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All I'm hoping for at this point is that they switch course on this ridiculous taskbar thing. I want a vertical task bar on the left side of my rightmost monito

All I'm hoping for at this point is that they switch course on this ridiculous taskbar thing. I want a vertical task bar on the left side of my rightmost monitor, and I can't actually imagine using a PC with anything else. Also, small taskbar buttons with text (my taskbar is about 250px wide so that I can read the names of all my multiple windows of each IDE/text editor/Firefox). This is such a huge impact on day-to-day usage of the OS by users, why would they constrain it?

Pathogen-David 5y ago
Yup, this is the main reason I won't be upgrading to Windows 11 anytime soon. I've never been a fan of the icons-only taskbar and have enabled text labels since Windows 7.
- danielrpa 5y ago
  They got one of the worst things in ChromeOS and put it in Windows. I have to use ChromeOS for work and its poor taskbar slows me down every day. I won't be upgrading for this reason alone. This is not about being used to the old way and not wanting change, it's about not wanting to switch to something that is objectively worse and will make me less productive.
thanatos519 5y ago
I don't understand how it makes sense to bind the OS or GUI to desktop UI behaviour, but I've been a happy X11 user since 1994 so what do I know? I believe that they constrain it because they have no respect for their users.
- qzw 5y ago
  My bold prediction: they’re making it worse so that they can fix it in a future update. Why? There are only so many ways to actually improve things all the time, and it gets harder the more mature the product is. But a sinusoidal pattern of regressions and then “improvements” can be sustained indefinitely. It’s like an AC current: the features are the oscillating electrons, and the bonuses/promotions are the load.
  - peakaboo 5y ago
    Gnome 40 got massively improved speed. Gnome 41 got better battery management. You can play most top games on Linux now thanks to proton. Some operating systems are improving every release, but they are found in the Linux world now. The suckers are the one who bought into the mac or Windows ecosystem and believed all the shit about privacy and security.
    - smoldesu 5y ago
      I think GNOME 40 was notable more for the regressions it mainlined. It's pretty subjective on the visual side of things, but objectively they did remove quite a bit of GNOME functionality in exchange for... slightly more consistent themes? I use Linux too, but GNOME is a pretty bad example of iterative improvement IMO. Ever since they ditched the "Unity" interface, most people agree that it's gone downhill.
      - chungy 5y ago
        GNOME never had a Unity interface. That was Unity; Canonical later developed a bunch of extensions to replicate Unity in GNOME for the default Ubuntu desktop.
      - petepete 5y ago
        Unity had nothing to do with the GNOME project, it was built by Canonical for Ubuntu. GNOME has been moving in the right direction for a long time in my opinion, their concentration on making it easier for developers is really starting to pay off too.
        smoldesu 5y ago
        How have they been making it easier on developers? I frankly think the GNOME documentation went heavily downhill after the release of 40, and their insistence on linking libdwaita makes it even harder for me to write GTK apps that function properly on GNOME. Everything about the transition feels like it was intended to push developers away, to me. I'd be interested to hear your input on it, though.
- zamadatix 5y ago
  It's the first party shell implementation that is locked in compatibility, being built around assumptions of a particular OS version. The X11 equivalent layer has been the same system since Vista (obviously with extensions just like X11 over time) and supports launching any shell, even 3rd party ones.
kyriakos 5y ago
I upgraded my HTPC to windows 11 but this is the reason I won't update my workstation. Vertical taskbar makes sense on wide screen multi monitor setups. Centered task bar is ridiculous, even worse than left justified bottom screen cause the icons locations depend on what's on the taskbar making the ui unpredictable and kills any muscle memory advantages.

Pathogen-David 5y ago

Yup, this is the main reason I won't be upgrading to Windows 11 anytime soon. I've never been a fan of the icons-only taskbar and have enabled text labels since Windows 7.

danielrpa 5y ago
They got one of the worst things in ChromeOS and put it in Windows. I have to use ChromeOS for work and its poor taskbar slows me down every day. I won't be upgrading for this reason alone. This is not about being used to the old way and not wanting change, it's about not wanting to switch to something that is objectively worse and will make me less productive.

thanatos519 5y ago

I don't understand how it makes sense to bind the OS or GUI to desktop UI behaviour, but I've been a happy X11 user since 1994 so what do I know? I believe that they constrain it because they have no respect for their users.

qzw 5y ago
My bold prediction: they’re making it worse so that they can fix it in a future update. Why? There are only so many ways to actually improve things all the time, and it gets harder the more mature the product is. But a sinusoidal pattern of regressions and then “improvements” can be sustained indefinitely. It’s like an AC current: the features are the oscillating electrons, and the bonuses/promotions are the load.
- peakaboo 5y ago
  Gnome 40 got massively improved speed. Gnome 41 got better battery management. You can play most top games on Linux now thanks to proton. Some operating systems are improving every release, but they are found in the Linux world now. The suckers are the one who bought into the mac or Windows ecosystem and believed all the shit about privacy and security.
  - smoldesu 5y ago
    I think GNOME 40 was notable more for the regressions it mainlined. It's pretty subjective on the visual side of things, but objectively they did remove quite a bit of GNOME functionality in exchange for... slightly more consistent themes? I use Linux too, but GNOME is a pretty bad example of iterative improvement IMO. Ever since they ditched the "Unity" interface, most people agree that it's gone downhill.
    - chungy 5y ago
      GNOME never had a Unity interface. That was Unity; Canonical later developed a bunch of extensions to replicate Unity in GNOME for the default Ubuntu desktop.
    - petepete 5y ago
      Unity had nothing to do with the GNOME project, it was built by Canonical for Ubuntu. GNOME has been moving in the right direction for a long time in my opinion, their concentration on making it easier for developers is really starting to pay off too.
      - smoldesu 5y ago
        How have they been making it easier on developers? I frankly think the GNOME documentation went heavily downhill after the release of 40, and their insistence on linking libdwaita makes it even harder for me to write GTK apps that function properly on GNOME. Everything about the transition feels like it was intended to push developers away, to me. I'd be interested to hear your input on it, though.
zamadatix 5y ago
It's the first party shell implementation that is locked in compatibility, being built around assumptions of a particular OS version. The X11 equivalent layer has been the same system since Vista (obviously with extensions just like X11 over time) and supports launching any shell, even 3rd party ones.

kyriakos 5y ago

I upgraded my HTPC to windows 11 but this is the reason I won't update my workstation. Vertical taskbar makes sense on wide screen multi monitor setups. Centered task bar is ridiculous, even worse than left justified bottom screen cause the icons locations depend on what's on the taskbar making the ui unpredictable and kills any muscle memory advantages.