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A new wave of Linux applications

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Re: A new wave of Linux applications

#111

Post by rightbyte »

stickfigure wrote: post #81
kitsunesoba wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The “don’t theme my app” thing just tells me that GNOME/GTK+/Adwaita aren’t built in a way that gracefully handles theming, or that devs building apps with them are doing things like hard coding colors when they should be using dynamic system colors such as those provided by UIColor[0] in UIKit. [0]: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/uikit/uicolor/ui_e...

Supporting themes imposes an ongoing technical burden across the whole ecosystem. It's not worth it. You don't hear people say "I hate macs because I can't make my title bars purple".

I'm quite sure you could change system colors willy nilly in OS 8. It was great fun. I miss that part - the feeling of having "your own" system.

Since customization where pretty standard back then, it feels like product managers pushing their "vision" rather than technical difficulties preventing that nowadays.

Re: A new wave of Linux applications

#112

Post by kesslern »

floren wrote: post #83
kelnos wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the mice I've used recently, the scroll wheel itself was clickable as a middle button. Is that not sufficient for your purposes?

Unfortunately not... after prolonged use, my middle finger gets pretty painful from the mid-clicking. It's less ergonomic than a real button.

Consider a Ploopy trackball. There are 4 easy accessible buttons on the mouse plus another under the scroll wheel, and it's fully programmable.

https://ploopy.co/classic-trackball/

Re: A new wave of Linux applications

#113

Post by quanticle »

shams93 wrote: post #102
quanticle wrote: post #58

Furthermore, the variety of projects that are enabling convergence on their applications is growing at a fast rate, with KDE, GNOME, Nitrux, Elementary and Jingling among others shifting their interest on mobile-ready and touch-friendly applications for the future of Linux. So, in other words, Linux desktop applications are going the same way as "desktop" applications on Windows and MacOS. I put "desktop" in sarcasm…

This is why we still need html/css for interfaces, so the PWA with wasm still seems to be the best way to distribute an app that works anywhere, or PWA for mobile and electron for desktop with wasm enabling very high performance client features.

I disagree with the whole premise of having a single app for both desktop and mobile. Even if you give developers the tools to make a good app for desktop and mobile, they won't. They'll make the mobile app first, ensure that it runs on desktop, and then dust off their hands and call it a day. To quote the Purism blogpost cited elsewhere in this thread:

Web designers now have toolboxes to design web pages, which they adjust for mobile or desktop in order to get easier readability and use.

Except, web designers don't adjust web pages for mobile or web. They adjust pages for mobile, and then what you end up in a desktop web browser is acres of white space and buttons that are the size of your head.

The way I see it, this is Linux UI framework developers chasing Apple, Microsoft and Google's taillights yet again. Sure, Apple, Google and Microsoft don't care, but that's because they're trillion dollar companies and they have to go where the majority of the customers are. But why does Linux have to go there too? Why can't Linux UI framework developers focus on an under-appreciated niche (desktop "power" users) which are increasingly neglected by the megacorps?

Re: A new wave of Linux applications

#114

Post by goodpoint »

smoldesu wrote: post #12

History is back around to repeating itself. I'm an avid Linux user (and even a developer who uses GTK pretty regularly), but the recent developments surrounding GNOME, Flatpak and their related libraries has not made me optimistic for the future of Linux applications. GTK4 is really bad. It launched with horrible text rendering issues (still unfixed, 10+ months later), broke compatibility with a number of basic featu…

Flatpak is a bad idea but GTK4 and libadwaita are really nice.

Re: A new wave of Linux applications

#116

Post by stilisstuk »

bitcharmer wrote: post #56
ugjka wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you use a mouse without a scrollwheel?

I'd love to see OP's response to that. I don't think I have seen anyone using a mouse without a scroll wheel for at least a decade.

I have a be trackball and a vertical mouse. Both expensive. Both without proper scroll.

Many trackwheels on are also slow at of you want to flick many pages down.

I rely mostly in keyboard.

Re: A new wave of Linux applications

#117

Post by asddubs »

zozbot234 wrote: post #52
asddubs wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They could at the very least put labels under or next to the icons. In regards to touch-readiness: TBH I've had a laptop with a touchscreen, and I never once used the touchscreen on it productively in any way. On a tablet it's a different story of course, but no one is forcing them to do a one-size-fits-all approach. But yeah, my main complaint is really just that stuff isn't labelled. Everything else I can begrudgin…

> They could at the very least put labels under or next to the icons. On a desktop, you should be able to hover with the pointer and get tooltips. Mobile is more of a challenge, but it's not like text would be any better. You can't fit much text in the typical mobile touch target.

I shouldn't have to hover over the icon to figure out what it does. That's terrible UI. Even tiny text would be better than no text

Re: A new wave of Linux applications

#118

Post by zozbot234 »

nebul wrote: post #106
zozbot234 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s so damn hard moving windows on gnome without setting something off accidentally. I'm not sure, I've never run into this? The headerbar itself, with its labeling text, works just fine as a mouse/touch target.

Yeah, clicking and holding on a header bar button will still allow you to grab the window without firing any action. It's quite handy, especially with a touch pad.

You don't have to target a button at all, that's quite silly. Aim at the window label. Labels have always been connoted as "plain text" with no actions associated, so they're quite intuituve for that purpose.

Re: A new wave of Linux applications

#119

Post by asddubs »

dkarl wrote: post #59
asddubs wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still dislike the gnome3 title bar with the icons. As you say, unlabelled mystery meat and hamburger menus. I'll admit, part of my dislike for the new title bars is probably irrationally rooted in just wanting things to stay like they were on windows 98 when I first became familiar with computers, forever, and never to diverge too much from that. But those unlabelled icons, they really do puzzle and frustrate me. O…

Unlabeled icons are terrible. I use Gmail more than any other application outside of dev tools like my editor and my terminal, and I use every single one of the message operations (archive, snooze, add as task, report spam, etc.) at least occasionally. After a month with a new work Gmail account I realized I was still waiting for the tooltip to pop up before clicking the buttons, just to make sure of what I was click…

I still use the html gmail, that's getting harder to access all the time (and which google now just straight up ignores being set as your default view, and gives you the javascript view anyway unless you manipulate the URL)

Re: A new wave of Linux applications

#120

Post by hawski »

quanticle wrote: post #58

Furthermore, the variety of projects that are enabling convergence on their applications is growing at a fast rate, with KDE, GNOME, Nitrux, Elementary and Jingling among others shifting their interest on mobile-ready and touch-friendly applications for the future of Linux. So, in other words, Linux desktop applications are going the same way as "desktop" applications on Windows and MacOS. I put "desktop" in sarcasm…

I am sure that there will be a successful counter-culture. I do not have Suckless folks in mind or others that are minimalist and Unix philosophy above all. Don't get me wrong - I like most of their software, but I'm too lazy to be a purist. I would love to see more GUIs augmented by command line, but with a bit more GUI and mouse then the latter. I think I'm not alone, but a movement or a desktop environment that unites people thinking in that similar way is not there yet. I'm sure it will come.
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