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The end of the nice GTK button

blog.brixit.nl

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Re: The end of the nice GTK button

#621

Post by Sunspark »

totalkrill wrote: post #483
calvinmorrison wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

we started using Full Story at work. It tracks clicks on non clickable items. It is staggering that this is even a problem. Having to explain to people that links and buttons and radio boxes and checkboxes should look uniform has gone the way of the dodo and now we must instead have people clicking random items to hope something happens.

> It tracks clicks on non clickable items This rattled my brain, that this is a feature now, says volumes about the quality decline in UI. I am a developer, and mainly use tools on the command line, or with TUIs. But whenever I use android apps and websites, I constantly find myself longclicking or rightclicking things, hoping for stuff to happen, that just doesnt.

It is interesting to contemplate how much of this problem is artificially induced by executives in suits screaming at people to "innovate".

Strangely enough, we don't seem to mess around with steering wheels in cars.

Re: The end of the nice GTK button

#622

Post by boogies »

aidenn0 wrote: post #207
traverseda wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The biggest complaint from steam deck users seems to be the virtual keyboard isn't reliable, which is a pretty big issue.

I have a pine-phone and the virtual keyboard just refuses to pop up for some apps (like firefox!!). I keep looking in the settings for "force virtual keyboard on" or something but can't find it.

I like how sxmo lets you open/close the keyboard whenever you want by swiping up from / down to the bottom edge of the screen, regardless of what apps are open or what’s happening within them.

Re: The end of the nice GTK button

#623

Post by wtetzner »

Hendrikto wrote: post #421
spoils19 wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I feel confused and disrespected as a user every day I definitely agree with this, and I like your use of the word disrespect. I think the younger generation has encroached onto the sanctity of "the platform", if you will, and now us old timers are suffering. I time myself for my actions every day since I started noticing these despicable UI trends, and on average I waste about 2-3 hours a week trying to discover w…

> But, take a natively designed application from Windows 2000, and it's extremely easy to understand and use! Because that‘s what you are accustomed to.

I think that’s the point. When every app uses a different set of UI primitives, there’s no consistent UI to become accustomed to. Instead you have to become accustomed to each individual app.

Re: The end of the nice GTK button

#624

Post by wtetzner »

drdec wrote: post #520
AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #510

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Computers are ludicrously fast nowadays. Games are capable of doing a whole lot of shit in <16ms consistently while responding to user input, so I don't buy this "it's doing a lot!" argument, it is coded badly.

I imagine the hold up is that it is connecting to an external service.

Why couldn’t that be done in a separate thread?

Re: The end of the nice GTK button

#625

Post by spacexsucks »

chefandy wrote: post #614
sime2009 wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The complaint about flat design isn't levelled only at FOSS, but at the whole industry. Your points may explain the situation in FOSS, but it doesn't explain the poor work being put out by the thousands of designers and UI/UX people working as professionals in industry. The failings of flat design are everywhere .

First, I was addressing design in FOSS because: a) there probably aren't many lead designers, creative directors and art directors on this developer-centric site b) interface choices for most commercial products are deliberately made by other people c) interface choices for most FOSS projects are made by developers Second, I didn't directly address the criticism for the same reason I don't go into game forums and arg…

A very glib response. I can go on and on. But i wont.

Re: The end of the nice GTK button

#626

Post by wtetzner »

RMPR wrote: post #322
heisenzombie wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are guidelines for what should be in menu bars, what order the items should be in, and how they should behave for different sorts of application. For example, on Mac: https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guideline... And on Windows: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/uxguide/cmd-m... > "Where do I find the settings for this app?". Is it in File, Edit, View, Tools or Help? On Mac, it sh…

> For example, on Mac: https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guideline ... > And on Windows: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/uxguide/cmd-m ... Both links return 404.

They both work for me.

Re: The end of the nice GTK button

#627

Post by chefandy »

spacexsucks wrote: post #625
chefandy wrote: post #614

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, I was addressing design in FOSS because: a) there probably aren't many lead designers, creative directors and art directors on this developer-centric site b) interface choices for most commercial products are deliberately made by other people c) interface choices for most FOSS projects are made by developers Second, I didn't directly address the criticism for the same reason I don't go into game forums and arg…

A very glib response. I can go on and on. But i wont.

Thanks for your valuable and well-reasoned contribution to the thread, spacexsucks.

Re: The end of the nice GTK button

#628

Post by eterevsky »

j1elo wrote: post #617
eterevsky wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> nobody with solid background, experience, and/or scientific studies in their hands would in their right mind sketch the current shape of mindless "modern" UIs So... Since you are talking about scientific studies, could you please reference some studies that back you up and show that flat design is in some way inferior?

That flat design is worse is maybe not an universal truth, but no doubt it is a well known issue and concern has been shown everywhere. Quoting from my first link below, flat design has been widely criticized by HCI and usability experts . This is one of those things that I'm willing to believe, without requiring a whole hands-on research, based on my subjective views, and on the fact that every time the topic arises…

Thank you for providing these links! I read the two articles.

The first one is the closest to what I was looking for. It contains three mostly independent experiments, comparing text, icons and web layout. Text and icon do not seem relevant to this discussion. The third part of the study compares a "traditional" website design to a new, flat one. This is more relevant to the discussion, but this comparison has three huge flaws.

Firstly, according to the pictures in the article, they were comparing two specific arbitrary websites. It is not clear how this comparison can be generalized. Secondly, the study is from 2015 when flat design language was relatively new. It could measure just the difference between any "traditional" and "new" design language due to the familiarity. Thirdly, the confidence intervals are huge. I don't think there is any pair of values that are confidently separated, which would make this a null result even if the experiment itself were totally fair.

The second article is very interesting, but its conclusions are non-committal. I clicked to several of the links from this article. Most of them are opinion pieces, and none that I found makes any judgement call about the comparative advantage of flat design.

I'm sorry but I ignored flatisbad.com since I believe Xisbad.com can't be an unbiased source of knowledge about X and should be ignored as a matter of principle.

Re: The end of the nice GTK button

#629

Post by jraph »

aidenn0 wrote: post #560
linmob wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Plasma Mobile Maliit keyboard works with GTK apps on Manjaro Plasma Mobile. There must be some way to make this work on other Plasma Mobile distributions.

I'll try Manjaro then; it definitely doesn't work on an up-to-date postmarketOS on a (non-pro) pinephone. [edit] Can confirm keyboard works in FF on Manjaro, but it has other jankiness (e.g. it seems to think it is much wider than the screen).

You may need to install package mobile-config-firefox

Re: The end of the nice GTK button

#630

Post by Epiphany21 »

The thing about a lot of GTK apps that kills me is the client-side decorations. I think the window manager should be viewed as its own app with consistent controls. CSD make the title bar of each window different so I have to waste time figuring out where the safe grab area is. The title area also ends up being so fat that you barely save space over normal menu and title bars, and usability is worse because of the hamburger menus.
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