71–80 of 244 posts
Been a few years since I’ve used Gnome, I hadn’t realized they’d pivoted so much to following MacOS. It looks like they’ve taken a lot of the best parts of MacOS and built something really nice atop it.
It's interesting to see the focus on these desktop management features. I've been a long time macOS user and have never found "Launchpad", "Mission Control / Expose", or "multiple Desktops" useful in practice. I just use multiple monitors with everything I need on them in the same workspace. Do you guys actually use these features? I find the contextual switching distracting.
If my main desktop has tons of windows open, and the panel is crowded as heck with browser, file manager, text editor, and terminal windows (all of which can occupy all of your monitors when you're doing a given thing because there's that many of them), it's overwhelming. It's like browser tabs piling up out of control, except the tabs are also windows you have to maximize and minimize. Dedicating multiple desktop to multiple task (main, tinkering, work, etc.) is so much better.
It's interesting to see the focus on these desktop management features. I've been a long time macOS user and have never found "Launchpad", "Mission Control / Expose", or "multiple Desktops" useful in practice. I just use multiple monitors with everything I need on them in the same workspace. Do you guys actually use these features? I find the contextual switching distracting.
And I no longer use Mission Control/Expose, but I certainly did find it useful on smaller screens (I now use a comically large 43” 4k@1x).
Same with multiple desktops, and I’ve seen it used on nearly every screenshare I’ve been on this past year.
My workflow now is probably more fussy than it could be, but I pretty much just use cmd-~ and cmd-` now.
Edit to add: I think it also depends quite a bit on input device. Seeing others mention trackpad gestures, I remember finding Mission Control/multiple desktops much more useful when I primarily used my MBP on my lap.
It's interesting to see the focus on these desktop management features. I've been a long time macOS user and have never found "Launchpad", "Mission Control / Expose", or "multiple Desktops" useful in practice. I just use multiple monitors with everything I need on them in the same workspace. Do you guys actually use these features? I find the contextual switching distracting.
Well, many of us use a single monitor or a laptop to get work done. Thus multiple workspaces make more sense.
Virual workspaces have been in Unix/Linux/X-Windows since the 90s (or even before) anyway.
>Do you guys actually use these features? I find the contextual switching distracting.
Yep.
Why would it be more distracting than looking to another monitor (and thus having to physically turn your gaze/neck as opposed to a single keyboard shortcut)?
For me, the purpose of multiple desktops is to reduce distration. Instead of many things visible to you all the time (in one or more monitors) and competing for your attention, you can have several things open, but only focus to one at a time, separate them by work, or program type, or workflow step, etc.
This looks really cool, but how do I get it? Is it out yet? The page is pretty unclear.
Have they fixed the file chooser yet? Specifically, I want to be able to click around on directories to choose where to save a file, type the file name, then press enter. This should save the file, not filter the directory listing. Also, I don’t want it to default to overwriting some file I saved last week.
No. I actually went to GNOME's IRC network the other day to talk to them about gtkfilechooser's multiple problems. Yours, and then the lack of text input for typing or pasting file paths. https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gtk/-/issues/938 . They said they have no one assigned to gtkfilechooser bugs and none will be addressed. I was able to download the debian source for a couple gtk applications (ie, gedit/pluma) and ap…
I'd be willing to donate a good chunk of money just to support "basic UX" improvements to FOSS software and toolkits like Gtk.
Should we start a "Fix the Gtk file chooser" Gofundme?
Been a few years since I’ve used Gnome, I hadn’t realized they’d pivoted so much to following MacOS. It looks like they’ve taken a lot of the best parts of MacOS and built something really nice atop it.
It’s been like this since Gnome 3 was released in 2011. This is why I've always been confused by people who say Linux has an “ugly, inconsistent, unprofessional” UI - to me this looks and feels better than Windows.
I was mostly stricken with how much many of the features they are highlighting look straight out of stuff which was unveiled in MacOS about 5+ years ago. Extensive gesture support being a biggie.
It's interesting to see the focus on these desktop management features. I've been a long time macOS user and have never found "Launchpad", "Mission Control / Expose", or "multiple Desktops" useful in practice. I just use multiple monitors with everything I need on them in the same workspace. Do you guys actually use these features? I find the contextual switching distracting.
I never use Launchpad, but Mission Control is the main way I switch between applications. I find it convenient that it’s bound (not sure if by default) to the “four fingers towards the screen” gesture on the trackpad.
I use multiple desktops constantly, it’s the main way I organize my work. I also find them convenient to switch between since they’re mapped to the sideways flick four fingers gesture. I guess using virtual desktops is something I was doing before I started using Macs anyway.
I keep most of my apps full screen which I guess fits this workflow better. Before I used Macs I was using tiling window managers on Linux such as AwesomeWM and XMonad, so I had some resistance to using full screen a lot, but somehow I adapted. My terminal is still tiled and it’s what matters the most.
Have they fixed the file chooser yet? Specifically, I want to be able to click around on directories to choose where to save a file, type the file name, then press enter. This should save the file, not filter the directory listing. Also, I don’t want it to default to overwriting some file I saved last week.
Does anyone know of an issue in their tracker with an official stance on it?
Still no match for Gnome 2's UI. RIP that old interface, the best of the *nix desktops.