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Make. It. Simple. Linux Desktop Usability

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Re: Make. It. Simple. Linux Desktop Usability

#31

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

dismal2 wrote: post #6

I don’t understand a lot of the criticisms at modern ui/ux patterns in this post. Ex: complaining about the hidden settings menu in chrome. Most people just want their applications to work and have the most common functions easily accessible. I am sure most users of chrome don’t ever need to delve into settings and are happy with the minimal set of options presented to them and that user testing backs this decision.

> Most people just want their applications to work

There is a part 6 entry addressing this very thing:

https://medium.com/@probonopd/make-it-simple-linux-desktop-u...

Re: Make. It. Simple. Linux Desktop Usability

#32

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

phendrenad2 wrote: post #2

> I’d like to see the Linux desktop improve. And I think a wakeup call is needed This. Absolutely this. Please don’t take his post as a personal attack, and consider the possibility that Linux is not as usable as it should be.

It is unsurprising that this falls on deaf ears. The author is the creator of AppImage, the only remotely sane application distribution mechanism in the Linux Desktop world, and it is used by basically nobody. I've come to the conclusion, over time, that the Linux Desktop community just prefers that everything sucks. Maybe it makes them feel more 1337, maybe they just really really like terminals, I don't know.

Re: Make. It. Simple. Linux Desktop Usability

#34

Post by quzyp »

The gnome screenshots look really bad, I agree completely.

Funny sidenote: I have to shamefully admit that I never used a Macbook until a few weeks ago, when I wanted to watch Netflix on my girlfriends mac. I was pleasantly surprised that she uses it almost exactly like I use my Linux: never close windows, just swipe from workspace to workspace, and a nice launcher bar at the bottom. The only thing I don't like is the screen-width bar at the top which provides controls for the current application.

Re: Make. It. Simple. Linux Desktop Usability

#35

Post by QasimK »

mathw wrote: post #16

I feel like the author needs to explain why the menu-based user interface is better. That's taken for granted, but is it actually true? And consider that the response to that is likely to be different for people who learned computing on environments like Windows (where global menu bars would be really weird), Mac OS (where they're normal) or various earlier UNIX GUIs (where who knows, anything goes and each applicati…

I think he went into quite a bit of detail from being quicker (less actions) to being more discoverable.

Re: Make. It. Simple. Linux Desktop Usability

#36

Post by mikkqu »

There is a big recent trend for inventing new UI/UX solutions for things that aren't broken until they are. I'm really looking forward to see this problem to be addressed in the near future.

That hamburger menu button in Chrome kept me from adopting the browser until I gave up only about a year ago.

There are so many projects born and die each day, it's a mystery to me why nobody have solved the famous Linux Desktop UI problem so far (Mac OS did though). The 'about' item often is the first thing I'm looking for when I see a new app. And if I can't find it within a minute, it gives me a instant idea that working with it will be no walk in a park.

Re: Make. It. Simple. Linux Desktop Usability

#37

Post by fishtank »

Despite a few quibbles (especially re: the prominence of browser settings menus), following these recommendations would be a great help. The clock bar at the top of the screen in GNOME 3 is a weird half measure, and its uselessness drives inconsistency in app UI since every app has to implement its own menu.

I would gladly hitch my wagon to the author's star if they wanted to organize a project to implement these improvements. Does anyone with more Linux development experience know where such a project would start? Is it already in progress somewhere?

Re: Make. It. Simple. Linux Desktop Usability

#38

Post by zzzcpan »

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #30
likeclockwork wrote: post #13

From the second part: https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1600/1*EXYbO_qnV2m8fv4mB... > Adjusting the volume in KDE Plasma — why is there more than one slider for playback? Hardly intuitive Because there are multiple outputs and you can assign a source to whichever outputs you want. Why shouldn't the controls reflect the actual capabilities of the device? The next step is saying that the device is too capable and nee…

The point wasn't that such functionality shouldn't be offered, but that a single global volume bar is almost certainly what you want most of the time. It should show a single volume slider that covers the master volume for all output devices and allow tweaking beyond that from another menu. This is the behavior of the Windows 10 mixer, for instance. >The next step is saying that the device is too capable and needs ca…

> but that a single global volume bar is almost certainly what you want most of the time

Only true if volume is perfectly normalized. Otherwise you want to be able to quickly control volume per application or some context without affecting other applications, so when you switch to them you don't have to do it again. Browsers are examples of how bad it can be, with overly loud unnormalized instagram videos and no volume controls and in contrast somewhat normalized youtube volume with controls.

Re: Make. It. Simple. Linux Desktop Usability

#39

Post by IshKebab »

The problem with global menu bars is that you can have multiple windows on the screen, and the menu in this other place, totally separate from the windows (the top of the screen) depends on which window is focused. That is weird.

I'm sure everyone that has used OSX has at some point wondered when they couldn't find a menu they were looking for only to realise some window on a different screen was focused.

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