7 ms·

What I am missing with Gnome is the global menu I have with macOS. It's just my preferred way of working. This is also what I liked about Unity. Gnome seems to

by nik736 10mo ago

What I am missing with Gnome is the global menu I have with macOS. It's just my preferred way of working. This is also what I liked about Unity. Gnome seems to follow the same direction as Windows. Additionally miller columns in Finder are just awesome and I don't have them with Nautilus. Those two things are honestly dealbreakers for me.

amelius 10mo ago
I like that Unity puts the global menu on the side. This makes more sense with all the wide-screens that we have nowadays. A huge oversight in MacOS, if you ask me.
- rectang 10mo ago
  I agree that the side is better and would be a better default. For the record, the location of the MacOS Dock is configurable — I have mine on the right.
- sparky4pro 10mo ago
  On macOS only the dock can be moved to the side. The application menu (left) and the statusbar menu (right) will always be on top of the screen. Which makes sense to me.
- pseudalopex 10mo ago
  Global menu meant menu bar. Unity put the dock on the side. You can move the macOS dock to either side.
al_borland 10mo ago
I went looking for a file manager with miller column on Linux once. It seems to be an extremely rare feature. With how popular column view is in Finder, I don’t understand how it hasn’t made its way to other platforms as a commonplace feature.
- dijit 10mo ago
  I had the exact same journey as you, I even very nearly install GNUStep because the file manager had miller columns. I even started to think that perhaps Apple has an active patent on it or something. (this happened with the Genie Lamp minimise effect on Compiz/Beryl- why it needed to have at minimum 3 "waves" before it minimised the window; though you could obviously patch it out). FWIW I found Ranger (TUI) and Pantheon (ElementaryOS) that supports it, if you're still looking.
- bigyabai 10mo ago
  This one has it: https://github.com/elementary/files https://github.com/elementary/files
- t_mahmood 10mo ago
  If you are okay with terminal based one's, Yazi: [https://github.com/sxyazi/yazi/ https://github.com/sxyazi/yazi/] is pretty nice. Yes, I would love that in Nautilus, but I'm not very depended on GUI for managing files, so not a big deal for me.
nicoburns 10mo ago
KDE's Dolphin file manager has miller columns. It won't blend in on Gnome, but it will work just fine.
amluto 10mo ago
I would much prefer if MacOS got rid of the global menu. I've contemplated it for literally decades, and my opinion has only gotten stronger. 1. Sometimes a program has no open windows. Understanding when its menu shows up in the menu bar is confusing at best. Explaining to another user "oh, you are in [such and such program already] even though there's nothing there -- click File then Open" is silly. 2. Sometimes a program has two or more open windows. Sure, File/New makes sense in this context, but anything that acts on the current window is not visually linked to the window and is thus confusing. 3. With the advent of multiple monitors, global menus are even worse. Which monitor should they live on? Always primary? Both? There is no right answer. 4. Old-fashioned title bars tell me which window belongs to which program. Global menus try, but only if I'm sure which window's menu is currently displayed, and it does not let me identify a non-selected window without interrupting myself to select it. 5. Opening a menu that's part of a non-current window takes one click. With global menus, it's two clicks. 6. One might imagine that they conserve screen real estate, which is maybe slightly true in our brave new world of notched viewports, but it's barely true and is avoidable. And Apple doesn't seem to care about efficient use of screen real estate anyway.
- dandiep 10mo ago
  100% agree. Will never understand the love for the global menu bar, it makes no sense.
  - anuramat 10mo ago
    I mean, it does take less space (compared to having one per window)
    - amluto 10mo ago
      Only if you have two or more windows vertically stacked, which isn’t what you’re likely to be doing when you want to maximize vertical space.
      - anuramat 10mo ago
kevincox 10mo ago
I quite dislike the global menu of macOS. It means that you need to switch windows to see the menu for the window, which can result in a lot of tedious mouse movement. But what I absolutely love is the menu search. I would love to see GNOME (well GTK I guess) add menu search. Also bring back the ability to bind hotkeys by typing while hovering a menu item while you are at it!
- fragmede 10mo ago
  it’s less tedious after you realize you can just fling the mouse to the top, you don’t have to hit a specific vertical to get there.

by nik736 10mo ago

amelius 10mo ago

I like that Unity puts the global menu on the side. This makes more sense with all the wide-screens that we have nowadays. A huge oversight in MacOS, if you ask me.

rectang 10mo ago
I agree that the side is better and would be a better default. For the record, the location of the MacOS Dock is configurable — I have mine on the right.
sparky4pro 10mo ago
On macOS only the dock can be moved to the side. The application menu (left) and the statusbar menu (right) will always be on top of the screen. Which makes sense to me.
pseudalopex 10mo ago
Global menu meant menu bar. Unity put the dock on the side. You can move the macOS dock to either side.

al_borland 10mo ago

I went looking for a file manager with miller column on Linux once. It seems to be an extremely rare feature. With how popular column view is in Finder, I don’t understand how it hasn’t made its way to other platforms as a commonplace feature.

dijit 10mo ago
I had the exact same journey as you, I even very nearly install GNUStep because the file manager had miller columns. I even started to think that perhaps Apple has an active patent on it or something. (this happened with the Genie Lamp minimise effect on Compiz/Beryl- why it needed to have at minimum 3 "waves" before it minimised the window; though you could obviously patch it out). FWIW I found Ranger (TUI) and Pantheon (ElementaryOS) that supports it, if you're still looking.
bigyabai 10mo ago
This one has it: https://github.com/elementary/files https://github.com/elementary/files
t_mahmood 10mo ago
If you are okay with terminal based one's, Yazi: [https://github.com/sxyazi/yazi/ https://github.com/sxyazi/yazi/] is pretty nice. Yes, I would love that in Nautilus, but I'm not very depended on GUI for managing files, so not a big deal for me.

nicoburns 10mo ago

KDE's Dolphin file manager has miller columns. It won't blend in on Gnome, but it will work just fine.

amluto 10mo ago

I would much prefer if MacOS got rid of the global menu. I've contemplated it for literally decades, and my opinion has only gotten stronger. 1. Sometimes a program has no open windows. Understanding when its menu shows up in the menu bar is confusing at best. Explaining to another user "oh, you are in [such and such program already] even though there's nothing there -- click File then Open" is silly. 2. Sometimes a program has two or more open windows. Sure, File/New makes sense in this context, but anything that acts on the current window is not visually linked to the window and is thus confusing. 3. With the advent of multiple monitors, global menus are even worse. Which monitor should they live on? Always primary? Both? There is no right answer. 4. Old-fashioned title bars tell me which window belongs to which program. Global menus try, but only if I'm sure which window's menu is currently displayed, and it does not let me identify a non-selected window without interrupting myself to select it. 5. Opening a menu that's part of a non-current window takes one click. With global menus, it's two clicks. 6. One might imagine that they conserve screen real estate, which is maybe slightly true in our brave new world of notched viewports, but it's barely true and is avoidable. And Apple doesn't seem to care about efficient use of screen real estate anyway.

dandiep 10mo ago
100% agree. Will never understand the love for the global menu bar, it makes no sense.
- anuramat 10mo ago
  I mean, it does take less space (compared to having one per window)
  - amluto 10mo ago
    Only if you have two or more windows vertically stacked, which isn’t what you’re likely to be doing when you want to maximize vertical space.
    - anuramat 10mo ago

kevincox 10mo ago

I quite dislike the global menu of macOS. It means that you need to switch windows to see the menu for the window, which can result in a lot of tedious mouse movement. But what I absolutely love is the menu search. I would love to see GNOME (well GTK I guess) add menu search. Also bring back the ability to bind hotkeys by typing while hovering a menu item while you are at it!

fragmede 10mo ago
it’s less tedious after you realize you can just fling the mouse to the top, you don’t have to hit a specific vertical to get there.