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Gnome Files: A detailed UI examination

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Re: Gnome Files: A detailed UI examination

#111

Post by criticalfault »

IshKebab wrote: post #75

I couldn't agree more. The Gnome devs have a very long track record of imposing universally hated UI/UX design on people. I'd wonder why KDE isn't more popular, but I'm pretty sure the main reason is that the Gnome devs also have way better aesthetic taste than the KDE devs. Gnome simply looks much nicer in screenshots. They understand spacing. That and KDE had it's own major UI/UX fuck up with Plasma.

That's not completely true. They are hated by some users, loved by some.

For example, in general, I really like what gnome does. Desktop use is not something that is useful outside starting other apps, so I like its simplicity and the fact that it gets out of the way.

Default apps could use maybe a bit more features, but I generally don't find too much wrong with e.g. files. The only confusing thing for me is which hamburger to click when I want to create a new directory. So instead of guessing, I just right click the file list. One positive example in gnome is when you try to access e.g. smb:// shares in files and try to open a movie from the share... It works with no issues. But, kde with gazillion features does not support that.

(Opinion) KDE is not more popular since it's buggy as hell. At least it was. But not only that, their visuals are a disaster. Believe what you will, but visual consistency and attention to detail is what gnome has. They are not perfect, so there are some issues as OP points out, but they are on a different level from kde. KDE looks like it was frankensteined, while gnome it looks like it was designed. Think just login process and sddm, how many time it blinks?

KDE is proud to enable tinkering, and this is good - there are people that like to do that. Thinking back, this was when I was teenager. Now that I'm older, I want things well thought out, designed well that dont get in my way so I can do my work and not think about desktop. And this is gnome.

What I hate about gnome is JavaScript and python focus for apps. And now, suddenly we need a stupid app for everything.

Re: Gnome Files: A detailed UI examination

#112

Post by flohofwoe »

rossant wrote: post #82
horsawlarway wrote: post #24

I want to add - outside of the technical discussion here. read in the voice of jeff foxworthy --- You might be a boomer if... you unironically think "thanks gnomebama" is a good thing to make a pun out of in a ui discussion the chef's kiss is the complaint is incorrect.

As a non American person I'm unfamiliar with this expression, what does it mean and where does it come from?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thanks,_Obama

Re: Gnome Files: A detailed UI examination

#113

Post by _cenw »

gertlex wrote: post #18

Was happy to read this, as I've often imagined doing this myself (i.e. thoroughly hashing out commentary on a bunch of nits in a GUI that annoy me and I'm convinced should be better). I agree that ctrl+L is a weird shortcut in a vacuum, but it's one I've known for 15 years, originally from using browsers. And it always makes me happy that Windows and Gnome (and Nautilus, which isn't the gnome default but is still pre…

Nautilus and "Files" are the same.

Re: Gnome Files: A detailed UI examination

#115

Post by keyringlight »

kaba0 wrote: post #77
troad wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But surely interacting with files is a key component of what people expect from a DE? If a DE can't handle that well, a well-designed 'Videos' app offers small consolation. I can only speak for myself, but it was a Nautilus regression that was the final straw that got me to move to KDE. (And years before that, the rapidly regressing Finder was a key factor in getting me to finally move from Mac to Linux.) Very happy…

You do realize that you can use any kind of file manager from GNOME, right? It’s just a program, just as Dolphin, which you can easily install instead. Changing DE for that is just dumb, imo.

Defaults and first impressions matter though. As much as I think the matter of a personal computer you can make your own is worth fighting for, when a new user lands in the DE and doesn't have a great experience it's not a good solution to then say something along the lines of "go and explore N alternatives or dig through their configurations to find one that suits you" for each aspect of the DE they're going to be regularly interacting with. As much as they will be regularly means to an end of whatever task they do on their machine, it's a large up-front burden.

Re: Gnome Files: A detailed UI examination

#117

Post by bni »

flohofwoe wrote: post #71
comex wrote: post #9

Decent critique, but it mixes together two things: the design language, and UI papercuts showing a lack of attention to detail. Consider the current macOS Finder: https://a.qoid.us/20240907-finder.png Finder's design is extremely similar to GNOME Files! And so the inherent downsides of the design language are present in Finder too, such as it being harder to drag windows around or click to activate windows. But macOS…

The macOS/OSX Finder really isn't an example of good UX. It always felt like a half-assed and unloved port from NeXTStep which then was quickly abandondend. In general, Apple has lost its UI mojo in the last decade or so, macOS shouldn't be used anymore as an example of a good desktop UI.

So what should be?

Re: Gnome Files: A detailed UI examination

#118

Post by sunaookami »

quaintdev wrote: post #46

Windows Explorer >> Gnome >>> Mac finder What the hell they were thinking while building finder?

Finder is way better than Windows Explorer. Explorer suffers from a myriad of bugs like constantly re-caching thumbnails, lag when opening folders (since Windows 11) and TWO context menus. No bulk rename, search is way too slow and annoying. Also, can't delete words from the file name with CTRL + Backspace, it inserts some hidden character instead. Also the whole OS hangs while an external hard drive spins up, which doesn't happen on macOS.

Re: Gnome Files: A detailed UI examination

#119

Post by kaanyalova »

jiehong wrote: 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/…

There seems to be space to right click between the rows (although somewhat small space at the smallest list view), and left-right sides of the window.

There is an image showing the right clickable areas on the issue you linked

https://gitlab.gnome.org/-/project/1/uploads/50ac36ab40f9049...

Re: Gnome Files: A detailed UI examination

#120

Post by gawa »

jiehong wrote: 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 always had the same issue, even with the file explorer that I'm using currently (Thunar, XFCE's file browser). I never really looked for a solution, I kept changing the view (go from list view to to icons view) in order to find some empty space to right-click on.

Your comment and seeing that there are bug reports about it prompted me to think more than 5 seconds about this usability annoyance. I found a cool shortcut on Thunar: holding the control key + right click anywhere (including on a file) will bring up the right-click menu, from where I can create a new folder, paste, open in the terminal...

That's XFCE's Thunar solution to this problem. It was just not easily discoverable, but it's a good enough solution according to me, as I don't mind using the keyboard. Maybe it's the same on Gnome's File or Nautilus or other file explorers softwares, I don't know.

Edit: looking at it more closely, in Thunar the ctrl+right-click will show the "create new folder" option only if no file is selected. Otherwise it shows the contextual menu of the selection (hence the create new folder would not appear). So basically we have to unselect the files ... by clicking on an empty area (so back to square one) ... or we have to know about another keyboard shortcut (the "Escape" key) to clear the current selection before doing the ctrl+righ-click. Not ideal either.

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