7 ms·

It's equally important what you choose to leave out from your product, as what you include. It seems Gnome has included the kitchen sink. What does this mean?

• ugh 16y ago
  Why should you be able to change themes or fonts? OS X (iOS as well and I think Windows Phone 7, too) doesn't allow you to do that. Those two don't seem like required features to me.
  • Derbasti 16y ago
    That is only true if the default theme is generic and beautiful enough to not annoy the majority of the populous. We will see how Gnome fares on that.
  • GeneralMaximus 16y ago
    Hazarding a guess here: because some of us might enjoy different colors and fonts?
    • ugh 16y ago
      And some would like to change the way the OS stacks windows, et cetera, et cetera. Picking great defaults is good enough for the vast majority of users, you don't have to waste your time implemnting ever more preferences and can focus on the important stuff.
    • bad_user 16y ago
      I used to change themes a lot back in the day ; now I just wish for a usable desktop that doesn't get in my way, and Gnome / KDE are awful from that point of view. That's the reason why I'm developing software on Linux, but dual-boot in a Windows 7 partition for design-related work, as that requires mouse-based interactions, and in Gnome I can't even rely on copy/paste to work properly. Changing themes and fonts is nice, but shouldn't be a priority. For me priorities would be having basic functionality, like copy/paste, working properly; or how about a task-switching applet (activated on alt-tab) that can use the mouse to select the window you want; or desktop notification windows that you can close (those notifications in Ubuntu are really obnoxious) ... this has always been the story of the Linux desktop for me, i.e. death by a thousand cuts.
      • jan_g 16y ago
        Winkey+w or winkey+e allows you to choose a window or desktop by mouse clicking. Copy/paste used to suck, but with newer ubuntu versions it works well for me. Notifications are not nice, I agree with you.
        • bad_user 16y ago
          Unfortunately I have disabled Compiz because for some reason the NVidia drivers are hanging my computer when I'm shutting down -- and now after I switched to Nouveau, my screen doesn't light up when waking up from sleep. And without those effects enabled, the show-all-windows shortcuts won't work.
      • hendi_ 16y ago
        For me priorities would be having basic functionality, like copy/paste, working properly It really should work. Since ages. Care to elaborate where copy and paste doesn't work in Gnome? Cause that's really a bug. or how about a task-switching applet (activated on alt-tab) that can use the mouse to select the window you want; You can do that with Gnome 3. Press Alt-Tab, hold down Alt and click around to your app. Works like a charm here. or desktop notification windows that you can close (those notifications in Ubuntu are really obnoxious) In Gnome 3 (and also Gnome 2 fwiw) you can close the notifications by clicking on them. But even better, in Gnome 3 you can set yourself as busy (click on your name in the top-right corner and select "Busy") so notifications will stay silent in the hidden notification area and won't disturb you.
        • bad_user 16y ago
          It really should work. Since ages. Care to elaborate where copy and paste doesn't work in Gnome? Copy something in one app, close it, then try pasting in another app -- sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, depending on the app or on its mood, and this behavior has been going on for ages, up until Ubuntu 10.10, which I'm using. I'm happy to find that Gnome 3 has usability improvements. I'll definitely try it out.
  • wladimir 16y ago
    Many people do desire the feature to change themes. A big reason to choose open source in the first place is the flexibility in customization that it brings. It's the opposite of the "Apple mindset" that there's one good way and that's the Steve way.
    • ugh 16y ago
      Many people do desire the feature to change themes. Do they? A big reason to choose open source in the first place is the flexibility in customization that it brings. It's the opposite of the "Apple mindset" that there's one good way and that's the Steve way. I think you are mischaracterizing Apple’s mindset. It’s not about finding the one good way, it’s about finding a good way and the assumption that most people are not interested in tweaking that. I do not think that all open source projects have to slavishly follow some sort of central ideology of maximum customization. There are enough alternatives to Gnome that it would be no problem at all for Gnome to be different. For those who really need it crazy customizability is certainly available.
      • wladimir 16y ago
        Yes, the Apple mindset assumes that there is a good way and people are not interested in tweaking that. You can agree or disagree with that. I do agree that a sane set of defaults is good. It should be usable without customization. But for one, I am interested in tweaking things. From the operating system to how things look. That's why I use open source. Isn't that the original hacker spirit?
        • ugh 16y ago
          It is but various Open Source projects do want to cater to many more people than just hackers. There are several open source desktop environments, they don’t all have to have hackers as their target group, have they? Just looking at Gnome’s website I would argue that maybe Gnome just isn’t for you and that there is nothing wrong with that.
          • 16y ago
  • chroma 16y ago
    OS X, iOS, and WP7 pick reasonable defaults that most people are happy with. The same is not so true for GNOME. For example: http://static.arstechnica.com/gnome3/apps.png http://static.arstechnica.com/gnome3/apps.png Fonts are only anti-aliased, not sub-pixel rendered. The app names are extremely small and have terrible kerning.
    • ugh 16y ago
      Hm, seems like they need quite some help with typography. The rest looks fine, also conceptually.
  • sigzero 16y ago
    That is one of the things that almost everyone does.