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Gnome 2 was nice, but it also lacked serious usability features that were present elsewhere. Windows exposé (overview), a global menu, and window tiling/snappin

Gnome 2 was nice, but it also lacked serious usability features that were present elsewhere. Windows exposé (overview), a global menu, and window tiling/snapping were just a few. They could have continued to extend the desktop with these features, but chose to reevaluate the desktop instead. Part of the reevaluation was GTK 3, and part of it was CSS for Shell, I think. I agree it could have been better. I don't agree that the rich choice between DEs (and richness within each) is worse today than it was 15 years ago.

eitland 6y ago
> Gnome 2 was nice, but it also lacked serious usability features that were present elsewhere. Windows exposé (overview), a global menu, and window tiling/snapping were just a few. I'm fairly certain these were easily available as plugins on Gnome 2 with Compiz.
badsectoracula 6y ago
Gnome 2 had "expose", though you had to run a compositor to use it. There was a patch for a global menu but IIRC the Gtk developers blocked that feature so it never went anywhere. Does Gnome support a global menu nowadays? Window snapping was supported as well - many window managers support that for years. Also note that Gnome 2 allowed you to use any window manager you wanted, so even if Metacity (the default one) didn't do the trick for you, you could use some other window manager (and it wasn't uncommon for people to do that).