Xfce 4.16pre1 Released As The First Step Towards This Next Desktop Update

[Britoid]

I agree...

Why couldn't they go for a macOS-like thing at least? I mean thin titlebars for SSD apps (like before)?

The descriptions underneath the window title im the title bar feel unnecessary... and a waste of space...

macOS exclusively uses CSD, it just has different classes for titlebars. I wouldn't mind a Adwaita-shrink but that''s a theme issue, not a technical one.

[topolinik]

What I don't understand is:
- without a titlebar, how does a user know which window is active?

The same issue raises even WITH a title bar, when the devs decide that every titlebar (active/inactive) will be shown in white (I'm pointing at you, microsoft).

[topolinik]

Another thing that modern GUI's do are to hide the scrollbar. Now if only the hidden scrollbar would free up some space then I could partly understand it , you have no idea that there is a scrollbar there unless you happen to scare your paranoid little mousepointer over that area.

I second this.
I can't think an english word suitable to say how huge my hate is for disappearing widgets, and this is what brought me to avoid gtk3 wherever possible.

"Less is more" is a successful paradigma in movies, in music, in poetry but when you design and application, "less information" is not "more", rather "less information" is "less information", and in IT this is shooting in your own feet.

[chocolate]

I sincerely hope some of you guys will recycle these posts to have a real conversation with the developers to try and steer development in the direction you prefer, because spreading FUD in these forums about features that are missing from a certain known toolkit and being grumpy all the time surely won't help you achieve the desktop of your dreams. That, or actually give apps made in that known toolkit another go after 10 years since last time.
Cheers.

[JPFSanders]

About CSD:
1. I think CSD is a serious security issue. I don't remember giving permission to any application to display windows without titlebars.
2. When the permission to not display a titlebar is given by the user, then a good UI designer should NOT:
- hide text annotations on buttons
- hide keyboard shortcut hints
- make impossible using the application with keyboard only
- make hard using the application with keyboard only
- make functionality hidden
- make functionality hiden behind undescriptive buttons

Did anyone of those UI designers even attempt to read this (which I suggest as a simple introduction to the subject):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usability_engineering

Have those people even heard of the word "usability"?

Since 99% of curent CSD designs break literally everything that I wrote so far, I declare that their designers are idiotic and ignorant amateurs (with regards to usability engineering). How can't they see the obious errors they are making? Did they ever take a single lesson on UI design?

And of course the answer is:
- noone took any lessons on UI usability design
- noone made an attempt to read anything on the subject, because reading is so hard nowadays

Therefore... UI amateurs.

But, but, but! Muh apples!, muh microsoft!, muh mobile phone interfaces!!!! Muh web designs!!!!!!

Yeah, you defined it perfectly, IDIOTS.

[skeevy420]

EDIT: I can't stand 144Hz, CSD and/or GNOME. I'll leave it at that.

I can't stand not using Oxford commas. What about CSD and/or Mate?

All the rest of the anti-CSD comments have been used up so that's all I got

[skeevy420]

Actually, in case of Apple and Microsoft it is GREED. Those companies have money to pay some experts and they know what they are doing (well, in most cases; for example Windows 8 was quite a UI failure).

So, in case of Apple, it is more important that UI looks nice, because that's what sells devices. Usability is secondary because the user discovers bad usability only after he bought the device already. In fact, the user might not even notice because he might not have seen better designs previously.

I'm currently posting from Windows 10 and it's a UI clusterfuck. AMD Control Panel uses one style, Firefox yet another, half of Windows uses the Modern/Metro style, the other half uses a mix of 9x/XP/7 legacy styles, the theme isn't consistent between programs, stuff that uses the black (user selected) theme has a title bar that gets a hair lighter when inactive, stuff that uses the white (???) theme has a title bar that does jack shit when inactive.

Windows 10 had a UI designed and themed by retards.

[Vistaus]

- Baobab (how to go back?)

More like: Baobab has become bad. It used to be easier to use, but one of the latest upgrades (3.36, I think) changed a few things in the Baobab UI that it more confusing to use. At least in my experience.

Not that I was a fan of the Baobab UI before that, but at least the UI was *better* which made the app at least useable.

[skeevy420]

Does the "R" word get posts flagged now?

[chocolate]

First of all a classic titlebar is far from useless. It contains the title and maybe some status information such as the document you are working on / the website you are visiting etc. It is a clean and structured approach to having a handle where you can move a window about without having any concern that you risk clicking some function inadvertently .

Headerbars in GTK let you do just that. Try to open GNOME Text Editor/gedit and find out for yourself. The title of the document is displayed at the center of the headerbar, and if it's a saved file, its path is shown in a smaller font beneath the title. Besides, the whole headerbar is draggable, you just have to be familiar with the paradigm. The "handle" area is in fact larger and easier to click when moving the pointer vertically. If you don't want that, the headerbar is not mandatory... the app can still make use of a simple titlebar that is going to be more or less thin depending on the theme.
Inadvertent clicking? I don't know, clicking is not the same as grabbing, and I find that the slightest movement after clicking a headerbar widget either nullifies the grab altogether or translates to a successful grab; it never clicks unless the pointer stays still.

Below the title bar you usually have a nicely structured meny. You would typically have File, Edit, View, Window, Help etc... a clean and structured interface on where to find things. What on earth is wrong with this approach?

Nothing fundamentally wrong with it, I think it could be retained on a desktop. But you imply that such an approach can be structured, while another would not. Apps can have a useless menubar just as well as they can have a well-structured headerbar and additional bars underneath. Or do you think GNOME Builder, for example, is failing in this regard? If you are passionate about Xfce, the matter is whether Xfce developers will make sapient use of headerbars and the rest of the toolkit, not necessarily whether the technology itself is flawed.

These days you have a hamburger button for a menu , that hides the option in the menu - what is the point with that? It does NOT consume less space typically , and when it does is utterly pointless as the free space is unused and could easily have been used to keep certain things visible all the time.

The GTK hamburger menu does indeed save vertical space, and it doesn't care if you negate this in caps lock. Its popup also does not expand into multiple columns, it stays in one column and shifts from a level to another using animations.

Another thing that modern GUI's do are to hide the scrollbar. Now if only the hidden scrollbar would free up some space then I could partly understand it , you have no idea that there is a scrollbar there unless you happen to scare your paranoid little mousepointer over that area.

The GTK scrollbar stays hidden until movement is performed via keyboard or mouse, then it becomes visible with a fade-in animation, while floating on the content behind it, and stays very thin to save horizontal space. When it's thin, it's perfectly serviceable as an indicator of where you are e.g. in a document, and it's not distracting. Then, if you move the pointer close to it, it expands over a quasi opaque background to be both clearly visible and easy to grab. The content, which by the way is what really matters, never has to sacrifice horizontal (or vertical) space.

And to think that this stuff is free to install and try...