ubuntu's plans to adopt Wayland in place of X, there are some interesting times ahead for Linux on the desktop. I, for one, am looking forward to seeing how it all plays out.
- snprbob86 16y agoThe developers absolutely deserve to be applauded for their work, but declaring it as "simply beautiful" is almost laughable. I think that it's actually quite ugly. And even if you disagree, I don't think it's fair to call your own work beautiful unless you've proven that the overwhelming majority consistently enjoys your aesthetic.
- rbanffy 16y agoFor a lot of people, Justin Bieber is a great musician. Popularity is not a trustworthy indicator of artistic merit.
- BCM43 16y agoPopularity is not a trustworthy indicator of artistic merit. How else would you define it?
- rbanffy 16y agoArtistic quality is one of those things that defy definition. It may be that it's aesthetically pleasing, or it may be that its design communicate some other inner quality or a completely different idea. It may be that the inner quality, in itself, has some aesthetic quality, much like a beautiful mathematical proof.
- powellc 16y agoRead 'Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance' Cliched as it might seem now, it address the abstract and almost mind-destroying properties of quality as well as anything can. Short answer: The feeling of high quality occurs when perception exceeds expectation; the feeling of low quality occurs when perception does not meet expectation (wikipedia).
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- senko 16y agoWrote a long comment and then the web bug ate it :-( In a nutshell: it's more of an introduction to GNOME Shell, which is just one part of GNOME3. It's going to be used by default, by old interface will still be available for those who want it. The UX is probably the least finished part yet, since a massive amount of work first went in invisible improvements for v3 (such as gobject-introspection). Something the HN crowd will like: the Shell is written in JavaScript, has bindings to low-level libraries using gobject-introspection, uses JS libraries like jQuery, and comes with its own FireBug-like tool for inspection and modification at runtime. Since most of the look&feel is done in JS, you can just jump right in and hack left and right. One of most impressive demos at GUADEC2010 had a couple of JS oneliners doing various special effects on the desktop. Also, the whole thing is themeable in CSS, which is a lot nicer than doing gtkstyle theming.
- aaronbrethorst 16y ago> Also, the whole thing is themeable in CSS Does this mean the ludicrously generous padding will be as easy to change as html * { padding: 2px!important; } That would make me very happy.
- senko 16y agoWell, HTML/DOM is not used, but you should be able to do something of the sorts to the UI elements, yeah.
- aaronbrethorst 16y agoThat's great to hear! :)
- emef 16y agotypo on http://www.gnome3.org/faq.html http://www.gnome3.org/faq.html? It says "Commons Questions and Answers", where I think it means "Common ..." Didn't see a contact link so maybe a webdev will see it here.
- fingerprinter 16y agoAs far as open source desktops go, I'm rather excited about both Unity and Gnome3, but for very different reasons. I think Unity, which is my preferred desktop right now, is shaping up to be the nicest, prettiest and easiest to use desktop open source has ever had. I might even consider it to be the first open source desktop I could point my mother to and she could use it straight away. I'm fully expecting Unity to be just plain awesome in several cycles. Gnome3 with the JS core is open for extension like we've never seen before in open source. I say that b/c of the ease with which someone could extend now...like it or not, JS has a lower barrier to entry than traditional tech used in linux desktops. I can't wait to see what people create for Gnome3 via this extension scheme. I know I'll have both installed for sure...fun times ahead!
- jamesaguilar 16y agoGnome 3 "Made of Ugly." How is it possible that the aliasing on those fonts in the example image is allowed on the front page of their marketing. Every third line is a different size and has a blurry appearance.
- carussell 16y agoThat's the result of bad post-processing on the image.
- zvrba 16y agoBased on the screenshots, font rendering -- the most important thing -- still seems to suck big time.
- biju 16y ago>A lot of effort has gone into this; it's a shame to see so many disparaging posts here. I think the developers should be applauded for their work. bad work is bad. GNOME developers are again ditching code that works (and it sucks). http://www.jwz.org/doc/cadt.html http://www.jwz.org/doc/cadt.html >This is, I think, the most common way for my bug reports to open source software projects to ever become closed. I report bugs; they go unread for a year, sometimes two; and then (surprise!) that module is rewritten from scratch -- and the new maintainer can't be bothered to check whether his new version has actually solved any of the known problems that existed in the previous version.
- zecg 16y agoGnome 3 Alpha, codenamed "Jumping the Shark". So many things shown are ridiculous - the spacing, the truncated titles in the ribbon-thingy, the seeming changes in the concept of workspaces. Why are dropbox and the wireless-thingy broken off from other system tray icons? What is the rationale for the changes in basic concepts? At the moment, I'm still using Gnome on all computers. This version might be just what I need to finally start using a minimal tiling manager.
- lanolin 16y ago> "Simply beautiful", "Distraction-free computing", "Everything at your fingertips", "completely redesigned for GNOME 3", "And much, much more", ... This page reads much like a corporate ad. > "GNOME 3 is crammed full of new features." Is that a good thing? For Gnome, I want: more streamlining, compartmentalization, removal of deprecated features, and optimization. Make it smaller and tighter -- only add parts conservatively and if they offer great value.