GNOME 41 Beta Released With "Calls" SIP/VoIP Support, Wayland Improvements

[nado]

Ewww, you are right, this really looks like it is going into a bad direction.
Now you can't even determine if that text is just a label, an action-button, a checkbox (gray backdrop), etc. Next step: they drop the down arrow for combo-boxes.
They also should make up their mind if they want to go the icon-only route or the text-only route or the mixed-between they sometimes use, it's inconsistent. Is there a way to choose between having text-only or icon-only?

And what's the meaning of a blue background (Scan (blue) <-> Open (not))?

And why does the "Cacnel" button have a background color?

Also, isn't everyone sick of blue buttons, switches, toggles and highlights? I just can't bear that blue anymore.

Then the border-radius of those corners makes adwaita irrelevant in itself for any decent use, it looks way too childish.

Finally, we already see the limit of that all-for-CSD-none-for-settigs strategy, the bar is already getting crammed to a point buttons and text are not set apart enough from the next to be spottable at first sight. Soon enough, you're going to spend time finding the buttons you're looking for, especially since they are not at the same place from an app to the next.

Whether Gnome devs like it or not, theming for Gnome is an absolute necessity.

Whenever there's a post relating to GNOME it seems people can't help themselves, they have to complain. We should start tagging these posts with #complaints maybe. I don't really understand... if these same users don't like a certain feature, then why not file a bug report or if that doesn't work, change it themselves? It's open source so there is nothing stopping them.

[reba]

Whenever there's a post relating to GNOME it seems people can't help themselves, they have to complain. We should start tagging these posts with #complaints maybe. I don't really understand... if these same users don't like a certain feature, then why not file a bug report or if that doesn't work, change it themselves? It's open source so there is nothing stopping them.

I am complaining from the sidelines as I don't use GNOME. Hewever I stil have an opinion about how their decisions are made and, because GNOME to some degree represents Linux as a whole, I feel affected eventhough I don't use it. We/I/you have an opinion about Windows, Microsoft and Apple, without using it, not?

Also GNOME devs have a... reputation... about not looking too fondly/ignoring/yelling about and at feedback from the userbase, shoving off work to interested people to do it for them and then rejecting their merge requests, etc.

[LinAGKar]

Imagine if it had support for RCS (the successor to SMS and MMS) too.

It looks to me like this is intended for just calls, and not text messages. Matrix support would be nice though.

[nado]

I am complaining from the sidelines as I don't use GNOME. Hewever I stil have an opinion about how their decisions are made and, because GNOME to some degree represents Linux as a whole, I feel affected eventhough I don't use it. We/I/you have an opinion about Windows, Microsoft and Apple, without using it, not?

Also GNOME devs have a... reputation... about not looking too fondly/ignoring/yelling about and at feedback from the userbase, shoving off work to interested people to do it for them and then rejecting their merge requests, etc.

It is good to voice your opinions, but giving an opinion without an alternative/solution seems kind of pointless. Imagine being a developer and all you hear are the same complaints and no suggestion on how to change/improve? I do not know any of these developers, so I can't really comment on how they are as people.

Imagine you are working for a company and that company has assigned you with improving or implementing a certain feature. So you implement this feauture and then people complain about it or want you to change it. As an employee who is paid for this task, you would be disobeying your employer if you were to listen to change this feature based on user feedback. Another thing is, you are using your time at work to implement this feauture and what time you have leftover is your spare time... so people who look at this from the outside may not take this into consideration either.

The other alternative is that you are a volunteer who decided to help on a feature that interests you and you receive complaints or feedback on what others want instead of your work. Not only is this insulting and potentially demoralizing, it is counterproductive as well. Perhaps if they had not volunteered for that feature, they might not have got involved in this project at all? I think that unless we have something to provide that is useful and productive, then we should avoid criticizing or complaining what others use their time on.

The only exception to this would be if we are the employer or someone who paid for a service to be performed.

Edit: This "reputation" may be perceived as being unhelpful, but you could also consider that they have limited time/funds to implement a feature. They may also have been contractually bound to implement a feature in a certain way - changing this based on feedback may be breach of contract. Then there is also the fact that they simply may disagree with you for idealogical or practictal reasons, which is something that is only human as well. If they were to cater to every single person and their opinions, they would never get anything done either.

[osw89]

such wow 3,5 years later

You should be thankful they didn't just ignore it for 17 years like a particular issue.

[lowlands]

GNOME Calls seems like a good step. Most of the current SIP clients are basically unusable, on most platforms. I end up using the BareSIP CLI. Having LTE/GSM calls (oFono) and SIP calls through the same interface would be an upgrade over both iOS and Android, on GNOME-based phones.

Yeah I like it too and this is the first time I heard about it. I was looking for a mature VoIP Linux GUI client with business-like features the other day and AFAICT there is only one: Zoiper Pro. A built-in VoIP client in GNOME with Zoiper's features would be pretty cool.

[lowlands]

Well it kind of seems to me like Gnome is trying to split up Evolution, but it's slow going. Geary for email, Calendar for... well Calendar.

But Evolution is still the only free email client that has the equivalent to Outlook features and will work with Exchange / Office365 (unless Kmail finally made that improvement, but I doubt it, email clients are not 'glorious'. Hell even Microsoft can't be bothered to not make Outlook the worse software I've ever used.)

The one thing that keeps me from using Evolution is: no support for client certficicate authentication. So Evolution contacts the server, the server requests a client certificate from Evolution, Evolution sends back it's client certificate, the server verifies Evolution's certificate and if all is ok then allows access to IMAP etc. Last time I tried, Geary also does not support it. This works fine in Thunderbird so I'll stick to that.

[lowlands]

Imagine if it had support for RCS (the successor to SMS and MMS) too.

Google has been pushing RCS for a while now and RCS, because Google, is an attempt to get some of that nice personal identifiable information that Whatsapp now collects by the zillions. So I'd rather it dies sooner than later. FWIW I don't know anyone who uses SMS or MMS these days. Matrix integration would be great though.

[uid313]

Google has been pushing RCS for a while now and RCS, because Google, is an attempt to get some of that nice personal identifiable information that Whatsapp now collects by the zillions. So I'd rather it dies sooner than later. FWIW I don't know anyone who uses SMS or MMS these days. Matrix integration would be great though.

But I was told that WhatsApp uses end-to-end encryption.

Lots of people use SMS and MMS these days, when people who use Apple iMessage send something to a non-Apple device it falls back to SMS and MMS.

Matrix is nice, but its more for nerds though. You can use the Element app for that.

[lowlands]

But I was told that WhatsApp uses end-to-end encryption.

Lots of people use SMS and MMS these days, when people who use Apple iMessage send something to a non-Apple device it falls back to SMS and MMS.

Matrix is nice, but its more for nerds though. You can use the Element app for that.

Facebook _says_ WhatsApp uses end-to-end encryption but it's facebook and AFAIK there is no proof they can't or don't read messages.

About SMS usage, I'll take your word for it since I don't know anyone who uses iMessage. It's all WhatsApp around me.

I don't think that Matrix is for nerds. In Europe a bunch of large government organizations have switched to Matrix so I guess they would disagree too.