9 ms·

Regarding that GNOME update, do GNOME developers just don't have any competence in UX design? That screencast is suggesting you need to click the activities but

by osoba 6y ago

Regarding that GNOME update, do GNOME developers just don't have any competence in UX design? That screencast is suggesting you need to click the activities button in the top left corner to be able to reveal a nav panel that's all the way at the bottom. Similarly, right now, in current versions, in the file selection interface the Select button is in one corner of the window and Cancel all the way in the other. Or the annoying unnecessary dialogue when you uncompress from an archive (no I don't want an app-blocking notification that the file extracted successfully).

jmnicolas 6y ago
To me since Gnome 3, it feels like Gnome devs are covering their hears with their hands and shouting loudly to be sure they don't hear their users. Why would they change though? There are no consequences.
- not_knuth 6y ago
  pojntfx also already pointed to some great resources to understand their reasoning. Also, it's a FOSS project. Which means you can make your voice heard and get involved. Just try and be kind when you make suggestions. Or, even better, contribute yourself: https://www.gnome.org/get-involved/ https://www.gnome.org/get-involved/
  - turminal 6y ago
    The problem is they weren't really kind towards people with suggestions in the past.
    - not_knuth 6y ago
      I've heard this many times before, but have never made the experience myself. Can you please share a link to examples? I'm just trying to understand where this bad reputation for gnome comes from.
      - traverseda 6y ago
        That gnome doesn't really listen to end user feedback? I think this is a pretty great example: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/nautilus/-/issues/244 https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/nautilus/-/issues/244 Patches are available for type-ahead, in particular the gtk-mushrooms fork. If open source is about "scratching your own itch" gnome is making it really hard for developers to do that. There was discussion of burying that features somewhere deep in the gnome registry, all kinds of options, but it's clear that pull requests are not welcome, even if the option is buried deep in some config file somewhere and is only accessible to power users. That seems to be the case a lot of the time when outsiders try to solve their own problems with a pull request. There's just no room for compromise or for solving your own problems.
        cycloptic 6y ago
        That's only one example and the issue was closed specifically because it conflicts with their UX designs created by a professional designer: https://github.com/gnome-design-team/gnome-mockups/tree/master/nautilus/nautilus-next https://github.com/gnome-design-team/gnome-mockups/tree/mast... As a point of comparison, you may want to look through all the other merge requests that actually do get accepted, the majority of them do: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/nautilus/-/merge_requests?state=merged https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/nautilus/-/merge_requests?sta...
        traverseda 6y ago
        That's fine, and I get that gnome is a platform. The problem is that they're forcing their platform's choices on every GTK-3 app, which makes it really annoying for people who use GTK (not gnome) apps but which don't like the Gnome platform. The problem is that GTK was used as a generic toolkit, and they've added a bunch of weird customization's to make it work better with their platform. That fucked over a lot of people who used that toolkit on non-Gnome platforms, and for non-Gnome uses. Most people using GTK didn't sign up to be part of the gnome platform. Firefox isn't a gnome app. They (and everyone else) assumed it was being developed as a generic and cross-platform gui toolkit. Bit of a bait and switch there. The tight integration between gnome (the platform) and GTK (the cross-platform GUI toolkit) seems an awful lot like a betrayal, like taking something that was for everyone and well.. taking it. Making it all about themselves, and burning the commons so other people can't use it. Or at least like a heavy-handed attempt to force people to write Gnome apps instead of GTK apps.
  - wazoox 6y ago
    > Which means you can make your voice heard and get involved. Unfortunately that's not how the Gnome project has been run. Even back in Gnome 2.x times. There's a famous very funny jwz blog post about this (that I won't link because of some well known reasons).
    - not_knuth 6y ago
      I'm afraid I'm the kind of naive person that believes in the best intention of people and have not read that blog post. So I will have to be provided with a link to better understand and judge for myself.
      - not_knuth 6y ago
        Can someone explain to me why I'm getting downvoted for this? Maybe the phrasing was a bit strange, but I just wanted to understand...
      - alexdw_mgzi 6y ago
        If you link to that particular blog from HackerNews, he checks the referer and serves you up a nasty message instead of the blog post. So, instead of providing a direct link, search for JWZ, GNOME and CADT.
pojntfx 6y ago
The reasoning behind the GNOME UX is described in their HIGs and is quite similar to iOS, with it's pros and cons: https://developer.gnome.org/hig/stable/ https://developer.gnome.org/hig/stable/. GNOME 40 is also developed openly and a lot of live coding is going on right now (see for example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2OhXheV-cw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2OhXheV-cw), so if users have UX suggestions there are many ways to contribute and get your ideas out there. You can now also try out the newest GNOME nightlies with GNOME OS, available here or through the "+" button in GNOME Boxes: https://os.gnome.org/ https://os.gnome.org/
- swiley 6y ago
  TL;DR: Gnome devs think phones have superior UI design.
- turminal 6y ago
  > GNOME 40 is also developed openly and a lot of live coding is going on right now (see for example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2OhXheV-cw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2OhXheV-cw), so if users have UX suggestions there are many ways to contribute and get your ideas out there. Gnome always struck me as a project that doesn't really listen to anyone and just follows their agenda irregardless of how damaging it is to the community. I find it hard to believe they started listening to the community, but if it's true then I'm really glad they did.
wazoox 6y ago
> That screencast is suggesting you need to click the activities button in the top left corner to be able to reveal a nav panel that's all the way at the bottom. That's already the default way it works, and it's perfectly insufferable. AFAIK almost everyone uses an extension or another that makes the panel a permanent or auto-hiding dock, like any other reasonable desktop OS. I can't see any drastic change, actually. Apparently the main difference is that the panel is visible at login, instead of being hidden (therefore stumping new users that can only see an empty desktop and nothing else).

by osoba 6y ago

jmnicolas 6y ago

To me since Gnome 3, it feels like Gnome devs are covering their hears with their hands and shouting loudly to be sure they don't hear their users. Why would they change though? There are no consequences.

not_knuth 6y ago
pojntfx also already pointed to some great resources to understand their reasoning. Also, it's a FOSS project. Which means you can make your voice heard and get involved. Just try and be kind when you make suggestions. Or, even better, contribute yourself: https://www.gnome.org/get-involved/ https://www.gnome.org/get-involved/
- turminal 6y ago
  The problem is they weren't really kind towards people with suggestions in the past.
  - not_knuth 6y ago
    I've heard this many times before, but have never made the experience myself. Can you please share a link to examples? I'm just trying to understand where this bad reputation for gnome comes from.
    - traverseda 6y ago
      That gnome doesn't really listen to end user feedback? I think this is a pretty great example: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/nautilus/-/issues/244 https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/nautilus/-/issues/244 Patches are available for type-ahead, in particular the gtk-mushrooms fork. If open source is about "scratching your own itch" gnome is making it really hard for developers to do that. There was discussion of burying that features somewhere deep in the gnome registry, all kinds of options, but it's clear that pull requests are not welcome, even if the option is buried deep in some config file somewhere and is only accessible to power users. That seems to be the case a lot of the time when outsiders try to solve their own problems with a pull request. There's just no room for compromise or for solving your own problems.
      - cycloptic 6y ago
        That's only one example and the issue was closed specifically because it conflicts with their UX designs created by a professional designer: https://github.com/gnome-design-team/gnome-mockups/tree/master/nautilus/nautilus-next https://github.com/gnome-design-team/gnome-mockups/tree/mast... As a point of comparison, you may want to look through all the other merge requests that actually do get accepted, the majority of them do: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/nautilus/-/merge_requests?state=merged https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/nautilus/-/merge_requests?sta...
        traverseda 6y ago
        That's fine, and I get that gnome is a platform. The problem is that they're forcing their platform's choices on every GTK-3 app, which makes it really annoying for people who use GTK (not gnome) apps but which don't like the Gnome platform. The problem is that GTK was used as a generic toolkit, and they've added a bunch of weird customization's to make it work better with their platform. That fucked over a lot of people who used that toolkit on non-Gnome platforms, and for non-Gnome uses. Most people using GTK didn't sign up to be part of the gnome platform. Firefox isn't a gnome app. They (and everyone else) assumed it was being developed as a generic and cross-platform gui toolkit. Bit of a bait and switch there. The tight integration between gnome (the platform) and GTK (the cross-platform GUI toolkit) seems an awful lot like a betrayal, like taking something that was for everyone and well.. taking it. Making it all about themselves, and burning the commons so other people can't use it. Or at least like a heavy-handed attempt to force people to write Gnome apps instead of GTK apps.
- wazoox 6y ago
  > Which means you can make your voice heard and get involved. Unfortunately that's not how the Gnome project has been run. Even back in Gnome 2.x times. There's a famous very funny jwz blog post about this (that I won't link because of some well known reasons).
  - not_knuth 6y ago
    I'm afraid I'm the kind of naive person that believes in the best intention of people and have not read that blog post. So I will have to be provided with a link to better understand and judge for myself.
    - not_knuth 6y ago
      Can someone explain to me why I'm getting downvoted for this? Maybe the phrasing was a bit strange, but I just wanted to understand...
    - alexdw_mgzi 6y ago
      If you link to that particular blog from HackerNews, he checks the referer and serves you up a nasty message instead of the blog post. So, instead of providing a direct link, search for JWZ, GNOME and CADT.

pojntfx 6y ago

The reasoning behind the GNOME UX is described in their HIGs and is quite similar to iOS, with it's pros and cons: https://developer.gnome.org/hig/stable/ https://developer.gnome.org/hig/stable/. GNOME 40 is also developed openly and a lot of live coding is going on right now (see for example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2OhXheV-cw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2OhXheV-cw), so if users have UX suggestions there are many ways to contribute and get your ideas out there. You can now also try out the newest GNOME nightlies with GNOME OS, available here or through the "+" button in GNOME Boxes: https://os.gnome.org/ https://os.gnome.org/

swiley 6y ago
TL;DR: Gnome devs think phones have superior UI design.
turminal 6y ago
> GNOME 40 is also developed openly and a lot of live coding is going on right now (see for example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2OhXheV-cw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2OhXheV-cw), so if users have UX suggestions there are many ways to contribute and get your ideas out there. Gnome always struck me as a project that doesn't really listen to anyone and just follows their agenda irregardless of how damaging it is to the community. I find it hard to believe they started listening to the community, but if it's true then I'm really glad they did.

wazoox 6y ago

> That screencast is suggesting you need to click the activities button in the top left corner to be able to reveal a nav panel that's all the way at the bottom. That's already the default way it works, and it's perfectly insufferable. AFAIK almost everyone uses an extension or another that makes the panel a permanent or auto-hiding dock, like any other reasonable desktop OS. I can't see any drastic change, actually. Apparently the main difference is that the panel is visible at login, instead of being hidden (therefore stumping new users that can only see an empty desktop and nothing else).