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Gnome is better macOS than macOS

andreyor.st

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Re: Gnome is better macOS than macOS

#121

Post by Lapel2742 »

_fat_santa wrote: post #47
al_borland wrote: post #10

I will never get used to Gnomes lack of native support for minimizing windows. I actually had to lookup how they expected users to manage windows, as it was not obvious to me. Apparently you’re supposed to move windows to another virtual desktop to get them out of the way. As someone who has never really clicked with virtual desktop, this doesn’t work for me. This feels like such a glaring omission of a convention th…

IMHO the Gnome team should bake in Dash to Dock and Desktop Icons NG into the core package. To me they are essential to get a proper functioning desktop in Gnome and it blows my mind that they are just 3rd party extensions when really it should be 1st party support. Ubuntu already does this with their build.

Tray icons shouls be supported by default too but won't.

Re: Gnome is better macOS than macOS

#122

Post by Lapel2742 »

WD-42 wrote: post #62
Citizen_Lame wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Said no one ever. GNOME is barely a desktop at this point. You need buggy extensions just to restore basic functionality, which says everything. In many ways, GNOME has become the epitome of a FOSS misfire: opinionated to a fault, driven by a loud minority, and offering users less choice instead of more. Plasma, on the other hand, has made huge strides in usability, performance, and overall polish. It feels modern, e…

Most of the time I hear the “basic functionality” complaint about gnome it’s someone missing a start menu and taskbar. Which makes sense if you are a clicker stuck on the desktop paradigm introduced in the early 90s. Gnome is very keyboard centric. If you actually take the time to learn it without relying on your mouse for everything it’s actually extremely efficient.

> Gnome is very keyboard centric.

... and misses the fact that not every valid computer use is keyboard centric too.

Sometimes I use my mouse and I do not want to switch to the keyboard and no, my life is not about being most productive and about saving 1/10th of a second if I use the keyboard only (which isn't even possible). I'm human after all and not a machine. I like my mouse. I paid a fortune for it.

Edit:

And it doesn't matter if this is the old way of the 90s and not modern. Being modern/new is no virtue in itself.

Re: Gnome is better macOS than macOS

#123

Post by rifty »

amluto wrote: post #31
nik736 wrote: post #7

What I am missing with Gnome is the global menu I have with macOS. It's just my preferred way of working. This is also what I liked about Unity. Gnome seems to follow the same direction as Windows. Additionally miller columns in Finder are just awesome and I don't have them with Nautilus. Those two things are honestly dealbreakers for me.

I would much prefer if MacOS got rid of the global menu. I've contemplated it for literally decades, and my opinion has only gotten stronger. 1. Sometimes a program has no open windows. Understanding when its menu shows up in the menu bar is confusing at best. Explaining to another user "oh, you are in [such and such program already] even though there's nothing there -- click File then Open" is silly. 2. Sometimes a…

Personally, I think the trade offs for more window space is worth it versus window positioned app menu bars. If you really are trying to maximally optimize menu bar navigation you go with the menu bar as a context menu wherever your cursor is, or a key command to prompt searching for the menu option you want to use.

As for 3, the way you'd solve this while retaining the 'global' menubar style is by treating screens more individual and having a screen unique menubar. Introduce screen focus, and have the screen focus follow where the cursor is. Further you could make it so that when a screen regains cursor focus it also refocuses the last window on that screen. The menu bar would then serve the purpose of visually indicating and emphasizing which app on which screen has latent focus even when the screen lacks focus itself. (Which now saying it honestly might have been an original MacOS consideration before losing focus caused window dimming)

Re: Gnome is better macOS than macOS

#124

Post by mieses »

It's a great desktop if you don't need to print anything or use an extension for more than a year or so before API changes break the extension. Gnome works "out of the box" as long as you don't try to do anything that's not in the box. That whole expression needs to be changed to "it works in the box".

Re: Gnome is better macOS than macOS

#125

Post by mid-kid »

ethin wrote: post #61

I can't stand Gnome. I don't like how they dumped the desktop or the app menu, or really most of their decisions lately. From what I've seen they're trying to cater to some amorphous "new user" instead of just creating a good desktop environment. What is this "new user"? Nobody knows! Well, other than the Gnome developers, I guess. The sad thing is that attempting to cater to "new users" is just... Entirely unnecessa…

You have never tried to teach kids, smartphone-natives, to use a desktop, have you? The "new user" demographic has shifted from "been taught how to use windows" to "has maybe used an ipad".

The classic start menu/task bar approach just isn't as approachable as you think.

Re: Gnome is better macOS than macOS

#126

Post by senko »

ethin wrote: post #61

I can't stand Gnome. I don't like how they dumped the desktop or the app menu, or really most of their decisions lately. From what I've seen they're trying to cater to some amorphous "new user" instead of just creating a good desktop environment. What is this "new user"? Nobody knows! Well, other than the Gnome developers, I guess. The sad thing is that attempting to cater to "new users" is just... Entirely unnecessa…

> I can't stand Gnome. [...] Nah, no thanks.

Good thing there are many other Linux desktop environments to choose: you already mentioned XFCE, Mate and KDE!

I personally like Gnome, I'm happy with out-of-the-box experience (zero extensions), and I'm glad they don't try to be everything to everyone.

Re: Gnome is better macOS than macOS

#127

Post by kasabali »

zb3 wrote: post #38

GNOME is underfunded - bugs are not fixed for years, PRs are not reviewed for months. It might look more shiny on the surface, but once you realize something doesn't work - you're on your own. See for example this: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/mutter/-/issues/4051 Nobody is assigned to fix these.

GNOME is by far the most funded Linux DE. If you think it's underfunded then other DEs are broke.

If nobody is assigned to GNOME bugs it's because developers were more interested in redesigning some app or rewriting some APIs than fixing bugs.

jwz explained it 25 years ago: https://www.jwz.org/doc/cadt.html

Re: Gnome is better macOS than macOS

#128

Post by anuramat »

amluto wrote: post #111
anuramat wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, it does take less space (compared to having one per window)

Only if you have two or more windows vertically stacked, which isn’t what you’re likely to be doing when you want to maximize vertical space.

but if they're stacked horizontally, buttons don't fit
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