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The end of the nice GTK button

blog.brixit.nl

491–500 of 666 posts

Re: The end of the nice GTK button

#491

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember F2 being save in the DOS era, or maybe I'm misremembering and it was F3... But for many years I've associated F2 with edit or rename.

I do remember when ctrl+shift+insert was common for paste (rather than ctrl+v). I can't remember off hand was copy was beyond it being a similar key combination. Still trips me up these days using cmd instead of ctrl on macs.

ctrl+insert for copy and shift+insert for paste are still a thing in the majority of places in Windows, though I think only the ancients like me use them (people newer to the game being taught ctrl+C & ctrl+V from the start).

Not long ago I even spotted it being usable in an app that blocked ctrl+C/ctrl+V.

Re: The end of the nice GTK button

#492

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In modern Windows, press Win-key and start to type, oops, it missed the first keypresses, presented the completely wrong results and made a mess of your workflow. The worst offender is the login prompt. In Gnome, from the lock screen, I simply start typing my password. As soon as I type the first letter of the password, the password prompt appears, and when I'm done I hit enter and it unlocks. On Windows, the first…

That is one of the main reasons why I switched from XCode to CLion. XCode lost keystrokes, which drove me crazy. The other thing was that I could reliably type faster than XCode could display the letters, which made me feel like I'm drunk. CLion seems to be quite excellent at recording and replaying everything, including stuff I type while the auto-completion is loading. Plus it has a really fast key to screen loop.

The quality of JetBrains products are overall high

Re: The end of the nice GTK button

#493
post #270

I really miss a consistent user experience. A core idea that I as a user can rely on to predict how a new app will work. I was in awe when I discovered as a kid that user interface were a research area. Things like Fitt's Law and so on. It was not just opinion. Today I get the feeling it's mostly just opinion. Either the designer's opinion or the wish to copy the look of something. Whenever I see a hamburger menu I s…

When swiping between fullscreen windows, Macos sends the keystrokes to the last window until the animation has completed. The ”g” of all my git commands ends up in vs code if I’m too quick. Very annoying.

Re: The end of the nice GTK button

#494

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still remember the good old days where keyboards had Function keys and apps would prominently display a F2 next to the save button, an F10 next to quit. Even for computer illiterate people, that made using keyboard shortcuts a bliss. Save was ALWAYS on F2 no matter what you did, so people would put physical stickers on their keyboard to make the F2 button say "Save" on the keycap.

What system was this? I've used every version of Windows (literally), DOS since the 80s, Macs since the 90s, Linux since the 90s, Atari ST, and several different 8-bit micros and I don't recall ever using F2 to save. I do believe your anecdote but it's completely escaped me what platform might have used F2. Also worth noting that keyboards do still have function keys. In fact I use F2 as my `tmux` control prefix. :)

Borland IDEs, Norton Commander (and its alternatives) built-in text editor, and programs that mimicked those green-grayish or blue-grayish text mode windows. Or those simply made with Turbo Vision.

Re: The end of the nice GTK button

#495

>Now one of the worst parts is that everywhere I only even hint at not completely loving the new libadwaita theme I instantly get shut down and disagreed with before I can even get the chance to give some feedback. This is so typical for the open-source community. For a supposedly 'open' culture, its full of ivory towers and (layers of) cool kids clubs, meaning if you want to build an app, or change something you don…

GNOME is pretty much the worst offender here, which really makes it all the more baffling. They constantly wax helplessness, begging for more contributors or feedback on their OS, and when people try to contribute or give feedback on their OS, they say "no not that part!" and go redesign something they don't take personally. It's especially ironic considering how they worship "usability" in the other hand, insisting that their lack of functionality is so that they can better emulate macOS. It's remarkably frustrating.

But it's also the sort of behavior that keeps other developers going. KDE is great at soliciting user change, and nothing is "off the table" for scrutiny or redesign. Many other desktops share that same philosophy. The pockets of high-and-mighty developers are what end up shooting desktop Linux in the foot, and while I do happily daily-drive Linux, I can say with certainty that it will never hit the mainstream with maintainers like these driving the best-funded desktop environment.

Re: The end of the nice GTK button

#496
post #270

I really miss a consistent user experience. A core idea that I as a user can rely on to predict how a new app will work. I was in awe when I discovered as a kid that user interface were a research area. Things like Fitt's Law and so on. It was not just opinion. Today I get the feeling it's mostly just opinion. Either the designer's opinion or the wish to copy the look of something. Whenever I see a hamburger menu I s…

> And there are a lot of behaviors that are not functioning well. The worst of which are dropdowns, lists or menus that inserts new items right over where your mouse is so that you accidentally click on the wrong thing. All browsers do this for the dropdown that appears when typing in the URL bar. I type a few letters, see the site I want is 3 down in the dropdown, hit the down arrow three times and press enter, only…

Related: If I type 'ha' for "Hacker News" in Safari's address bar on my iPhone, by the second letter it'll show "Hacker News". But if I'm too quick to hit "Go" on the keyboard, Safari instead searches DuckDuckGo for "ha".

The UI must update sooner than some underlying state; this bites me multiple times a day.

Re: The end of the nice GTK button

#497

Why. Does. These. Interfaces. Have. This. Amount. Of. Empty. Space?! Looks like all these "Connected - 1000Mb/s" can be 2-2.5 times more compact in V direction. And huge spaces between labels and controls. Why do we need these?! It is plague of last years. You have FullHD screen, you see 3-4 options in FireFox settings,when "old skool" UI could pack all of them onto one FullHD screen. It is everywhere. Huge spaces, s…

I've always thought that GTK was great at filling the screen with interactive elements. Almost too good, actually. The GTK versions of certain apps like Handbrake and Transmission have almost no whitespace...

Re: The end of the nice GTK button

#498

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Borderless buttons to have the right to exist, but you should be very careful with their use. For example, take this UI I made recently: https://mastodon.social/@grishka/107998100334356147 , 2nd screenshot. The button to decline invitation looks like a link (same color) and it's next to a real button. No one would ever get confused by this, it's pretty clear it's clickable. But a black word in a larger font among bla…

It does not look like a button. It's just a label floating around. When designing user interfaces, use the mantra: "Don't make me think!" Don't make the user think about whether something is a button or not. Don't make them have to infer that the label is in fact a button due to context. Just make it look like a button!

Yeah... personally I detest anything flat or rounded... give me square pixel sharp corners any-day... and not just for buttons.

Re: The end of the nice GTK button

#499

Anyone else happy with Gnome? It's good to have an opinionated DE that just gets out of the way. It launches apps, provides me with workspaces, and abstracts all the low level details away so I can focus on actually using my computer. If people want to customise every minute detail of the themes they shouldn't be using Gnome/GTK. The devs don't have to cater for everyone's needs, they are allowed to focus on a target…

I'd be happy with it if the developers listened to the users. GNOME 3 had a good balance of "getting out of your way" while still giving power users what they want. I had to leave GNOME 40 within hours because of its unbelievable changes to the UX, and I say that as someone who used to be a pretty big fan of the desktop.

Re: The end of the nice GTK button

#500

I'm going to take a risk here and say that I'm a designer who generally likes flat design. I see a lot of hate here against flat design, and it makes sense. A lot of designers abuse it, making their UIs ambiguous. It's probably true that if flat design was never conceived, UIs would be less confusing on average. But it's clearly possible to do flat design well. iOS is mostly flat, but it's quite beautiful and user fr…

I disagree on iOS. Give an iPhone to someone never having used one before, and I'm sure they won't even be able to unlock it. I almost cringe when I see UX people with iPhones. Yes, it's esthetically pleasing, but please don't take too much inspiration from the way things work.

Yeah from someone who supports users sometimes they have no idea how to use their iPhones.
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