5 ms·

GNOME has no thumbnails in the file picker https://jayfax.neocities.org/mediocrity/gnome-has-no-thumbnails-in-the-file-picker.html https://jayfax.neocities.org

by oshanz 6y ago

GNOME has no thumbnails in the file picker https://jayfax.neocities.org/mediocrity/gnome-has-no-thumbnails-in-the-file-picker.html https://jayfax.neocities.org/mediocrity/gnome-has-no-thumbna...

411111111111111 6y ago
i dont even remember the last time i used a file picker to select a picture on a desktop...... i couldn't care less about this "issue", which supposedly shows that desktop linux is a "joke". he's not really convincing. (it would be a nice to have feature, yes. but his reaction is way overblown) > This is why Free desktop operating systems are a joke and haven’t been popularly adopted [...] GtkFileChooser remains broken
hojjat12000 6y ago
This is a dead meme. Boring and annoying specially to the Gnome developers. I have used Gnome for many years now. Never have this been an issue. If you look at the issue tracker[1], they are open to pull requests to add the thumbnail, we just need one person who cares about this feature! There are many other issues with Gnome that actually is their decision and it is a problem. This specific one is a GTK issue. But for example their decision on window decoration in wayland is just wrong and makes the whole environment look weird[2]. [1] https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gtk/-/issues/233 https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gtk/-/issues/233 [2] https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/mutter/-/issues/217 https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/mutter/-/issues/217
- yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
  That seems excessively dismissive; it's hardly a dead meme while the issue remains open, boring only to the GNOME developers who have decided that little things like what users want is irrelevant, annoying only because it's been a decade with zero attempt at a solution. It's nice that you never use this feature, but unhelpful to others who do. And yes, it's terribly generous of them to be willing to consider merging a fix if someone else does the work.
  - JasonFruit 6y ago
    But, you know, that's how it works: the problem doesn't get fixed unless someone both a) cares, and b) can do something about it. Why would a developer who isn't getting paid do work they don't care about? If you're interested, maybe you can finally be the person who cares and does the work.
    - yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
      Giving something away for free doesn't mean that no one can criticize it. It's a severe shortcoming, it's been there for over a decade, and no obligated to fix it but that doesn't mean anybody is obligated to stop complaining about it either.
      - locke78 6y ago
        It may be time to look elsewhere if the complaints are unanswered for more than a decade; they're probably being directed towards the wrong people. That's an obligation you may want to hold yourself to, if you value your own time and don't want to spend another decade repeating yourself to those who won't listen.
        yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
        It kind of depends: I don't use GNOME, but AFAIK both Chrom(ium) and Firefox use GTK and so use the broken file dialog regardless. "Go use something else" is a valid suggestion, but only when you can use something else.
      - JasonFruit 6y ago
        Entirely true, which is why I never said they couldn't complain — just that it won't be fixed until there's a developer who cares enough.
- cosarara 6y ago
  > we just need one person who cares about this feature Uh no. There have been at least 3 separate attempts at implementing this. One of them actually lives as a fork on github, and it works. None of them have been merged. The gtk devs don't care.
- Aengeuad 6y ago
  Various patches have existed for at least a decade but every time they're proposed some issue is found and they're not merged so the goal posts shift from 'just write your own patch' to 'just become a Gnome maintainer' with no guarantees that you'll get the assistance you need to implement the feature or whether it'll even be merged, and fair enough, the Gnome team really don't owe anybody anything, but in that case getting annoyed that the community keeps referencing a 17 year old issue is just a natural part of the exchange.
  - TingPing 6y ago
    Maintainer refuses to merge bad work, shame on them?
    - hda2 6y ago
      If it was really bad work, then of course not. The problem is that poor quality isn't the reason why they refuse. While not related to the file picker, I personally offered to port an important part of GTK3 to GTK4 (status icon support) and one of the maintainers told me flat out that he would not merge my work because "it was no longer in line with the direction GNOME is heading". I suspect the real reason behind their refusal is purely subjective, unfortunately.
      - locke78 6y ago
        That's not subjective. When they merge code like that and then you disappear, they're now stuck budgeting time to maintain that API for years. They can't be expected to do that work when no maintainers care enough and no GNOME apps are even going to use that API (Status icons were removed from the GNOME HIG years ago) If you don't want to go through the trouble of becoming a committed long-term GTK maintainer yourself just to get this in, why not maintain that particular feature as a separate library?
- Saris 6y ago
  Why are people so dismissive about this? It's a significant usability problem among many, many others that gnome has. It should be annoying that the issue keeps coming up. It's not a 'meme' that gnome lacks an extremely basic feature that is incredibly common in other GUIs.
dleslie 6y ago
This is an issue for me; I don't enjoy having to work around it by finding the file in a separate file browser window.
- Aengeuad 6y ago
  Also an issue for me, it does nothing for the already abysmal photography/image editing workflow. I try to use Qt programs where I can or xdg-desktop-portal where it's supported but some programs like Gimp still don't support it.
hctaw 6y ago
Clearly this isn't an issue that people care about enough to do anything about, otherwise someone would have gone and implemented it.
- k_bx 6y ago
  “Stop being poor” kind of an argument
  - hctaw 6y ago
    Not at all? This is FOSS. If this was a critical issue that blocked people from using the software, or aggravated a developer enough, then someone would go fix it or be paid to fix it. Developers don't have an obligation to implement every feature request. Clearly this is a nothingburger
    - tmountain 6y ago
      > Clearly this is a nothingburger. Hrm, I don't think so. It's probably more a matter of people that are accustomed to Gnome having accepted and/or habituated to the fact that it doesn't display thumbnails in the file manager. The same folks may have devised clever work arounds (opening the filesystem in a browser for example) or otherwise solved the problem in a way that it's not an impediment. The problem with this line of thinking is that it ignores a huge cohort of potential adopters that would be stopped dead in their tracks at this issue. I think about scenarios where I might introduce an older family member to a Linux desktop for all the benefits it would bring (low cost, stable, secure, etc), and then how it would feel having to explain that they can't easily preview a photo when navigating the filesystem (like I was making excuses for a platform with a gaping hole). In any system, it's heard to measure losses from things you don't have. A business might get that feedback from prospects that don't close, etc ("you don't have widget X, so we won't sign"), but it's harder to measure those feedback loops in the FOSS word. In short, I think not having this is a big deal, and folks that won't admit to that probably aren't considering a bunch of adoption that can't/won't happen until the issue is fixed.
    - AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
craftoman 6y ago
This is due to a missing package. Some distributions are not well structured and removing one package may lead to these errors.

by oshanz 6y ago

GNOME has no thumbnails in the file picker https://jayfax.neocities.org/mediocrity/gnome-has-no-thumbnails-in-the-file-picker.html https://jayfax.neocities.org/mediocrity/gnome-has-no-thumbna...

411111111111111 6y ago

i dont even remember the last time i used a file picker to select a picture on a desktop...... i couldn't care less about this "issue", which supposedly shows that desktop linux is a "joke". he's not really convincing. (it would be a nice to have feature, yes. but his reaction is way overblown) > This is why Free desktop operating systems are a joke and haven’t been popularly adopted [...] GtkFileChooser remains broken

hojjat12000 6y ago

This is a dead meme. Boring and annoying specially to the Gnome developers. I have used Gnome for many years now. Never have this been an issue. If you look at the issue tracker[1], they are open to pull requests to add the thumbnail, we just need one person who cares about this feature! There are many other issues with Gnome that actually is their decision and it is a problem. This specific one is a GTK issue. But for example their decision on window decoration in wayland is just wrong and makes the whole environment look weird[2]. [1] https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gtk/-/issues/233 https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gtk/-/issues/233 [2] https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/mutter/-/issues/217 https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/mutter/-/issues/217

yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
That seems excessively dismissive; it's hardly a dead meme while the issue remains open, boring only to the GNOME developers who have decided that little things like what users want is irrelevant, annoying only because it's been a decade with zero attempt at a solution. It's nice that you never use this feature, but unhelpful to others who do. And yes, it's terribly generous of them to be willing to consider merging a fix if someone else does the work.
- JasonFruit 6y ago
  But, you know, that's how it works: the problem doesn't get fixed unless someone both a) cares, and b) can do something about it. Why would a developer who isn't getting paid do work they don't care about? If you're interested, maybe you can finally be the person who cares and does the work.
  - yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
    Giving something away for free doesn't mean that no one can criticize it. It's a severe shortcoming, it's been there for over a decade, and no obligated to fix it but that doesn't mean anybody is obligated to stop complaining about it either.
    - locke78 6y ago
      It may be time to look elsewhere if the complaints are unanswered for more than a decade; they're probably being directed towards the wrong people. That's an obligation you may want to hold yourself to, if you value your own time and don't want to spend another decade repeating yourself to those who won't listen.
      - yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
        It kind of depends: I don't use GNOME, but AFAIK both Chrom(ium) and Firefox use GTK and so use the broken file dialog regardless. "Go use something else" is a valid suggestion, but only when you can use something else.
    - JasonFruit 6y ago
      Entirely true, which is why I never said they couldn't complain — just that it won't be fixed until there's a developer who cares enough.
cosarara 6y ago
> we just need one person who cares about this feature Uh no. There have been at least 3 separate attempts at implementing this. One of them actually lives as a fork on github, and it works. None of them have been merged. The gtk devs don't care.
Aengeuad 6y ago
Various patches have existed for at least a decade but every time they're proposed some issue is found and they're not merged so the goal posts shift from 'just write your own patch' to 'just become a Gnome maintainer' with no guarantees that you'll get the assistance you need to implement the feature or whether it'll even be merged, and fair enough, the Gnome team really don't owe anybody anything, but in that case getting annoyed that the community keeps referencing a 17 year old issue is just a natural part of the exchange.
- TingPing 6y ago
  Maintainer refuses to merge bad work, shame on them?
  - hda2 6y ago
    If it was really bad work, then of course not. The problem is that poor quality isn't the reason why they refuse. While not related to the file picker, I personally offered to port an important part of GTK3 to GTK4 (status icon support) and one of the maintainers told me flat out that he would not merge my work because "it was no longer in line with the direction GNOME is heading". I suspect the real reason behind their refusal is purely subjective, unfortunately.
    - locke78 6y ago
      That's not subjective. When they merge code like that and then you disappear, they're now stuck budgeting time to maintain that API for years. They can't be expected to do that work when no maintainers care enough and no GNOME apps are even going to use that API (Status icons were removed from the GNOME HIG years ago) If you don't want to go through the trouble of becoming a committed long-term GTK maintainer yourself just to get this in, why not maintain that particular feature as a separate library?
Saris 6y ago
Why are people so dismissive about this? It's a significant usability problem among many, many others that gnome has. It should be annoying that the issue keeps coming up. It's not a 'meme' that gnome lacks an extremely basic feature that is incredibly common in other GUIs.

dleslie 6y ago

This is an issue for me; I don't enjoy having to work around it by finding the file in a separate file browser window.

Aengeuad 6y ago
Also an issue for me, it does nothing for the already abysmal photography/image editing workflow. I try to use Qt programs where I can or xdg-desktop-portal where it's supported but some programs like Gimp still don't support it.

hctaw 6y ago

Clearly this isn't an issue that people care about enough to do anything about, otherwise someone would have gone and implemented it.

k_bx 6y ago
“Stop being poor” kind of an argument
- hctaw 6y ago
  Not at all? This is FOSS. If this was a critical issue that blocked people from using the software, or aggravated a developer enough, then someone would go fix it or be paid to fix it. Developers don't have an obligation to implement every feature request. Clearly this is a nothingburger
  - tmountain 6y ago
    > Clearly this is a nothingburger. Hrm, I don't think so. It's probably more a matter of people that are accustomed to Gnome having accepted and/or habituated to the fact that it doesn't display thumbnails in the file manager. The same folks may have devised clever work arounds (opening the filesystem in a browser for example) or otherwise solved the problem in a way that it's not an impediment. The problem with this line of thinking is that it ignores a huge cohort of potential adopters that would be stopped dead in their tracks at this issue. I think about scenarios where I might introduce an older family member to a Linux desktop for all the benefits it would bring (low cost, stable, secure, etc), and then how it would feel having to explain that they can't easily preview a photo when navigating the filesystem (like I was making excuses for a platform with a gaping hole). In any system, it's heard to measure losses from things you don't have. A business might get that feedback from prospects that don't close, etc ("you don't have widget X, so we won't sign"), but it's harder to measure those feedback loops in the FOSS word. In short, I think not having this is a big deal, and folks that won't admit to that probably aren't considering a bunch of adoption that can't/won't happen until the issue is fixed.
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago

craftoman 6y ago

This is due to a missing package. Some distributions are not well structured and removing one package may lead to these errors.