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A new wave of Linux applications

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Re: A new wave of Linux applications

#331

Post by moron4hire »

zelphirkalt wrote: post #321
moron4hire wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been really happy with Cinnamon on Linux Mint with the MintY-Dark themes.

I just switched back to XFCE on my desktop, because panel launchers cannot be properly configured in a simple way. Too bad usability made all the good looks useless. And I feel a renewed assuredness, that XFCE is the most productive DE for me. I had it configured in 10 minutes and it does everything I want in the way I want. Also XFCE these days can also look nicely. Still, usability (and that includes being able to…

Panels are indeed a gigantic pain in the ass to configure. It is possible, but I feel like I have to go to three completely unrelated places each time I want to. And I can never remember which place is the one to go to.

How does XFCE do with high-DPI displays? My only other complaint with Cinnamon is that the window controls are a tad small. It's been a long time since I used XFCE.

Re: A new wave of Linux applications

#332

Post by Arnavion »

fsflover wrote: post #4
goldcountry wrote: post #2

That's cool and all, but who is actually out here using a linux phone?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24959506 And I'm using a Pinephone as a daily driver, too.

(Note that kop316, who has the second comment there complaining about lack of MMS support, went on to implement MMS support themselves by writing mmsd-tng. Many distros added it recently and it supposedly should work with Phosh's Chatty and on SXMO.)

Re: A new wave of Linux applications

#333

Post by pingsl »

I use Windows/MacOS/Linux(Ubuntu) on a regular base.

As a ordinary end user, I feel

1. Windows software are usually good at product function design.

2. Mac has a better enforcement on overall UX. The visual across different software (from different vendors) are much consistent.

3. Linux desktop is unfortunately still missing above 2 points.

Some Linux distro provides really good visual, but it only applies to its built–in programs. If you'd like to switch to the external programs, the system visual might be fragmented.

I really hope in this new wave people could make some consensus on the visual of Linux desktop.

Re: A new wave of Linux applications

#334

Post by grey_earthling »

selfhoster11 wrote: post #319
grey_earthling wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Please read the letter all the way to the end. This is aimed at distributions breaking apps by default, not tinkerers playing with their own setup. https://stopthemingmy.app/

I have read through it. I just vehemently disagree that their requests are reasonable. The only reason why people care so much for their apps' "branding" is being enforced by product management. Absent that pressure, you get a reversion to the Windows ecosystem pre-2005 (more or less), where every user can make their desktop as nice or ugly as they want, and by and large, the sky isn't falling. Because everyone works…

Who's “product management” in this context? Most of these apps are just made by one person.

Again, this letter isn't about users making their desktop nice or ugly; it's about distros applying stylesheets to apps without checking whether the app remains usable, and leading users to expect that this is the app developer's responsibility.

Re: A new wave of Linux applications

#335

Post by ragingrobot »

malermeister wrote: post #272
grey_earthling wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> libadwaita is in a "functional" release state, but still lacks support for custom stylesheets, Libadwaita is an implementation of GNOME's design, analogous to libgranite in elementary OS. This includes the visual design. GNOME only has one style, Adwaita (which means “the only one”!). If you don't want to use GNOME's design, you don't want to use libadwaita. > basic desktop integration on non-GNOME desktops Libadwa…

What if I want to use GNOME's nice touch functionality and rich set of apps, but not the style? (Which in my subjective view is wayyy too gray). Why do those things have to be tightly coupled all of a sudden? We've made it through decades without breaking theming, what changed?

> We've made it through decades without breaking theming, what changed?

According to the GNOME team, application developers were getting bug reports filed against their application about broken interface elements, and GNOME was having bug reports filed for the same. The devs stated it was the fault of the theme being used, and as such it would eliminate a lot of headaches for both if themes were forbidden.

"Independent developers" set out to explain this in more detail. [1] While it is targeted at vendors who created their own themes for branding, it echos the overall sentiment toward theming from GNOME itself.

A blog post from a dev as well. [2]

[1] https://stopthemingmy.app/ [2] https://blogs.gnome.org/tbernard/2018/10/15/restyling-apps-a...

Re: A new wave of Linux applications

#336

Post by ognarb »

cmeacham98 wrote: post #31
fsflover wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also looking forward to what KDE can accomplish in this space. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DLQWv8P5Hw

It's cool they have this (mostly) working on mobile, but those gestures are pretty clearly all copied from Android and not a result of KDE Desktop's design decisions.

Plasma Desktop/Mobile developer here

The first version of Kirigami (the tookit used by plasma mobile) had a very interesting concept around navigation and people hated it. We still have some remnants of this with some floating buttons that are easy to reach for the thumb but also often on top of the content.

I really prefer us to copy a bit the UX of Android/iOS than spending a lot of effort trying to come up with our own UX concept that is not inferior of the one of Android/iOS. We are just an handful of developer and none is paid to work on it.

Re: A new wave of Linux applications

#337

Post by wildrhythms »

viraptor wrote: post #302
eric4smith wrote: post #205

Until there is as “simple” to use an app like Preview on the Mac, most of these new generation apps are garbage. I’ve just switched to Ubuntu on a workstation I have lying around. And man, is it hard to use for just normal everyday use. Yes, it has the basics covered, but like many others my job has a lot of simple image manipulation related stuff. Convert pdf to png. Assemble multiple images into a pdf. Quickly shar…

For an opposing view, for productivity stuff, I really don't like the simple mac apps approach. I regularly open preview expecting it allow some simple changes, but end up disappointed and either do it via gimp or imagemagick. It's similar to Windows experience where people try to release simple apps like a tool for preview, tool for resizing, tool for optimizing compression, tool for merging images/pages, etc. It's…

Funny that you mention resizing (Preview > Tools > Adjust size) and optimizing compression (Preview > Export > JPEG > compression slider), both tasks that Preview can do out of the box. For advanced edits I use Pixelmator Pro which has a UI that is actually usable compared to the decades-old cluster fuck that is the GIMP UI.

Re: A new wave of Linux applications

#338

Post by phendrenad2 »

strken wrote: post #288
phendrenad2 wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Linux world has two competing ideals: "So easy my grandparents can use it" and "Learning the terminal will make you a better person". Anyone who tries to make things too simple (PCLinuxOS) is derided and criticized by Popular Linux YouTube Channel, Reddit, etc. Anyone who tries to make things too technical (Arch) is ignored by Popular Linux YouTube Channel, Reddit, etc. So only those distros that flounder somewhe…

I don't think they're competing ideals at all. What is needed is a configurable system with easy defaults, just like setting nano as the default editor but allowing me to change it to vim.

Maybe in theory they aren't competing, but in practice they definitely are. Remember, open-source is made by whoever shows up and contributes. If everyone who shows up is either a hardcore Linux expert, or someone who want to make Linux easier for the masses, then who will integrate the two goals? Open-source isn't a corporation, where there top-down leadership. It's a bottom-up ad-hoc collaboration.

Re: A new wave of Linux applications

#339

Post by wildrhythms »

beepbooptheory wrote: post #222
eric4smith wrote: post #205

Until there is as “simple” to use an app like Preview on the Mac, most of these new generation apps are garbage. I’ve just switched to Ubuntu on a workstation I have lying around. And man, is it hard to use for just normal everyday use. Yes, it has the basics covered, but like many others my job has a lot of simple image manipulation related stuff. Convert pdf to png. Assemble multiple images into a pdf. Quickly shar…

Learn a little about imagemagick [1], it will change your life! Edit: also, I bet doing an rclone mount of your Dropbox will be pretty seamless and stable, havent tested this personally though [2]. If you don't like the command line interfaces, then yeah you are probably better off with a Mac. 1. https://imagemagick.org/ 2. https://rclone.org/dropbox/

I don't want to annotate an image with a CLI, and neither do you. And a CLI is the worst UI possible for a visual task like editing an image. Apple figured this out 38 years ago with MacPaint.

Re: A new wave of Linux applications

#340

Post by phendrenad2 »

batrachos wrote: post #283
phendrenad2 wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Linux world has two competing ideals: "So easy my grandparents can use it" and "Learning the terminal will make you a better person". Anyone who tries to make things too simple (PCLinuxOS) is derided and criticized by Popular Linux YouTube Channel, Reddit, etc. Anyone who tries to make things too technical (Arch) is ignored by Popular Linux YouTube Channel, Reddit, etc. So only those distros that flounder somewhe…

> Ideally, the Linux desktop world would just split in half, so that there can be a clean separation between these two ideals. Isn't that basically what's happening already? ChromeOS and Android Linuces on the one side, GNU/Linux (sorry Stallman haters) on the other...

ChromeOS and Android don't run on regular desktop or laptop PCs, at least not without a heroic amount of hacking and configuration.
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