Features To Look Forward To In GNOME 3.12

[TheBlackCat]

Q: How many features did Gnome remove?
A: Fewer than KDE.

Oh really? How many features did Gnome remove? How many did KDE remove? I want specific numbers or this is B.S.

Q: How many features did Gnome add?
A: A ton more than KDE.

Again, numbers or this is B.S.

[TheBlackCat]

It is a damn nice thing that GTK answers to Gnome, not to some commercial bean counters who cares more about blackberries than anything Free Linux. Gnome can decide to start using popovers and they can flesh out an API in a few months. KDE have to wait years and adapt to whatever some former Qt owners find good for business some time ago.

Nothing but lies and misrepresentation, as usual.

First, KDE gets their features merged into Qt and released in a matter of months also.

Second, KDE doesn't have to be in control of Qt to get things done. Qt is easily extendible. If KDE wants a new widget, they can just make it. If it isn't general purpose enough to be incorporated into Qt or is for some reason rejected, KDE can provide it on their own. KDE has always maintained its own special-purpose widgets and always will. And KDE is not the only group doing this, there are a lot of groups providing special-purpose add-on widgets for Qt (Qwt, for example), and in fact there is a community developing around such add-ons for Qt.

This is a limitation of GTK, not an advantage. One of the complaints you hear over and over from groups switching from GTK to Qt is that it is extremely difficult, convoluted, and poorly-documented for outsiders to make new or significantly modified widgets for GTK, while it is trivial in Qt. Whether the difficult in supporting custom widgets has forced Gnome and GTK closer together or whether Gnome and GTK being close has made them unconcerned with supporting custom widgets, the end result is that if you want something that isn't in GTK, your only viable option is to convince Gnome to implement it for you. For Qt, that is an option, but not a hard requirement.

[TheBlackCat]

Haha. I loved that one. GTK gives Gnome the opportunity to do design driven development and add niftfy features. Popovers happened in a couple of months. KDE can't do anything like that. Just look at the slooooow migration to Qt5 and the decoupled KF, SC and plasma.?

Right, and how many years did the gnome 3/gtk 3 transition take? You just show your dishonesty once again when you compare the addition of a single widget to not only the transition to a new toolkit version, but a total refactoring of pretty much all the libraries.

[Bucic]

The point behind Web? Firefox announced ads in new tabs, .

Bollocks.

hidpi support:
It's more of a workaround with the integer only scaling. If your display ppi falls in between you're screwed anyway. The text scaling accepts fractions though. There is still no mean for apps to know the user set / actual scaling / actual display ppi if you don't use the integer scaling.

[halo9en]

Cinnamon development is pretty much frozen after they lost the premium sponsors. The next three releases will be based on the same LTS. It is nice of Gnome they do real development so you can post in Gnome threads. Because future cinnamon talk will not bring anything new.

Cinnamon is actively maintained https://github.com/linuxmint/Cinnamon/commits/master and version 2 has several features not included in Gnome (the one I can't live without is the ability of changing or removing the various window effects).

I've had enough of the "changing for the sake of change" philosophy behind Gnome. With every single release it LOST more and more functionality, to the point that the GUI is now unusable unless you're using a tablet pc. And don't get me started about stability... the memory leak bugs have lasted for... months? years? can't remember.

[kigurai]

I've had enough of the "changing for the sake of change" philosophy behind Gnome. With every single release it LOST more and more functionality, to the point that the GUI is now unusable unless you're using a tablet pc. And don't get me started about stability... the memory leak bugs have lasted for... months? years? can't remember.

I've used Gnome shell on a daily basis, and I can't remember ever having stability issues (at least from 3.4 and onwards). Maybe your distribution is to blame?

[lakerssuperman]

Well I as I tried to explain again, it was not about popovrs being a feature. Anyway popovers are a feature. They add the ability to easily navigate menus on touch enabled screens. You should try it on a touch screen laptop when you get the chance.

Not sold. You can tell me that popovers clean up context menus and smaller UI elements and make them easier for touch, but I still don't see that as a feature, certainly not a feature for a desktop/laptop user. I've used Gnome Shell on my touchscreen Zenbook. I'm also not sold on the whole idea of touchscreen laptops/desktops. I never use touch on my Zenbook. I understand that Gnome is targeting this type of form factor, but I, like many others, think this is a bad move and it takes away from the desktop experience. Popovers might be nice for touch, but what is the actual percentage of users that were clamoring for better touch in Gnome Shell? I just don't see the demand and from reading several Gnome blogs, it seems popovers aren't even enabled unless touch is present so whether they are a feature or not, they aren't even available to the large number of users that don't have access to a touch device.

[RahulSundaram]

I'm also not sold on the whole idea of touchscreen laptops/desktops. I never use touch on my Zenbook. I understand that Gnome is targeting this type of form factor, but I, like many others, think this is a bad move and it takes away from the desktop experience. Popovers might be nice for touch, but what is the actual percentage of users that were clamoring for better touch in Gnome Shell? I just don't see the demand and from reading several Gnome blogs, it seems popovers aren't even enabled unless touch is present so whether they are a feature or not, they aren't even available to the large number of users that don't have access to a touch device.

I don't think popovers are a phenomal new GTK innovation but yeah it is a minor but nice feature to have. As to the general target, refer to

http://www.linux.com/news/software/applications/767678-gnome-os-projects-seed-gnome-312-and-beyond/

"Matthias: Our primary target is laptops and desktops"

You are wrong about the idea that popovers aren't enabled unless there is a touch screen. It is just a regular widget and there are tons of modern desktops and laptops being sold which are touch enabled. This along with high def screens are what a lot of people end up buying these days and since they already use touch screens on their mobile phones and tables, it is a natural way of working for them say for zooming into a picture or swiping off apps. I used to be pretty sceptical about this till I tried it out on a regular basis. Even if you are not using touch screens, the focus on them often ends up helping mouse and especially trackpad users since they have a larger surface target and it is easier to navigate even if the trackpad is a bit too sensitive or you are older person with less fine grained motor control.

[finalzone]

I understand that Gnome is targeting this type of form factor, but I, like many others, think this is a bad move and it takes away from the desktop experience.

Disagree because the desktop experience is still present but less distracting. It seems familiarity and habit from traditional desktops play factors on your preferences. I know engineers and software developers who daily Gnome Shell without problem because it improves their productivities.

[sarmad]

I understand that Gnome is targeting this type of form factor, but I, like many others, think this is a bad move and it takes away from the desktop experience I prefer.

Fixed.

Don't post your own opinion as a fact. I am a hard core desktop user and I found Gnome Shell to be the most suitable for me.