GNOME's New Human Interface Guidelines Now Official

[leech]

I don't think anyone seriously use that idiotic long mouse travel way of switching.
Same as nobody other than nerds use the keyboard to access the overview (and constantly move your hands around between scratching your butt and the keyboard, or from trackpad to keyboard for shortcuts).
There are only two ways for normal users to switch:
- touchpad gestures able to steer most actions so that it doesn't require moving your right hand except for typing
- A dock/panel

The rest is nerds talking nonsense as they are completely out of touch with reality (along with Gnome devs).

Apparently I'm a nerd that's out of touch with reality (as I even have a super ultrawide screen, and I still will flick up to the corner (that's what really high DPI mice are for)). Not sure why you're always scratching your butt, maybe you should see a doctor about that?

But also... trackpads are a necessary evil when you're without a mouse / touch screen. They're generally terrible. Seriously, on a laptop with keyboard shortcuts and a touch screen Gnome shell is awesome.

You know what I use the dock/panel for? launching the initial apps when I first start up my computer (as those are where I stash the 'favorites') Other than that, I basically hit the meta key, start typing what I want to launch, and hit enter. Granted, if you have a rash, you may have more difficulty typing anything.

[finalzone]

Showing the overview with all opened windows miniatures make sense if you've got 3-4 windows opened and you rarely switch between them. With tons of windows opened and switching very often it's just dumb. If there's lots of windows it's hard to distinguish then and tell which one you need. Alt-tab fixes that mostly, but how about mouse only and how about your muscle memory picking an app quickly every time from the same place?

That example is more about your own habits. Maybe you will need to readjust it by exploring a different way to manage your own desktop by taking advantage of dynamic workspaces. You can even configure the speed of the mouse for your needs.

GNOME wouldn't be that bad if there was an official dash-to-dock or dash-to-panel extension that doesn't break on every release.

Each respective maintainers of these extensions can follow the incoming changes done for the core and adjust in consequence. Breakage happens regardless. Let remind the key issues is active maintenance.

System tray? (yes, it's still relevant and lack of it makes some apps not being able to run in the background or you have a little tiny window with one icon in case of Wine).

System tray is depreciated long time ago in favour of notifications. Those applications need to update to properly support desktop environment backend i.e. dbus

Nope, you need to supplement it with extensions or even write your own. You want it to be clear and minimalistic by default? What's the problem with making some optional features? Does default KDE Plasma layout seem complex and bloated?

GNOME Shell is different from KDE Plasma (which aims to stay visually closer to Microsoft Windows environment in term of experience) in term of philosophy and approaches. Users willing to tweak GNOME Shell spent less times posting here by writing their extensions for their own uses and share via extensions website should they desire. Should they think these extensions are worth to bring to the core GNOME, they will need to provide a rationale and explain the benefits.

The desktop feels rock solid and stable experience until you install 10 different extensions so that it was more convenient to use.

The issue is mostly related to the extensions rather than the core which can conflict each other sometimes.

I'm not trying to rant GNOME, because it's not bad after all and they do many things better than KDE, but I'm not the first person trying to make a constructive point. It's frustrating that it's always ignored by the GNOME devs and fans.

The topic is about the updated GNOME Human Interface Guideline. Posting what you think is the constructive points above is simply out of place.

[sorab]

Likewise, a good name should avoid:

• Using trademarks or names of other projects (for example: GNOME Instant Video).
• Having a “G” prefix (for example: GMusic).
• Overly complicated names and/or acronyms.
• Puns and inside jokes.
• Non-standard punctuation or whitespace (for example: SuperWriter).
• Made-up words or word combinations.

So lets talk about "GNOME" = "GNU Network Object Model Environment"
It's certainly any acronym, its certainly overly complicated, it's having a "G" prefix, which stands for the name of another project, i.e. GNU/Linux.
I am pretty sure there is also a pun or joke behind it, we just don't know, because it is an inside joke.
Like any other proper name, it is actually a made-up word. I mean, what is a GNOME Shell? Seafood for little people?
Oh yey, it does have proper punctuation (well, at least as long we are talking English).

[fhek789]

GNOME Shell is different from KDE Plasma (which aims to stay visually closer to Microsoft Windows environment in term of experience) in term of philosophy and approaches. Users willing to tweak GNOME Shell spent less times posting here by writing their extensions for their own uses and share via extensions website should they desire. Should they think these extensions are worth to bring to the core GNOME, they will need to provide a rationale and explain the benefits.

KDE Plasma doesn't aims to stay visually closer to Microsoft Windows though

[Mez']

Apparently I'm a nerd that's out of touch with reality (as I even have a super ultrawide screen, and I still will flick up to the corner (that's what really high DPI mice are for)). Not sure why you're always scratching your butt, maybe you should see a doctor about that?

But also... trackpads are a necessary evil when you're without a mouse / touch screen. They're generally terrible. Seriously, on a laptop with keyboard shortcuts and a touch screen Gnome shell is awesome.

You know what I use the dock/panel for? launching the initial apps when I first start up my computer (as those are where I stash the 'favorites') Other than that, I basically hit the meta key, start typing what I want to launch, and hit enter. Granted, if you have a rash, you may have more difficulty typing anything.

Scratching my butt is a figure of speech to stress that normal users rest their left arm whenever they're not typing. It can support your chin/head, rest on your desktop, whatever. But if I look into an open space, if people are not typing, the keyboard is the last place I will find their left hand on (for the vast majority of right-handed). They're using the mouse or the trackpad almost exclusively for most things, and the moment they're done typing, they bring back their left hand to a more comfortable close to body position. This is the reality everywhere I've been (except in IT departments, hence the "nerds" reference).
Without trackpad gestures or a dock/panel, Gnome is just an environment for devs made by devs. And nothing else.

Also, I ditched my mouse for an external trackpad, since trackpad gestures can, almost without moving your right hand, steer most of your actions. A lot less arm/hand movements and spraining by extension.

[bple2137]

That example is more about your own habits. Maybe you will need to readjust it by exploring a different way to manage your own desktop by taking advantage of dynamic workspaces. You can even configure the speed of the mouse for your needs.

That doesn't change the fact that in order to choose different window when navigating with the pointer, you always need to see the overview (and the animation, which after a while is very annoying).

Each respective maintainers of these extensions can follow the incoming changes done for the core and adjust in consequence. Breakage happens regardless. Let remind the key issues is active maintenance.

Yeah right, because those are being made by paid developers who are responsible of tracking constantly moving API and updating it before every new release. That itself is weird considering how big of an abstraction layer is the whole engine with JS/CSS interface. Imagine web standards changing so quickly, that after installing new version of web browser after 3 months good portion of sites no longer render correctly.

System tray is depreciated long time ago in favour of notifications. Those applications need to update to properly support desktop environment backend i.e. dbus

As much as I understand the concept of replacing tray with notifications, it's more of a wish than reality. Also I don't get the attitude of demanding entire ecosystem to adjust to one DE's concepts.

GNOME Shell is different from KDE Plasma (which aims to stay visually closer to Microsoft Windows environment in term of experience) in term of philosophy and approaches.

KDE Plasma is not really about imitating MS Windows. It might look like that at first glance due to the default layout, but it's completely different from long time user's perspective. You can also say that Plasma is about copying MacOS when you see a layout with dock in the middle and application menu on top panel with KRunner instead of Spotlight. We can even look at it the other way around: GNOME is closer to Windows in terms of philosophy, giving a user only limited amount of customization abilities in favor of more polished features.

The topic is about the updated GNOME Human Interface Guideline. Posting what you think is the constructive points above is simply out of place.

I agree with that one, but for some reason it's constantly repeating topic whenever there's anything GNOME related. Besides, some of those issues are result of GNOME's "human interface guideline" if you think about it.

[Danny3]

But hey, you can move your window using the custom titlebar at least! Even when you grab it in a place where there's a buttons, a dropdowns or other element... Except for text entries - if you try to grab in a place of text entry, you focus the text entry (like the search bar in Lutris)

Also don't bother with advanced features like keeping a window on above or bellow or easily add window rules.
Inb4 what window rules? If it's not in GNOME it's unnecessary feature that overwhelms users!

Yes, I can move the window using the custom titlebar, it's a bit annoying that I have to waste a bit of time to watch carefully where there's free space.
I just tried and my assumptions were wrong, you can indeed drag it even if you click on a button, except the text entries like the search bar as you said.
Too bad that they made it so wide, like one has 10 000 games in the library and needs ti be very specific.

Thank for pointing out that my assumption was not correct!
I don't know why I didn't try it before.