GNOME 40 Released With Many Improvements

[linuxgeex]

In Gnome you can press Ctrl+Shift+e and you'll get an input prompt for emoji. Simply type in what you want, be it e.g. "smile" or ":-)", and then press Space and you'll get your input converted to an emoji. If at that point you want to see more choices or explore similar patterns, just press Space for a second time and you'll get exactly what you're asking for. There's also an equivalent widget for Unicode symbols with Ctrl+Shift+u.

That exists in Xfce4 as well, via the iBus applet. While it works, it's highly counter-intuitive, and if I'm being candid, it's fugly.

For years there's been the compose key to produce for example £ via tapping WIN followed by L and - to produce the combined character, or O C for ©, or T M for ™ etc. So it stands to reason that to access the emoji codepoints in a similarly intuitive way via the already well-defined and supported interface, then there should be compose key sequences for the emoji as well.

The iBus app is just an ugly example of NIH as far as I'm concerned. Ugly defined as popping a grey box with [e ] some random place on the screen with no obvious way to get rid of it, no obvious way to complete it, no help on the iBus widget, and none of the top 10 search results on Google even provide useful help. And if you do click the iBus icon - it pops a dozen stacked grey boxes on the screen 20px above the cursor with the chosen locale language name short form (ie "EN") in them which much each be clicked in turn to dismiss them, while providing no useful function whatsoever. And the iBus icon colour can't be set, so it fails to meet HIG guidelines since it can't be set to a visible colour. How it managed to make it into a release in its current form beggars belief.

For anyone configuring a distro's desktop to use the iBus app - provide some documentation for users so they can determine how to use it, and blacklist its icon in the notification area. It will work just fine without the icon, whereas the icon is nothing but a hazard to users.

[curfew]

You call it instantly? Open the same folder with Dolphin and see the absurd difference.

They both use FFMPEG for generating the thumbnails so there possibly cannot be a difference. Maybe you don't realize that both file managers also cache the thumbnails on the disk, so you might be comparing a cached folder view on Dolphin to uncached view on Nautilus.

[JackLilhammers]

It is not that I don't understand the frustration of missing things. I have that too when I'm not on Linux. I just don't feel it under Gnome.

Good for you!
For me it's kind of the opposite, I miss things on every platform and I deeply envy those like you
If I had the money I'd have 1 gaming rig with dual booting, 1 laptop 100% linux compatible with dual booting (or multi), 1 macbook m1 (air or pro), 1 lattepanda, a couple of SBC...
Unfortunately I'm still not paid enough to have that many machines to play with

[SaltWater]

I have tried the Fedora 34 Beta, and Gnome is better than ever,on my system is more responsible and very intuitive and really nice eye candy, BUT I CAN'T USE IT! It's faster but not faster than KDE, but what really makes not using is because it's like a beauty with no brains. I use my computer to work, and Gnome Search is very limited,barelly show a few files, and there's no way to sort the results or easily preview without destroying the search tag. But what makes me really upset is the fact that Gnome Calendar, or Evolution for that matter does not search entries more than 2 weeks forward making the calendar pretty useless, and the fact that the fancy notification calendar does not show html links also makes it pretty bad productivity, in KDE the calendar can show clickable htmls links that can open Zoom app on time for a meeting, etc etc

[markus40]

markus40
I'm not talking about every little detail.
The few things I've mentioned are not details and are not specific to KDE. Quite the contrary.
Every desktop has them, except Gnome.

Sorry, I was maybe a little to pedantic in my response to you. Your requests are very reasonable and, indeed they are almost universal.

All I can say is I used Gnome 1.x and Gnome 2.x from start to end, I used Gnome 3 from the beginning. I didn't need to adjust to no activity icons, the window handling and no desktop icons. I used plank under Xorg and switched to Wayland as soon as I found DashtoDock and switched to vertical layout a few years ago, also no adjustment it felt right. Now I ditch DashtoDock because of the new overview. I guess I just go with the flow and like it. Maybe because I'm used to adapting to lots of different desktops. I've a work MacBook, a work Lenovo laptop with Windows 10, I used to use many Unix desktops in the past. Openlook, CDE, Iris. Even under the command-line I have to adapt to the quirks of putty, terminal under macOS nowadays etc.

It is not that I don't understand the frustration of missing things. I have that too when I'm not on Linux. I just don't feel it under Gnome.

[JackLilhammers]

markus40

I'm not talking about every little detail.
The few things I've mentioned are not details and are not specific to Kde. Quite the contrary.
Every desktop has them, except Gnome.

[markus40]

I agree, but nobody is asking that from Gnome (or KDE).
Just a little more configurability out of the box, without having to install Tweaks and some extensions as the first thing.

That is the problem isn't. The little things for you are not the little things for me, my little things are not the little things for someone else. At the end we have little things sprouting up everywhere. If they are all included, we get the all singing and dancing desktop KDE is. Nothing wrong with that. But we already have the all singing and dancing KDE. Why do you want a second all singing and dancing KDE clone? However, I do like to see a stable API for extensions, but not enough to switch to anything else.

I don't think I have and Gnome is the default desktop of all major distributions.
If it's not meant for me, what am I supposed to use?
This attitude is not very welcoming, isn't it?

Well, Windows is the default and only option from Microsoft. MacOS is the default and only option for Apple hardware. I don't see them catering to every whim of their users.
Count yourself lucky you can pick and choose more than the default in Linux. Some distributions (SUSE) let you even choose before installing, others have something like spins. So, go and pick the one who take your requests seriously, by the way, which desktop are we talking about in this case?

Well, "always" is a bit of a strong word, but there could be a nice middle ground.
Not counting Mint, we can agree that Ubuntu is the go-to distribution for the average user.
Gnome should ship at the very least the same set of modifications made by Ubuntu:

Why? Maybe I don't like the Ubuntu additions and like my Gnome more vanilla which I can enhance myself. Something like Android on Samsung against Android on Nokia. I had two extensions I liked, DashtoDock and WorkspacetoDock. But since Gnome40 I like the new 'Overview' much better, they solve it for me. Really, the things you want are the standard Windows paradigma: Desktop Icons, panel, activities. I bet the double pane file browser is also one of them. Nothing wrong with that, but why do you want Gnome if almost everything else cater to your needs.

[Volta]

https://marble.kde.org

Yes, you're right. The same about Gnome Maps, but I was thinking about applications 'not invented here' (third party ones, not from KDE or Gnome).

[Volta]

I'd say that proprietary solutions count, for obvious reasons.
If we don't count proprietary solutions Linux runs on 99% of the desktops...

We're talking about desktop environments. I doubt Gnome or KDE will ship Google Earth etc. It's always good to have Open Source equivalents. Normally, I wouldn't use any proprietary application on my PC, but with flatpaks they're more accessible.

[JackLilhammers]

I don't fully agree. It is my (professional) experience that projects which try to encompass everything are becoming 'jack of all traits and master of none'.

I agree, but nobody is asking that from Gnome (or Kde).
Just a little more configurability out of the box, without having to install Tweaks and some extensions as the first thing.

Then you misunderstand their goals, there are other desktops better for you.

I don't think I have and Gnome is the default desktop of all major distributions.
If it's not meant for me, what am I supposed to use?
This attitude is not very welcoming, isn't it?

I'm actually agreeing, popular extensions should be studied to see how to cater to the users of it. I don't agree to copy them always one on one. For example, with Gnome40 I will ditch most of my extensions, and they solved it in a way I never thought of.

Well, "always" is a bit of a strong word, but there could be a nice middle ground.
Not counting Mint, we can agree that Ubuntu is the go-to distribution for the average user.
Gnome should ship at the very least the same set of modifications made by Ubuntu:

• Desktop icons. Actually DING, not the broken version shipped by Ubuntu
• System tray. They don't like the metaphor? Who cares, users do
• Window buttons
• Light-Dark switcher
• Set the position of the dock