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Gnome Files: A detailed UI examination

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Re: Gnome Files: A detailed UI examination

#101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For context "old" here is within the last 6 months.

The Gnome version that the writer uses is Gnome 43 which was released 2 years ago.

And for how long has it had this "broken" behaviour for? When Microsoft introduced a similar path bar in Explorer (in Vista or 7, don't remember), it had the double functionality right from the beginning. The fact that Gnome Files didn't is frankly baffling.

Re: Gnome Files: A detailed UI examination

#102

> It's worth mentioning that I agree that the modern design paradigm probably is friendly to beginner users in many ways. But at some point, people stop being beginners. People who use computers several hours per day, performing a wide variety of tasks in many different programs, should also be taken in to account when designing software. As such, my critique comes from the point of what's usually called a "power use…

How do you find out what that keyboard shortcut is? I only found out when reading a similar article as the OP many years ago that complained about the removal of the textbox. Otherwise I never would've known it is possible to activate the path textbox with a keyboard shortcut. A UI needs to be both easy to use and discoverable. If "power users" have trouble discovering where the features they need are, why do we thin…

I only know that shortcut because I use in the browser already.

Re: Gnome Files: A detailed UI examination

#103
post #95
post #53

Oh GNOME, hiding "Power off" option under additional submenu, that user wouldn't accidentally click it, and then putting "Format" right next to "Safely remove drive" in Files.

Same kind of thing exists on Windows - for eg USB mass storage devices, ‘Eject’ and ‘Format’ are listes next to each other in the menu… One is harmless - the other potentially destructive

My favorite UX is when on Windows you mount a drive of unknown partition type (e.g. ext4) there is a popup suggesting to format it with "confirm" selected by default.

Re: Gnome Files: A detailed UI examination

#104
post #63

Maybe the arrogance is the worst feature of GNOME approach. They make this studies and constantly repeat how focused are they on usability that when an individual finds it not usable (not in that words) it's double frustating cause is like GNOME saying: "our average users are happy so you must to be handicaped"

It's a shame SUN isn't still around, they did actually usability studies on GNOME, it would be great if one of the distros would step up here.

Re: Gnome Files: A detailed UI examination

#105
post #65

This reminds me of not being able to right click in Files in list view for creating a new document or pasting something, because it only accepts a right click in an empty area. Yet, in list view, as soon as you have a few files and the window is full, you’re given no empty area to click in. I saw some people have the same issue [0] in the past, and it’s not really been fixed either [1]. [0]: https://ubuntuforums.org/…

I've noticed a similar thing on some web pages. For example BBC news where the link for a story is its whole tile/rectangle area, the obvious link text, any picture, and a large amount of white space. It's only relatively thin gaps between tiles that are inert background to click on.

I can see this making sense for a touch-first design and I can appreciate that focus for BBC news website, however focusing back on software like gnome it seems that similar aims crept in trying to make it serve multiple input methods at the same time and how you could have variations on the UI for touch or mouse (and you could also make assumptions about the screen and viewing setup and what's appropriate)

Re: Gnome Files: A detailed UI examination

#106
post #65

This reminds me of not being able to right click in Files in list view for creating a new document or pasting something, because it only accepts a right click in an empty area. Yet, in list view, as soon as you have a few files and the window is full, you’re given no empty area to click in. I saw some people have the same issue [0] in the past, and it’s not really been fixed either [1]. [0]: https://ubuntuforums.org/…

left side of the list has a small column with a blank space... sure it requires mouse movement if you are not close with your pointer

i would love the empty area right click menu despite if we clicked on a file, like Blender shows all options for Vertex/Edge/Faces (each right click menu arranged horizontally) if you have all of them selected on Select Mode when editing objects

Re: Gnome Files: A detailed UI examination

#107
post #3

I don't use Gnome since the days of version 2, which was really nice and friendly. But I was impressed by how well the latest iteration works in a tablet. That's a great advantage, because it's the same UI as a desktop. Plus, they have made sure all core applications work well using a touch UI.

Yes! Gnome 2 was great. I miss those days. The whole Gnome is a disappointment now. The GTK-4 doesn't even have the traditional menu and menubar widgets. I don't know what the Gimp people and the Inkscape people are going to do.

Mate is a nice option if you want Gnome 2 but don't want to live in the past. It's very pleasant.

Re: Gnome Files: A detailed UI examination

#108

Just to make clear to the Gnome developers: you've created by far the best desktop DE there is. I hope you don't get discouraged by the constant whining of a minority clamoring for some clunky ad-hoc 90's interfaces whose suckiness is just glossed over with nostalgia and incapability to learn new and more poweful ways of using computers.

I like the GNOME experience, but to say that it's a more powerful way to use computers is just plain wrong. The only reason I use KDE instead is the inability (or additional hoops) to configure GNOME. That starts at fractional scaling and ends with something as trivial as setting different time to suspend on battery or switching to suspend-then-hibernate.

It probably is enough for the vast majority of computer users. But the ones that aren't likely to run Linux to begin with.

Re: Gnome Files: A detailed UI examination

#109

> It's worth mentioning that I agree that the modern design paradigm probably is friendly to beginner users in many ways. But at some point, people stop being beginners. People who use computers several hours per day, performing a wide variety of tasks in many different programs, should also be taken in to account when designing software. As such, my critique comes from the point of what's usually called a "power use…

> The list button was immediately obvious to me from the screenshot

It was immediately obvious to the author as well -- it was the first thing they clicked on! Or rather, they clicked in the little arrow next to it, that looked like it was part of the same button. When it brought up something entirely unrelated, they very reasonably assumed that it wasn't what they were looking for.

Re: Gnome Files: A detailed UI examination

#110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Gnome version that the writer uses is Gnome 43 which was released 2 years ago.

And for how long has it had this "broken" behaviour for? When Microsoft introduced a similar path bar in Explorer (in Vista or 7, don't remember), it had the double functionality right from the beginning. The fact that Gnome Files didn't is frankly baffling.

I don't think it was "broken", it was just a dumb design choice. But I don't know why people like to whine about an issue that was already fixed either.
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