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A new wave of Linux applications

tuxphones.com

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Re: A new wave of Linux applications

#401
post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alt + Scroll in my text editor Middle Click -> Scroll on the web Page Up/Page down everywhere else

Three different answers. How is it not obvious that this is a problem with a simple, universal solution?

Four including clicking and dragging a widget

Re: A new wave of Linux applications

#402
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…

> Some Linux distro provides really good visual, but it only applies to its built–in programs. If you'd like to switch to the external programs, the system visual might be fragmented. I've noticed that this has improved considerably when using KDE; on both Slackware and openSUSE, KDE and non-KDE applications both seem to look and work equivalently great. There are of course some applications I use that don't match th…

Agreed, KDE is great. I like Kubuntu and KDE Neon. A little bit frustrated when I have to use a Gtk application; it's sometimes not working well in a KDE environment.

Re: A new wave of Linux applications

#403
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…

> I really hope in this new wave people could make some consensus on the visual of Linux desktop. Consensus over the whole scope of open source?? That's never going to happen.

I mean the consensus about the visual/UX style like we have on Windows or Android.

It's not that hard, I believe.

Re: A new wave of Linux applications

#404
post #370
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,…

> the overall user experience is very good if you stick to a pure GNOME desktop. KDE and Xfce are also pretty good.

Yes, exactly users have to stick to one single environment. But when you want to use Gtk application on KDE, then ...

Re: A new wave of Linux applications

#405
post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Excellent links - thank you so much for the resources. I'm very excited to see what the Pinephone Pro brings as a platform to build towards in this regard. I'm already eyeing shipping some apps on Flathub! I hope the React Native => Flathub pipeline gets built out, similar to what Ubuntu is doing with Flutter => Snap. Exciting times!

I am very displeased by Snap being shoved down one's throat on Ubuntu. This has caused me to actually abandon Ubuntu completely. Linux mint and Debian now.

I’m kind of expecting snaps to be a fad on Ubuntu. They really don’t seem to buy much and have nontrivial overhead.

Re: A new wave of Linux applications

#406
post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Three different answers. How is it not obvious that this is a problem with a simple, universal solution?

Four including clicking and dragging a widget

I think you mean hovering to get the widget to appear, going to click it and having it auto-hide as your cursor is on the way, then hover again, repeat 2 more times, then finally be able to click and drag the widget.

Re: A new wave of Linux applications

#407

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.

Very interesting. The current state of tray icons is one of the most painful aspects of desktop Linux, in my opinion. Where are these discussions happening, and what kinds of plans are in the works?

Re: A new wave of Linux applications

#408
post #130

This could be less about device convergence and more about UX improvements and design coherence among apps. Some examples of what's been happening: - Touchpad gestures through various efforts: https://linuxtouchpad.org - Gnome: libAdwaita: https://blogs.gnome.org/alexm/2021/12/31/libadwaita-1-0/ - Core workflows getting better first-class approaches rather than being another app to install: (e.g. screenshots & screen…

libadwaita and Kirigami are huge improvements for the desktop app ecosystem from what I've seen as a user. When I started to delve into desktop applications I quickly realized there's a couple hurdles I face: 1. QT was an ecosystem shock to me. I barely knew what to do to get started and got lost easily. 2. Do these applications work outside of Linux; more directly, do they have dynamic dependencies? From my experien…

libAdwaita is an attempt at providing a consistent framework for making GUI applications in Linux.

People commenting on MacOS UX often forget that people creating Mac GUI applications aren't magically better at doing UX than Linux users. It's orders of magnitude easier to make ok looking GUI applications on a mac.

Besides the fact that cocoa on mac has evolved over a decade(when linux people were busy constantly reinventing gtk themeing engines and display servers), cocoa had more books on building gui applications in ~2010 than the entire history of gtk and gnome together.

And while the gnome team is busy constantly tweaking small visual details, glib is still a nightmare to work with.

It's also full of ticks in places you'd think should be fixed by now. For over a decade selecting folders in gtk/gnome has been broken by design:

- open folder selection dialog

- click a folder by mistake without double clicking it

- clicking the select folder button now enters the folder instead of selecting the current folder

- there no way to unselect the selection. -> you have to enter the folder, then go a level up and then select the folder

Kirigami looks promising, but it doesn't look anywhere near production quality polish.

Re: A new wave of Linux applications

#409
post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Four including clicking and dragging a widget

I think you mean hovering to get the widget to appear, going to click it and having it auto-hide as your cursor is on the way, then hover again, repeat 2 more times, then finally be able to click and drag the widget.

https://xkcd.com/1172/

Re: A new wave of Linux applications

#410
post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

libadwaita and Kirigami are huge improvements for the desktop app ecosystem from what I've seen as a user. When I started to delve into desktop applications I quickly realized there's a couple hurdles I face: 1. QT was an ecosystem shock to me. I barely knew what to do to get started and got lost easily. 2. Do these applications work outside of Linux; more directly, do they have dynamic dependencies? From my experien…

libAdwaita is an attempt at providing a consistent framework for making GUI applications in Linux. People commenting on MacOS UX often forget that people creating Mac GUI applications aren't magically better at doing UX than Linux users. It's orders of magnitude easier to make ok looking GUI applications on a mac. Besides the fact that cocoa on mac has evolved over a decade(when linux people were busy constantly rein…

> - open folder selection dialog - click a folder by mistake without double clicking it - clicking the select folder button now enters the folder instead of selecting the current folder - there no way to unselect the selection. -> you have to enter the folder, then go a level up and then select the folder

Glad I'm not the only one with this problem, it's so frustrating and there's literally nothing you can do about it, you just gotta go up one level and come back down.

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