GNOME Shell's Layout Being Improved For Smaller Displays

[emansom]

And you know this because you are working on the GNOME project?

If not, please stop spreading FUD.

The testing is very lackluster. Often things are broken on non-tested hardware and software configurations.

This doesn't singularly apply to GNOME, it applies to Mesa, the kernel, PipeWire, wireplumber. The whole modern linux desktop regularly breaks when they ship.

Most of this testing can and should be automated, and there are enough monetary resources to make this a thing: yet all those foundations don't allocate any money to the actual development, QA and testing.

At times it feels like this semi corporate backed open-source thing is lackluster on purpose.

This comes from a guy that has been using GNOME since '13 on latest stable on a rolling release distro on supported but a few gen behind hardware.

Another gripe I have with the modern linux desktop experience is that AMD Mesa developers regularly break their old gen hardware. Almost like it's planned obsolescence, and no one but a few are noticing. New features get introduced that replace the old, that happen to have a worse or software based implementation of the old.

Mesa developers are forcing me to buy RDNA3 to get a decent desktop experience.

[oleid]

The testing is very lackluster. Often things are broken on non-tested hardware and software configurations.

This doesn't singularly apply to GNOME, it applies to Mesa, the kernel, PipeWire, wireplumber. The whole modern linux desktop regularly breaks when they ship.

That's the point. People test there code in contrary to what was claimed here. Nevertheless there could be done so much more.
The OP made it look like it was only GNOME which is to blame. But it's the whole Linux desktop that lacks really good testing.

[JackLilhammers]

Sigh, and they still aren't doing anything about the fact that the workspace thumbnails are something like 50x20px boxes.

As much as I like GNOME, the horizontal layout change of GNOME ≥ 40 has been nothing but a disappointment.

In GNOME 3.x and earlier, the workspaces were in a vertical stack on the right-hand side of the screen. You could click and drag the window thumbnails to easily move them to other workspaces. You can still do that in GNOME 40+ except the workspaces and window thumbnails are now 1) hidden until you drag a window to the right onto the second workspace and 2) tiny, therefore quite difficult to use.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:GNOME-Shell-3.10.png

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/F..._overview).png

I totally agree with you.
The size of the desktop thumbnails is terribile in terms of both UI and UX.

Luckily, with the Just Perfection extension you can hide the search bar and have larger thumbnails

[skeevy420]

How about reducing padding? That's how you optimize for small displays (but not touchscreens).

Because that's not a universal solution. AFAICT, all the excess padding is to help it scale down to non-widescreen displays and small form factors. Left and Right sides of the display and can be pushed in and pulled out as necessary and all the elements, toolbars, etc basically stay the same because the only thing that changes is the amount of padding used.

All that padding makes a lot of sense from a design consistency standpoint, but that's also why an interface that's designed to scale between very small and very large looks like a scaled up phone or tablet interface when used on larger displays and devices. Because it is. It's designed to look correct on a phone and to then look the same as it scales up to different form factors.

GNOME needs to copy the Android playbook in regards to how the Shell changes based on screen size and resolution. Install a custom Android rom that lets you change the pixel density so y'all can alternate between Phone, Phablet, Tablet, Desktop, TV, and ??? UIs. Especially something from the Android 4 to 7 era when Google/Android was still experimenting with things. Basically, instead of padding adjustments, Android would also add and remove different elements based on how many pixels were available to draw. When the TopBar UI would lose space as elements became larger and space more scarce they'd add elements to their pull down drawer. GNOME could add or remove things from corner pop outs like a desktop chooser, app switchers, an always there search bar...

[hsci]

ThinkPad X220 (living in Europe) likes that 👍

It doesn't matter where a resolution or display is used?

[Rovano]

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bf/Ubuntu_20.10_GNOME_Activities_Menu_en.png

GNOME 46 almost the same horror on more than a full HD monitor.

No, thanks. Not like this!

Can the horror be forced to have full icon labels?
https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-shell/-/merge_requests/90
all requests closed
current https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome.../-/issues/5455

https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/1071/applications-overview-tooltip/

https://bluesabre.org/projects/menulibre

[Rovano]

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...es_Menu_en.png

GNOME 46 almost the same horror on more than a full HD monitor.

No, thanks. Not like this!

Can the horror be forced to have full icon labels?
https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-shell/-/merge_requests/90
all requests closed
current status https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome.../-/issues/5455

reasons:

https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/1071/applications-overview-tooltip/

https://bluesabre.org/projects/menulibre

[krzyzowiec]

Mesa developers are forcing me to buy RDNA3 to get a decent desktop experience.

News to me. I'm using RDNA2 (RX 6800) and my experience is perfect. I literally have zero issues.

[bple2137]

Writing this article was probably more effort than the allow-icon-size-change it is about.

This is GNOME project you are talking about, don’t be so sure. Remember how they couldn’t fix obvious cursor stuttering issue for 9 years? Oh, or the file picker thumbnails that were impossible to achieve up until recently and it was missing feature since the very beginning of the project? Or how about that problem with dnd not working between File-roller and Nautilus because it’s specific to X11?

As trivial as such issues might sound like, GNOME is pretty old, conservative and it doesn’t want to change much. They’d much rather tell their users that they shouldn’t need those and to adapt better workflow.

[emansom]

News to me. I'm using RDNA2 (RX 6800) and my experience is perfect. I literally have zero issues.

Try Polaris the past two years.