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Regarding the removal itself, this is an unfortunate trend that, as far as I'm aware, started in the last couple years with Firefox and Chrome inappropriately a

Regarding the removal itself, this is an unfortunate trend that, as far as I'm aware, started in the last couple years with Firefox and Chrome inappropriately and unapologetically removing features and options (and changing standard behavior like the image view background color) that had previously been present and in use. I don't think it's really curable, as it always seems to be the result of inconsiderate people having too much sway over what gets pulled/committed, and that's just a risk of open source. The dev's attitude here is also shit... if you're not willing to reasonably address valid concerns related to decisions you've made that were obviously going to affect regular users, you have no place making those decisions and forcing them on others in the first place.

arjie 13y ago
Veteran users of Gnome will recall the screensaver kerfuffle. IIRC, that preceded these browsers somewhat. In fact, Chrome didn't even exist at that time.
- claudius 13y ago
  Wasn’t Gnome 2 already an attempt to clean up/remove features that had cropped into Gnome 1? I recall ‘veteran users of Gnome’ complaining about the lack of settings/options back in 2005.
jkrems 13y ago
The trend towards a more concise feature set is I suppose a consequence of open source software maturing from "hackerware" to proper, widely used software. The moment your settings screen would benefit from a search functionality, you should reconsider "doing it all". Maybe they want to concentrate on a very basic Terminal solution, leaving more complex use cases and features to other implementations. At the same time: The reaction of the developer and they way it was done was pretty unprofessional. When redesigning a settings dialog and dropping a couple of 'em in the process, a proper changelog-entry would be the least.
- return0 13y ago
  This is a terminal we are talking about, its never going to be widely used. It makes sense to simplify things like the file browser, but a terminal?
  - Joeri 13y ago
    Everyone who deliberately chooses linux is also a terminal user. I cannot imagine someone choosing linux and then never using the terminal. It is by far the most widely used program on the system.
    - return0 13y ago
      By that logic, everyone who uses linux is a power user who will never be confused, there is no need to remove any features in the first place. (btw, i think that's true but gnome people don't get it)
- arjie 13y ago
  Every mainstream shell adds a search box to its settings screen. I love the ones in Windows and OS X. They're very good.
- CamperBob2 13y ago
  The moment your settings screen would benefit from a search functionality, you should reconsider "doing it all". Have you seen the "GodMode" hack in Windows 7? It's really a nice counterexample. Sometimes, verbose flat interfaces are just what the doctor/user ordered.
marcosdumay 13y ago
There are a couple of problems at play here. The first one is that it become fashonable to remove features, and this is not just an open source trend, instead of making softwre that fills a ninche, everybody is trying to build the same 10% of the features that 80% of the people use 90% of the time. (And let's forget that those other 10% of the time are still important for 100% of the people, ok?) Another problem is that unless the user develops it, open source development is not user oriented... Well, proprietary software development isn't either, (only softwre developed in-house is really made for you) and both will cut costs in places you don't like sometimes.

arjie 13y ago

Veteran users of Gnome will recall the screensaver kerfuffle. IIRC, that preceded these browsers somewhat. In fact, Chrome didn't even exist at that time.

claudius 13y ago
Wasn’t Gnome 2 already an attempt to clean up/remove features that had cropped into Gnome 1? I recall ‘veteran users of Gnome’ complaining about the lack of settings/options back in 2005.

jkrems 13y ago

The trend towards a more concise feature set is I suppose a consequence of open source software maturing from "hackerware" to proper, widely used software. The moment your settings screen would benefit from a search functionality, you should reconsider "doing it all". Maybe they want to concentrate on a very basic Terminal solution, leaving more complex use cases and features to other implementations. At the same time: The reaction of the developer and they way it was done was pretty unprofessional. When redesigning a settings dialog and dropping a couple of 'em in the process, a proper changelog-entry would be the least.

return0 13y ago
This is a terminal we are talking about, its never going to be widely used. It makes sense to simplify things like the file browser, but a terminal?
- Joeri 13y ago
  Everyone who deliberately chooses linux is also a terminal user. I cannot imagine someone choosing linux and then never using the terminal. It is by far the most widely used program on the system.
  - return0 13y ago
    By that logic, everyone who uses linux is a power user who will never be confused, there is no need to remove any features in the first place. (btw, i think that's true but gnome people don't get it)
arjie 13y ago
Every mainstream shell adds a search box to its settings screen. I love the ones in Windows and OS X. They're very good.
CamperBob2 13y ago
The moment your settings screen would benefit from a search functionality, you should reconsider "doing it all". Have you seen the "GodMode" hack in Windows 7? It's really a nice counterexample. Sometimes, verbose flat interfaces are just what the doctor/user ordered.

marcosdumay 13y ago

There are a couple of problems at play here. The first one is that it become fashonable to remove features, and this is not just an open source trend, instead of making softwre that fills a ninche, everybody is trying to build the same 10% of the features that 80% of the people use 90% of the time. (And let's forget that those other 10% of the time are still important for 100% of the people, ok?) Another problem is that unless the user develops it, open source development is not user oriented... Well, proprietary software development isn't either, (only softwre developed in-house is really made for you) and both will cut costs in places you don't like sometimes.