3 ms·

My only misgiving about this is the so-called "Awesome Bar" in Firefox 3, which introduces a lot of visual clutter for only marginal benefits. Fine. Maybe you d

by m0nty 18y ago

My only misgiving about this is the so-called "Awesome Bar" in Firefox 3, which introduces a lot of visual clutter for only marginal benefits. Fine. Maybe you do know best. But I'd like to be able to switch it off (because I just don't like it) without resorting to installing an extension. Focussing on usability really should mean you let people decide for themselves what's "awesome" and what's just clutter.

j2d2 18y ago
This reminds me of the KDE vs. Gnome debate which led Linus to say this: http://mail.gnome.org/archives/usability/2005-December/msg00021.html http://mail.gnome.org/archives/usability/2005-December/msg00...
- m0nty 18y ago
  I like that :) I was trying to work out how to switch off the warning I get when I log in to Gnome: "You're logging in as a privileged user. That's bad!" To which I always mutter, "yes, I've been doing it for 15 years and nobody died yet." But there's no way to switch it off. So another window manager might be the best way to go...
  - ajross 18y ago
    Honestly, you're wrong. The point here is not whether "you" know better than the desktop software does whether or not what you are doing is "safe". The point is that no one does: 2-300 people, or more, were involved in writing the software you're about to run as root. It's a huge amount of code, and no one can even pretend to have audited all of it for security issues. And, in point of fact, vulnerabilities are discovered in this stuff all the time. Running that stuff as root is just dumb. If linux attracted even a tenth as much attention from black hats as does windows, and you did anything non-trivial (e.g. surfing) with that box, you would be more or less guaranteed to see it rooted at some point. So the desktop developers, being responsible about this stuff, are trying to warn you. You are just choosing not to listen. Like I said: you're wrong.
    - m0nty 18y ago
      "Like I said: you're wrong." Mostly I'm running terminal - X just lets me get more characters on the screen than using a plain old tty. In truth, I don't use it for much other than that, and it's a pain having to type in "sudo" and my password all the time. On a broader point, Linux was never about hectoring users about how to run their computers. That, I thought, was the entire point of a free/libre OS: the freedom to shoot myself in the foot if I choose. (Oh, and do lots of other interesting things too, but foot-shooting is my priority here.) I switched to xfce. Much faster, less clutter, no lecture when I log in as root.
LogicHoleFlaw 18y ago
I love the awesomebar. For instance, I can just type in the bug number of the bugzilla issue I'm working with currently (15592 for example.) And then hit tab-enter and I'm at the right page. The learning algorithm took about a day to stabilize but it works perfectly for me now. If I'm trying to remember a page I browsed recently I type in a few keywords and the bar will pop up a list of related pages. Usually the page I want to review is the first in the list. Give the bar a chance. I was leery at first but now I love it.
- m0nty 18y ago
  "Give the bar a chance. I was leery at first but now I love it." I thought (after I posted) that it might turn out to be like tabbed browsing, which I first thought would be OK-ish but (like everyone else) I can't live without it now. I just wish the awesome bar took up less real estate. The visual clutter is appalling.
  - ashu 18y ago
    indeed. if they could get both url + title in a line (like gmail) that would fix it's horrible visual looks. there's also the fact that sometimes my computer is a bit too slow to lookup favicons for the links in the awesome bar causing things to look even more horrible.

by m0nty 18y ago

j2d2 18y ago

This reminds me of the KDE vs. Gnome debate which led Linus to say this: http://mail.gnome.org/archives/usability/2005-December/msg00021.html http://mail.gnome.org/archives/usability/2005-December/msg00...

m0nty 18y ago
I like that :) I was trying to work out how to switch off the warning I get when I log in to Gnome: "You're logging in as a privileged user. That's bad!" To which I always mutter, "yes, I've been doing it for 15 years and nobody died yet." But there's no way to switch it off. So another window manager might be the best way to go...
- ajross 18y ago
  Honestly, you're wrong. The point here is not whether "you" know better than the desktop software does whether or not what you are doing is "safe". The point is that no one does: 2-300 people, or more, were involved in writing the software you're about to run as root. It's a huge amount of code, and no one can even pretend to have audited all of it for security issues. And, in point of fact, vulnerabilities are discovered in this stuff all the time. Running that stuff as root is just dumb. If linux attracted even a tenth as much attention from black hats as does windows, and you did anything non-trivial (e.g. surfing) with that box, you would be more or less guaranteed to see it rooted at some point. So the desktop developers, being responsible about this stuff, are trying to warn you. You are just choosing not to listen. Like I said: you're wrong.
  - m0nty 18y ago
    "Like I said: you're wrong." Mostly I'm running terminal - X just lets me get more characters on the screen than using a plain old tty. In truth, I don't use it for much other than that, and it's a pain having to type in "sudo" and my password all the time. On a broader point, Linux was never about hectoring users about how to run their computers. That, I thought, was the entire point of a free/libre OS: the freedom to shoot myself in the foot if I choose. (Oh, and do lots of other interesting things too, but foot-shooting is my priority here.) I switched to xfce. Much faster, less clutter, no lecture when I log in as root.

LogicHoleFlaw 18y ago

I love the awesomebar. For instance, I can just type in the bug number of the bugzilla issue I'm working with currently (15592 for example.) And then hit tab-enter and I'm at the right page. The learning algorithm took about a day to stabilize but it works perfectly for me now. If I'm trying to remember a page I browsed recently I type in a few keywords and the bar will pop up a list of related pages. Usually the page I want to review is the first in the list. Give the bar a chance. I was leery at first but now I love it.

m0nty 18y ago
"Give the bar a chance. I was leery at first but now I love it." I thought (after I posted) that it might turn out to be like tabbed browsing, which I first thought would be OK-ish but (like everyone else) I can't live without it now. I just wish the awesome bar took up less real estate. The visual clutter is appalling.
- ashu 18y ago
  indeed. if they could get both url + title in a line (like gmail) that would fix it's horrible visual looks. there's also the fact that sometimes my computer is a bit too slow to lookup favicons for the links in the awesome bar causing things to look even more horrible.