Re: The good, the bad, the insane
On 05/23/2011 06:47 PM, Allan E. Registos(x-mail) wrote: On Monday, 23 May, 2011 10:13 PM, Ryan Peters wrote: Before I say anything, let me state that I am not a developer or designer of this project. From what I've read *from* the designers, though, the decision was made for consistency's sake, not necessarily saving energy. The menu has the same function that the power button and closing the window list do: suspending. Shutting down, when you think about it, is something that you rarely have to do (some people don't shut down their desktops for long periods of time, while others only shut them down once or twice per day). Compared to navigating a program's GUI, switching workspaces/windows, and launching applications, this is something that is rarely done, so, for the sake of consistency, it would make sense to optimize towards a behavior that, for most users, would be preferable when walking away (suspending). The preferred way to shut down, which indicates that you're done using the computer, is to log out first and use GDM (which takes a few more seconds, but I can't think of a situation where you have to shut down a computer faster that that). Pressing the alt-button shows the Power Off button, logging out so that you can shutdown requires more work and delay especially after work where a quick shutdown is badly needed. That design decision again was discussed in length and that is invalid, it works obviously to the designer's laptops while the rest of the desktop world are suffering. When was this made invalid; are there plans to reverse the decision? I haven't read of this. Or, by invalid, do you mean we would like it the other way? I'm not saying you're wrong, I only want to clarify, as I haven't read anything about the decision being reversed. Also, I use a desktop, and I can't see how holding the Alt key for a second or logging out is really such a big deal. It's unnecessary, sure, but it isn't exactly the end of the world as I hear so many people saying. It reminds me of the decision to not use minimize/maximize buttons by default; you can still maximize other ways, and it makes the desktop feel more consistent and minimal by default. How much harder is it to press the Alt key and click? I don't mean to sound rude, and I'm sorry if I come across as that, but it really is an incredibly small regression if you think about it, relative to some other problems like over-crowded settings dialogs not being visible on small screens. Even yelp, the GNOME 3 help program, tells users how to shut down (with the Alt key as well as the preferred method), so the new behavior is just as discoverable as any other keyboard shortcut. ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list
Re: The good, the bad, the insane
Hi Martin, On 05/23/2011 06:05 AM, Martin Häsler wrote: Hi , After having followed this list for quite some time, I now feel compelled to weigh in. ... The insane: Suspend/Shutdown: I think this is the first design decision ever made in any desktop which made me angry. Leaving aside, that suspend - resume doesn't work with many laptops and especially desktop PC's, I simply cannot understand the thought process behind this decision. There was no need to change the old behaviour, and to say making Suspend default, because it would save energy, is so blatantly wrong, I'm at a loss for words. That a machine uses less energy when turned off should be obvious. Please go back to the old behaviour and make a lot of users happy. (especially us treehugging Germans :) ) Before I say anything, let me state that I am not a developer or designer of this project. From what I've read *from* the designers, though, the decision was made for consistency's sake, not necessarily saving energy. The menu has the same function that the power button and closing the window list do: suspending. Shutting down, when you think about it, is something that you rarely have to do (some people don't shut down their desktops for long periods of time, while others only shut them down once or twice per day). Compared to navigating a program's GUI, switching workspaces/windows, and launching applications, this is something that is rarely done, so, for the sake of consistency, it would make sense to optimize towards a behavior that, for most users, would be preferable when walking away (suspending). The preferred way to shut down, which indicates that you're done using the computer, is to log out first and use GDM (which takes a few more seconds, but I can't think of a situation where you have to shut down a computer faster that that). Also, GNOME 3 is supposed to have hardware integration; the Suspend option should only be shown if your system is capable of doing it (for me right now it's a false positive, unfortunately). If your system is not capable of suspending properly and it still shows the suspend option, I would report it as a bug with a list of the hardware you're using. PS: Look on the bright side: if suspending is the default and GNOME 3 gets more popular, those suspend-related bugs would have more pressure to be fixed ;). In the meantime, if the current setup is not desirable for you, you can install the alternative-status-menu extension. It adds a permanent Power Off button to the menu under Suspend.The extension should be available in the repositories of the distribution you're using (except maybe Ubuntu, but I am not sure), and if it's not, you can install it from the instructions from this webpage: http://live.gnome.org/GnomeShell/Extensions ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list
Re: The good, the bad, the insane
On 05/23/2011 09:52 AM, Martin Häsler wrote: On 05/23/11 15:13, Ryan Peters wrote: Hi Martin, On 05/23/2011 06:05 AM, Martin Häsler wrote: Hi , After having followed this list for quite some time, I now feel compelled to weigh in. ... The insane: Suspend/Shutdown: I think this is the first design decision ever made in any desktop which made me angry. Leaving aside, that suspend - resume doesn't work with many laptops and especially desktop PC's, I simply cannot understand the thought process behind this decision. There was no need to change the old behaviour, and to say making Suspend default, because it would save energy, is so blatantly wrong, I'm at a loss for words. That a machine uses less energy when turned off should be obvious. Please go back to the old behaviour and make a lot of users happy. (especially us treehugging Germans :) ) Before I say anything, let me state that I am not a developer or designer of this project. From what I've read *from* the designers, though, the decision was made for consistency's sake, not necessarily saving energy. The menu has the same function that the power button and closing the window list do: suspending. Shutting down, when you think about it, is something that you rarely have to do (some people don't shut down their desktops for long periods of time, while others only shut them down once or twice per day). Compared to navigating a program's GUI, switching workspaces/windows, and launching applications, this is something that is rarely done, so, for the sake of consistency, it would make sense to optimize towards a behavior that, for most users, would be preferable when walking away (suspending). The preferred way to shut down, which indicates that you're done using the computer, is to log out first and use GDM (which takes a few more seconds, but I can't think of a situation where you have to shut down a computer faster that that). Sorry, but you got that wrong. AFAIK the behaviour of the Power button was changed to default to suspend to be consistent with the menu choice. Pressing the Power button used to show the Power Off / Cancel dialog. Also, please note that its called Power button, not suspend button. I have to be honest: I like that behavior a little more than suspending. Giving us a menu like that would be nice and unassuming, while still being simple. Also, I wasn't wrong: what I meant was that the menu is consistent with the default GNOME 3 behaviors. Never did I say that the power button always did that (I wish it did, though). Oh, and I made a typo: by closing the window list, I meant to say, closing the laptop lid. Pardon my mistake. ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list
Re: We want task bar back. Pretty please.
On 05/21/2011 12:42 PM, Tim Murphy wrote: On 19 May 2011 05:01, Ryan Peters slosh...@sbcglobal.net mailto:slosh...@sbcglobal.net wrote: I'm sure that the development and design team would love to hear some specific examples of how GNOME 3 is a regression. I've heard a few before; launching several applications in succession, for example, is slower in GNOME 3 than in GNOME 2 with panel launchers, though this is overcome with an extension or simply launching the applications on startup. Another regression that I can think of off the top of my head is how the file manager/recent documents list aren't quite as integrated as GNOME 2 was, though these are things that are being worked on. The reason it seems like so many complaints fall on deaf ears is that they have already been discussed and the users making the complaints and suggestions can't provide concrete examples of why their suggestions are valid. As I've said, I've heard some good suggestions. The most popular complaints, though, are invalid, baseless, and without examples, as has been proven to death in this mailing list many times over. Apparently they don't listen and repeat robotically, use a hotkey or you aren't giving it a chance. You have heard ample complaints but brush off every one of them. why bother to discuss? I'm only motivated to reply to this because I want to show how utterly resistant you are. ...I'm sorry, but who's being robotic here? I've given examples of valid regressions and bugs (I believe). The devs/designers listen to every bug and regression report that they can find time for, and there are several things that will be fixed for 3.2. The reason we, as you say, brush off every one of them is because the most popular questions, concerns and suggestions have been discussed to the end of the world and back. We know for certain after many, many discussions that GNOME 3 is staying mostly the same. As I've said many times before, the popularity of a complaint *does not* make it any more or less valid, and there is no definite correlation; basic logic. Right is right if nobody is right, wrong is wrong if everybody is wrong, as said by Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen. I'm not saying that there's one true way to use the desktop, but I am saying that some things are more efficient and better than other things and that is a fact. I admit that was a bad analogy (I should have thought of a more solid one). Bicycles are cheaper than motorcycles and are used for exercise, while motorcycles are used for quickly moving around. The difference here is that GNOME 3 and GNOME 2 are meant to do the same thing, which is not the case with this analogy, so it's a bad one as I said, and I apologize. GNOME 3 aims to be better than GNOME 2 at the same job (and in many areas it already is), so a what's good for you might not be good for me argument isn't really appropriate here. No it was a good analogy because it absolutely indicates the kind of assumption that there UIs can be ranked on some single axis in order of superiority and that all others are wrong to complain that what they used is blown to bits or degraded in usefulness or accessibility by a change that seeks other tradeoffs. If you don't want complaints then it's best to stick to your branding. Create a new brand for a new thing and don't disenfranchise the people who liked and use the tradeoff balance that they have got. Prove your idea is better by convincing people and seeing them choose it. I highly suggest you read the reply by Matthew Planchard (apparently titled Re: gnome-shell-list Digest, Vol 31, Issue 89 by mistake, it seems). He gives a much better analogy than mine. Also, does Apple still support the OS9 interface? If a lot of users of Apple software, when switching from OS9 to OSX, asked over and over for the desktop to behave the old way, should Apple have to listen to them? Of course not. For there to be innovation, stability and consistency in GNOME, we have to make decisions like, is this really necessary?, or is there a better way we can do this?. What you're describing leads to preference overload: including many useless and inefficient options and increasing the probability of bugs. For GNOME to move forward, we have to ditch the old way of using the desktop (though it, as of now, is not completely ditched). You can't run forward while staying in the same place. There may be an answer to every query and it could possibly even be an answer that would satisfy the people who are complaining but even their invalid complaints are telling you that something is not right. And that something is that they often fail to provide evidence of a regression, and many (but not all) complaints boil down to I want the old UI back because I'm used to it. That is to say, they are forced them to re-learn
Re: We want task bar back. Pretty please.
On 05/18/2011 08:00 PM, Allan E. Registos(x-mail) wrote: On Thursday, 19 May, 2011 03:54 AM, Gerald Henriksen wrote: Also, the critics saying that GNOME Shell is one size fits all must have never looked at the extensions or third-party programs yet. There are already places menus, drive menus, alternative status menus, docks, launchers on the panel, an applications menu, removing the accessibility icon, launching applications on specific workspaces... the possibilities, like with Firefox's Add-on system, are nearly infinite. If we really we do need stuff like this rather than the default, some must become an official release from GNOME Shell. Not third party for the sake of end users and stability of the DE. I never said extensions were needed; sorry if it came across that way. What I meant to say is that, if GNOME Shell feels incomplete for you, you can extend it with extensions. The only extension that I'm currently using right now is the places menu (and I don't even use it, so I might remove it). I'm very content with how GNOME 3 works as-is, and the only thing I've used GNOME Tweak Tool for was changing my GTK3, Mutter, and icon themes. ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list
Re: We want task bar back. Pretty please.
On 05/18/2011 02:54 PM, Gerald Henriksen wrote: On Tue, 17 May 2011 09:40:09 -0500, you wrote: Because your blog won't let me directly comment for some reason (maybe it's an add-on), I'm responding here: I'm very glad that you gave GNOME 3 a chance! It's a well-known fact around here that comments like there's no taskbar, or you need to click a lot, or there's no minimize/maximize buttons, or even the ever-popular If I wanted to use a smartphone interface, I'd use a smartphone show that the writer of those comments has given little-to-no effort whatsoever to enjoy GNOME 3. A yes, the semi-official standard Gnome 3 response that if you don't like Gnome 3 its because you haven't given it a chance. Rather arrogant really. You're leaving out a *gigantic* part of what I said: there are many valid complaints. For example, there's a bug report I read where some settings dialogs were constructed in a way that, when used with the default GNOME 3 theme (which has a lot of padding), they are completely unusable on smaller screens because they extend beyond the limits of the screen. Another valid complaint is lack of proper VPN support (if I remember correctly). These are all valid complaints. Complaining about the lack of a feature that isn't even necessary (minimization) or complaining about having to move the mouse to the left instead up upwards (as in why are there no icons on the panel; it's just as fast to tap the windows key and click an app on the dash), though, are invalid complaints that have been discussed to death and back again after many, many discussions. Not every complaint is valid; sometimes bugs, regressions, or feature requests are not valid at all, or could at least be looked at a different way. Say, for example, you developed an IDE. You just added a feature to the latest stable release of it to automatically insert closing parentheses, quotes and brackets when it would be convenient to do so. For some users, this is great, but for others, it interferes with their habits. The latter group asks for this new feature to be a preference. You could do that, but that preference would make the IDE harder to debug in the long run and make it more complex than necessary to use. An alternative that would please both groups of users would be to cancel out the closing parentheses/quotes/brackets when a user manually types them in. GNOME 3, instead of simply caving in and adding preferences left and right, tries to think outside of the box like this. I'm not saying it's perfect, but you can see how it's better. Also, the critics saying that GNOME Shell is one size fits all must have never looked at the extensions or third-party programs yet. There are already places menus, drive menus, alternative status menus, docks, launchers on the panel, an applications menu, removing the accessibility icon, launching applications on specific workspaces... the possibilities, like with Firefox's Add-on system, are nearly infinite. How very damning, Gnome 3 hasn't even been released to the masses (no major distro has released with it yet) and already we have multiple attempts to fix the UI. Guess that kind of throws out the Gnome philosophy of taking the time to do it right instead of quick, messy hacks. Arch Linux does, what I'm currently using, and it works great. I'm not sure if you could consider it a major distro, but I think it's reasonably popular to be considered major. The extensions aren't attempts to fix the UI, but rather exercises in extending the interface. There are legit reasons to want launchers on the panel, for example (launching several applications in sequence), or implementing a devices/places menu (something that the Shell team didn't have a chance to work on, as they were busy with making Shell stable). GNOME does try to do things right; they don't advocate quick, messy hacks at all. In fact, extensions and theming the Shell aren't officially supported at all; they're bound to break with each major release as they haven't settled on a standard, reasonably frozen structure yet. ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list
Re: We want task bar back. Pretty please.
On 05/18/2011 09:47 PM, Tim Murphy wrote: On 17 May 2011 20:55, Ryan Peters slosh...@sbcglobal.net mailto:slosh...@sbcglobal.net wrote: I've had to acclimatise to all sorts of horrible interfaces after using better ones e.g. to Windows after Linux and you can get used to almost anything. I can even get to the point where it's difficult to get back into the thing you prefer because you have hardwired all the Windows crap ways of doing things. Is that all there is to say about it ? This is a huge reason why so many people dislike GNOME 3. Instead of getting used to how it works, they complain that it's not exactly how they're used to using it. Many people have approached it with an open mind and, for the most part, enjoy it very much. If we enjoy it, then GNOME Shell has to be at least somewhat good, yes? Just because you do not see it as so does not make it bad. You miss my point. I'm saying that if it takes a long time to get used to something and to accept its warts it then it's no better than e.g. Windows. As I said, it took a very short time for me, my family, and several other users. Nowhere is it set in stone that GNOME 3 takes a fortnight to learn how to use. The article never said that it took him a fortnight to get used to it; the article *did* say, however, that he had been using GNOME 3 for a fortnight and got used to it within that time. It can take minutes to days to get used to GNOME 3, and as I said, your mileage may vary. It's not as large of a change as many people suggest, really. If you have to keep telling people they are wrong and you are right for weeks then you have failed to make something that is obviously any good. You're assuming that every one of their complaints is valid. In another post in this thread, I described the difference between a valid and invalid complaint. A good majority of the complaints boil down to the desktop isn't exactly how I'm used to using it. You can still do everything you could do in GNOME 2 (almost), and for a lot of users, it's faster. It takes a while to get used to, not because it was designed like that, but because the standard way of using the desktop is stuck in many users' minds and it takes some time, whether it's a few minutes to a few days, to adjust. This is how it always is when switching to something new; this isn't GNOME 3-specific. It would be like me trying to give you a lecture on why you ought to like Atonal music and that's it's only because you listen to so much ordinary music that you don't like it. Perhaps I should explain to you why it's wrong to not like spinach? Food is a valid preference. You don't choose what foods you like (though I admit some are an acquired taste). You do choose how you use the desktop, however. Saying that some preferences are analogous to food preferences is essentially saying that we were born to use a desktop a certain way, which is rather unscientific. Wanting an omnipresent window list (one of the popular complaints) when that functionality has been improved upon by GNOME 3 in many ways (overview, Alt+Tab/Alt+[above tab], dash, etc.), though, is not a valid preference because it shows that the user is still attached to the way things used to be done. A window list is completely unnecessary, and any flaws in the current design that make a window list seem better should be fixed (assuming that there are flaws). Does Windows have new releases every six months? Is Windows a rolling release? On the most popular GNU/Linux operating systems, changes come very quickly. On Mac or Windows, changes are incremental and major updates are considered separate from the older software. This is how GNOME 3 wants to be treated; not as an incremental update that's forced upon the users like you suggest, but as a completely new desktop, and it must be seen as that or else a user's first impression will be sub-optimal. That would be cool if there was actually a choice but people who want to keep their kernels and applications and compilers current are forced to take the gnome-shell or switch to XFCE. Fallback mode is always there, though it's less than optimal since you have to configure it with dconf-/gconf-editor. GNOME 3 had to make the jump to innovate eventually, and it's better sooner than later. GNOME 2 had a long life and many parts of it became hard to maintain and buggy. GNOME 3 fixes that by having a fresher design. Concepts are one thing and daily use is another. It's rare to actually come across something that is such an improvement that it's worth a lot of upheaval but here are a couple of examples of instant wins: ... I hope that the shell will become like that and I don't see why it can't but it doesn't feel like those other things at the moment to me personally. It just feels like a change to a different set of tradeoffs which
Re: We want task bar back. Pretty please.
On 05/17/2011 08:18 AM, Adam Tauno Williams wrote: On Thu, 2011-05-05 at 13:55 -0400, Adam Tauno Williams wrote: On Thu, 2011-05-05 at 10:48 -0700, Micah Carrick wrote: ... It gives the impression the the core team has not answered (which of course is not the case) or does not care about what *we* think (we being the existing user-base and power users). Doesn't give me that impression at all. Decisions were discussed, and made. The point I am making is that while this list has answered some of these same questions and complaints over and over and over--the unanswered posts and blogs seem to drown out the answers. And they always always will. Nature of the beast. This weekend I intend to spend some time writing a very positive BLOG post about GNOME3. A bit late, but I finally got around to it - http://www.whitemiceconsulting.com/2011/05/fortnight-with-gnome3.html My feedback after using GNOME3 full time for 14 days. ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list Because your blog won't let me directly comment for some reason (maybe it's an add-on), I'm responding here: I'm very glad that you gave GNOME 3 a chance! It's a well-known fact around here that comments like there's no taskbar, or you need to click a lot, or there's no minimize/maximize buttons, or even the ever-popular If I wanted to use a smartphone interface, I'd use a smartphone show that the writer of those comments has given little-to-no effort whatsoever to enjoy GNOME 3. About minimize/maximize, the reason minimize was removed was due to it being unnecessary; workspaces automatically create themselves, there are no desktop icons (that could be done better by a favorites list/recent documents list/zeitgeist), and accessing minimized windows in GNOME Shell is rather clunky. As for maximize, there's already two other ways to do it (double-clicking and dragging to the top), which are easier to do due to a lack of specific aiming (especially on touch screens, where a couple pixels' difference could mean closing your window and maximizing it). Work is being done on a hypothetical minimization replacement that better fits the Shell design, such as moving to another workspace with a button, but we probably won't see that until, at the very least, 3.4 (from what I can tell). Also, the critics saying that GNOME Shell is one size fits all must have never looked at the extensions or third-party programs yet. There are already places menus, drive menus, alternative status menus, docks, launchers on the panel, an applications menu, removing the accessibility icon, launching applications on specific workspaces... the possibilities, like with Firefox's Add-on system, are nearly infinite. However, the problem is keeping compatibility between releases, which I don't believe is a current goal due to the ever-changing nature of the project. It's possible for this to happen eventually, though. I apologize if this response is rather long-winded. I'm very glad you've given GNOME 3 a chance instead of reviving this annoying thread (and I'm very thankful for that :P). - Ryan Peters ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list
Re: We want task bar back. Pretty please.
First of all, I'd like to ask you to respond to the mailing list please. Add gnome-shell-list@gnome.org to the list of recipients of your emails so all of us, not just me, can get them. This is the second time you've done this so far, so I thought I'd let you know. On 05/17/2011 10:46 AM, Tim Murphy wrote: Because your blog won't let me directly comment for some reason (maybe it's an add-on), I'm responding here: I'm very glad that you gave GNOME 3 a chance! It's a well-known fact around here that comments like there's no taskbar, or you need to click a lot, or there's no minimize/maximize buttons, or even the ever-popular If I wanted to use a smartphone interface, I'd use a smartphone show that the writer of those comments has given little-to-no effort whatsoever to enjoy GNOME 3. I dispute the fact part of that claim. I also think that given the level of trouble required to acclimatise to Gnome Shell, is it really all that great? Your mileage may vary. As I said earlier on the mailing list (not sure which thread), it took less than five minutes to explain the concept to my family, all of which immediately picked up the concept (and my family is 5 people besides myself, ranging from 9 to 42). I've had to acclimatise to all sorts of horrible interfaces after using better ones e.g. to Windows after Linux and you can get used to almost anything. I can even get to the point where it's difficult to get back into the thing you prefer because you have hardwired all the Windows crap ways of doing things. Is that all there is to say about it ? This is a huge reason why so many people dislike GNOME 3. Instead of getting used to how it works, they complain that it's not exactly how they're used to using it. Many people have approached it with an open mind and, for the most part, enjoy it very much. If we enjoy it, then GNOME Shell has to be at least somewhat good, yes? Just because you do not see it as so does not make it bad. Imagine trying to sell people a product that took 14 days to like? I think that's really part of the issue. People are not encountering gnome shell because they want it but because someone has put it there like a hump in the road and your alternative is to take the dirt track diversion after you read the faq that tells you how to unpick the lock on the gate. Does Windows have new releases every six months? Is Windows a rolling release? On the most popular GNU/Linux operating systems, changes come very quickly. On Mac or Windows, changes are incremental and major updates are considered separate from the older software. This is how GNOME 3 wants to be treated; not as an incremental update that's forced upon the users like you suggest, but as a completely new desktop, and it must be seen as that or else a user's first impression will be sub-optimal. Also, let me give you an analogy: say that GNOME 2 is a bicycle and GNOME 3 is a motorbike. Naturally, it still does the same things, but it does them in a different way that requires some re-learning. For some it might be a short period of time, for others, a long period of time. The requirement of fuel could be considered analogous to the hardware acceleration requirement; some people cannot afford it, but it's necessary for the design (and arguably, in the case of the motorbike, the addition of fuel and an engine is much nicer than having to pedal yourself). Arguably, the motorbike would take a bit of getting used to, and it doesn't have some advantages of a bike (faster start-up, easier customization, etc), but it gets you to your destination faster and much more elegantly than a bike does. It's ugly to read the putdowns on this list - telling people that what they think is wrong and trying to put the onus on them to like your software rather than the other way around. We wouldn't do that *if they weren't wrong*. You have the false assumption that every complaint a user has is valid. Some things, like, where is the taskbar? are not considered regressions because GNOME 3 replaces it with a dock, Expose-style overview, and a greatly improved Alt+Tab mechanism. It is simply unnecessary. Also, a good majority of these complaints about regressions have no good examples. Every once in a while I do read a good example of a regression and I agree that it needs to be fixed, but most of the complaints are the most immature things. Expecting GNOME 3 to be like GNOME 2 is like expecting a roller coaster to be like a tricycle. It's a completely different beast and requires re-thinking the way you use the desktop. And no, this is not a bad thing, and in most cases takes much, much less time than 14 days. How long would it take to explain how to use Windows to somebody that has never used a computer? How about GNOME 3? The argument you have, if I'm reading this correctly, is essentially we shouldn't have to re-learn how to use the desktop. Why
Re: Usability studies
On 05/12/2011 09:19 AM, Ryan Peters wrote: Also, I read a post on Planet GNOME a while ago that said how GNOME 2 solved some problems that the GNOME 2 applications menu had on low-precision input devices, which can be read here: Ah! Forgive me for not including the link, my mistake! I cannot find it and wanted to insert it after I found it, but my Firefox history isn't helping. Could somebody find the article for me who regularly reads Planet GNOME? ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list
Re: Usability studies
On 05/12/2011 09:28 AM, Ryan Peters wrote: On 05/12/2011 09:19 AM, Ryan Peters wrote: Also, I read a post on Planet GNOME a while ago that said how GNOME 2 solved some problems that the GNOME 2 applications menu had on low-precision input devices, which can be read here: Ah! Forgive me for not including the link, my mistake! I cannot find it and wanted to insert it after I found it, but my Firefox history isn't helping. Could somebody find the article for me who regularly reads Planet GNOME? ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list Nevermind, I found it: https://afaikblog.wordpress.com/2011/05/02/on-pointer-control/ ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list
Re: Usability studies
On 05/12/2011 09:19 AM, Ryan Peters wrote: Also, I read a post on Planet GNOME a while ago that said how GNOME 2 solved some problems that the GNOME 2 applications menu had on low-precision input devices, which can be read here: And I found another error. I meant how GNOME 3 solved, not GNOME 2. I really should read my emails over before I send them... My apologies. ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list
Re: Usability studies
On 05/12/2011 09:53 AM, Tim Murphy wrote: that disprove it's position I think that proving or disproving things relating to how best humans interact with software is pretty hard to do really. It's like proving how people think which hasn't happened yet. New users would probably be happy with the program manager from windows 3.11, for example. What I meant was that the article makes a few false assumptions/assertions, including how it says that opening applications is slower in GNOME 3 when I noted the many ways it actually made it faster. Also, it says that it would be confusing to new users, when I showed that my family (which is the type of family that doesn't understand the difference between uploading and downloading), comprised of five people besides myself, is perfectly capable of using GNOME 3 without extended training or effort. Compared to Windows, there's very little to explain, unless you want to go into detail about keyboard shortcuts. As I said, though, your mileage may vary with regards to how people react to GNOME 3. As far as I can tell, the people who dislike it are *not* new users, but rather users who are used to customizing their desktop exactly the way they like it. Most people regard computers as appliances (like iPods), and don't want to have to tweak with them to get what they want. If it doesn't get in their way and doesn't ask them too many questions, they're happy. I believe that GNOME 3, in reducing distractions while still improving functionality, is a step in the right direction. Regards, Tim On 12 May 2011 15:35, Ryan Peters slosh...@sbcglobal.net mailto:slosh...@sbcglobal.net wrote: On 05/12/2011 09:28 AM, Ryan Peters wrote: On 05/12/2011 09:19 AM, Ryan Peters wrote: Also, I read a post on Planet GNOME a while ago that said how GNOME 2 solved some problems that the GNOME 2 applications menu had on low-precision input devices, which can be read here: Ah! Forgive me for not including the link, my mistake! I cannot find it and wanted to insert it after I found it, but my Firefox history isn't helping. Could somebody find the article for me who regularly reads Planet GNOME? ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org mailto:gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list Nevermind, I found it: https://afaikblog.wordpress.com/2011/05/02/on-pointer-control/ -- You could help some brave and decent people to have access to uncensored news by making a donation at: http://www.thezimbabwean.co.uk/ ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list
Re: OSX Exposé, compiz scale windows picker question
On 05/11/2011 04:27 AM, Milan Oravec wrote: hallo, I generally like Gnome3 (gnome-shell) concept, but i my opinion it needs to be more configurable to give people chance to personalize their desktop to their needs. Not all people want to live in uniform world. I have few questions: 1. is there in gnome-shell any way to show all windows (running applications) from all workspaces at once similar to OS X Exposé or compiz scale windows picker? In activity overview are showed only running applications from one workspace. You could try Alt+Tab and using the mouse to navigate. You can navigate the Alt+Tab pop-up with Alt+[Shift+]Tab, Alt+[Shift+][above tab], the arrow keys, and the mouse itself, which is a nice touch. Granted, it's not quite as fast as what you describe (and I know from experience), but it's just fast enough to work. What you describe could possibly be made into an extension. 2. is there any option/setting to assign this functionality to mouse button? For this functionality I use scroll wheel button. As of right now, all shortcuts in System Settings must be set for the Keyboard, so no. Also, I think there's some applications that already use middle-click (Firefox, some games are all I can think of), so setting this to middle-click would cause problems. If It's an extension like you said above, and it if was middle click on the desktop instead of just a regular middle click, then I don't see why not. It is quick way to switch between applications and it is not against design concept of gnome-shell, what I think and hope. Thank you very much! Best regards Milan. ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list - Ryan Peters ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list
Re: OSX Exposé, compiz scale windows picker question
On 05/11/2011 08:08 AM, Milan Oravec wrote: On 05/11/2011 02:42 PM, Ryan Peters wrote: You could try Alt+Tab and using the mouse to navigate. You can navigate the Alt+Tab pop-up with Alt+[Shift+]Tab, Alt+[Shift+][above tab], the arrow keys, and the mouse itself, which is a nice touch. Granted, it's not quite as fast as what you describe (and I know from experience), but it's just fast enough to work. What you describe could possibly be made into an extension. Hmmm... I know about possibilities you mentioned above (i'm testing gnome-shell almost one year, building from git) but it is so unpractical grab to keyboard and make 3 key press every time I need to switch form browser to Thunderbird etc. :( It degrades 50% of usability for me and every one who is using this capability on non gnome3 system. You could switch workspaces with Ctrl+Alt+Up/Down, which could solve part of your problem. Also, Alt+Tab is mouse and keyboard navigable as I said, so you can just click the window you want (as in, press Alt+Tab and use your mouse). This includes every window open, but as I said it's not quite ideal. As of right now, all shortcuts in System Settings must be set for the Keyboard, so no. Also, I think there's some applications that already use middle-click (Firefox, some games are all I can think of), so setting this to middle-click would cause problems. If It's an extension like you said above, and it if was middle click on the desktop instead of just a regular middle click, then I don't see why not. And this is wrong! I've hoped in Gnome 3 would be this cleared, like in OS X! Why can have one application control over system wide setting as mouse button assignig?! It must be system setting and user decision. This is very very bad. If you think this should be a main feature, then file a bug on bugzilla.gnome.org about it. As I said, what you're looking for could be implemented as an extension somehow, and for examples you can look at gnome-shell-extensions on git.gnome.org. There are a lot of people that come into this mailing list asking for this feature; I'm sure somebody will make an extension for it sometime :). ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list
Re: Feature Request
On 05/09/2011 04:25 AM, kaddy...@gmail.com wrote: Hi All I am using Gnome 3 / Gnome-shell on ArchLinux... As am I, and I love it :) Feature Request: A new Category introduced in the list called Recently Installed Which obviously shows your last few applications you installed so you can quickly navigate. Currently, if I'm not mistaken, GNOME 3 is going to highlight recently installed applications somewhat like Windows XP did (not sure if Vista/7 do, as I've never used them). Personally I think that your solution is much better, as I've always found highlighted applications to be a little annoying. This is much easier to search through, though maybe these two ideas could be combined somehow? ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list
Re: We want task bar back. Pretty please.
On 05/07/2011 01:13 AM, Allan E. Registos wrote: On Fri, 2011-05-06 at 17:26 -0500, Jason D. Clinton wrote: This is a perfect example of why people should feel comfortable using suspend-to-RAM on Linux. And that's why we made it the default if the kernel tells us that your laptop hardware is known to suspend successfully. For the record, there is nobody AFAIK was against using Suspend being put on the user menu, but being forced to use it is quite and blatantly wrong especially on a Linux desktop. You are not forced to use it; the preferred behavior is that, when you want to shut off your computer (which is a very trivial thing to do if you think about it, especially considering how often it even needs to be done), log out first. The option to Power Off is still in GDM. From what I've read, and please correct me if I'm wrong, the reason suspend is encouraged so much is so it matches the default behavior of the power button and closing the laptop lid, for consistency purposes. The only problem I have with the current setup is that you have to hold Alt to make Suspend change to Power Off, as it's considered a Power User feature. No, I don't mind this at all, but what I do mind is how it's not discoverable to new users and I think that might change with GNOME 3.2 (at least as far as making it discoverable). I can't say though as I have no authority within the project whatsoever. ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list
Re: [Usability] Too much distraction-free computing
On 05/07/2011 10:08 AM, Andre Klapper wrote: 2. super fast application access Ok, there is top-left corner and dash, but it requires a lot of mouse movements and screen redrawing, to reach an app, that you want, and it is totally not superfast. You can type the first letters of the app's name to filter the view. andre Don't forget the Windows/Super key for quick overview access, or if that doesn't work, Alt+F1. Marking an application as a favorite by right-clicking it also helps very much with common applications. ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list
Re: [Usability] Too much distraction-free computing
On 05/07/2011 10:43 AM, Ryan Peters wrote: On 05/07/2011 10:08 AM, Andre Klapper wrote: 2. super fast application access Ok, there is top-left corner and dash, but it requires a lot of mouse movements and screen redrawing, to reach an app, that you want, and it is totally not superfast. You can type the first letters of the app's name to filter the view. andre Don't forget the Windows/Super key for quick overview access, or if that doesn't work, Alt+F1. Marking an application as a favorite by right-clicking it also helps very much with common applications. ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list My bad; accidentally sent this to GNOME-Shell list instead. Dang thunderbird... ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list
Re: We want task bar back. Pretty please.
On 05/06/2011 06:37 AM, Denys Vlasenko wrote: On Thu, 2011-05-05 at 17:36 -0500, Ryan Peters wrote: Somebody needs to take this thread out back behind the shed and put a bullet through it's head for the good of humanity, so I volunteer to do so. Denys, GNOME 3 is a radical change and you have a right to be upset, but your responses have been rather rude. Asserting that the designers made the change for no reason insults their intelligence; just because you didn't read the design documents/pages that outlined what problems GNOME 3 would fix with it's design doesn't mean that they changed for the sake of it. I *don't have to* read design documents every time I upgrade to a new version of software. If I do, then said software is user unfriendly. You misread me. What I *said* was that you claimed that they changed the way things were simply for the sake of change; something proven false as soon as you read any design pages they have. I did not say that you have to read design pages to know how Shell works. It's very discoverable on it's own, but you can always use the built-in help application yelp to tell you how to use GNOME 3. Expecting GNOME 3 to be the same as every other OS is unrealistic; GNOME 3 is not a straightforward upgrade from GNOME 2 and requires re-training. I thought that was understood. Second, imitation isn't always the way to go. If GNOME simply stood the same for years without changing, there would be no innovation. I didn't say I am against any innovation. Scaled-down windows in window switching are useful. Combining app launch icon and switch to a running app icon is useful. ...Which GNOME 3 does, if I'm not mistaken. I don't like disruptive innovation when it is not presented as an option, but showed down my throat by force. Tell me, how the particular bit of innovation which removed the possibility to have app launch icons in top panes is useful? Why this new thing (or rather, absence of old, perfectly working thing) is not optional? Explain to me how it's so hard to move your mouse to the left instead of upwards. All it takes to switch windows is an easy, fast tap on the windows key and clicking the window or icon you want. As I explained in my previous email, this can even be faster and more efficient than the GNOME 2 way of doing things if you get used to it. In addition, your claim that GNOME gives users no choice is incredibly false: you can enable Forced Fallback mode in System Settings to a GNOME 2-like UI which is meant for setups that cannot run the new GNOME 3. Wrong. Fallback mode is not a choice, it was stated numerous times it exists only because not every GPU supports features necessary for Gnome 3. Whoever took refuge in fallback mode (most of my colleagues did) is in for a nasty surprise a year from now or so. ...So, it's not a choice, yet it's a user-configurable option? Do you understand what the word choice means? I don't mean to sound rude; it really is a choice. Simply because it runs by default if you don't have a modern GPU doesn't mean that it isn't a choice. GNOME 3 is a modern desktop, and thus requires modern hardware. It's better in the long run to be this way. Most desktops and laptops (and even some netbooks) made in the last 5, maybe 7 years should be able to handle GNOME 3 without Fallback Mode just fine. However, it's called Fallback Mode for a reason; it's deprecated, won't receive future updates unless they're extremely important, and Exactly. It's not a viable long term choice. I never said it was. If you want a viable, long term choice then I'd HIGHLY suggest to stop upgrading your Fedora install or get something like Red Hat or CentOS. Fedora, Ubuntu, OpenSUSE and the like are all semi-bleeding-edge distros (as opposed to, say, Arch, which is bleeding-edge). You don't *have* to upgrade every six months if you don't want to. The older versions are supported for a little while, but you'll get much more time out of Red Hat or CentOS, which are meant for enterprise deployment (and thus have slower release cycles). GNOME gives you choice: either try GNOME 3 as it is now (which has been suggested several times), use the Fallback Mode (which is discouraged), or simply wait until 3.2, 3.4, or another milestone later down the line where GNOME 3 will be more usable and configurable. Do you remember the backlash when KDE4 came out? Vista? Even XP? Everybody loves Windows XP; there's a huge resistance to upgrade because people are so used to it. And yet, XP received a lot of negative backlash at first. Even GNOME 2 got a lot of negative comments when it was first released, but now that GNOME 2.32 is out and people are used to GNOME, they're now defending it as if it's the perfect desktop environment. If GNOME 3 truly isn't fit for you right now, there's a very good chance that it will be down the road. GNOME 3's default desktop is much better for a variety of reasons. To me statements like these sound like
Re: Why Favorites are not on the top bar?
On 05/06/2011 08:46 AM, Denys Vlasenko wrote: Since top bar still exists, and the place where icons used to be now is not used for anything, what about making it possible to have Favorites *there* There are a lot of different screen sizes; some are big and some are very small. GNOME 3 wants to be usable on a wide variety of screens, so the top bar is not user-owned, but instead system-owned. This is much easier to manage from a developer's standpoint (less odd bugs, simpler to code, etc.), and it also gives GNOME 3 a consistent visual identity, making support much easier. Also, GNOME 2 had an annoying problem where you had to manually position every widget that wasn't placed by default. GNOME 3, by having a static top panel that's system-owned, fixes this problem. In addition, the top bar is extremely tiny. The dock for the favorites list is just as fast to reach (especially if you use the Windows/Super key) and it's easier to click, especially with a low-precision input device like a laptop touch pad, or even on a touch-screen device like an iPad. ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list
Re: We want task bar back. Pretty please.
On 05/06/2011 11:16 AM, Denys Vlasenko wrote: On my previous installation - Fedora 13 - it was Gnome 2. I just installed Fedora 15 and it uses Gnome 3. Oops. Having suddenly to learn a new UI is not what I planned to do this weekend. I have some other work to do. If you don't want to learn a new UI, *do not upgrade*! This should be obvious. It should be even more obvious that Fedora 15 *isn't even released as stable yet*. If you have better things to do than learn a new UI, why on Earth did you switch and somehow expect it to be exactly the same as before? What should I do if I find some changes to be regressions (from my POV, of course)? I thought I need to let developers know what users (in this case, me) think. How else would they know? Your suggestion seems to be to shut up, or write an alternative. Nice. Our suggestion is to *learn how to use the interface* and to stop insulting the developers and designers. If you change to a new version of a desktop environment which has a new design, you should *not*, under any circumstances, expect it to be the same as previous versions. If you have work to do, do it in a stable, familiar environment instead of fiddling around with GNOME 3. Do that when you have time to learn how to use it, please, instead of begging us to reverse a good portion of the design work. Of course you are entitled to choose how to treat your users. Consider, though, that users will take only certain amount of abuse before they leave. *ahem*: 1. You twist everything we say and make it sound like we're insulting you, when it's clearly the other way around. 2. You say things are regressions, even after we make substantial effort to prove to you that they are not, in fact, regressions. Some things might be regressions, like your example where you launch four applications, but that can also be sped up by pressing the windows key instead of using the hot corner. 3. Some of what you do consider regressions are some of the most trivial things possible. Where favorites can be located, moving those dialogs that don't even need to be moved, and the existence of a permanent window list are so easily overcome as long as you approach GNOME 3 with an open mind. 4. You somehow think that we're treating you badly by not changing things back to the way they were. What you call abuse, everyone else on this mailing list calls support. If you have better things to do than use GNOME 3, don't use it until you can find time to learn it and get used to it. If you can't approach GNOME 3 with an open mind, this mailing list will not hep you. That is something you need to do on your own. ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list
Re: Why Favorites are not on the top bar?
On 05/06/2011 01:38 PM, G. Michael Carter wrote: What about writing the dock extension so it's a button like the places or drive menu. That way people can get their Menu sort of speak with out interfering with the design. While that sounds nice, it duplicates the features GNOME 3 already has. Click Activities and you have a window list, or simply press the Windows/Super key. Having a dedicated window switching button would just do the same thing that GNOME 3 already does, but in a different area (and also possibly harder to reach, depending on the implementation). Also, don't forget that Alt+Tab is completely keyboard and mouse navigable (including arrow keys). There's really a lot of ways to switch tasks in GNOME 3 :) ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list
Re: Close button is sometimes missing.
On 05/06/2011 08:32 AM, Denys Vlasenko wrote: In Gnome 3, some popup windows don't have [x] close button at the top right corner. I need to find and click [Cancel] button instead. See the attached screenshot. Why? ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list Because it's redundant to have more than one close button, I suppose. ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list
Re: We want task bar back. Pretty please.
Somebody needs to take this thread out back behind the shed and put a bullet through it's head for the good of humanity, so I volunteer to do so. Denys, GNOME 3 is a radical change and you have a right to be upset, but your responses have been rather rude. Asserting that the designers made the change for no reason insults their intelligence; just because you didn't read the design documents/pages that outlined what problems GNOME 3 would fix with it's design doesn't mean that they changed for the sake of it. As Henry Ford allegedly said, If I had asked my customers what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse.. The automobile was awkward and totally different at first relative to horses, but it eventually caught on because it was a better choice than horses for most people. Second, imitation isn't always the way to go. If GNOME simply stood the same for years without changing, there would be no innovation. In addition, your claim that GNOME gives users no choice is incredibly false: you can enable Forced Fallback mode in System Settings to a GNOME 2-like UI which is meant for setups that cannot run the new GNOME 3. However, it's called Fallback Mode for a reason; it's deprecated, won't receive future updates unless they're extremely important, and GNOME 3's default desktop is much better for a variety of reasons. I, as well as the people working on developing and marketing GNOME 3, firmly believe that GNOME 3 is the future, which is a good thing and not bad like you suggest. You can switch windows with Alt+Tab and Alt+[key above Tab, usually `], the former switching applications and the latter switching windows in an application. It works very well and you should try it! Also, switching windows is much more flexible than in GNOME 2: with the older GNOME, you only had Alt+Tab and a tiny window list. With GNOME 3, you get an Exposé-like view where you have nice, easily clickable thumbnails of every window on that workspace (especially useful on a laptop), fling gesture support to switch workspaces on touch devices, a dock-like window list on the left, a workspace switcher on the right with drag-drop support, and a search bar that works without clicking it; just start typing! If that doesn't satisfy you, I'm not sure what will. Of course, you can always write an extension that enables the behavior you like, but GNOME 3 should be given a fair chance first. You can access the Activities overlay three ways: a hot corner (flinging your mouse to the top-left), clicking the Activities button, or a keyboard shortcut (Windows/Super/Meta key, Alt+F1, or whatever you set it to). I use the keyboard shortcut as it makes it much faster for me. I just tap it, click the window I want, and I've switched in less than a second, arguably about as fast as the task list on GNOME 2 (and in some cases faster because you don't have to scan a tiny list of windows like in GNOME 2). Your claim that GNOME doesn't let you add launchers is also false: right-click any running application (or any application in the Applications menu or Search function) and click Add to Favorites. Then, just open the overlay and click it to launch. It's just as easy as the icons from GNOME 2, and they take up less screen space as well since they don't take up valuable panel real-estate. You can also manually organize them by dragging them up and down, which is much better than right-clicking the launcher, unlocking it, right-clicking it again, clicking move, then moving the mouse along a gigantic panel to place it in a usable place (this was the GNOME 2 behavior). Also, it's faster to start an application that you didn't add to favorites in GNOME 2; just search for it by opening the overlay and typing. It's keyboard-navigable so you can press up and down to move through the list. The Applications Menu isn't really intended to be used constantly and is only there for when you either don't know an application's name, don't have it on your favorites list, or are using a touch-device (like a tablet). If you have any more problems with GNOME 3, please say so, but don't be rude about it. Also, check out gnome-tweak-tool and gnome-shell-extensions for some tweaks that let you customize GNOME 3 to how you want it to be. I hope I've helped make things more clear, and it would be very nice if you tried to wrap your head around the way things are now before going back to Fallback Mode. It might take a day, or even a week, but you might find that it improves your work flow a lot if you give it a chance. - Sincerely, Ryan (not a Shell developer; just a user) ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list
Re: Gubuntu - Long term perspective for Ubuntu with Gnome?
On 04/29/2011 05:43 AM, Marc Fouquet wrote: If Ubuntu sticks with Unity, do you think that there is a chance we might see a Gubuntu distribution, similar to Kubuntu and Xubuntu in the long run? I got used to Ubuntu, so I don't like to switch to another distro. But I tried Natty/Unity yesterday and didn't like it - at least in its current form. Installing Gnome 3 from an experimental PPA does not appear like a long-term solution either. Regards, Marc ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list I have no authority to speak on Canonical's behalf, but knowing how they work, I don't think this would happen officially. I'm pretty sure that there will be at lease one third-party Ubuntu flavor that uses the default GNOME 3 desktop, however, as there's a reasonably large demand for it. I used to use Ubuntu for a while (from 7.10 to 10.04 actually), and I can sympathize with your position. After they changed things around a little too much for my liking, I decided to give a more upstream distribution (relative to Ubuntu) a try. Right now I'm using Arch Linux, and while it's a little confusing to set up at first, it runs like a dream and it taught me all about how my OS works while I set it up, something that you don't get from more GUI-oriented distros like Ubuntu. As a second choice, though, I highly recommend Fedora/OpenSUSE. They're both great distros that incorporate the GNOME 3 desktop without patching it to oblivion like Ubuntu would have (funny thing about that: my vanilla GNOME 2 desktop, after switching from Ubuntu a while ago, was actually less buggy than Ubuntu's patched-up version). After all, if you disregard the package manager, most distributions are incredibly similar on the GUI level. I highly suggest giving another distro a try, at least on a Live CD (and don't forget to read documentation), before trying to use GNOME 3 on Ubuntu; last I heard it breaks a lot of things because of Ubuntu's packaging. ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list
Re: Some small ideas for the Shell Panel and Overview
On 04/09/2011 11:28 AM, Onyeibo Oku wrote: On Sat, 2011-04-09 at 10:44 -0500, Marshall Neill wrote: I looked at the 'new' interface and have only 1 suggestion and I am not sure how to convey this. Right-handed people would seem to look to the right and moving the mouse to the right is easier. So, with that thought in mind, move the Overwiew, Applications, Library to the right (flipped so to speak). In this way when the user moves the mouse to Applications the categories are immediately below. No moving from one side of the screen to the other. Everything in one place. If the user is left-handed then move the category list to the other side of the iconized list of applications. Upon installation perhaps you could ask if the user is right-handed or left-handed with a radio button. This would also be a possible to change the mouse to left-handed. You could explain how this will effect the interface with pictures, as you do when the OS is installing. To carry the theme even further at install time, you could display sizes of icons on the panel. Let them choose smaller, larger, whatever. Man, I hope I made myself clear. It's hard to explain in text and so easy in images but I suck at creating images. I have suggested this in the past, but not because of left handed people (or anything of that sort) but for sake of proximity to the categories and, more so, the new workspace panel(pane). It will also minimize mouse movements across the screen. Either that, or leave it as is, and flip the activities overlay (dash goes to the right and workspace manager to the left) !--although, I have another concept for dash and workspace manager that is entirely different. But that, another story -- ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list Alright... Then where would the Status Menu go? How would you logout, suspend, power off, go to the System Settings, or disable notifications? Putting it anywhere else besides one of the corners would be rather awkward... Also, if I'm not mistaken, the reason why there isn't a seperate applications button right now is because the designers actually want to /discourage/ the use of it. It's not something that you're supposed to be constantly using, but rather something so you can add an application to the favorites list on the dash or so you know it's name, as launching the application from the search function is much faster than searching for it directly. I could be wrong, but this is something that I believe I read once before. Oh, also, it would add clutter to the top panel and increase the minimum screen size somewhat (especially if the application icon on the top panel was kept with these three buttons). ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list
Re: want dash to be always-visible dock
On 04/03/2011 09:12 AM, Adam Dingle wrote: I've been using GNOME Shell recently on Fedora 15. Aesthetically it looks nice, and I like the full-screen application launcher with integrated search. But I definitely want a dock which is always visible on the side of my screen (a la Docky, Plank, Avant Window Navigator and so on) and to use it as my primary means of managing open applications. So for the moment I'm running both GNOME Shell and Plank. That works, but feels kludgy for a few reasons: 1. I see one dock (Plank) on my display at all times, but the GNOME Shell Activities view shows a second, independent dock (the dash). 2. Since I use Plank for window management, I don't often need the Expose view, so I really want the Activities button (and system key) to open the Applications view directly. 3. The window minimization effect zips toward the Activities button in the upper left, but I want it to zip downward toward the bottom of the display, where Plank is visible. I'd like to know whether the GNOME Shell developers would accept patches toward either of the following goals: 1. A preference, command-line option or GSettings key which tells GNOME Shell to display the dash at the edge of the screen at all times. This would allow me and others with similar inclinations to use the GNOME Shell dash instead of Docky or other docks. In this mode, Activities would directly open Applications since the dash is used for window management. Ideally the user could choose which edge of the screen the dash should be displayed on. The dash would auto-hide when other windows overlap it (just like Docky and other docks). and/or 2. A preference, command-line option or GSettings key which tells GNOME Shell to simply never display its dash, and that Activities should directly open Applications. This would be convenient for users who want to use an external dock program. If the answer is no on both counts, then I'll need to look at alternatives to GNOME Shell in its entirety. It would be nice, however, if we could find some way to make GNOME Shell play nicely with always-visible desktop docks. adam ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list The GNOME Shell Extensions repository on git.gnome.org has a dock extension that integrates with the shell (though it displays on the right, not the left like on the activities menu; that should be changeable if you can read the source). Even still, I don't see how hard it could be to press the Win/Super/Meta key to get to the activities overlay quickly. I use that as a dock replacement and it's just as fast and stays out of my way without the annoying auto-hide feature some docks use to stay out of my way. Link: http://git.gnome.org/browse/gnome-shell-extensions - Ryan Peters ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list
Re: Some suggestions
Hi Alberto. I'm not a developer for the project, but I'll try to answer your concerns: On 03/21/2011 04:52 PM, Alberto B. wrote: Hi everyone, I started to use gnome-shell some weeks ago with that in the repo of Fedora 14, then I built the newer from git two weeks ago and I still using it. I appreciate the great work you are doing on GS and I would give you some suggestion. Due to lack of the taskbar (lower bar in Gnome2) now I'm using more Alt +TAB shortcut than overview to switch running applications, but I think we need of a mouse action to quick switch them: could one mouse click on the upper bar free space raise the switcher (the same behaviour of Alt +TAB)? That's not very discoverable if you ask me. Also, isn't that what the Activities overlay is for? Just flick your mouse to the top-left (or tap the Win/Super/Meta key) and you get a vertical list of your windows on the left as well as a spacial organization of your windows in the middle. It works simple enough for me. I don't understand the meanings of the icon (near activity button) with only the possibility to close the application, there is a redundance of X button (on window title, in that button and in overview mode). Could this icon give more information about favorite or running applications? There's a difference between closing and quitting in Shell: closing the window is done with the X button on the corner of the window, while quitting the application closes every single window associated with it (for example, closing a Firefox window only closes that window, but quitting Firefox closes every Firefox window). If I'm not mistaken, it should be possible to add things to that menu like Preferences or Help (if not now, then in the near future), though this is on a per-application basis. In the dash in overview mode icons becomes smaller, due to the increasing number of running/favourite applications; why don't fix dimension and make two columns? I think this could be done with a simple screen height to running applications ratio to automatically make a second column when needed. I agree, to a point. I think the dimension of application icon should have the same dimension everywere, I disagree, but the icon sizes should be modifiable with an extension/preference/editing the source code (which is Javascript so it's pretty legible if you ask me). Could somebody that knows the intricacies of Shell elaborate on the possibility of re-sizing icons? and in the application TAB should have more text below, to explain better what they do (similar to tips in gnome2 menu). What about the possibility to have icon view / list view / detailed view, like nautilus do with files? Do you mean the Alt+Tab menu, or the Activities dock? I'm not so sure about this one so I'll leave it for others to discuss. My system spends some seconds to give list of applications/categories so I hope this will be better in the final release of GS. It's not a quick way to find applications I second this. It's not a huge deal but if the applications menu could be pre-loaded instead of being loaded when Shell accesses it, that would be very helpful. Overview mode should be the easy way to find something, so I think the workspaces should be always unhide. It could be possible to write an extension to do this, though I don't particularly mind the current behavior. Thanks a lot for your great work. Alberto ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list I hope I helped! - Ryan Peters ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list
Re: Window controls for GNOME 3
On 03/01/2011 03:52 PM, Alberto Ruiz wrote: 2011/3/1 John Stowersjohn.stowers.li...@gmail.com: Admittedly it is usually windows users who I observe doing this, but I think it is wrong to assume that users; a) know that double click exists b) can actually distinguish that it is different from single click Not to mention, trackpads are double click unfriendly. Last I checked, virtually every device with a trackpad has some sort of physical mouse button for this very purpose (laptops and whatnot). ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list
Re: Window controls for GNOME 3
On 02/23/2011 03:53 AM, Fabian A. Scherschel wrote: On Wed, Feb 23, 2011 at 10:03 AM, Frederik scumm_fr...@gmx.net mailto:scumm_fr...@gmx.net wrote: No minimising does not mean that everything is maximised. You can maximise a window by dragging it to the top (or by double-clicking) and de-maximise it by dragging it from the top (or by double-clicking). That does make sense. I'll really have to install the F15 Beta soon to check this out in more detail. So there won't be any way to minimise windows at all then? Not saying this is a bad idea, I'm just trying to get the facts straight. :) Fab ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list You can minimize windows by right-clicking the title bar, ALT+F9, ALT+SPACE and then N, or changing your preferences to include a minimize button. If I remember correctly, you can still add and remove and move around buttons at your leisure, though I'm not sure what benefits they would bring. The reason they're hiding the minimize function isn't because its useless, but because it's been mostly deprecated now that Shell has an infinite list of workspaces that you can drag and drop windows on to. If there's a better way to implement minimization or hiding windows, it should be implemented around 3.2 or 3.4. By the way, removing the close button by default, while some people might like it, I don't really understand. It reduces visual clutter, yes, but I don't want to have to go to the activities overview just to close a tiny window, you know? Otherwise, I completely agree with the decision to remove those two buttons and I can't wait until GNOME Shell is released as stable! :) - Ryan Peters ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list
Re: gnome-shell future plans?
On 11/09/2010 07:41 AM, kaddy...@gmail.com wrote: Hi All is there an official blueprint of what gnome-shell will look like when released? I seen a mockup a while ago that was a bit like unity (but way better) is that official? any links to official mockups/designs being implemented in the future? or will it look like what it does at present? :s any planned features for implementation that we can read about? can't find much.. cheers kaddy ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list You can find the latest mockups and designs on the gnome-shell-design git repository over here: http://git.gnome.org/browse/gnome-shell-design. If you know how to use git, cd into a new directory (for example, ~/git/gnome-shell-design/) and run git clone git://git.gnome.org/gnome-shell-design. The repository, last I checked, should take a little while to download depending on your internet connection (I believe it was a hundred or two megabytes in size). If your connection isn't so fast (or you don't feel like cloning an entire repository), then you can go to http://git.gnome.org/browse/gnome-shell-design/tree/mockups/static. The files in this folder of the repository are all of the latest mockups in PNG format (the folder svg contains SVG images as well). To see the mockups, click the name of any image, and you'll see something that looks like this at the top: path: root/mockups/static/access-menu.png (plain). Click the plain part and you can see the image in your web browser. As for the latest screenshots, Florian Mullner has been working on it in his overview relayout http://git.gnome.org/browse/gnome-shell/log/?h=overview-relayout branch for gnome shell. He has done a fantastic job so far, but unfortunately I cannot provide you with screenshots since I can't get Gnome Shell to build on Arch Linux. Building GNOME Shell yourself could let you see the latest progress, but it might be better to wait until the first stable release when GNOME 3 is released. -- Ryan Peters ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list
Re: [Rhythmbox-devel] Rhythmbox 0.13.0 crashes when I toggle Shuffle mode
On 08/22/2010 10:24 PM, Ryan Peters wrote: On 08/22/2010 02:14 PM, Kyle Baker wrote: For the past week or two, every time I click the shuffle button, Rhythmbox freezes for second and crashes. I'm running Ubuntu 10.10 x86_64 with apport installed and its not auto-generating a crash report. Whats the best way to find out what is causing this? Thanks The Ubuntu 10.10 or x86_64 parts might be part of the problem. 10.10 isn't released yet, so it's still going through heavy testing and development changes. Many packages such as Rhythmbox itself or any of its many dependencies could be mis-configured or have dependency problems. Some programs, I hear, don't work very well when compiled for 64bit processors, so that could also be the case. Personally, I would wait until some packages Rhythmbox is related to are updated or when 10.10 is finally released (or trying another, more stable Linux distribution, if it isn't a hassle). Another thing you can try is running Rhythmbox from a terminal, and emailing us the output when it crashes, if any. - Ryan Peters ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list Ah crap, I posted to the wrong mailing list. My bad! I need to keep track of these things more... ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list
Re: Gnome Shell Message Tray Week 10
On 08/02/2010 05:34 AM, Matt Novenstern wrote: Hopefully this will reach the lists before it's too horribly late. I'm somewhere in Britain on a train that has more people on it than seats and the conductor won't let the train go until nobody's standing in the isle... This past week I got to experience GUADEC! It was really quite neat to meet the gnome shell devs in person and get to talk to them a little. It was really fun learning how people got into FOSS and working on gnome, and what other things they'd done in the past. I also go to meet a bunch of my fellow SoC students, and see a little of what they're working on in person. Despite the excitement, I managed to post a new patch for splitting the status icons up, even though that still behaves nastily due to the hacks we use with the embedded windows and the doesn't-play-well-with-others nature of the windows in the first place. I'm hoping to dive into the design concept frenzy and start making some things based on mockups of stuff for the tray. We'll see what's gobject introspectable and what I might need to work on. -Matt ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list Sounds fun and great! I thought I'd just say thank you for your work (so you feel a little more important) and I hope it goes well! I'm looking forward to your improvements, and God bless! - Ryan Peters, Shell tester ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list
Re: some thoughts on gnome shell
On 08/02/2010 09:03 AM, Sean Dunwoody wrote: Thanks, I really should have checked the design documents before but I can't seem to access them now, it seems that the gnome project website is down :-/ Also your design breakdown was really good, I agree with you that the new Shell has advantages to Unity, but it still looks like the Gnome team took A LOT of influence from the canonical team. The message tray is awesome and original though, much better than NotifyOSD :-) -Sean I agree they took a lot of influence, but just in the same kind of way that OpenOffice.org would take influence from MS Office, or Firefox taking influence from Chrome or Opera. In a world of ideas that you can't lock down, it's relatively easy and effective to take an idea that somebody else already thought of, think about it, and apply it (especially if the idea is a good one). Once again, while Shell does look similar to Unity, they function very, very differently with different purposes in mind. Instead of re-inventing the wheel, Unity is polishing it, while Shell is putting snow-spikes on it ;). I've put up a temporary mirror of the design document on my Dropbox account for you. http://dl.dropbox.com/u/807039/GNOME_Shell-20091114.pdf Enjoy! - Ryan Peters ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list
Re: some thoughts on gnome shell
Hello Francis,
On 07/31/2010 12:50 AM, Grizzly(Francis Smit) wrote:
1). the
menus are a pain if you don't know the name of what ur looking
for, u cannot browse
I'm pretty sure this is the case for every operating system once you
first use it. Exactly which menu are you talking about? Applications
menu, clock preferences menu, user menu...? Note that GNOME Shell will
look much different in the future, and the menus you find hard
to navigate (in this example, the applications menu) will be much
easier to navigate.
2). and
theres no where to put my short cut links, in normal gnome I have
4 panels top bottom and each side top and sides have lots of quick
launch launchers i.e. icons and some applets, I love applets
bottom is my taskbar I love that two I hate the taskbar
The application switcher lets you have "favorite" applications. This
is much more space-saving than quick-launch links because it only
pops up when you need it to and it gives you much more vertical
screen space. If you require launchers like that, try launching
something like DockbarX in standalone mode, using Docky/AWN/Cairo
Dock, or some other solution that can run independently of the
panel.
which
brings me to
3). no taskbar I need my taskbar switching apps in gnome-shell sux
The Application switcher is actually much more efficient than a
standard panel-based application switcher. Applications are grouped
and it's easy to find specific windows if you have many open. As I
said earlier, independent "dock-style" programs could help your
apparent need for an always-visible application switcher.
in
short I do not like gnome-shell so far, and I will continue to use
the old 2.x series even if I have to fork it to keep it alive
Trust me, we get this comment a lot (and I'm not even a
developer of the project, so I assume they hear things like this a
lot more than I do). GNOME Shell isn't about being "normal" or
"familiar", and isn't reinventing the wheel either. Instead, we're
taking the wheel we already have and are making it more efficient
and easier to control. If you're curious, the GNOME Shell project page on GNOME
Live! has some interesting roadmaps,
design pages,
and an excellent tour.
You might want to look at these considering GNOME Shell has 8 months
until it is mature enough for GNOME 3.0 (hopefully).
God bless and sincerely,
- Ryan Peters, GNOME Shell tester
PS: You might want to work on your grammar and spelling. I'm no
"grammar nazi", but it is much easier to read emails, comments, and
suggestions sent in by people such as yourself if you make sure they
can read what you're typing. Some people don't speak English as a
first language, and if you don't speak with good grammar or
spelling, it can be hard for them to respond to what you are saying.
___
gnome-shell-list mailing list
gnome-shell-list@gnome.org
http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list
Re: some thoughts on gnome shell
On 07/31/2010 11:53 AM, Barra wrote: Trust me, we get this comment a lot (and I'm not even a developer of the project, so I assume they hear things like this a lot more than I do). GNOME Shell isn't about being "normal" or "familiar", and isn't reinventing the wheel either. Instead, we're taking the wheel we already have and are making it more efficient and easier to control. If you're curious, the GNOME Shell project page on GNOME Live! has some interesting roadmaps, design pages, and an excellent tour. You might want to look at these considering GNOME Shell has 8 months until it is mature enough for GNOME 3.0 (hopefully). it is obvious your trying to do something new but for today: - Notifications are incredibly intrusive and wasting too much space (especially chat) Last I checked, much effort was made to reduce the intrusiveness of the notifications. This page on the GNOME Shell design wiki shows how the current notification system could work for a music player such as Rhythmbox. The notifications are small and compact (picture two) compared to NotifyOSD or the current GNOME notification system, which covers the top-right corner of the screen, blocking buttons and the like. The notifications disappear quickly and they can be expanded (picture three) by hovering your mouse over them. Notifications that just appeared can be accessed by moving your mouse to the bottom right corner; note that this feature isn't fully completed yet, and a partially working version can be accessed by using the latest build you can find of GNOME Shell. - The search tools are slow and inaccurate (when the integration of Zeitgeist?) I cannot comment on this, but these two mockups (one and two) are what the search feature should like after the design is finished. - This mockup is more like Ubuntu Unity that gnome-shell (and IMHO this is good) but still are obvious limits to this solution. Too many clicks are required to start a program! Add a program to your "favorites" list so you can open it in one click. It's no harder than adding an application to a dock-style program. - There is hope of seeing a sidebar (months removed from gnome-shell but IMHO useful)? I can't officially comment on this, but there seems to be some work on "Gizmos" and "Extensions" for GNOME Shell. Somebody on this mailing list once said before that "If somebody needs an extension or a gizmo to easily do a function, we've failed." The designers are trying very hard to make it so you don't have to use them at all, but of course, like Firefox, there are certain Add-ons that make a program more useful in your opinion. GNOME Shell will eventually have a mechanism for this, but it's too early to say exactly how it works. P.s. sorry 4 my english (I used google translate!) You're fine! Google did a very good job at translating :) - Ryan Peters, GNOME Shell tester ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list
Re: some thoughts on gnome shell
On 07/31/2010 04:52 PM, Sean Dunwoody wrote:
"Note that
GNOME Shell will
look much different in
the future, and the menus you find hard to navigate (in this
example, the applications menu) will be much easier to
navigate."
Is Gnome Shell really going to look like that when it's
released? I was just starting to appreciate how it works and
looks now :-/
On a side note that mockup looks a LOT like Unity . . .
-Sean
Yeah, it does a bit. I do see quite a few differences though:
(Note that this comparison is based on current
screenshots/mockups/design information, and things might change in
the future).
The Application switcher only appears when you open the
overlay in GNOME Shell, while it stays visible in Unity. I
prefer GNOME Shell's approach because it saves more horizontal
space (crucial for netbooks).
Unity still keeps application indicators in the same area as
system indicators, while GNOME Shell has system indicators only
on the top panel, reducing application "indicators" to
notification/status icons in the notification tray (accessed by
moving your mouse to the bottom right corner of the screen).
GNOME Shell is much more organized, so I prefer its style again.
Unity uses NotifyOSD for its notifications, while GNOME Shell
has its own notification system. GNOME Shell's notifications are
small vertically and expand when you move your mouse over them;
you can see past notifications by looking in the notification
tray. NotifyOSD has semi-transparent notifications in the
top-right corner that blur when you move your mouse over them.
They are un-clickable and provide no functionality over Shell's
notifications; you can't even access a log of your past
notifications.
GNOME Shell features an interface switcher that makes it easy
to spatially organize your running applications. Unity has no
workspace switcher, and instead focuses on the currently running
application window.
GNOME Shell's top bar is organized as follows: Activities
button, Application menu, Clock (always in the center), Symbolic
icons ("System indicators"), user menu. Unity's bar is as
follows (this is subject to change, so I'm leaving out what I'm
not sure will be there): Ubuntu button/logo, Indicators, Time,
MeMenu, Power Menu. GNOME Shell has an advantage here because
the clock is always in the center, while for Unity it is
awkwardly placed in-between other panel items.
GNOME Shell is easily theme-able, while Unity has not
announced any information on theme-ing as far as I know.
I hate to sound like I'm bashing Unity, but GNOME Shell (at the very
moment, at least) seems like a much better choice for both desktops
as well as netbooks and small-screen devices. Shell is also
developed by more organizations and companies than Unity and is more
"upstream".
- Ryan Peters
PS: Just thought I should say that I am in no way affiliated with
the GNOME Shell development or design team, and I can't speak for
them. My emails are my own observations and opinions from what I
know so far and should not be taken as the opinions and observations
of anybody officially involved with the projects I mention.
___
gnome-shell-list mailing list
gnome-shell-list@gnome.org
http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list
Re: Recent Shell building errors
On 06/20/2010 04:28 PM, Florian Müllner wrote: El dom, 20-06-2010 a las 16:16 -0500, Ryan Peters escribió: On 06/20/2010 01:44 PM, Florian Müllner wrote: [...] It might be enough to force a rebuild of gir-repository (jhbuild buildone -f -a -c gir-repository), but the safest bet is to remove the installation directory (~/gnome-shell/install) and rebuild everything. Okay I did as you suggested but I still got the error. So what I did is I ran the following commands: jhbuild buildone clutter -f -a -c jhbuild buildone mutter -f -a -c clutter != gir-repository ;-) ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list Ah! I guess I got confused, sorry! Clutter built fine even though it didn't before, however. And running that command made everything work great! Thanks very much :)! - Ryan Peters ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list
Re: Icons on the desktop
On 06/15/2010 03:35 AM, Kao Chen wrote: I think also that is a good idea to change the desktop approach. But I think that it could be heavy of consequences on the Gnome-Shell design . The conversion of the desktop is a major change for an interface and we need to decide at the beginning. I understand that we integrate a such change in several times but we need to decide now. If we add it later, It will be hard to get a good integration and keep the consistency of the design. Regards, Kao 2010/6/14 j...@jsschmid.de Hi all! At this point, I think it is silly to still have file management as the largest, most personalized and immediately accessible thing in Gnome 3. All this is already covered in the design document: "In the Shell design, the "desktop" folder should no longer be presented as if it resides behind all open windows. We should have another way of representing ephemeral and working set objects." See http://people.gnome.org/~mccann/shell/design/GNOME_Shell-20091114.pdf page 42. The though is to replace it with a journal in the long term. Regards, Johannes ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list This is what I was afraid of. There's so much we could still do with GNOME Shell that hasn't been done or officially decided upon yet, and it's scheduled to be released in only three months! I really love GNOME Shell, but I don't want it to turn into a mini-KDE4 or a mini-Vista. GNOME 3 should be stable and feature-complete by its first release and I don't think we have enough time to get everything integrated and to have all of the expected features and functionality present. I know I have absolutely no authority over this project as I am just a community member, but I propose the idea that GNOME Shell be released as a "developer preview" in September so developers and testers like myself could get used to it and have a nice period of time to integrate their projects with the Shell and make sure everything works how it should (plus, this would give us a lot more time to "finalize" how Shell is supposed to be from the input of the developers). There's already so much missing like zeitgeist integration, the Gnome Activity Journal (which needs re-designing and better integration) as well as the re-designing of the desktop. The reason I suggest this is so we have a good first impression on the world for the first release, and after what happened to KDE4 this is what GNOME should try to avoid; many people including myself believe that GNOME Shell isn't exactly "ready for the public" (even though I'm using it right now and love it) and an extra six months would be a perfect amount of time to get everything integrated and functional as it is planned. -Ryan Peters, GNOME Shell tester. PS: Remember this is just a proposal by a community member and that what I say has no effect on what could happen with the project unless the heads/developers of the project agree. ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list
Re: query about applications being tied with gnome
On 06/15/2010 07:15 PM, kaddy...@gmail.com wrote: Just a query I have about the future of gnome. I have noticed that certain applications are married together with gnome-shell, such as empathy and rhythmbox. hence... the messaging tray works together with them. The only problem is that Empathy and Rhythmbox are poor choices of applications for several reasons... especially empathy... It seems as though if people want the full use of gnome-shell they are pretty much forced to use empathy, which hasn't even got file transfer support for most popular messenging protocols, or offline messaging... people have been complaining about its lack of features for atleast the Last 2 years with no improvements So my question is, Will the messaging tray work with other alternate messengers??? Same question about alternate Music Players etc? I'm getting worried that Gnome are intergrating more and more applications by default into gnome-shell which are poor applications for the majority of us and choosing a better alternate application for our needs will render Gnome-shell not fully featured during use can anybody clear this up for me? thankyou ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list The messaging tray gives me notifications just fine on other players and with Pidgin. I agree that Empathy isn't as "feature-filled" as Pidgin, but Rhythmbox is actually pretty okay for my needs. The integration isn't extreme; it's just a re-implementation of the current notification standard (whatever it was). -Ryan Peters ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list
Re: Icons on the desktop
On 06/13/2010 03:46 PM, chris wrote: On Sun, 2010-06-13 at 16:07 -0400, Jeff wrote: Hello folks, I looked a bit through the mailing list archives and couldn't find a topic about this so far... Do the GNOME Shell devs / usability team have any position regarding showing icons (or not) on the desktop? (currently, /apps/nautilus/preferences/show_desktop = False) While we have had icons on the GNOME desktop since time immemorial, I believe those are unnecessary nowadays. They are cruft and file placement micro-management, and I personally believe the Shell would be a great way to fix the issues that caused this relic to exist. Any thoughts? Outrage? Insults? :) (I wanted to keep this mail short just to test the waters, but I could make a proper essay on PGO if some are interested) ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list I agree, they are unnecessary. At the moment I am using the AWN (Avant Window Navigator) to do all my application launching, and the file browser launcher for this provides an easy way to access devices. I haven't yet got that used to using the activities panel for launching applications, or accessing devices, I find using the AWN just requires one mouse movement and one click, not two mouse movements and a click (or drag) as with just the gnome shell. I think including something like the AWN bar in the gnome shell should be considered. Chris ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list Somewhere on this list (I think) I read of an idea/proposal to use the desktop as a sort of project dashboard type place. Documents related to your project could be composited on the desktop as thumbnails, and clicking them could open them. It could have zeitgeist/tracker/something integration for this. Anyways I'm just rambling and I forgot the original email with this idea. I do agree that icons on the desktop are redundant and we should get rid of it entirely (and hopefully replace it with an idea like this? please?). -Ryan Peters ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list
Screencast VP8/WebM support?
I have recently tried out the fantastic GNOME Shell built-in screencast recorder, and while looking through the gconf settings for it, I was reminded that it saves videos in Theora format. Since VP8/WebM has proven to be a much better container and video codec, could it be used by default or at least available as an option? On a related note, is it planned/allowed to be able to record audio as well as video? -Ryan Peters ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list
Re: Screencast VP8/WebM support?
On 06/03/2010 11:29 AM, Owen Taylor wrote: On Thu, 2010-06-03 at 10:38 -0500, Ryan Peters wrote: I have recently tried out the fantastic GNOME Shell built-in screencast recorder, and while looking through the gconf settings for it, I was reminded that it saves videos in Theora format. Since VP8/WebM has proven to be a much better container and video codec, could it be used by default or at least available as an option? The option is there if you tweak the GConf settings. (yeah, writing new GStreamer pipelines isn't for the faint of heart...) Adel Gadllah has done some experiments with WebM pipelines with pretty good success. The codec availability isn't yet to point where we'd want to make it a default, I think. On a related note, is it planned/allowed to be able to record audio as well as video? It should be possible with the right GStreamer pipeline to record the ambient audio into the recording. (In general, I think overdubs do make for better screencasts... it's hard to drive a screencast and talk coherently at the same time.) - Owen Thank you for the clarification! I agree it's rather new and we'd have to do more testing/work to get it to be a default. About recording audio, the reason I'm curious is that I'd like to be able to record the audio of the program(s) currently open. I agree though that overdubs make for better screencasts. Like, for example, I was playing a game and wanted to record me playing along with the sounds and music coming from the game (especially important if you're playing a dancing game, such as Stepmania). This isn't exactly something most people ask for/bother making, so it's very understandable why it's so hard to find a way to do this easily. What about recording specific windows, with/without the window border? Is that planned, or would I be better off using recordmydesktop or ffmpeg to record that? - Ryan Peters ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list
Re: Gnome-Shell building fails on Arch Linux
On 04/27/2010 11:45 AM, Alessandro Crismani wrote: Hi everybody, I'm using Arch Linux and I would like to build a bleeding edge snapshot of gnome-shell, however jhbuild fail at step 3 with the following error: ./json-parser.c:916:38: error: comparison between ‘GTokenType’ and ‘enum anonymous’ If I continue the build process it ends saying success, however when I launch ./gnome-shell --replace I get something like GConf schemas missing, killing the shell. Besides, I tried to compile on Fedora and it works like a charm, am I missing some dependency which I am not aware of? I tried the Arch AUR package and it works fine (now I have the GConf schemas thanks to it, so I can't reproduce the previous error), however I would like to be able to compile the lastest source. I searched through Google but I can't find anything related to my problem, is anybody able to help me? Thanks in advance, and keep up with the project! Cheers, Alessandro ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list Ditto. I'm on Arch right now and the latest fails to build. I'm not sure why though. ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list
Re: Gnome-Shell building fails on Arch Linux
Just tried that now. Results: make[4]: Entering directory `/home/ryan/gnome-shell/source/json-glib/json-glib' CC json-array.lo CC json-debug.lo CC json-gboxed.lo CC json-generator.lo CC json-gobject.lo CC json-node.lo CC json-object.lo CC json-parser.lo cc1: warnings being treated as errors ./json-parser.c: In function ‘json_parser_load’: ./json-parser.c:916:38: error: comparison between ‘GTokenType’ and ‘enum anonymous’ ./json-parser.c:917:38: error: comparison between ‘GTokenType’ and ‘enum anonymous’ make[4]: *** [json-parser.lo] Error 1 make[4]: Leaving directory `/home/ryan/gnome-shell/source/json-glib/json-glib' make[3]: *** [all-recursive] Error 1 make[3]: Leaving directory `/home/ryan/gnome-shell/source/json-glib/json-glib' make[2]: *** [all] Error 2 make[2]: Leaving directory `/home/ryan/gnome-shell/source/json-glib/json-glib' make[1]: *** [all-recursive] Error 1 make[1]: Leaving directory `/home/ryan/gnome-shell/source/json-glib' make: *** [all] Error 2 *** Error during phase build of json-glib: ## Error running make *** [2/7] [1] Rerun phase build [2] Ignore error and continue to install [3] Give up on module [4] Start shell [5] Reload configuration [6] Go to phase wipe directory and start over [7] Go to phase configure [8] Go to phase clean [9] Go to phase distclean choice: From: Sriram Ramkrishna s...@ramkrishna.me To: Alessandro Crismani alessandro.crism...@gmail.com Cc: gnome-shell-list@gnome.org Sent: Tue, May 25, 2010 8:54:44 PM Subject: Re: Gnome-Shell building fails on Arch Linux Did you try jhbuild build gnome-shell -a -c? sri On Tue, Apr 27, 2010 at 9:45 AM, Alessandro Crismani alessandro.crism...@gmail.com wrote: Hi everybody, I'm using Arch Linux and I would like to build a bleeding edge snapshot of gnome-shell, however jhbuild fail at step 3 with the following error: ./json-parser.c:916:38: error: comparison between ‘GTokenType’ and ‘enum anonymous’ If I continue the build process it ends saying success, however when I launch ./gnome-shell --replace I get something like GConf schemas missing, killing the shell. Besides, I tried to compile on Fedora and it works like a charm, am I missing some dependency which I am not aware of? I tried the Arch AUR package and it works fine (now I have the GConf schemas thanks to it, so I can't reproduce the previous error), however I would like to be able to compile the lastest source. I searched through Google but I can't find anything related to my problem, is anybody able to help me? Thanks in advance, and keep up with the project! Cheers, Alessandro ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list
Re: Gnome-Shell building fails on Arch Linux
Tried that and it compiled perfectly! Thank you so much! However, when I run the Shell, I get this after a few seconds: $ gnome-shell/install/bin/gnome-shell --replace do_wait: drmWaitVBlank returned -1, IRQs don't seem to be working correctly. Try adjusting the vblank_mode configuration parameter. JS LOG: GNOME Shell started at Tue May 25 2010 21:34:17 GMT-0500 (CST) WARNING: Application calling GLX 1.3 function glXCreatePixmap when GLX 1.3 is not supported! This is an application bug! WARNING: Application calling GLX 1.3 function glXDestroyPixmap when GLX 1.3 is not supported! This is an application bug! JS LOG: Failed to acquire org.freedesktop.Notifications; trying again Shell killed with signal 11 (PS: Sorry for not responding to the list. I'm stuck with webmail for now and it doesn't have the reply to list feature Thunderbird has :\) From: Ryan Peters slosh...@sbcglobal.net To: Florian Müllner florian.muell...@gmail.com Sent: Tue, May 25, 2010 9:37:56 PM Subject: Re: Gnome-Shell building fails on Arch Linux Tried that and it compiled perfectly! Thank you so much! However, when I run the Shell, I get this after a few seconds: $ gnome-shell/install/bin/gnome-shell --replace do_wait: drmWaitVBlank returned -1, IRQs don't seem to be working correctly. Try adjusting the vblank_mode configuration parameter. JS LOG: GNOME Shell started at Tue May 25 2010 21:34:17 GMT-0500 (CST) WARNING: Application calling GLX 1.3 function glXCreatePixmap when GLX 1.3 is not supported! This is an application bug! WARNING: Application calling GLX 1.3 function glXDestroyPixmap when GLX 1.3 is not supported! This is an application bug! JS LOG: Failed to acquire org.freedesktop.Notifications; trying again Shell killed with signal 11 From: Florian Müllner florian.muell...@gmail.com To: gnome-shell-list@gnome.org Sent: Tue, May 25, 2010 9:19:28 PM Subject: Re: Gnome-Shell building fails on Arch Linux Hi there, El mar, 27-04-2010 a las 18:45 +0200, Alessandro Crismani escribió: I'm using Arch Linux and I would like to build a bleeding edge snapshot of gnome-shell, however jhbuild fail at step 3 with the following error: ./json-parser.c:916:38: error: comparison between ‘GTokenType’ and ‘enum anonymous’ This is a combination of (1) gcc 4.5 being overly pedantic and warning about legitimate code (2) CFLAGS containing -Werror to treat warnings as errors The easiest fix is to drop to the console (it's 4 in jhbuild, ain't it?) and resume the build with make CFLAGS=-Wno-error - it should finish successfully, so you can exit the console and resume jhbuild. Yup, bleeding edge can be painful ;) You may decide to overwrite -Werror permanently for json-glib by adding the following to your .jhbuildrc-custom: module_makeargs['json-glib'] = 'CFLAGS=-Wno-error' If I continue the build process it ends saying success ... but if you just skipped json-glib there's a dependency missing. when I launch ./gnome-shell --replace I get something like GConf schemas missing, killing the shell. Possibly you need to update jhbuild - assuming that you setup the build system with the gnome-shell-build-setup.sh script (you did, right?), just re-run the script. Hope that gets you running! ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list
Re: Gnome-Shell building fails on Arch Linux
Nevermind. I just re-started it and it runs perfectly now. Props to the GNOME Shell team for working so hard :D! From: Ryan Peters slosh...@sbcglobal.net To: Florian Müllner florian.muell...@gmail.com Cc: gnome-shell-list@gnome.org Sent: Tue, May 25, 2010 9:39:18 PM Subject: Re: Gnome-Shell building fails on Arch Linux Tried that and it compiled perfectly! Thank you so much! However, when I run the Shell, I get this after a few seconds: $ gnome-shell/install/bin/gnome-shell --replace do_wait: drmWaitVBlank returned -1, IRQs don't seem to be working correctly. Try adjusting the vblank_mode configuration parameter. JS LOG: GNOME Shell started at Tue May 25 2010 21:34:17 GMT-0500 (CST) WARNING: Application calling GLX 1.3 function glXCreatePixmap when GLX 1.3 is not supported! This is an application bug! WARNING: Application calling GLX 1.3 function glXDestroyPixmap when GLX 1.3 is not supported! This is an application bug! JS LOG: Failed to acquire org.freedesktop.Notifications; trying again Shell killed with signal 11 (PS: Sorry for not responding to the list. I'm stuck with webmail for now and it doesn't have the reply to list feature Thunderbird has :\) From: Ryan Peters slosh...@sbcglobal.net To: Florian Müllner florian.muell...@gmail.com Sent: Tue, May 25, 2010 9:37:56 PM Subject: Re: Gnome-Shell building fails on Arch Linux Tried that and it compiled perfectly! Thank you so much! However, when I run the Shell, I get this after a few seconds: $ gnome-shell/install/bin/gnome-shell --replace do_wait: drmWaitVBlank returned -1, IRQs don't seem to be working correctly. Try adjusting the vblank_mode configuration parameter. JS LOG: GNOME Shell started at Tue May 25 2010 21:34:17 GMT-0500 (CST) WARNING: Application calling GLX 1.3 function glXCreatePixmap when GLX 1.3 is not supported! This is an application bug! WARNING: Application calling GLX 1.3 function glXDestroyPixmap when GLX 1.3 is not supported! This is an application bug! JS LOG: Failed to acquire org.freedesktop.Notifications; trying again Shell killed with signal 11 From: Florian Müllner florian.muell...@gmail.com To: gnome-shell-list@gnome.org Sent: Tue, May 25, 2010 9:19:28 PM Subject: Re: Gnome-Shell building fails on Arch Linux Hi there, El mar, 27-04-2010 a las 18:45 +0200, Alessandro Crismani escribió: I'm using Arch Linux and I would like to build a bleeding edge snapshot of gnome-shell, however jhbuild fail at step 3 with the following error: ./json-parser.c:916:38: error: comparison between ‘GTokenType’ and ‘enum anonymous’ This is a combination of (1) gcc 4.5 being overly pedantic and warning about legitimate code (2) CFLAGS containing -Werror to treat warnings as errors The easiest fix is to drop to the console (it's 4 in jhbuild, ain't it?) and resume the build with make CFLAGS=-Wno-error - it should finish successfully, so you can exit the console and resume jhbuild. Yup, bleeding edge can be painful ;) You may decide to overwrite -Werror permanently for json-glib by adding the following to your .jhbuildrc-custom: module_makeargs['json-glib'] = 'CFLAGS=-Wno-error' If I continue the build process it ends saying success ... but if you just skipped json-glib there's a dependency missing. when I launch ./gnome-shell --replace I get something like GConf schemas missing, killing the shell. Possibly you need to update jhbuild - assuming that you setup the build system with the gnome-shell-build-setup.sh script (you did, right?), just re-run the script. Hope that gets you running! ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list
Re: Scroll to zoom in/out.
On 04/14/2010 09:29 AM, Rovanion Luckey wrote: I don't understand why everyone wants to run GNOME Shell with a dock. It clutters up your screen, uses a lot of memory (especially Docky), and it just isn't necessary at all. First you make the statement that a Dock is in no way needed. I admit, Iamusing a dock right now, but it's DockBarX, so it sits on my panel while giving me that awesome program grouping that docks give you in a much more compact way. Then you go ahead and tell us that you do indeed use a dock, not the Docky that youdespisebut another dock. Besides of visual and some very minorfunctionaldifferences these two applications are the same to the user. They are designed around the same concept and fill the exact same need. They are docks, the names of the applications indicates that enough. I personally think of it as a "more compact on-panel application switcher". I guess my definition of dock is a little different than yours. Second, I'm only using this dock in GNOME 2. I don't need it in GNOME Shell because of how it's designed. Now this is not a discussion suitable for this mailing list so I will stop at that. I didn't exactly want it to continue either, to be honest. I wanted to point out how GNOME Shell is just fine without a dock and doesn't need one. It groups programs in the overlay and it would be redundant to have that feature in more than one place. GNOME 2 doesn't have the overlay, so thus I use DockBarX. Just one more thing: GNOME Shell doesn't need a dock, never will, and if you want a different way to access your applications, just use a dock yourself or wait until someone develops an add-on for A similar feature. We do not want to create the shell as a product that when it is out, people will talk about it in terms of: "Yes gnome shell is wicked cool! You just have to add a dock for window switching and then it is totally awesome!". Gnome Shell should be released as a finished product, not something where the general consensus is that you have to change and add a lot of stuff to get it working. It should simply work. I think you mis-interpreted what I said there. There are lots of people that use Firefox, for example, mainly because of its add-ons/plugins. On its own, without any add-ons at all, Firefox is a great, stable, and fast program that shows how great free-as-in-freedom software can be. The developers of course realize that they aren't perfect and they never will be, so they let people change the program to fit their needs/wants. Personally I'd be using Chromium, Opera, or something similar right now if I wasn't able to customize my browsing experience to fit my needs (tree style tab, ad blocking, script blocking, cookie blocking, read-it-later, etc.) The main reason I use GNOME and similar desktop environments is because they not only make it easy to "jump in and go" without needing to configure anything. But the thing is, GNOME is simply a "desktop environment"; just a framework for how we use our computer. If there's some minor detail or feature that GNOME does not provide that some people (thought not necessarily everyone) would like, like a dock-style mechanism for switching applications, we can't say "no you can't do that" because we can't stop them. If the dock add-on is good, very good, it might even lead more people to use GNOME Shell. I do agree with you that we should try our very best to make GNOME Shell readily usable (and I love it how it is right now), but like Firefox, we shouldn't tell people that they shouldn't "do their own thing". This is one of the reasons I moved to Linux: we're "free" over here to do things with our system that Apple/Microsoft won't let us do, mainly because it "isn't our system" if we used their OS's. For example, the CSS customization of GNOME Shell, or the panel applets in GNOME 2. Iapologiseif this email was interpreted as aggressive towards you Ryan Peters, it was notmeantas such. 'Tis fine, none taken. I just hope I don't seem like I'm mad at you :). Sorry for sounding rather... "noob-ish"? Is the correct word? ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list
Re: Scroll to zoom in/out.
On 04/14/2010 08:57 AM, Tomasz Sterna wrote: Dnia 2010-04-14, śro o godzinie 08:35 -0500, Ryan Peters pisze: GNOME Shell doesn't need a dock, never will, and if you want a different way to access your applications, just use a dock yourself or wait until someone develops an add-on for A similar feature. By the way, can't you switch applications with the sidebar? *psst, whoever is working on that sidebar, I hate how it pushes everything over; I wish it was more auto-hide-y* There is no sidebar in current Gnome Shell anymore. ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list That's odd; seems to be working on my laptop. Maybe I'm just on an old build. Nevermind! ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list
Re: Window management pie menu
On 04/15/2010 07:40 AM, Rovanion Luckey wrote: Good day, I have an idea to present that I would like to call the PieThrower. The idea resolvs around providing the user with an easy and fast interface to "throw" application windows to different workspaces. The inspiration came from this very mailing list.Basically the discussion went around adding buttons to the window list. Either many buttonsrepresenting each direction to which a window could go or one button spawning a secondarymenu showing one button for each currently existing workspace. While these designs solve the issue they either clutter the window border in a way that might seem too much or they are based on two a two step menu with small icons. What the PieThrower bases around is the concept of the user throwing or sending windows to other workspaces with the use of a pie or circle menu, depending on what you like to call it. A pie menu is a menu shaped as a circle with one slice for each option. There are two ways as I see it that this interface could be accessed, either by a button located on window border or when the middle mouse button is pressed on the border.When the user triggers interface a pie or circle menu appears showing onepiecefor each one of maximally four directions possible. The menu is spawned around the mouse or button location and the different are activated either by mouse position or release of the mouse button. To break up the preceding wall of text and further explain the design, here is the PieThrower spawned by a button when three other workspaces are open to the left, to the right and underneath: i296.photobucket.com/albums/mm167/Rovanion/ButtonMockup.jpg?t=1271184688 This pie menu in this mockup is spawned by a button. In this case the user can either press the button, then release the mouse again, and then press the slice he or she wishes to. But this is not the mostefficientway to go. Pressing the button, but never releasing it brings up the menu just as fast. Now there are two different ways to go here. One where a slice is activated when the user releases his mouse on or outside of a slice. The inner circle always cancels the menu. The other where activation of a slice happends either when the user releases his mouse on a slice or directly when the mouse reaches outside of a slice.This second option is the one that would give a real edge to the function making it feel as if you were throwing the window to your next workspace. Here is a second mockup spawned from middle mouse button showing a usecase where Gnome Shell is sorting the workspaces in linear view. Here the user has one workspace open to the left but none to the right, but the interface allows for the user to open up a new workspace and send the window to it: i296.photobucket.com/albums/mm167/Rovanion/ButtonMockup2.jpg?t=1271184731 So after this throw at explaining the PieThrower I would like to ask the code writers who managed to read through the whole idea, is this possible to do?And if it is possible to realize this idea, whathappensnext? PS: The same design could be used to switch workspaces, middle click background or other suitable area and off you go. -- www.twitter.com/Rovanion ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list Love it! This makes sense, as it more easily exposes the idea of switching workspaces and doesn't require going to the overlay or using some kind of keyboard shortcut. I hope something similar to this is implemented in the future! ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list
Re: DockBar-style minimization
On 04/13/2010 04:44 PM, Tomasz Sterna wrote: Dnia 2010-04-13, wto o godzinie 09:52 -0500, Ryan Peters pisze: I simply mean to suggest an alternate, somewhat more organized way to handle minimization. I like that "docking" concept you mentioned, but why would it have to be separate from minimization? Is there a need to develop an add-on/extension/plugin/patch for it? The issue that my design fixes is Problem 3, which could be more easily worded like this: "What if I want an application running in the background while being easily controllable without disrupting my work-flow (un-minimizing it)?". I don't like the windows taskbar concept. I never liked it, from the very beginning Windows 95 introduced it and hate that every other OS copied it verbatim (KDE, GNOME, etc.) or some varianto of it (MacOS Dock). I loved the decision Gnome Shell to finally get rid of it. Activities overview is s much nicer and intuitive. But I see your point. There is a use case in presenting actions menu for background applications. They don't even need to be minimised. I think this functionality should be added to the Activities application icon on the sidebar. Gnome Shell could provide an API which applications could use to add items to the application icon on the Activities sidebar. We could use application .desktop file for this, similarly how new Ubuntu Indicator Applet uses it. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MessagingMenu#API ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list I never really thought about that possibility. The sidebar seems like a good place for this to me as well. And I can't stand that messaging menu personally; Ubuntu patches applications so you have to use their menu if you want anything close to a notification area icon, which is rather unfair considering that there's lots of distributions based on Ubuntu (like Linux Mint). About the API, why not just carry over the old one for the notification area to have compatibility with applications from other desktop environments (like KDE)? ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list
Re: Scroll to zoom in/out.
On 04/14/2010 07:44 AM, Mark Curtis wrote: Except it's arguably disorientating. Requires more mouse movement (to corner for overlay, then down to icon) Loses the "infinite height" advantage the window list had so the icons are a much smaller target Subject: RE: Scroll to zoom in/out. From: shanepatrickfa...@ubuntu.com To: merkin...@hotmail.com CC: gnome-shell-list@gnome.org Date: Wed, 14 Apr 2010 13:42:12 +0100 Hey, There is mouse selection its just in the activities area and not on the desktop. When you get used to it the window selection in the activities area is very fast. I do it without much effort now. Just push the mouse to the top right hand corner and click on the window you want. I think its better in Shell actually because you get to see whats going on in the windows too. -fagan On Wed, 2010-04-14 at 08:37 -0400, Mark Curtis wrote: I (and others, like Netbook users) don't have a large display Alt-Tab exists in GNOME now IN ADDITION TO the window list, why can't both a keyboard and mouse solution exist in shell? Most of my day is spend reading (not replying) to emails and reading on the web. My hand is never on the keyboard in the first place so needing to put on there is actually less efficient The third example uses Compiz and as that's not compatible with GNOME Shell, it's not a solution Subject: Re: Scroll to zoom in/out. From: to...@xiaoka.com To: gnome-shell-list@gnome.org Date: Wed, 14 Apr 2010 07:41:49 +0200 Dnia 2010-04-13, wto o godzinie 19:48 -0400, Jason Sauders pisze: What if alt+scroll is bound to zoom in/out? That'd be pretty handy. Good idea. :) +1 are we going to see some sort of dock-like or somehow an integrated system to quickly switch between active applications WITHOUT having to go to the overview mode (or alt tab) to do it? Please, no dock! http://www.asktog.com/columns/044top10docksucks.html Could you please elaborate, why do you think having all running applications visible at once and accessible with one click so important? Is there a use case, or is it just resistance to change the habit? There is a case when you are working with two/three windows (source and destination document) and need to be able to quickly change between them, but there are many so better ways one could accomplish this. 1. If you have big display, just tile the windows to see them both at once. There are even WMs that enforce this workflow. [1] 2. If you are working with test, keyboard switcher (Atl-Tab) is so much quicker than leaving the keyboard and handling the mouse. We even have one application window switch shortcut (Alt-`) 3. Grouping working set windows in one using a window manager feature and switching the grouped windows with mouse or keyboard. [2] [3] [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiling_window_manager [2] http://wiki.compiz.org/Plugins/Group [3] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nK4_cH5sbM ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list __ The New Busy is not the too busy. Combine all your e-mail accounts with Hotmail. Get busy. ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list The New Busy is not the old busy. Search, chat and e-mail from your inbox. Get started. ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list I don't understand why everyone wants to run GNOME Shell with a dock. It clutters up your screen, uses a lot of memory (especially Docky), and it just isn't necessary at all. If you want to use a dock, go ahead because nobody's stopping you, but for it to be official it just wouldn't make much sense. The only thing I have liked about docks was their "application grouping" they usually have, where each program's represented by an icon and you can switch between the individual windows in the program easily with that one icon. But do I need a giant dock to do this? Nope. I like organizing my desktop to make the most out of my workspaces so I don't need a dock. All I need is a quick ctrl+alt+left/right and there are my windows, easy to see and not piled up on top of each other like on Windows. I admit, I am using a dock right now, but it's DockBarX, so it sits on my panel while giving me that awesome program grouping that docks give you in a much more compact way. I advise everyone that swears by Docky to give this a try and maybe install a few themes ;). GNOME Shell doesn't need a dock, never will, and if you want a
Re: DockBar-style minimization
On 04/13/2010 05:00 AM, Tomasz Sterna wrote: Dnia 2010-04-12, pon o godzinie 20:19 -0500, Ryan Peters pisze: Problem 1: How do we handle minimized windows? All minimized windows are accessible in Activities overview. Either with application button on the sidebar, or by clicking on the window directly. See: http://live.gnome.org/GnomeShell/Tour#Applications Problem 3: What if I liked the old functionality? The old functionality had several uses that could be considered useful. For example, lets say Rhythmbox doesn't fit into any of my workspaces and I don't want to shove it away to its own workspace. I could minimize it to my system tray, and if I needed to skip a song or turn notifications on/off, I could right-click it and a menu would pop up. Or if I wanted to run a Bit-torrent client in the background without having a window up; I could minimize that to the tray as well. This functionality is missing in the new, yet more organized system tray. In GNOME 2 this is handled by panel applets. You may create a small application window and put it directly on the gnome-panel, and show application state on it, and access application functionality. Notification area is just what it name suggests - a way of notifying of events. Nothing more. It is being often misused to archive applets functionality - probably by Windows influence (you are calling it system tray which it isn't - just looks similar). What will happen to panel applets though is still unclear to me. http://bloc.eurion.net/archives/2009/gnome-shell-window-list/comment-page-1/#comment-4607 points that there should be no distinction between panel applet and real window. Staying with the Rhythmbox example: Rhythmbox could signal the window manager that it is able to handle docked state (a very small representation of itself) and window manager could put dock button beside minimize button on its frame. Whether we show this docked state on top panel, Activities sidebar or any place else is up to discussion. (I was googling, but could not find this discussion, so please forgive me if it was talked before.) One thought about top panel content I found is here: http://blog.fishsoup.net/2009/10/07/gnome-shell-2-28-0-a-preview/#comment-2224 http://imgur.com/BoLcm.png http://imgur.com/vJ1dP.png When you right-click a group of minimized windows, a custom menu similar to how the old system tray icons worked could pop-up. This menu's contents are dependent on the application, and it returns the old and useful functionality in an organized, more-useful way. It reduces the redundancy of having options you can access with the window you currently have open by limiting you to using them when the program's running in the background. Applications already have this kind of menu. Just go into Activities overview and right click on application button on the sidebar. See: http://live.gnome.org/GnomeShell/Tour#Applications ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list What I meant about Problem 1 is that there has been some recent discussion on how the best way to handle minimized windows could be. I know they are already handled like this, but it's too much effort for some people to have to go to the overlay to un-minimize a window. GNOME Shell is not finished (and perhaps never will be, knowing that software is never perfect) so contributing design ideas should be welcome. I simply mean to suggest an alternate, somewhat more organized way to handle minimization. I like that docking concept you mentioned, but why would it have to be separate from minimization? Is there a need to develop an add-on/extension/plugin/patch for it? The issue that my design fixes is Problem 3, which could be more easily worded like this: What if I want an application running in the background while being easily controllable without disrupting my work-flow (un-minimizing it)?. I understand why the old notification area was unorganized and did not make much sense, and the new notification area cleans this up very, very nicely. The old notification area, however, made it easy to handle minimized programs without un-minimizing them. Showing minimized windows in the way I'm suggesting, or in a similar way, makes it easy to tell an application is minimized, and at the same time it restores the old functionality of letting applications run in the background in a much more organized way than before. And by the way, sorry about using more than one term to refer to the notification area. I know that it isn't called the system tray, I just simply thought that calling it more than one term would make it easier for people to understand what I was talking about. PS: Sorry for my extremely long messages! ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http
Re: DockBar-style minimization (with crude mock-ups)
On 04/13/2010 04:53 AM, David Mulder wrote: May I point out that with my current understanding of the Gnome Shell, a Rythmbox implementation you describe should be relatively easy to be created using an extension. David Mulder On Tue, Apr 13, 2010 at 3:19 AM, Ryan Peters slosh...@sbcglobal.net wrote: Hello everyone, In the while I have been testing GNOME Shell, there have been two major problems that me and other people have noticed. Problem 1: How do we handle minimized windows? Problem 2: How do we handle the notification area/system tray? Problem 2 has been officially decided upon, and the notification area will be "system only", meaning that it will only provide indicators for system-related things such as internet connectivity, bluetooth, volume, etc. This makes the section much more organized than before, where it was a mostly-random pile of icons for unrelated programs. This brings up one more problem, however. Problem 3: What if I liked the old functionality? The old functionality had several uses that could be considered useful. For example, lets say Rhythmbox doesn't fit into any of my workspaces and I don't want to shove it away to its own workspace. I could minimize it to my system tray, and if I needed to skip a song or turn notifications on/off, I could right-click it and a menu would pop up. Or if I wanted to run a Bit-torrent client in the background without having a window up; I could minimize that to the tray as well. This functionality is missing in the new, yet more organized system tray. I made some very crude mock-ups to illustrate some of my own ideas about how this could be fixed. This is the first time I have ever used Inkscape for actual work, so don't expect them to be professional-looking. My first mock-up is as follows: http://imgur.com/BoLcm.png This mock-up shows how minimized applications could be handled. It's similar in a way to a popular program, DockBar or DockBarX. When mousing-over the program icon, it could show a menu similar to this. First the title of the program, then the windows of that program that are minimized. If a minimized window wants attention, the text referring to it could change color and/or italicize. Hovering over a window on the list could have an "X" in a circle on the right side which, when clicked, could close the window. This still leaves the problem of having programs run in the background and being easily accessible. When working with programs, I noticed that programs with a tray icon usually had it visible all the time, regardless whether or not you had one of the program windows open. This mock-up shows another way to do it while still remaining organized: http://imgur.com/vJ1dP.png When you right-click a group of minimized windows, a custom menu similar to how the old system tray icons worked could pop-up. This menu's contents are dependent on the application, and it returns the old and useful functionality in an organized, more-useful way. It reduces the redundancy of having options you can access with the window you currently have open by limiting you to using them when the program's running in the background. I'm sorry that my mock-ups are rather mediocre, but I hope you understand and/or like my ideas! If someone wants to talk about this post or any of those images somewhere else, you have the permission to do so under the Creative Commons BY-SA 3.0 license (just in case). For attribution, the minimum required is "some person from the GNOME Shell mailing list". - Ryan Peters, GNOME Shell tester. ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list Yes, I know, but I'm talking about having the functionality integrated with the rest of GNOME Shell. Restoring the old functionality on a program-by-program basis is very messy and confusing in the long run. Let me clarify what I'm trying to suggest: In GNOME 2, applications often have a notification area icon as a more compact way of minimizing/controlling the application. However, this makes the notification area VERY unorganized and confusing. GNOME 3/GNOME Shell makes this better by restricting its indicators to "system-only" ones. Some of the old (yet unrelated) indicators were useful though. Lets say you use a feed reader, for example. With GNOME 2, you could minimize it to your notification area and have it sit there quietly as an icon, running in the background. You don't need to un-minimize the program to control it; just right-click the icon. In GNOME 3, this functionality is missing according to the current official design, but to make things more organized. Those notification area indicators only make sense when you do not have a window of that program currently open! It's redundant to have an application window ope
Re: Buttons in Lucid Lynx
On 04/12/2010 09:19 AM, Shane Fagan wrote: Nope it was the design teams work Matt Asay doesnt make those kind of choices in his job. On Mon, Apr 12, 2010 at 12:37 PM, Rovanion Luckey rovanion.luc...@gmail.com wrote: My personal, totally ungrounded and should not be trusted in any way, opinion is that the reason why the window control buttons were moved to the left side of the window border is because the new Cheif operating officer of Conanical Matt Asay is an avid user of Apple products. The reason as stated by Conanical why the buttons are moved to the left side of the window border is that they are going to add new window functionality buttons to the right side of the window. And as far as I understand it, the decisions of Conanical have no direct effect on Gnome. They are their own entety and make their own decitions just as the Gnome foundation make theirs. -- www.twitter.com/Rovanion ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list The design team, if I recall correctly, made the new themes and style on Macs exclusively, without using free software. And to answer the question originally posted, the buttons can go wherever you please, and in GNOME upstream they will remain on the right by default. There *might* be an option in the future to move the "Activities" button to the other side, but I can't really say since I'm not a developer, only a tester. ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list
Re: Proposal: Use Ubuntu's MeMenu and Session Menu in the top panel
On 04/08/2010 07:05 PM, Shane Fagan wrote: On Thu, 2010-04-08 at 18:56 -0500, Apoorva Sharma wrote: On Thu, Apr 8, 2010 at 5:44 PM, Rovanion Luckey rovanion.luc...@gmail.com wrote: @OP Apoorva If I'm not mistaken these designs are already covered partially in the top right menu. -- www.twitter.com/Rovanion ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list Yes, but the MeMenu is better laid out, and having options to turn of the computer next to options to change your IM status doesn't make sense. Hey, What I like about the MeMenu that isnt in Gnome-Shell is the ability to send tweets and dents via Gwibber. Most of the functionality in Gnome-Shell is there except that. They also spit out the functionality in two for lucid one menu for microblogging stuff and changing your IM status..etc and another menu for quitting and switching user etc. So it is a lot better laid out in Ubuntu lucid. I can see why the default would stay one menu though because it has less functions. Regards Shane Fagan ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list Someone could make an Add-on to enable that functionality in the overlay search bar, right? ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list
Re: Proposal: Use Ubuntu's MeMenu and Session Menu in the top panel
On 04/05/2010 03:44 PM, Apoorva Sharma wrote:
Would it be possible to make the panel system modular,
like it is right now. I understand that there have been discussions
that have culminated in the current gnome shell layout, but I'm sure
people have other preferences, etc. If the new panel was made modular
and extensible, it would make Gnome-shell work with everyone's needs.
This Comment on OMGUbuntu's post regarding the gnome-shell
status area mockups says a lot:
I
appreciate the same thing about the gnome team that i do about Mark
Shuttleworth: They're making decisions and rules to increase cohesion
and the looks of Linux. However, the difference between them is that
Marks decisions don't rule out adjustments to take out his decisions,
the Gnome-Team is kinda screwing us over. Only the system gets to use
the top bar? really? i can't put ANYTHING else up there? No menus, no
launchers, no IM, no nothing? So wait, what happened to open and
customizable? What happened to ability to change?
Why can't Gnome-shell remain customizable? With a modular
approach, people would be able to put things where they want, and make
Gnome-Shell the perfect DE for them.
That being said, there is no reason why the well though out
positioning could be set as default.
Just my 2 cents.
On Mon, Apr 5, 2010 at 10:03 AM, Ryan Peters
slosh...@sbcglobal.net
wrote:
Hello Apoorva,
On 04/04/2010 06:24 PM, Apoorva Sharma wrote:
These two menus are a great innovation that makes
the
gnome desktop very easy to use and modern (integrated with the web). Is
it possible to use these menus, by porting them to look like the System
Status menus?
I think it would be an improvement
___
gnome-shell-list mailing list
gnome-shell-list@gnome.org
http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list
The main problem with that is that those applets aren't exactly
"available upstream" and are designed specifically for Ubuntu. For
example, the MeMenu is designed to integrate with Ubuntu's default
applications, and we shouldn't require that people be using these
applications. Plus, these panel applets are unnecessary because GNOME
Shell already includes most of their functionality elsewhere, making it
redundant to re-code those applets into _javascript_ (which GNOME Shell
is written in, as far as I know). A better idea would be to use the
future Add-Ons system to allow the search bar in the GNOME Shell
overlay to integrate with Gwibber/Pino/whatever application(s) you
choose.
We appreciate your proposal (regardless of the fact that I'm not on the
development team), but doing this is rather unnecessary at this point.
- Ryan Peters, GNOME Shell Tester
___
gnome-shell-list mailing list
gnome-shell-list@gnome.org
http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list
First of all, if you're going to reply, make sure that you're
replying to the Gnome Shell mailing list alone. The other members
haven't received your message because you sent it to just me. Second,
what are you talking about? The panel is modular, just not in the same
way it used to be. It's fully customizable via _javascript_/CSS (think
Firefox here); all we need now is an easy way to manage "add-ons" for
this purpose.
We're breaking compatability with the old panel applets because, quite
frankly, the old panel was "a mess" (according to the GNOME developers
at least). While on the outside the panel looks fine, on the inside it
isn't so pretty; that's why it's being re-designed for GNOME Shell.
Also, you do know that the GNOME Panel as we know it has been around
for approximately 10 years (give or take a few)? No wonder the panel
seems so "functional and extensible": there has been lots and lots of
time for people to design applets for it. Once GNOME Shell has been
around for as long as the GNOME Panel, because of how easy it is to
customize, I can guarantee that there will be even more customizations
for it than the GNOME Panel ever had.
Also, the notification area shouldn't have a random collection of
icons; this is making it more organized. The application-specific ones
could possibly be in a drop-down-grid-style menu or something, or even
on the bottom with the application notifications or the overlay. Keep
in mind that if you like your GNOME Panel more than GNOME Shell, you
can always use it for the first few releases of GNOME 3. You aren't
forced to use the Shell (I'm thinking of doing this until someone
develops a replacement for Panflute ;) ).
- Ryan Peters, GNOME Shell tester
P.S. Maybe KDE is your thing more than GNOME is; they seem to care
quite a lot more about customization.
___
gnome-shell-list mailing list
gnome-sh
Re: Proposal: Use Ubuntu's MeMenu and Session Menu in the top panel
On 04/06/2010 10:46 AM, clive wagenaar wrote: On Tuesday 06 April 2010 16:23:55 Ryan Peters wrote: P.S. Maybe KDE is your thing more than GNOME is; they seem to care quite a lot more about customization. Ouch :) Well, it is rather true considering how each DE has their own goals and benefits. You can't say that Fluxbox is better than LXDE is better than KDE is better than GNOME etc. because it doesn't work that way. What the original topic-starter said was that he wants GNOME to be more customizable to fit everyone's needs. KDE has always seemed more make it yourself to me than any other DE and if that's the kind of DE he prefers, maybe he should switch. I happen to love LXDE/Fluxbox/KDE/XFCE just as much as GNOME, but only because they have their own goals and uses. I use GNOME though because it's what fits me best: a modern desktop that just works. I'm not saying anything bad about KDE, I'm just saying that if that kind of DE suits him best, he might be better off using it. ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list
Re: Proposal: Use Ubuntu's MeMenu and Session Menu in the top panel
On 04/06/2010 05:51 PM, Apoorva Sharma wrote: On Tue, 2010-04-06 at 10:23 -0500, Ryan Peters wrote: On 04/05/2010 03:44 PM, Apoorva Sharma wrote: Would it be possible to make the panel system modular, like it is right now. I understand that there have been discussions that have culminated in the current gnome shell layout, but I'm sure people have other preferences, etc. If the new panel was made modular and extensible, it would make Gnome-shell work with everyone's needs. This Comment on OMGUbuntu's post regarding the gnome-shell status area mockups says a lot: I appreciate the same thing about the gnome team that i do about Mark Shuttleworth: They're making decisions and rules to increase cohesion and the looks of Linux. However, the difference between them is that Marks decisions don't rule out adjustments to take out his decisions, the Gnome-Team is kinda screwing us over. Only the system gets to use the top bar? really? i can't put ANYTHING else up there? No menus, no launchers, no IM, no nothing? So wait, what happened to open and customizable? What happened to ability to change? Why can't Gnome-shell remain customizable? With a modular approach, people would be able to put things where they want, and make Gnome-Shell the perfect DE for them. That being said, there is no reason why the well though out positioning could be set as default. Just my 2 cents. On Mon, Apr 5, 2010 at 10:03 AM, Ryan Peters slosh...@sbcglobal.net wrote: Hello Apoorva, On 04/04/2010 06:24 PM, Apoorva Sharma wrote: These two menus are a great innovation that makes the gnome desktop very easy to use and modern (integrated with the web). Is it possible to use these menus, by porting them to look like the System Status menus? I think it would be an improvement ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list The main problem with that is that those applets aren't exactly available upstream and are designed specifically for Ubuntu. For example, the MeMenu is designed to integrate with Ubuntu's default applications, and we shouldn't require that people be using these applications. Plus, these panel applets are unnecessary because GNOME Shell already includes most of their functionality elsewhere, making it redundant to re-code those applets into JavaScript (which GNOME Shell is written in, as far as I know). A better idea would be to use the future Add-Ons system to allow the search bar in the GNOME Shell overlay to integrate with Gwibber/Pino/whatever application(s) you choose. We appreciate your proposal (regardless of the fact that I'm not on the development team), but doing this is rather unnecessary at this point. - Ryan Peters, GNOME Shell Tester ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list First of all, if you're going to reply, make sure that you're replying to the Gnome Shell mailing list alone. The other members haven't received your message because you sent it to just me. Second, what are you talking about? The panel is modular, just not in the same way it used to be. It's fully customizable via JavaScript/CSS (think Firefox here); all we need now is an easy way to manage add-ons for this purpose. We're breaking compatability with the old panel applets because, quite frankly, the old panel was a mess (according to the GNOME developers at least). While on the outside the panel looks fine, on the inside it isn't so pretty; that's why it's being re-designed for GNOME Shell. Also, you do know that the GNOME Panel as we know it has been around for approximately 10 years (give or take a few)? No wonder the panel seems so functional and extensible: there has been lots and lots of time for people to design applets for it. Once GNOME Shell has been around for as long as the GNOME Panel, because of how easy it is to customize, I can guarantee that there will be even more customizations for it than the GNOME Panel ever had. Also, the notification area shouldn't have a random collection of icons; this is making it more organized. The application-specific ones could possibly be in a drop-down-grid-style menu or something, or even on the bottom with the application notifications or the overlay. Keep in mind that if you like your GNOME Panel more than GNOME Shell, you can always use it for the first few releases of GNOME 3. You aren't forced to use the Shell (I'm thinking of doing this until someone develops
Re: Proposal: Use Ubuntu's MeMenu and Session Menu in the top panel
Hello Apoorva, On 04/04/2010 06:24 PM, Apoorva Sharma wrote: These two menus are a great innovation that makes the gnome desktop very easy to use and modern (integrated with the web). Is it possible to use these menus, by porting them to look like the System Status menus? I think it would be an improvement ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list The main problem with that is that those applets aren't exactly "available upstream" and are designed specifically for Ubuntu. For example, the MeMenu is designed to integrate with Ubuntu's default applications, and we shouldn't require that people be using these applications. Plus, these panel applets are unnecessary because GNOME Shell already includes most of their functionality elsewhere, making it redundant to re-code those applets into _javascript_ (which GNOME Shell is written in, as far as I know). A better idea would be to use the future Add-Ons system to allow the search bar in the GNOME Shell overlay to integrate with Gwibber/Pino/whatever application(s) you choose. We appreciate your proposal (regardless of the fact that I'm not on the development team), but doing this is rather unnecessary at this point. - Ryan Peters, GNOME Shell Tester ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list
Re: Panel Size
On 04/05/2010 01:46 PM, Richard Silver wrote: On the same note when will we get any sort of settings? -- Sent from my Palm Pre On Apr 5, 2010 11:30 AM, Tanner Doshier doshi...@gmail.com wrote: Are there any plans to allow the vertical size of the panel to be changed? On a related note, what are the plans concerning the font/font size the Shell uses? Obviously if we (the user) could get the Shell to use a different font for the panel, then that would help facilitate the scaling of said panel. ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list Yeah, you can't exactly call GNOME Shell "ready" until it's reasonably configurable. There is no "best font" or "best font size" or "best panel size" or "best panel location", etc. I'm sure the option is there somewhere, but in a text file or something most likely. All we really need now is (a) GUI tool(s) to work with this; maybe just a patch to the GNOME appearance settings GUI? ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list
Re: Suggestions.
On 03/31/2010 09:10 AM, David Mulder wrote: First of all, the last time I used gnome-shell there was still a dock-style taskbar available inside the gnome-shell in the top-left corner. Alt-tab is easy to switch between recent applications and the gnome-shell allows you to easily switch between all applications. As far as your second idea goes, I am not entirely sure how gnome-shell currently looks (can't test), but I thought I might vote in favour of the original grid-view as IMHO itsincomparablybetter than the flat view where you don't see all workspaces. David Mulder PS. I would be extremelythankfulif somebody could send me a shot of how gnome-shell looks (default) in its current state, as due to technical problems I can't install linux anymore and I am not sure how much changed in the last month or so. On Wed, Mar 31, 2010 at 2:57 PM, Jason Sauders roastedtir...@gmail.com wrote: After using Gnome Shell for quite a long time now waiting for updates that might answer my request, I decided to email the mailing list again with my idea. The more I use Gnome Shell, the more I like it. I find the interface very nicely laid out and I think this really has some potential. But regardless, I cannot see how the masses will adopt this with having to use the overview (or alt tab) to switch applications. I just can't see it taking off... I never really understood the point behind that area in the top panel on the left side that displays what our current primary window is. Why do we need it there? Let's put that area to better use and remove that functionality and add a dock-like application there. That way for users who simply want to switch from 1 application to another that didn't get hit with a notification, they can without having to go through the zoom in-out thing. What if I'm in Firefox but, oh wait, I want to write an email. Well, the notification system isn't going to display my idea, since it only displays notifications. Ahh, wait... I gotta zoom in-out. No big deal. But throw this in the hands of a power user, and I really see where the bottleneck for mass Gnome Shell adoption would be. Please... let's see something like that... use Ubuntu Netbook Remix as an idea starter. That dock-like application is brilliant. That in Gnome Shell would simply be awesome. Keep in mind, I'm not requesting this to be default. Just an activate-able option already embedded in the Gnome Shell system itself for users to activate if they prefer it. Second Idea: This may have been in existence before, but it just came to mind and I wanted to bring it up. The grid layout for the application menu is very cumbersome. It was much, much better with the single file vertical layout as we had before. Let's revert back to that, as it was much easier to use and MUCH quicker to find applications. Secondly, is there a way you can open the application menu and hit a single letter, and then the application menu displays everything that starts with that letter? That would make quick-scanning even easier yet. Coupled with the fact you can type the application name in the search box and launch it there and you have a very quick and powerful way to get applications running. If those two things get added, I just might have to go back to Gnome Shell full time. But till then, you gotta use what works... Thanks for hearing me out. Good work, and good luck to the GS team! ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list The last time I checked, most people didn't care about workspaces, and restricting the shell to only show one desktop at a time in the overlay makes sense because it's easier to see all of your applications (especially on something like a netbook). I like the grid view more personally, of course, but that's only because I like using multiple workspaces at once, which most people don't do. Showing a giant grid at start would only scare new users (like my mother, which only needs a computer for Picasa, Gwibber, and Facebook) and giving them too much immediate functionality isn't a good idea. The more simple we make Gnome-Shell appear, the better. Of course, the grid option is always there if you like it and it's just one click to turn on ;) ...By the way, I'm not a member of the Gnome-Shell design/developing team or whatever. I'd just like to share my opinion on the development, which, for a program half of a year away from its first release, is doing exceptional. ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list
Re: Suggestions.
On 03/31/2010 11:11 AM, Thorsten Wilms wrote: On Wed, 2010-03-31 at 09:39 -0500, Ryan Peters wrote: The last time I checked, most people didn't care about workspaces, and restricting the shell to only show one desktop at a time in the overlay makes sense because it's easier to see all of your applications (especially on something like a netbook). I like the grid view more personally, of course, but that's only because I like using multiple workspaces at once, which most people don't do. Showing a giant grid at start would only scare new users (like my mother, which only needs a computer for Picasa, Gwibber, and Facebook) and giving them too much immediate functionality isn't a good idea. The more simple we make Gnome-Shell appear, the better. Of course, the grid option is always there if you like it and it's just one click to turn on ;) I thought part of the motivation for the shell was making workspaces a more obvious and dynamic feature. If one doesn't use more than one workspace even with the shell, why should there be a difference between a grid with only 1 space or a flat view, aside of a means to add a workspace? The other workspaces are still visible, but with a scroll-bar. People like myself use many workspaces at once for organization, but most people will probably only use 1 or 2 workspaces. Plus, with the single-workspace-at-a-time view, there's less zooming, making people less dizzy. I do see your point though that the grid view would also be a good default, but it's not a huge difference... is it? ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list
Re: Why does Gnome-shell replace the current gnome-panel.
On 03/23/2010 11:22 AM, Apoorva Sharma wrote: Right now, gnome-panel is an extremely customizable and useful application. Thanks to the many applets that have been written, it is getting better every month. Furthermore, many of the improvements that are being made to linux distributions are being made to the panel (i.e. the MeMenu in ubuntu lucid). Meanwhile, in gnome-shell, the new panel presents the user with an activities button, which opens the overlay, a useless indication of the current running application, a clock, a notification area, and a user menu. In my opinion, the gnome-shell panel is a tremendous step backwards from the current gnome panel. It loses the customizability, the applets, and puts much of the efforts of current distributions, (i.e. ubuntu lucid's application indicators, the messaging menu, etc.), to waste. I don't understand why Gnome-shell doesn't simply use the current gnome-panel, with two modifications: an applet that works like the current Activities button (which sends a signal to open the overlay), and if needed, a current application indication. Is there something I'm missing, or a reason why we need to replace the current, functional gnome panel? -- Apoorva Sharma ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list Yeah, the only thing I dislike about Gnome-Shell is that I can't use the DockBarX or Panflute applets. However, the current panel in Gnome-Shell, for better or worse, is designed to be integrated with the rest of the desktop (while the Gnome 2 panel can work without the rest of Gnome). I'm not exactly a fan of things being so tightly integrated either, but I guess there have to be some times when things have to break backwards compatibility so we can innovate. If you've been following this mailing list as long as I have, you'd have come across a few emails about "add-ons" (firefox-style) for the shell that will replace the current types of customization we now have in Gnome 2. Bear in mind that Gnome-Shell isn't finished yet (isn't it supposed to be released all the way in september?) and the ability to customize your panel to an extent is planned for the future... I think. ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list
Re: Is the Minimize button still useful with gnome-shell ?
On 03/22/2010 11:55 AM, Glen Patras wrote: On Sat, 2010-03-20 at 19:01 +0100, Rovanion Luckey wrote: -- Yeah, that makes sense. The left side of the window could have left and right buttons for workspace switching (makes the feature more obvious to new users). It'd make it look a little more balanced (two buttons on each side), wouldn't it? The program icon can go right before the window title (saves space and looks better than sitting in the corner IMO). -- Tough the one does not have to exclude the other as my friend here pointed out. Sometimes you simply want a a window to go away for a while, not having it pop up on another workspace. So removing this feature goes against Gnome Shell guidelines dictating that the user should be able to work in a focused manner on a task. The user would not be able to hide away ie chatwindows effectively. And on the balancing point. I don't know if that would result in the title bar being any more balanced since the movement-buttons could range from zero to four. Or maybe there should always be one button visible even tough there is only one workspace open, and this button would open up a second workspace and then move the window to that workspace. -- www.twitter.com/Rovanion ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list Changing it to a workspace switcher button makes sense, but to make it simple shouldn't it just open a floating menu with options based on the workspaces as they are presently configured with a couple extra options on the bottom, rather than add multiple buttons? Example: [1] [2] [*] [4] [C] [+] where: # - # of workspace * - current workspace (most probably greyed out) C - Closet workspace (if that idea is used) + - create a new workspace and send the window there. Regards! Glen Patras ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list Sounds great, but what would the use be for a current workspace option when it isn't grayed out? ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list
Re: Is the Minimize button still useful with gnome-shell ?
On 03/20/2010 12:12 PM, Rovanion Luckey wrote: I agree; there isn't much of a point to minimizing. Replacing it with something that sends it to another workspace/icon-ifies it or something would be a better idea. Hey that may not be such a bad idea. Why not place buttons, that depending on how the workspace are currently laid out, allows the user to move this window to another workspace. So if there is a desktop to the left, right and below, there are three arrows on the title bar for each direction. Once pressed the window shoops away in that direction. -- www.twitter.com/Rovanion Yeah, that makes sense. The left side of the window could have "left" and "right" buttons for workspace switching (makes the feature more obvious to new users). It'd make it look a little more "balanced" (two buttons on each side), wouldn't it? The program icon can go right before the window title (saves space and looks better than sitting in the corner IMO). The more unique Gnome Shell is, especially if it adds functionality, the better! =D ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list
Re: Move across desktops
On 02/06/2010 02:04 PM, William Jon McCann wrote: Hi, On Sat, Feb 6, 2010 at 9:41 AM, Kaj-Ivar van der Wijst kaj-i...@vanderwijst.com wrote: Hi everyone! I've been using lately the new way of navigating through the desktops, with the horizontal scrollbar instead of an overview of all the available desktops. I think this is a nice feature, even if I don't use it all the time. However, I think we need a better way of scrolling, better than having to click and drag the small scrollbar on the bottom of the screen. I'd suggest something like the iPod/iPhone interface way of scrolling: just click and drag the whole screen, and when you release the mouse (stop scrolling), it just moves a little further to simulate more real scrolling. We could use this horizontally AND vertically, so we can not only use desktops aligned from left to right, but also vertically stacked desktops, a bit like the 'desktops overview' where you can see all the desktops at once. I hope you understand my idea. It would certainly be interesting to try this and see how well it works. Jon ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list Here's my two cents: It's an interesting change that some users will like a lot, but I think our current method of scrolling is just fine (breadcrumbs might work a little better, though). However, dragging a window to another workspace, by this method, seems a little broken at the moment. Here's a better way it could work: When you click and begin to drag on an application, lines symbolizing the various desktops you have open could appear over the current desktop (with icons symbolizing what programs you have open in there). Dragging the program over a certain square/corner would cause it to be a little brighter than the rest, and letting go will move that application over to that desktop, and it will zoom back in. CTRL-clicking applications should be able to let you drag more than one application over at a time; this could make things go a lot faster. About sliding it in an iPhone-style way: have you ever tried doing that? It's way faster to do the current way we have it (or even better, breadcrumbs as I mentioned earlier). Sliding it iPhone-style might work, but only on a touchscreen device (it could be an option or something, just in case there's a gnome-3 powered mobile device with a touchscreen), since dragging with a mouse just doesn't work like that (it's not very obvious, and it takes more effort than a standard, tried-and-true slider). Nice idea, but on a desktop/laptop, it just wouldn't work. ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list
Re: interapplication communication
On 01/14/2010 04:09 AM, Gianluca Inverso wrote: On Tue, Jan 5, 2010 at 10:16 PM, Gianluca Inverso zapp...@gmail.com wrote: 2010/1/5 Florian Mllner florian.muell...@gmail.com wrote: In the overview, right clicking a running app's icon in the app well will pop up a menu and filter the window previews to only show windows that belong to the selected application. Of course, any ideas for making said functionality more discoverable would be very much appreciated ... *hint, hint* Here are two suggestions :) 1) When hovering an app in the app well, highlight the corresponding windows 2) Let this feature auto-enable when the mouse sits for more than a couple of seconds on the same app's icon in the app well (1) is easy to discover, so the user will probably sit on the app icon when looking for the window he can't find. If he can't find that window quickly, (2) is automatically enabled I'm sort of bumping my own post, hope this is not a problem. I made a quick mockup of highlighting windows corresponding to an application when user hovers its icon in the app well: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/998584/highlight_windows_on_icon_hover_mockup.png As already said, after some seconds of sitting on the same icon this could trigger the actual filtering functionality already implemented (i.e. filter the window previews to only show windows that belong to the selected application and display a menu which also allows to set the app as "favourite"). Even if you don't like the "auto-enable filtering" stuff, I think the mockup above would be very helpful since it is of course much easier to discover. Thanks for reading, and thanks for coding Gnome-Shell!! :) -- Gianluca Inverso ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list Great mockup :D! It seems as if it'd make figuring out the gnome-shell interface a lot easier for new users. Now only if we could have the ability to make windows transparent like I could using Compiz... ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list
New notification system
I have just installed the latest version of gnome-shell from ricotz's PPA, and I found a few rather pleasant surprises along with it: 1) When changing the volume with my volume keys on my keyboard, instead of Notify-OSD popping up telling me what it was changed to, I got a transparent round-ish square in the slightly-below-the-middle of the screen with a volume icon and a bar telling me how high the volume is. Very stylish, and I assume that with the rest of Gnome Shell this is theme-able with CSS? 2) Now, when I get a libnotify/Notify-OSD popup, it appears at the very bottom of the screen along with an icon from the program it comes from (in this case, Rhythmbox). It's an interesting change, but since this mailing list is here for discussion and feedback, I thought I'd give my two cents on how it works so far (yes, I am aware that this is brand new and not even close to the final version). First, having notifications at the bottom of the screen seems a little less noticeable than them being on the side or popping down from the top bar (and a little less convenient as they cover up the bottom of maximized applications, which is not a good idea for someone that uses the bottom bar of Firefox a lot). Second, I noticed that if I move my mouse to the very bottom of the screen, there's a black-to-transparent gradient of sorts where the notifications appear. I assume that's planned to be a click-able list of past notifications? I like how they're displayed compared to Notify-OSD, but their location and execution could use a little more brainstorming if you ask me. Instead of a hot corner or a hot side as it seems to be now, maybe a button on the top bar or under the User Menu in the corner would suffice? Well, maybe a hot corner in the top right wouldn't be so bad if they appeared right under your user-name. Anyone else try the new notifications as of yet? What are your thoughts? ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list
Re: New notification system
On 01/14/2010 01:23 PM, Florian Müllner wrote: El jue, 14-01-2010 a las 13:12 -0500, Dan Winship escribió: On 01/14/2010 12:41 PM, Ryan Peters wrote: 1) When changing the volume with my volume keys on my keyboard, [...] I got a transparent round-ish square in the slightly-below-the-middle of the screen with a volume icon and a bar telling me how high the volume is. No, GNOME Shell isn't drawing that icon, gnome-settings-daemon is. [...] So now you see the default gnome-settings-daemon implementation. ... and there I was, trying to figure out why instead of getting that shiny new volume popup I kept getting the standard gnome one ... Silly me :( Yeah... my bad. I'm not so used to default gnome things; maybe this is what people mean that ubuntu's dumbed down in some areas? ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list
Re: Tested the latest build
On 01/09/2010 01:56 PM, Bob Hazard wrote:
Yes. In fact, to a large extend it already is theme-able. If you have a
look at ${install_dir}/share/gnome-shell/theme/gnome-shell.css. Right
now, there is neither a way to have parallel themes installed nor a way
to switch themes, but expect these to fall in place eventually.
lol it works http://dl.dropbox.com/u/258262/Screenshot-47.jpg
Don't laugh I have never done CSS before and I am 15% colour-blind
Back on topic: the theme directory, in the future, could just be
changed to themes with specific customizations per theme you're using.
For example, using the New Wave GTK/Mutter theme would have the ability
to give me a different default Gnome-Shell appearance by default
(different buttons, different colors... maybe different designs for the
panel/areas?) in its own New Wave sub-folder.
Of course, this shouldn't be just for themes to customize and there
could be a possible tab/option in the Appearance area of System Settings
for this kind of customization. Like, say, I wanted to use one kind of
GTK theme, another Mutter theme, and another Gnome-Shell theme instead
of loading a theme pack like most people do. I know this feature's
already present (and I'm loving it), but adding the panel and
gnome-shell to the list of possible customizations would be a good
future step to take in my opinion.
Anyone think of a better way this could be handled?
___
gnome-shell-list mailing list
gnome-shell-list@gnome.org
http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list
Re: Tested the latest build
On 01/09/2010 01:56 PM, Bob Hazard wrote:
Yes. In fact, to a large extend it already is theme-able. If you have a
look at ${install_dir}/share/gnome-shell/theme/gnome-shell.css. Right
now, there is neither a way to have parallel themes installed nor a way
to switch themes, but expect these to fall in place eventually.
lol it works http://dl.dropbox.com/u/258262/Screenshot-47.jpg
Don't laugh I have never done CSS before and I am 15% colour-blind
Wow, pretty! Would you mind telling me where you got your background
image? Pretty please =D?
___
gnome-shell-list mailing list
gnome-shell-list@gnome.org
http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list
Re: Gnome-Shell Proposed Mock Up
On 01/06/2010 01:06 PM, Rovanion Luckey wrote: Why is C# trough mono considered a slower language in comparison to any other JIT-compiled or interpreted language? 2010/1/6 Ryan Peters slosh...@sbcglobal.net On 01/06/2010 04:05 AM, David Hamm wrote: For Your Viewing Pleasure. http://meson.us/x/GnomeShell/ *note new xcf is missing a lot of stuff from the original draft, this makes me sad but I'm to lazy to add it now. *glances at watch* I'm kinda skeptical the dock will make it in :*(, however if shell looks similar to this it might be hard to say no. Firefox also looks ugly atm I'm sure there are other kinks that could be worked out... would be nice to know what-cha think ? Background Picture is by Pixel F**Kers not sure where exactly I got it...its also in the xcf clean. *I can remove it if necessary or if there is a link it would be nice to know. I also have more of the backgrounds like it if people like ps. Some stuff not noted in pictures, dragging window to top maximizes, and there is no minimize, rather closing the application is like android and its kept idle waiting for you unless you forget about it. Top right Icon also indicates whether signed into some on-line chat application. Orange away, clear off-line, Grey invisible ect... Some music while your looking... http://meson.us/video/2008Dec13th.ogg ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list This is very, very interesting! Having maximized windows work like tabs is a very nice idea, but if they did, how would we deal with the menu bars at the top? Would that become part of the tab, or stay on the application? The gnome-do-like part seems nice, but would it be a good idea if it was written from scratch or ported to C/C++ for this implementation? I like gnome-do, but C#/Mono is just too slow/memory hogging for many people. ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list -- www.twitter.com/Rovanion Because, last time I checked, C#/Mono is historically slower than other languages. Open up Banshee and compare it to Rhythmbox or Exaile, for instance. The latter are definitely faster and use less memory IIRC. Saying all languages are the same is like saying all computers are the same, or all video game consoles are the same, or all headphones are the same. Each one has different strengths and weaknesses. In C#'s case, it happens to be rapid application development; as a trade-off, the finished code is usually slower and more memory-hogging than other languages. For C/C++, the code is usually faster, but takes longer to type or run. Python, another good example, is easier to use and doubles as a good scripting language, but, again, some people say it's slower and uses more memory than C/C++. Mono-using applications have, for me, been generally slower and bulkier than other applications. Using AWN 0.4 over Docky, for example, is a huge difference in speed (for me, at least), and thus I prefer to use it. Also, not to sound language-aphobic, but C#/Mono is all Microsoft (and Novell) owned, and they happen to be the Embrace, Extend, Extinguish crowd; of course they want you to use their language (and don't even get me started on silverlight). ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list
Re: Gnome-Shell Proposed Mock Up
On 01/06/2010 04:34 PM, William Jon McCann wrote: Hey Ryan, On Wed, Jan 6, 2010 at 5:25 PM, Ryan Petersslosh...@sbcglobal.net wrote: On 01/06/2010 01:06 PM, Rovanion Luckey wrote: Why is C# trough mono considered a slower language in comparison to any other JIT-compiled or interpreted language? 2010/1/6 Ryan Petersslosh...@sbcglobal.net On 01/06/2010 04:05 AM, David Hamm wrote: For Your Viewing Pleasure. http://meson.us/x/GnomeShell/ *note new xcf is missing a lot of stuff from the original draft, this makes me sad but I'm to lazy to add it now. *glances at watch* I'm kinda skeptical the dock will make it in :*(, however if shell looks similar to this it might be hard to say no. Firefox also looks ugly atm I'm sure there are other kinks that could be worked out... would be nice to know what-cha think ? Background Picture is by Pixel F**Kers not sure where exactly I got it...its also in the xcf clean. *I can remove it if necessary or if there is a link it would be nice to know. I also have more of the backgrounds like it if people like ps. Some stuff not noted in pictures, dragging window to top maximizes, and there is no minimize, rather closing the application is like android and its kept idle waiting for you unless you forget about it. Top right Icon also indicates whether signed into some on-line chat application. Orange away, clear off-line, Grey invisible ect... Some music while your looking... http://meson.us/video/2008Dec13th.ogg This is very, very interesting! Having maximized windows work like tabs is a very nice idea, but if they did, how would we deal with the menu bars at the top? Would that become part of the tab, or stay on the application? The gnome-do-like part seems nice, but would it be a good idea if it was written from scratch or ported to C/C++ for this implementation? I like gnome-do, but C#/Mono is just too slow/memory hogging for many people. Because, last time I checked, C#/Mono is historically slower than other languages. Open up Banshee and compare it to Rhythmbox or Exaile, for instance. The latter are definitely faster and use less memory IIRC. Saying all languages are the same is like saying all computers are the same, or all video game consoles are the same, or all headphones are the same. Each one has different strengths and weaknesses. In C#'s case, it happens to be rapid application development; as a trade-off, the finished code is usually slower and more memory-hogging than other languages. For C/C++, the code is usually faster, but takes longer to type or run. Python, another good example, is easier to use and doubles as a good scripting language, but, again, some people say it's slower and uses more memory than C/C++. Mono-using applications have, for me, been generally slower and bulkier than other applications. Using AWN 0.4 over Docky, for example, is a huge difference in speed (for me, at least ), and thus I prefer to use it. Also, not to sound language-aphobic, but C#/Mono is all Microsoft (and Novell) owned, and they happen to be the Embrace, Extend, Extinguish crowd; of course they want you to use their language (and don't even get me started on silverlight). Don't take this the wrong way but let's please try to avoid programming language arguments on this list. We all still have scars from past battles and I'm pretty sure no one is going to change anyone's mind. Thanks, Jon Not that I was planning to, but I see your point. I use Gnome-Do on a daily basis, and Banshee actually used to be my favorite music organizing program. I apologize if I sounded willing to start an argument. Anyways, in relation to having Gnome-Do (or something similar) be part of the interface, isn't that already partially accomplished with the search area in the activities menu? ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list
Re: Gnome-Shell Proposed Mock Up
On 01/06/2010 05:08 PM, David Hamm wrote: "It also would be nice to see alot of the work already done on gnome-do moved into the shell." Just imagine a world were we all worked together on the same search box. We could form a search box so powerful it could shake the mighty *company that shall not be named*. Triumph shall be ours! -Insert Tri-Force Symbol- ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list "The Box To End All Searches", we could call it. And we wouldn't even need to think, it'd search for us =D. Fooling around aside, I feel that integrating something as powerful as Do (or something just like it) into the OS would be a fantastic idea. I'd feel lost using KDE/LXDE/Windows/Mac without it! ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list
Application Switcher Menu?
On 12/22/2009 07:34 PM, David Hamm wrote: "Isn't the plan to add a global menubar?" oh gawd, please don't. If its anything like the global menubar in osx, then its a nightmare. Please keep the applications settings within the application. ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list I've tried it before, and it's not so bad. I used to use this Gnome Global Menu Bar a lot until the Gnome System Monitor crashed with it running. What I'd love though is this one feature it had: In Gnome Shell, after I test out a new release I'm frequently disappointed when I find out that clicking the open program's name/icon in the top panel doesn't do anything :(. If I clicked the program's name/icon, I expect it to do one of the following: 1) Open up a menu of each open application (preferably separated somehow to show they're on a different workspace if applicable). This could solve our "how do we switch windows on a single workspace?" problem. 2) If I highlight or right-click a program's name/icon in the menu, another menu could come up with windows that belong to that program (such as the Buddy List and IM window(s) in Pidgin/Empathy or the Download/Browser). Like ALT+Tab, but for people "allergic to keyboards" ;). Any thoughts? ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list
Re: All GNOME Shell Developers.
On 12/18/2009 04:56 PM, Samuel Arthur Wright Illingworth wrote: Reducing the number of key clicks isn't a gain if it means you have a much bigger list to look through. You can't measure usability purely in number of clicks, or having the categorized menu would never have been an improvement in the first place. 2009/12/18 Sriram Ramkrishna s...@ramkrishna.me 2009/12/18 Mark Curtis merkin...@hotmail.com Well perhaps it would be best to tackle the individual issues... I've linked to previous threads on my main issue with GNOME Shell http://mail.gnome.org/archives/gnome-shell-list/2009-December/msg00052.html Danté Ashton who started this particular discussion has an issue with: "...the user, [having] to perform three extra clicks just to do what it takes me one to do now?" Денис Черемисов was less descriptive in their issue(s) though. Precisely why I took him to task. Back on topic: In the old method, it would take me 3 clicks to launch an application: Applications-section-App so that is three clicks. In gnome-shell method, we have: * 1 click for common used apps * 2 clicks for any other apps I don't consider going to the overview mode as a click. But if you did, it would still be 2 or 3 clicks which is equivalent to the old method. Initially there was categories for the apps, but was changed to a flat scheme which reduced the number of key clicks. sri ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list That doesn't mean that more clicks means it's more usable, though. In Gnome-Shell, if I want to launch an application that isn't on my recently opened applications list, I have a lot more clicks than before. 1. Open Activities (arguably this can be triggered without a click, though) 2. Click "Browse" on the Applications section. 3. Click on the category I want. 4. Sift through a page or two (why the pages!?) to find the application I'm looking for. This is not intuitive, takes forever (especially considering the speed it opens the menus), and is at least twice as confusing as the method present in the current Gnome stable release. Also, I only have two clicks to open an application as I am now. 1. Open the applications menu. 2. Highlight the mouse over a menu and when it pops up (you don't need to click it, just like in Windows), click the app you want to open. There are lots of users that can make use of workspaces, but you shouldn't force them to use them. ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list
Re: All GNOME Shell Developers.
On 12/18/2009 05:32 PM, Samuel Arthur Wright Illingworth wrote: Good point, it /is/ only two clicks to launch an app from the menu, even if it's sub-categorized. I don't really think it can be denied that launching apps, just like switching between them, is currently slower and more complicated in shell than it is with a panel/dock. The question is, how can that be improved? 2009/12/18 Ryan Peters slosh...@sbcglobal.net On 12/18/2009 04:56 PM, Samuel Arthur Wright Illingworth wrote: Reducing the number of key clicks isn't a gain if it means you have a much bigger list to look through. You can't measure usability purely in number of clicks, or having the categorized menu would never have been an improvement in the first place. 2009/12/18 Sriram Ramkrishna s...@ramkrishna.me 2009/12/18 Mark Curtis merkin...@hotmail.com Well perhaps it would be best to tackle the individual issues... I've linked to previous threads on my main issue with GNOME Shell http://mail.gnome.org/archives/gnome-shell-list/2009-December/msg00052.html Danté Ashton who started this particular discussion has an issue with: "...the user, [having] to perform three extra clicks just to do what it takes me one to do now?" Денис Черемисов was less descriptive in their issue(s) though. Precisely why I took him to task. Back on topic: In the old method, it would take me 3 clicks to launch an application: Applications-section-App so that is three clicks. In gnome-shell method, we have: * 1 click for common used apps * 2 clicks for any other apps I don't consider going to the overview mode as a click. But if you did, it would still be 2 or 3 clicks which is equivalent to the old method. Initially there was categories for the apps, but was changed to a flat scheme which reduced the number of key clicks. sri ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list That doesn't mean that more clicks means it's more usable, though. In Gnome-Shell, if I want to launch an application that isn't on my recently opened applications list, I have a lot more clicks than before. 1. Open Activities (arguably this can be triggered without a click, though) 2. Click "Browse" on the Applications section. 3. Click on the category I want. 4. Sift through a page or two (why the pages!?) to find the application I'm looking for. This is not intuitive, takes forever (especially considering the speed it opens the menus), and is at least twice as confusing as the method present in the current Gnome stable release. Also, I only have two clicks to open an application as I am now. 1. Open the applications menu. 2. Highlight the mouse over a menu and when it pops up (you don't need to click it, just like in Windows), click the app you want to open. There are lots of users that can make use of workspaces, but you shouldn't force them to use them. ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list Hmm... how about the left side be an applications menu like before, but the top/bottom could maybe contain Recent Documents/Places? In all honesty I wouldn't mind the new application menu so much as long as I didn't have those dreaded pages... the menu's a little larger than it needs to be, too. Sorry if it sounds like I'm mad or trolling at all, I apologize. ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list
Re: All GNOME Shell Developers.
On 12/18/2009 05:46 PM, Thomas Wood wrote: On Fri, 2009-12-18 at 17:35 -0600, Ryan Peters wrote: Hmm... how about the left side be an applications menu like before, but the top/bottom could maybe contain Recent Documents/Places? In all honesty I wouldn't mind the new application menu so much as long as I didn't have those dreaded pages... the menu's a little larger than it needs to be, too. Sorry if it sounds like I'm mad or trolling at all, I apologize. I think you've just highlighted the fact that the application menu doesn't behave like an ordinary menu. Specifically, it doesn't open sub-menus on hover. If it did, then opening an application would still only require two clicks: * activate the overview from the top left corner * click the more applications item (click one) * hover the category you need * click the application (click two) If you check the latest gnome-shell, you will notice that the categories and pages of the applications menu are now in a single scrollable list, although personally I think the menu and category based approach would have worked better if the sub-menus had opened on hover. Regards, Thomas I have just installed the latest build (silly me, I forgot to check it before my rant :P). Currently it's broken for me, but I'll try it again another day. ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list
Re: Gnome-Shell and Zeitgeist...
On 12/15/2009 11:55 AM, Seif Lotfy wrote: Non actually u can run Docky under Shell :P 2009/12/15 Samuel Arthur Wright Illingworth ma...@mazz0.com Isn't Docky kinda anti-Shell? Or Shell is anti-docky? 2009/12/15 seb...@free.fr Hi all, Zeitgeist is a very important component for gnome project. http://seilo.geekyogre.com/ What is the plan to add Zeitgeist Engine into Gnome-Shell ? I asked about this in a Zeitgeist blog : http://seilo.geekyogre.com/2009/12/more/#comments Seif Lotfy Response : We do, yet I am not sure the Shell people want our functionality -.- Well you can try. We already tried and for some reasons our patches never went through! Sbastien. ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list In all honesty, I prefer AWN 0.4 to Docky. Faster, lightweight, doesn't use Mono (main reason why it's so fast and lightweight ;) ) and it already has a large community of users/developers. Check it out here. I'm using it on Ubuntu 9.10 and even though I'm using trunk builds it's very stable. ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list
Re: Interface Changes
On 12/14/2009 02:51 AM, Thorsten Wilms wrote: On Mon, 2009-12-14 at 01:18 -0500, Mark Curtis wrote: The car could be the whole GNOME Shell, the stations the applications. If you're driving a quick flick of the dial/push of button and you can easy change applications In GNOME Shell you have to use the overlay, which zooms you out, rearrages windows into smaller thumbnails (arguably distracting the eye) so you can click/drag and app and have everything reshuffle again. It's as if you are driving and the controls for the radio are outside, you have to get out, change the station then reorient yourself. I prefer a different analogy: It's like having to leave the house to add a piece of furniture to a room (and all the existing furniture happens to move around to fit some kind of table structure if you do so) ;) The GNOME Shell might shine when it comes to working with many windows on several workspaces, but I think it feels heavy when it comes to just opening this app or that document. Having launchers on the panel might alleviate half the problem for some users (launchers on the desktop less so, because they can be covered by windows). Otherwise ... my mind wanders back to plain old menus. Hello everyone! I'm new to this mailing list. I'm just an ordinary user, so I can't help much with some things, but I'd be glad to provide my opinions. I agree with your analogy, Thorsten. Besides being a little slow, this is the main thing I can't stand about gnome-shell. If we were in the kitchen, and wanted to put some furniture in there, it should just appear (wouldn't that be nice in real life? ;) ). Launchers on the panel would be nice, but that would mean it'd have to be as configurable as the previous panel (if not more). I love my customized panel as it does so many things and just the way I want it to, and upgrading to a less-functional panel doesn't seem right... And this is on top of the fact that in the panel, it tells me what window I have focused but clicking it disappointingly doesn't do a thing :\ (I'm running Ubuntu 9.10's pre-built package; I'm probably outdated with my argument, sorry). ___ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list
