On Top Panels: > They don't know what the top panel is for, but all the desktops they know have one, so they kept it GNOME tries to maximize the amount of scr

On Top Panels: > They don't know what the top panel is for, but all the desktops they know have one, so they kept it GNOME tries to maximize the amount of screen space apps have available. This motivates a decision against permanently visible docks or taskbars. We do however want still want immediate access to essential status information like time, network connection and sound status. We also need some way to initiate and interaction with the shell. For now the Activities button/corner provides a solution that works reasonably well for touchscreen and mouse users. GNOME has (and I think for good reason. It has poor discoverability and many apps don't make good use of it.) abandoned the menubar so the top bar looks a bit underused. But making it more useful would increase it's size, which is a no no. On Desktop Icons: They require you to close, minimize or move out the way any window. The favorites bar combined with the app grid seems superior in almost every way. On the middle mouse button: That doesn't seem to be all that universal. Chrome e.g. closes a tab when middle clicking it. I've never heard of or used the middle mouse copying selected text. So this isn't something I miss. Developing a first party clipboard manager however could be a worthwhile undertaking for the GNOME team. On CSD: So this windowshade thing apparently is an old Mac OS thing. I fail to see how it's better than minimizing windows. The lack of a minimizing button is indeed something I disagree with, but it is so easy to bring back that I don't mind. For me titlebars were always an ugly waste of space. I fully support getting rid of them. On Action Buttons: I think putting them on top is a controversial but not totally unreasonable. It means that they are always in a predictable position and always visible. If you want the same with bottom buttons you need to a) introduce a bottom bar on the dialog, wasting space and b) make every dialog the same size. Having action buttons on the top of big modals is also something people are used to from mobile.