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A new wave of Linux applications

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Re: A new wave of Linux applications

#131

Post by fsflover »

hughrr wrote: post #101
zozbot234 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The recent "scaling down" of Linux Gtk+ apps also encompasses "diferent interfaces". Look at some of the convergence examples, and you'll see all sorts of widgets merge, move around and disappear behind "alternate" views as window sizes shrink, then come back as the windows enlarge again. It's a fully responsive interface that merges both styles of interaction seamlessly.

A certain $2tn+ company can't manage to pull that off and actually has different interfaces for each platform. We're making some big assumption that responsive interfaces actually work and don't push poor compromises on all users at the end of the day. This is another UX death march like flat interfaces without cues and mystery meat.

> We're making some big assumption that responsive interfaces actually work

I think is pretty clear that they work. Look at responsive web pages.

Re: A new wave of Linux applications

#132

Post by kodah »

habosa wrote: post #127

These apps look very nice, I am happy to see this movement. But this is HN so ... allow me to go a bit off topic and complain. Why is is so freaking hard to install an app on Linux (Ubuntu)? There's nothing in the software center, and when I find an app I want I am just pointed to a .tar.gz or something. I want a file I can double-click and end up with a launchable icon representing that app in my dock later. I would…

You might like Pop!_OS or Elementary's app store (they're the same.) It supports .deb and Flathub packages.

Re: A new wave of Linux applications

#133

Post by anchpop »

rland wrote: post #77
zozbot234 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because if you have touchscreens you can use two-finger gestures, and if you're on a mouse you'll have no issue targeting a thin widget. It makes a lot of sense from that POV.

It would -- but it's set so thin by default that I have trouble targeting it with my mouse!

For a fullscreen window it would be nice if moving the mouse all the way to the right edge was sufficient to target the scrollbar, but that doesn't work in Chrome on my mac

Re: A new wave of Linux applications

#134

Post by loudtieblahblah »

traverseda wrote: post #9

I have to say I just don't like Gnome's design. The shift away from text and towards more and more abstract icons, the "don't theme my app movement", removing features I consider pretty essential like typeahead.... Maybe mobile is where their weird (to me) design choices will finally shine though. Also looking forward to what KDE can accomplish in this space.

I'm still burnt by the fact that RedHat contributes so much code to Gnome that they basically control it. They made Gnome wholly dependent on systemd and this is how RHEL was able to influence every distro out there, of consequence, to adopt systemd as well. No systemd? Then you'd have to maintain your own patched fork of Gnome.

That aside, Gnome's UI is horrendous and can only be made better by installing tons of poorly supported extensions. It's like a lesser MacOS (and frankly, i despise MacOS's desktop as well).

KDE and XFCE aren't perfect, but as far as MacOS, Gnome, Windows 8.1, 10, and further, and other Linux desktop environments, KDE and XFCE blow them out of the water. Mate, Cinnamon and others just don't have the stability or functionality.

I'm not really enthusiastic about Gnome and KDE trying to bring stuff to mobile. It's been a fool's errand. Here it is, 2022, and they never captured a chunk of the desktop market.

The phone market at one point had Ubuntu (very very briefly), FirefoxOS (even more brief), Blackberry (gone), Android (multiple versions), Windows Phone (gone), and iOS.

All that's really left is iOS and Android. Google is looking to replace Android with an OS that lacks the Linux kernel. So what you got left? Pine phones? It's even more niche and more hobbyist than desktop linux was in 2001.

The year that linux makes any serious inroads into mobile will come just like the "year of the linux desktop" came. Which is never.

So we've ruined a perfectly good desktop environment and poured countless man-hours into KDE and Gnome for mobile and to what end? Why? WHo's going to use it? What's the point? What's there to accomplish?

Beyond some college kid being real proud of his Summer of Code project, nothing of note will materialize from this.

Re: A new wave of Linux applications

#135

Post by bollu »

floren wrote: post #62
ugjka wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you use a mouse without a scrollwheel?

I use the acme text editor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acme_(text_editor) for work every day. It makes heavy use of mouse chords, so I need 3 real buttons on the mouse, and it's hard to find a mouse with 3 real buttons and a scrollwheel which doesn't get in the way of the buttons. I've got a Kensington Expert Mouse trackball which works pretty well, but at the end of the day an old Logitech PS/2 mouse plugged into…

I am very interested to learn about your workflow. What language do you program in? How does acme help programming in this language? Do you have a video or a stream I could watch? I'd love to know!

Re: A new wave of Linux applications

#136

Post by dj_mc_merlin »

habosa wrote: post #127

These apps look very nice, I am happy to see this movement. But this is HN so ... allow me to go a bit off topic and complain. Why is is so freaking hard to install an app on Linux (Ubuntu)? There's nothing in the software center, and when I find an app I want I am just pointed to a .tar.gz or something. I want a file I can double-click and end up with a launchable icon representing that app in my dock later. I would…

    tar -xzvf app.tar.gz
    cat app/README
Then follow instructions, but usually just

    cp app/app /usr/local/bin
or wherever your $PATH is. or:

    make
    make install
If you're not willing to put in the effort to do this you should indeed probably not use Linux.

Re: A new wave of Linux applications

#137

Post by atrus »

habosa wrote: post #127

These apps look very nice, I am happy to see this movement. But this is HN so ... allow me to go a bit off topic and complain. Why is is so freaking hard to install an app on Linux (Ubuntu)? There's nothing in the software center, and when I find an app I want I am just pointed to a .tar.gz or something. I want a file I can double-click and end up with a launchable icon representing that app in my dock later. I would…

What apps are you having to do this with? I've yet to have an app that I couldn't either get through apt or as an AppImage which definitely has that experience of double click and go when you have AppImageLauncher installed.

Re: A new wave of Linux applications

#138

Post by akvadrako »

floren wrote: post #62
ugjka wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you use a mouse without a scrollwheel?

I use the acme text editor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acme_(text_editor) for work every day. It makes heavy use of mouse chords, so I need 3 real buttons on the mouse, and it's hard to find a mouse with 3 real buttons and a scrollwheel which doesn't get in the way of the buttons. I've got a Kensington Expert Mouse trackball which works pretty well, but at the end of the day an old Logitech PS/2 mouse plugged into…

I use the middle button lots and the MX master 3 has never given me issues.

Re: A new wave of Linux applications

#139

Post by drekipus »

habosa wrote: post #127

These apps look very nice, I am happy to see this movement. But this is HN so ... allow me to go a bit off topic and complain. Why is is so freaking hard to install an app on Linux (Ubuntu)? There's nothing in the software center, and when I find an app I want I am just pointed to a .tar.gz or something. I want a file I can double-click and end up with a launchable icon representing that app in my dock later. I would…

what's wrong with the ol' "sudo apt install foo"

outdated packages are the problem of the distro, not of the tool.

the whole reason I went from windows -> linux was because I could just type in what I want, rather than having to go looking around for dumb things on sites that no longer exist.

Re: A new wave of Linux applications

#140

Post by nebul »

zozbot234 wrote: post #118
nebul wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, clicking and holding on a header bar button will still allow you to grab the window without firing any action. It's quite handy, especially with a touch pad.

You don't have to target a button at all, that's quite silly. Aim at the window label. Labels have always been connoted as "plain text" with no actions associated, so they're quite intuituve for that purpose.

Of course! But when you're using an application with a fairly busy header bar (like Nautilus or Epiphany, which don't have any labels) it can be useful to just point at the first pixel you come across without having to aim for a blank interval between buttons.
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