I use Gtk on a daily basis while working to the elementary os. I just love their Vala language,it gives me the ease of c# and speed of C. But the thing is there is not much documentation present. The irc channel feels slow. I encountered a bug in Vte about a week ago about transparency and no one is able to help.
This as a dev discourages me. I use Vala and Gtk solely because the elementary team uses it. Gnome becoming uncool has started a vicious circle which will lead to its death.
Gnome: Staring into the abyss
131–140 of 188 posts
Re: Gnome: Staring into the abyss
#1321. As the author says toward the end of the article, I think the biggest problem with Gnome nowadays is that only a small number of people actually use it on a day-to-day basis. Popular distros like Ubuntu and Mint have shifted away from it. No matter what merits Gnome 3 might have, it was such a flop in its first few releases that it has the Windows Vista stigma attached to it. Of course, there's GTK and several Gno…
"Gnome is too big for its own good."
Interestingly, the direction some GNOME developers want to take is to make it even bigger. E.G. Juan José Sánchez and Xan López's proposal for "More GNOME 3, GNOME targeting new form factors and GNOME as an OS or final product/UX".
http://blogs.gnome.org/otte/2012/07/27/staring-into-the-abys...
Re: Gnome: Staring into the abyss
#1331. As the author says toward the end of the article, I think the biggest problem with Gnome nowadays is that only a small number of people actually use it on a day-to-day basis. Popular distros like Ubuntu and Mint have shifted away from it. No matter what merits Gnome 3 might have, it was such a flop in its first few releases that it has the Windows Vista stigma attached to it. Of course, there's GTK and several Gno…
I find it wryly amusing to see the entire GNOME 1 -> GNOME 2 debacle repeated so accurately. GNOME 2 eliminated a huge pile of configuration and tweakability that had accreted over the years, and produced an environment designed for user-friendliness even at the expense of some power-user configurations. It took a few releases to sort out (2.0 proved quite painful), but by GNOME 2.4 or so the environment had become far more pleasant than GNOME 1.
If the GNOME 2 -> GNOME 3 debate has produced more vitriol by volume, I'd say that just reflects GNOME 2 having a much larger user community than GNOME 1 ever did.
Re: Gnome: Staring into the abyss
#134Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, it is not.
This is false. Unity is an alternative to Gnome-shell; it uses (sometimes patched versions of) the same underlying Gnome 3 libraries.
Or it's true. GNOME doesn't present itself as a set of libraries, it presents itself as a desktop shell and set of applications.
Re: Gnome: Staring into the abyss
#135Earlier quoted context omitted.
I still prefer Awesome, but I've used Unity for a few weeks and I agree that's not that bad (or wouldn't be if it wasn't so buggy). Multiple terminals , for example, is not a problem: Ctrl-Alt-T launches as many as you want.
Or terminator! Seems the future might be tabs/tiled windows rather than a full taskbar.
Or better still, tmux.
Re: Gnome: Staring into the abyss
#1361. As the author says toward the end of the article, I think the biggest problem with Gnome nowadays is that only a small number of people actually use it on a day-to-day basis. Popular distros like Ubuntu and Mint have shifted away from it. No matter what merits Gnome 3 might have, it was such a flop in its first few releases that it has the Windows Vista stigma attached to it. Of course, there's GTK and several Gno…
Popular distros like Ubuntu and Mint have shifted away from it
Re: Gnome: Staring into the abyss
#137Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Taking away those little checkboxes and toolbar buttons is like slamming the door on power users. You might win a billion non-technical users, but none of them will ever submit a single patch. An experienced developer should be mature enough to know that he and his kind should not be the target audience of his product. And putting in all those little checkboxes makes a product a horrible experience for the rest of…
I never understand this. Why is sane defaults and hidden options a lousy user experience?
Sane defaults is fine. Hidden options limits its capabilities which are sometimes essential.
Re: Gnome: Staring into the abyss
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Taking away those little checkboxes and toolbar buttons is like slamming the door on power users. You might win a billion non-technical users, but none of them will ever submit a single patch. An experienced developer should be mature enough to know that he and his kind should not be the target audience of his product. And putting in all those little checkboxes makes a product a horrible experience for the rest of…
I completely disagree with the second sentence. There must be a way for power users to get the flexibility they want, while making the product usable by the masses. MacOS does this to an extent, with "Advanced" buttons on some control panels that most users ignore. Why couldn't Gnome do that? Why must it seek to emulate Windows' lack of flexibility?
Some OS X apps and system services go even a step further — or at least have in the past; I feel like one sees less of it these days — with options in GUI apps that are exposed through the command line (usually via the defaults command) only.
That to me feels like a very nice hierarchy:
A few basic, common options available in the main UI.
A few more-advanced/less-commonly-desired options available in a part of the UI that's labeled "Advanced". Things that mortals-but-not-noobs would be interested in. Novices actively don't want to hit Advanced but the sort of user that would be interested in these options goes right for it.
Then really exotic options are available through an interface that takes up absolutely no UI space but is easily accessible by most of the kind of people that would want such things.
Re: Gnome: Staring into the abyss
#1391. As the author says toward the end of the article, I think the biggest problem with Gnome nowadays is that only a small number of people actually use it on a day-to-day basis. Popular distros like Ubuntu and Mint have shifted away from it. No matter what merits Gnome 3 might have, it was such a flop in its first few releases that it has the Windows Vista stigma attached to it. Of course, there's GTK and several Gno…
I find it wryly amusing to see the entire GNOME 1 -> GNOME 2 debacle repeated so accurately. GNOME 2 eliminated a huge pile of configuration and tweakability that had accreted over the years, and produced an environment designed for user-friendliness even at the expense of some power-user configurations. It took a few releases to sort out (2.0 proved quite painful), but by GNOME 2.4 or so the environment had become f…
Same with KDE3->KDE4. They released 4.0, saying it was a beta. Guess what, if you call it 4.0 and do a release announcement, people will get it no matter what you say. And then they'll judge based on your pre-release status, calling your software crap. It's the lesson no one learns.
Re: Gnome: Staring into the abyss
#140This is really sad if it's true. I'm probably in the minority, but I think GNOME 3 (even without extensions) is the best Linux desktop at the moment. It does seem strange when you look at it at first, but once you use it for a week or so and use anything different (even GNOME 2 which I'd used for years), you feel stifled in a way. It's hard to put into words, it just feels like it's out of your way. Anecdote: I work…
Heartening to read your comments and others who agree. I find GNOME 3 preferable to Unity. It's the most "Mac-like" of all the Linux desktop environments which is meant as a compliment. I recommend it to everyone also. (vs. Unity)