GNOME Human Interface Guidelines Being Updated For GTK4, Other Modern Features

[skeevy420]

Google does not have a desktop operating system, but they still do convergence. Their applications adapt from the phone to tablet form factors. You are completely wrong about Apple. They will probably be the first to succeed with convergence. Every year they lessen the differences between iOS and Mac OS. Now that they are both running on ARM it is inevitable. If you think they aren't doing convergence, then what is this? In reality developers are dragging their feet on porting because the emulation layer works so well, but eventually it will happen. Give it a few years and you will see "Mac" apps that just work on iOS or Mac OS and adapt their UI to the proper form factor seamlessly.

That really looks like someone took KDE, blended Breeze and Oxygen very well, and configured it to look like GNOME with an AppMenu plugin on the top bar. AppMenu top bars kick ass. While I've never been a fan of right side window management controls, it works on the macOS header bar because at least a user will never accidentally click an app function for a window management function. Window stuff over here, app stuff over there, typing stuff in the middle. Logical. Everything has it's own place. That really isn't a bad looking setup. Give it a dark theme and I could learn to like it.

Dammit. Shit. Why do I have to notice these things? I don't think it's been 24 hours but, well, macOS has a Jim Crow Header Bar. Window stuff goes in it's place, typing stuff goes in it's own place, app stuff goes in it's own place. It even promotes gentrification. As more App Stuff gets added it starts to gentrify the Typing Stuff area into an App Stuff area.

[cynical]

The problem with this kind of option is that in practice it simply boils down to replacing proper desktop software with inferior mobile apps that are also less uaer friendly, period. This whole idea of "convergence" has always been dead on arrival. Apple isn't doing it, Google isn't doing it, MS tried and had to eat the humble pie for the first time in its history, Canonical tried and nearly went bankrupt for it. Yet GNOME developers still believe that this is somehow the way to go.

Google does not have a desktop operating system, but they still do convergence. Their applications adapt from the phone to tablet form factors. You are completely wrong about Apple. They will probably be the first to succeed with convergence. Every year they lessen the differences between iOS and Mac OS. Now that they are both running on ARM it is inevitable. If you think they aren't doing convergence, then what is this? In reality developers are dragging their feet on porting because the emulation layer works so well, but eventually it will happen. Give it a few years and you will see "Mac" apps that just work on iOS or Mac OS and adapt their UI to the proper form factor seamlessly.

Even Bill Gates admits that he screwed up Windows mobile, and developers have been burned so badly they are sticking to traditional Windows APIs instead of trying to develop applications using the new ones.

Canonical didn't just dip out of convergence, they also stopped working on their own desktop. It's really sad because Linux would be far and away the leader here if Canonical was driving the direction of development, instead we'll just have to admire Apple's implementation for a few years before we get it right. Everyone is going in this direction though, and for a perfectly logical reason. Why the hell would you want to develop two distinct code bases, one for mobile and another for desktop (or three for a tablet, or four for in-car entertainment) when you could just make one code base that adapts depending on what environment it is running under? It's just common sense.

Not all applications are usable in mobile, but for those that are, tell me why you would want to write them two or three times?

[skeevy420]

Touché, I too have my faults. Sorry for coming on too strong.

It's all good. I know I can come off as stubborn and abrasive, especially on topics like these where we all get a bit passionate, so I try not to read too much into it when people get upset or defensive...not sure the best term for that I'm coming from the nicest place with best of intentions if it doesn't read that way.

[jacob]

Pffffff, really. You're funny. Look, it is easy. You work with tools you have. If it was only KDE on Linux. I would use that just like I had to use TWM on SCO, Open look on SUN, Iris on SGI, CDE on HP and Sun, KDE on SUSE. Gnome on Scientific Linux, MAC OS 7,8,9, Win 3.1, 95/95, Win 3.5/4. XP, 7 and 10. It is what it is. If I had to rant about every quirk I encountered in my life with desktops, I would never stop. You all got too much hung up on what you don't have instead of what you have.

I really don't care for the ranting, please continue. I just like to poke a little into those stupid frustration I see. Mostly I find it entertaining and funny. The best rants were the systemd rants and the mass migration to BSD and Slack. The whole 22 years of Gnome rants and the constant moving of goal posts is also quite entertaining. Please continue, I don't care. I'm not hung up on Gnome, I really like the 'not the typical' desktop thing and I have fun using it. That is why I use it as my desktop at home. For me, that means something because I used, and by that, I mean worked and developed on, many desktops professionally. So, no matter what you or whoever else say. For me, it is a really great product that I prefer above all that came before and have to use today. Except my Amiga 500 and later 4000. I mourned when I had to buy a Win95 desktop in 1997 when my 4000 died. I didn't care for using computers at home for a year. Luckily, then I discovered Linux, wiped Windows and installed Red Hat 7 with Gnome on it. I could develop on my desktop for the workstations at my workplace. That time was magical, and the fun was back and it never stopped.

Those systemd rants were priceless among other reasons because it was all about that notion of Init Freedom(tm). Then they were prophesying a mass migration to BSD because on BSD you, like, totally have Init Freedom, right?

[markus40]

Not apple to apple. Different in scale. For you, it's just you at your company. When outside the company, you still have choices. For us? Nope. We don't have choices when almost everyone targeting GNOME (well, at least if we want to build something ourselves). If you still confused about that: Imagine that you, whether at your company, your home, campuss, library, you must use KDE and didn't have choices (yes you do. If you build the tools yourself). How's that for you?

PS: read will cool head.

Pffffff, really. You're funny. Look, it is easy. You work with tools you have. If it was only KDE on Linux. I would use that just like I had to use TWM on SCO, Open look on SUN, Iris on SGI, CDE on HP and Sun, KDE on SUSE. Gnome on Scientific Linux, MAC OS 7,8,9, Win 3.1, 95/95, Win 3.5/4. XP, 7 and 10. It is what it is. If I had to rant about every quirk I encountered in my life with desktops, I would never stop. You all got too much hung up on what you don't have instead of what you have.

I really don't care for the ranting, please continue. I just like to poke a little into those stupid frustration I see. Mostly I find it entertaining and funny. The best rants were the systemd rants and the mass migration to BSD and Slack. The whole 22 years of Gnome rants and the constant moving of goal posts is also quite entertaining. Please continue, I don't care. I'm not hung up on Gnome, I really like the 'not the typical' desktop thing and I have fun using it. That is why I use it as my desktop at home. For me, that means something because I used, and by that, I mean worked and developed on, many desktops professionally. So, no matter what you or whoever else say. For me, it is a really great product that I prefer above all that came before and have to use today. Except my Amiga 500 and later 4000. I mourned when I had to buy a Win95 desktop in 1997 when my 4000 died. I didn't care for using computers at home for a year. Luckily, then I discovered Linux, wiped Windows and installed Red Hat 7 with Gnome on it. I could develop on my desktop for the workstations at my workplace. That time was magical, and the fun was back and it never stopped.

[jacob]

No one do it right doesn't mean it's wrong. Convergence is the future. The key is: Do it right. not-too-good-example of convergence? Something like twitter's bootstrap framework.

I'm all for convergence.

So what would good convergence actually look like? Why "is" it the future and why should we be all for it?

Bottom line: desktop and mobile have entirely different use cases and require radically different UI designs.

[delta_v]

GNOME is linux default DE. You ought to know about SteamOS, right? What DE they're targeting?

Oh, you got me here with this phrase enough to go pay my traffic lights dues to Google and register.
I do know about SteamOS, indeed.

SteamOS was not targeting Gnome. SteamOS targets Steam client's Big Picture mode as a DE.
Yes. Seriously.

It booted into Gnome in order for you to set up network connection to download Steam client proper, as only the stub was distributed with the distro, not the installed and capable version.
It was intended as a single-ish use, as after that (or after a timeout if you're unlucky) the system saved whatever state it is in to a "recovery" and changes the default DE to, yup, Steam client.

Technically, you can enter Gnome after you log in into Steam client, but it was launched under a different user, so there was no Steam library.

How did SteamOS support luxuries like, oh, I don't know, any non-DHCP or static internet access, keyboard layout switch or dual monitors?
It didn't.
What you had to do if a game doesn't launch? Well, the "official" advice was to drop to console and look into logs.

Technically I should've written "is", but as the last update (just bumping packages version up) was two years ago, it's pining for the fjords.

[jacob]

Not apple to apple. Different in scale. For you, it's just you at your company. When outside the company, you still have choices. For us? Nope. We don't have choices when almost everyone targeting GNOME (well, at least if we want to build something ourselves). If you still confused about that: Imagine that you, whether at your company, your home, campuss, library, you must use KDE and didn't have choices (yes you do. If you build the tools yourself). How's that for you?

PS: read will cool head.

One can blane RedHat for many things but the reality is is that they aren't the default in the Linux ecosystem because they have power, they have the power because they are the default. There is simply no other player in the market atm with the same developer support and the same involvement in so many essential open source projects. It's regrettable but so far that's what it is. On the subject of desktops, KDE botched its launch because Qt was then non-free, which meant that distros decided they didn't want it. Even today the open source future of Qt seems to be perpetually in question. Then the likes if XFCE&co. aren't really comparable to GNOME. They are OK-ish strictly as desktop user interfaces, but what is really needed is not just a UI, but also a consistent environment for develooers to build apps on. And only GNOME (and KDE) provide that.

[t.s.]

The problem with this kind of option is that in practice it simply boils down to replacing proper desktop software with inferior mobile apps that are also less uaer friendly, period. This whole idea of "convergence" has always been dead on arrival. Apple isn't doing it, Google isn't doing it, MS tried and had to eat the humble pie for the first time in its history, Canonical tried and nearly went bankrupt for it. Yet GNOME developers still believe that this is somehow the way to go.

No one do it right doesn't mean it's wrong. Convergence is the future. The key is: Do it right. not-too-good-example of convergence? Something like twitter's bootstrap framework.

I'm all for convergence.

[t.s.]

Yes? I was 'forced' to use KDE for my work for years. A microMRI from the German company Bruker. It used SUSE and KDE. KDE users wet dream at that time because SUSE was the top KDE implementer. For me, it was a 'crash prone' nightmare for more than 10 years. You don't see me ranting on every single little KDE topic. Luckily, I had more control on the choice of the rest of the Linux desktops we used.

Not apple to apple. Different in scale. For you, it's just you at your company. When outside the company, you still have choices. For us? Nope. We don't have choices when almost everyone targeting GNOME (well, at least if we want to build something ourselves). If you still confused about that: Imagine that you, whether at your company, your home, campuss, library, you must use KDE and didn't have choices (yes you do. If you build the tools yourself). How's that for you?

PS: read will cool head.