While there has undoubtedly been a lot of work on various aspects of gOS from BETA to final release, including many from internal and business standpoints, but I can't help but notice some things I'd label regressions.
One of the most inspiring features of Gadgets BETA was its multimedia capabilities. 1. Flash was installed by default. Now it is not. 2. One of the best parts of gOS, mplayer, has been replaced with the generic and problem-riddled 'totem' movie player present in Ubuntu and other common distributions, making a switch to gOS much less attractive. Another remarkable attribute of Gadgets BETA was its unique, polished UI, which has been largely replaced by a duller, grayer, mac-like mockup. 1. The window title bar has lost much of its former signature luster, being replaced by an unappealing, mac-like gray. 2. The taskbar at the top has been significantly enlarged (as are the 3 main titlebar buttons), making the distro lose even more of its previous unique, space-efficient character. 3. Hovering the mouse over menu items now produces a 'depression,' which while not particularly garring, is apparently a bit of a step away from the previous solid selection look. However, this is inconsistent with the icons in Firefox and OO.org, which retain the hover-over pop-out character, leading to a more jumbled-looking visual experience. 4. Wbar is shrunken and crowded, much in resemblance to the mac's bar, again lowering the originality of Gadget's appeal as well as reducing the boldness and design clarity of the larger, more easily visible icons present in BETA. 5. This old (BETA) style is now unavailable in Appearance settings (which would have mitigated all UI preference issues). All in all, Gadgets final offers less in the way of the unique and attractive features which had set it apart as a distro, and indeed, an OS, as a BETA. It is still quite nice, and while the presence of new applications and a re-worked gOS menu is by most counts an improvement, it would have been beneficial to the community (and userbase) as a whole to have released more frequent builds or invoked a higher level of community involvement in shaping its developmental course. Gabe --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "gOS Linux" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/goslinux?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
