Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

A new wave of Linux applications

tuxphones.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

361–370 of 584 posts

Re: A new wave of Linux applications

#361

Post by themodelplumber »

pingsl wrote: post #333

I use Windows/MacOS/Linux(Ubuntu) on a regular base. As a ordinary end user, I feel 1. Windows software are usually good at product function design. 2. Mac has a better enforcement on overall UX. The visual across different software (from different vendors) are much consistent. 3. Linux desktop is unfortunately still missing above 2 points. Some Linux distro provides really good visual, but it only applies to its bui…

> make some consensus on the visual

That's really too bad, IMO Linux and FOSS desktops really shine in the subjective-fit zone, not this consensus area.

Once you start having to please..._waves hand at group of people_...first the fun goes out the window, and then you're playing to an entrenched userbase who are bringing most of their expectations from their subjective past experiences anyway.

Personally when I started using desktop Linux purely for me, and not "as someone who speaks for a professional userbase" I was able to finally appreciate it and become more of the OS-native power-user that my Windows & Mac experiences wouldn't let me be when I tried to force them along on the ride.

Re: A new wave of Linux applications

#362

Post by floatboth »

hughrr wrote: post #217
kaba0 wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Super+drag anywhere on a window. It should be a must on every single OS.

This is completely Inferior to dragging a titlebar as it requires twice as many hands.

On the other hand (ha) it does not require any aiming. I can super+drag windows into "aero snap" targets in milliseconds because I don't have to spend any time on finding the header bar.

Re: A new wave of Linux applications

#363

Post by Melatonic »

Jenk wrote: post #129
rland wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I found a solution for Firfox on Ubuntu MATE: 1. go to about:config 2. find widget.non-native-theme.scrollbar.size.override 3. Change to some pixel value (I have mine set at 26). voila! I do not understand why the default is so thin. Really bucks the trend of every UI element being touch-screen large nowadays!

> I do not understand why the default is so thin. For scroll/touch users, the scrollbar has become an indicator only, and not so much a tool for scrolling, to show where on the document the window is.

Even as an indicator I like it larger than many places set it to by default. I am also on pretty large 27" monitors though

Re: A new wave of Linux applications

#364

Post by [deleted] »

pingsl wrote: post #333

I use Windows/MacOS/Linux(Ubuntu) on a regular base. As a ordinary end user, I feel 1. Windows software are usually good at product function design. 2. Mac has a better enforcement on overall UX. The visual across different software (from different vendors) are much consistent. 3. Linux desktop is unfortunately still missing above 2 points. Some Linux distro provides really good visual, but it only applies to its bui…

[deleted]

Re: A new wave of Linux applications

#365

Post by yellowapple »

dredmorbius wrote: post #166
zozbot234 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because if you have touchscreens you can use two-finger gestures, and if you're on a mouse you'll have no issue targeting a thin widget. It makes a lot of sense from that POV.

If the thin widget is directly against the edge of the viewport, maybe. If it's literally anywhere else on the screen , then no, Fitts's Law applies, and it's a bad target. It has height but no width . This is especially true for those with motor or visual handicaps, or both. It's damned near unusable even with very modest levels of distraction or other factors, e.g., using a device as a passenger on a moving vehicle…

> If the thin widget is directly against the edge of the viewport, maybe.

It is. Visually there's space between the scroll handle and the window edge, but if you actually point the cursor in that space it'll highlight the handle.

Re: A new wave of Linux applications

#366

Post by deckard1 »

stjohnswarts wrote: post #180
asddubs wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not, but I would love to some day. I fucking hate my android phone (and the iphone is just as terrible, in slightly different and often the same ways). Thank god for the people tinkering on pinephones and purism phones, paving the way for something less awful, with control in the hands of the user We're not there yet, but we won't ever be unless people put effort into it. The linux desktop used to suck, too

Until I can plug my phone into a keyboard/mouse/monitor and have a powerful workstation I don't care that much about linux desktop apps being on my phone. My phone is backup/on-the-road browser, messaging applicance, and a phone 95% of the time.

Samsung has DeX. They also did Linux on DeX at one point but stopped.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung_DeX

https://www.slashgear.com/samsung-linux-on-dex-is-dead-here-...

Re: A new wave of Linux applications

#367

Post by [deleted] »

[deleted] wrote: post #364
pingsl wrote: post #333

I use Windows/MacOS/Linux(Ubuntu) on a regular base. As a ordinary end user, I feel 1. Windows software are usually good at product function design. 2. Mac has a better enforcement on overall UX. The visual across different software (from different vendors) are much consistent. 3. Linux desktop is unfortunately still missing above 2 points. Some Linux distro provides really good visual, but it only applies to its bui…

[deleted]

[deleted]

Re: A new wave of Linux applications

#369

Post by floatboth »

tristan957 wrote: post #313
malermeister wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GNOME has design zealots similar to Apple, but with more bizarre choices. Their whole crusade against tray icons and a usable task list have been painful to deal with. Do they just not like multitasking?? It's sad too, because there's a lot of nice UI/UX in there, it's just buried under all sorts of crazy choices. Thankfully, there's extensions to restore some of the missing functionality. https://extensions.gnome.or…

Status icons were built on old and fractured technologies. They are coming back. Designs and technical discussions are happening right now.

A dedicated tray is a concept tied to windows 95 style UX. I hope the new designs are more about standardizing ways to indicate various statuses and actions of "the app" broadly, without dedicated status icons. For example download progress is still only an Ubuntu Unity protocol that KDE also supports because they can but it's all not freedesktop standard.

Re: A new wave of Linux applications

#370

Post by nextos »

pingsl wrote: post #333

I use Windows/MacOS/Linux(Ubuntu) on a regular base. As a ordinary end user, I feel 1. Windows software are usually good at product function design. 2. Mac has a better enforcement on overall UX. The visual across different software (from different vendors) are much consistent. 3. Linux desktop is unfortunately still missing above 2 points. Some Linux distro provides really good visual, but it only applies to its bui…

The problem with your line of reasoning is that Linux is not an OS. It's a broad ecosystem of components that get assembled into distributions. I have used the word ecosystem deliberately, because it's very similar to any of its biological counterparts.

Things evolve in a pretty organic way. The advantage of this is the lack of a central authority and much more resilience. It's a bit like the Internet. But obviously, there's some room for improvement in terms of user experience.

Ideally, I think this should happen through some loose standards and RFCs, pretty much like it occurred for the Internet.

With that said, the overall user experience is very good if you stick to a pure GNOME desktop. KDE and Xfce are also pretty good. Personally, I prefer running just X and three applications (Firefox, Emacs and XTerm). This way simpler, and there's almost no common UX at all. Just three very different platforms with very well known conventions (hypertext, Emacs applications and text, respectively).

Post reply on HN