GNOME Shell UX Continues Improving For GNOME 40

[f0rmat]

And yet the fact still remains that Gnome is the default GUI/DE for Linux. All the rest including KDE are just hobbyist projects of various degrees. KDE has the most active developers and some monetary backing by corporate Linux of the hobbyist projects, but because of two disastrous rollouts coming from KDE v3, namely KDE 4 and the colossal clusterfark that was KDE 5, KDE is a nearly universally recognized also ran as far as Linux GUIs go.

Between Red Hat and Canonical and the rest of the forks of either GTK or Gnome based GUI's, KDE and the rest of the hobbyist GUI's DE will be just that....hobbyists projects.

So drink up buttercup from the cup of bitter truth.

You are definitely correct at Canonical and Red Hat. However, Gnome does not work for all of us. I can appreciate all of the work of Gnome developers - it is remarkable, but that still does not change the fact that different people think in different ways and are productive in different ways. For some of us, Gnome does not work as well as other DEs. Does that make us wrong? I do not think so. Does that mean we have a choice? Most definitely. Should we look for something that works best for our needs? Absolutely. Does it have to be Gnome or KDE or (insert DE here), not necessarily. Gnome, while adequate for many, does not suit my needs - but that is my use case. Am I going to blast it? No. But is constructive criticism and honest assessment of Gnome useful? Yes. Does everybody do that? No. And that is a shame. I spent two years trying to find a DE that met my needs. That is a long time. I found one, but it is not Gnome. Do I think Gnome is a bad DE, no. Would I use it? I have several times and I may try again in the future depending upon what is done with it, but for now, no. If the rest of the DEs are hobbyist DEs, than that is fine for the rest of us. I do some serious work on a DE that is not Gnome and I am content with how it performs. Linux is about choice. That is the beauty of open source.

[Mez']

And all of this without any arguments, just "I don't like it so it has to be bad for everyone".

I'm never extrapolating my own little case to everyone. If I indulge myself in generalizing my criticism to some extent, it comes from a huge deal of concurring opinions I've read about everywhere.
Also, I always offer so many arguments that I feel like it's too much compared to the little or total void I face in the other direction. So, your assumption is just laughable.

[Jumbotron]

You know, after reading every single one of the posts here, I can not for the life of me understand why anyone hasn't seen the slow but increasingly convergence of look and feel between GNOME and the GUI of ChromeOS.

To wit....here are some images to make my point.

Below is the layout of the Virtual Desks as implemented in ChromeOS. Notice how the collection of the various desks you can choose is on the top and with the ChromeOS dock on the bottom.



Now....compare and contrast ChromeOS and the upcoming GNOME 40 with Virtual Desks......




Now to be sure, GNOME 40's dock is way more like MacOS while ChromeOS is more or less a center justified version of Windows Task Bar.

But now...have a look at ChromeOS's and GNOME's App Grid and tell me honestly you don't see more than a faint similarity. First is ChromeOS App Grid







Now for GNOME's App Grid


GNOME 3.38 Desktop Environment





So...we have a Top of Window Search Bar for each GUI. Check. We have a Grid of Apps that can be moved around and placed where we want them on both GUIs. Check. We also have on the right a series of "Dots" which denotes how many windows there are of Apps and which window we are on at any given time on both GUI's.....check, check, check.


Finally....have a gander at both ChromeOS greeter/log-in page. Once again...ChromeOS first.






Now the greeter/log-in screen from GNOME....






Let's be brutally honest. All non Apple GUIs have been influenced by MacOS to a certain degree. Some are MORE influenced than others. That would be GNOME and ChromeOS.

That said....it does seem like there is a LOT of "cross pollination" going on between the ChromeOS GUI/UX design team and the GNOME design teams. Not saying that's good or bad....just interesting. I happen to like both ChromeOS and GNOME. They are both my favorite by far of all computer GUI's across all systems. I actually got used to and become productive FASTER on ChromeOS BECAUSE I had been using GNOME on my Linux machines for the past 10 years....that's how similar they are. And the same thing happened with my kids, with one actually saying that he thought ChromeOS WAS GNOME but made for Chromebooks.

[duby229]

And yet the fact still remains that Gnome is the default GUI/DE for Linux. All the rest including KDE are just hobbyist projects of various degrees. KDE has the most active developers and some monetary backing by corporate Linux of the hobbyist projects, but because of two disastrous rollouts coming from KDE v3, namely KDE 4 and the colossal clusterfark that was KDE 5, KDE is a nearly universally recognized also ran as far as Linux GUIs go.

Between Red Hat and Canonical and the rest of the forks of either GTK or Gnome based GUI's, KDE and the rest of the hobbyist GUI's DE will be just that....hobbyists projects.

So drink up buttercup from the cup of bitter truth.

Truth is Gnome sucks ass... You can drink that...

[uid313]

Plus Dash-to-dock, Unite, Activities configurator, Frippery Move Clock, No topleft Hot Corner, Multi-monitor, User Themes, and it's just off the top of my head.

You can dsiable the top-left hot corner without any extension, GNOME Tweaks can do it.

[Mez']

You can dsiable the top-left hot corner without any extension, GNOME Tweaks can do it.

I'm very well aware. But it doesn't work with Activities Configurator (some kind of conflict from Gnome that reenables it constantly).
And I need that extension to change that dumb "Activities" button name. With No Topleft Hot Corner, there's no random re-enablement. It's reliable.

[Khrundel]

Plus Dash-to-dock, Unite, Activities configurator, Frippery Move Clock, No topleft Hot Corner, Multi-monitor, User Themes, and it's just off the top of my head.

This. You will never see a beauty of GNOME while you constantly crippling it with extensions. No need to bend it to be like another half-working windows 95 clone. If you want that clone, you can use KDE/MATE/etc. Windows 95 wasn't something perfect, no point in mimicking it. Start menu was just a technical compromise, there were a few UI controls which could overlap screen content without initiating repaint, popup menu was one of them and nobody wanted to create another because of RAM saving. That's why now we have ugly little popups instead of decent launchers. Remove Dash-to-dock. Windows has taskbar to quickly switch between windows. But that isn't fast enough, you still need a second monitor to do something serious. If you have to use a mouse, just move to hot corner and use more convenient overview. If you have to switch between a couple of windows and alt-tab isn't good enough, just place them on workspaces and switch between them with super+pg(up/dn). That is better than clicking on taskbar. You don't need files on desktop, that was a bad decision from the beginning. Now we have a better place to store favorite apps, and most time desktop is covered and you need to click on "show desktop" button, this makes desktop icons just a second, less convenient, launcher. Files on desktop feature looked like something familiar to paper-era office workers, and it maybe even looks useful while there are few of them, but later desktop becomes a mess but users still stores them there because of already developed habit.

So, try vanilla gnome. Without any extensions and with adwaita.

[Creak]

Is acting as a troll to create more clicks and discussion part of the "Honorary Editor" title?

It's not "part of" it's a condition to have it. Phoronix could really be better without all this trolling

[Mez']

This. You will never see a beauty of GNOME while you constantly crippling it with extensions. No need to bend it to be like another half-working windows 95 clone. If you want that clone, you can use KDE/MATE/etc. Windows 95 wasn't something perfect, no point in mimicking it. Start menu was just a technical compromise, there were a few UI controls which could overlap screen content without initiating repaint, popup menu was one of them and nobody wanted to create another because of RAM saving. That's why now we have ugly little popups instead of decent launchers. Remove Dash-to-dock. Windows has taskbar to quickly switch between windows. But that isn't fast enough, you still need a second monitor to do something serious. If you have to use a mouse, just move to hot corner and use more convenient overview. If you have to switch between a couple of windows and alt-tab isn't good enough, just place them on workspaces and switch between them with super+pg(up/dn). That is better than clicking on taskbar. You don't need files on desktop, that was a bad decision from the beginning. Now we have a better place to store favorite apps, and most time desktop is covered and you need to click on "show desktop" button, this makes desktop icons just a second, less convenient, launcher. Files on desktop feature looked like something familiar to paper-era office workers, and it maybe even looks useful while there are few of them, but later desktop becomes a mess but users still stores them there because of already developed habit.

So, try vanilla gnome. Without any extensions and with adwaita.

Huh, nope. Not a chance in the world. Vanilla Gnome gets too much in my way. I need to improve it. And I'm 2-3x faster with Dash-to-dock.
It has nothing to do with KDE/Mate/Windows 95 or even Gnome 2 (I started with it 15 years ago), since I'm more of a Unity fan, which is the same modern metaphor as Gnome 3 (but it was 10 years ahead of Gnome 3). Also, adwaita looks as old as Windows 95, so you're contradicting yourself a bit there.

[f0rmat]

Huh, nope. Not a chance in the world. Vanilla Gnome gets too much in my way. I need to improve it. And I'm 2-3x faster with Dash-to-dock.
It has nothing to do with KDE/Mate/Windows 95 or even Gnome 2 (I started with it 15 years ago), since I'm more of a Unity fan, which is the same modern metaphor as Gnome 3 (but it was 10 years ahead of Gnome 3). Also, adwaita looks as old as Windows 95, so you're contradicting yourself a bit there.

I agree. You have to do what works best for your workflow. I actually did like Unity...it was convenient for me, not ideal, but I could have worked with it. Beauty and workflow is in the eye of the beholder.