For me it was a major revelation when it was pointed out that, for someone who doesn't want his desktop changed, I did install all sorts of crazy things when I was starting with Linux (Compiz plugins, anyone?). And while Gnome 3 pushed me into Mate, it wasn't because it was different but rather because it was bad. So I'm excited about someone trying something new, particularly someone who realizes that the Desktop is not a tablet.
Here's an idea that I believe I read in HN as "the original purpose of the desktop": add a Desktop Manager that manages which icons are on your desktop and makes it easy to switch.
The desktop is kind of weird, in the sense that it's prime real estate but, at the same time, there's an expectation that you shouldn't put too much stuff there, and then it ends up cluttered anyway. I think it's worth trying a stronger separation between "Desktop" and any other regular folder, emphasizing that the Desktop is where you place links to the files you need right now, but with a mechanism to clear it completely (without losing data) and another to switch which icons you see right now, kind of like browser tab groups. That way, when you're working on a project you place the files you need on the desktop and when you're done you clean it up.
I agree, GNOME 3 and all the subsequent versions are so bad. They made GNOME into a glorified tablet environment, but I'm using a desktop, not a tablet, for a reason.
I'm still mad at GNOME developers for ruining such a good desktop environment.
Luckily, Linux Mint managed to create a good environment that is as pleasant as using GNOME 2.
I bought a tablet to use with Krita and settled on Manjaro because Ubuntu had so many tablet issues. Everything I tried is especially bad with 4k touchscreen/pen. I started with KDE, then Gnome but DE really didn't matter because they're all so terrible - it's now for watching videos or travel only.
I left Gnome 3 for Mate early on and I never looked back, but here are the issues I remember.
First, dialogs could not be dragged to the side. It took me less than one day to realize that, when it comes to naming a file, I need to look at the document to remember, for instance, the name of the institution I'm writing to. If I can't move the Save dialog then I have to cancel, find the name, remember it, and start the save process again, at which point I also lost the folder I had navigated to.
Showing app icons without categories is useless to me because sometimes I don't know what the app is called, only what it does. I know I have a webcam app and I know it should be under Video, but I have no idea what it's called. Gnome's flat hierarchy makes it harder for me to find what I'm looking for.
Removing the individual window menus and the icons for minimizing and maximizing kills the muscle memory I've built over the last 30 years - same reason why I hate that the X button on Mac doesn't really close the program.
But on the topic of Mac, that's for me the main problem: that Gnome 3 wanted to be MacOS and copied their ideas regardless of whether they make sense to their users. I know the things I mentioned above may sound small but those are constant papercuts that remind me every 5 minutes that I didn't use to have so many papercuts. I can't imagine that anyone did a proper usability test before dropping what, to me, were breaking changes.
There were other factors like the attitude of "this is how it is now so take it or leave it", but the whole process led me to realize that I don't want to think about my window manager and that, if I'm thinking about it, then it's getting in my way of doing actual work.
> First, dialogs could not be dragged to the side
It's GTK, not gnome and I agree it's not the most logical behavior, but I don't think it's all that relevant to the general workflow the gnome-shell provides.
> App icon without categories
Folders are a native feature of gnome-shell, it's on your distro for not using it.
> Maximize, minimize
Getting used to something is surely a strong effect, but I don't think it's a fair criticism in and of itself, otherwise every change would be unequivocally bad. See my broader reply here: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49829080">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49829080
I really don't think gnome copied too much stuff from mac, especially that I like gnome and pretty much dislike Mac. Gnome people have a pretty well thought out design and workflow idea, so this criticism doesn't fly. I can accept that you may not like that design idea, but it's definitely not a cheap, no thought copy of Mac.
On dialogs: I don't think it's fair to say "it's GTK, not Gnome" when a. the behavior started happening with Gnome 3, b. it doesn't happen in Mate, and c. GTK is maintained by the GNOME Project. Behavior, BTW, that (AFAIK) was exclusive until then to MacOS.
On categories: I don't think the Debian people had a big input into how the menu was supposed to look like. I'm willing to bet that it's the default seeing as, again, it's also the default in MacOS.
But on the main topic: I believe that good design should be invisible, and Gnome 3 was the absolute opposite of that. Take Firefox mobile: one day they asked me if I wanted to try the new layout with the navigation bar on the bottom, I said yes, and I never looked back because it made my life SO MUCH easier. In contrast, Gnome's Wikipedia page has an entire section titled "criticism" detailing entire distros that dropped it and successful forks that kept the old behavior. I therefore feel strongly against the idea that it was "well thought out", or more precisely, I think it may he been "well thought out" but not "well tested with the actual users".
When you familiarise yourself with macOS, you arrive at the conclusion that GNOME is indeed not a cheap copy of Mac, it is something worse: a miserable attempt at copying its ideas. There are many examples, but from the top of my head and clicking around:
- Window title bars
- Menu bars: removed while copying macOS, but no global menu either. If only it was like macOS!
- Symbolic icon craze
- Autohiding a context menu after 0.5 seconds of holding the button (since GTK 3)
- The top right area in GNOME's Hell
- The "Apps" view in GNOME's Hell, which also has a Dock wannabe
- Nautilus is basically Finder
- Nowadays animations that you can't turn off
Most of the damage to GNOME has been done in version 3. I've converted away from anything GTK 4 because I can't stand it anymore.
Though I admit that it's cohesive and if you expect very little, it kind of works. Also there's probably nothing better for touch screens.
There's no point in answering this question, either you get it or you don't. If you get it you get it. If you don't it's because the way you want to use your desktop fits exactly into the design decisions of GNOME and you can't even imagine somebody wanting different features.
It can't even be chalked up to an extreme lack of imagination because there is a plethora of desktop environments that do things differently from GNOME that you could look up to figure out why one might think GNOME is bad.
> and you can't even imagine somebody wanting different features
You may want to read that sentence again, and change the subjects around. Maybe it's gnome doing stuff differently that you can't accept because it's not win 98?
Go to gnome.org, scroll down to "Developer Platform" and look at the title bar of the screenshot there. If you see a clean interface, then no reason other people give you will help.
But, if you do see the arrows there and think - why are there so many arrows and dots? It looks like bad UX. They you can see the issues others are talking about.
what an amazing example. We have on one window title bar:
- a "+"
- a down-arrow which presumably opens some sort of menu
- a hamburger menu (why is this different to the down arrow?)
- a "..." menu (err, isn't this the same as the hamburger menu and/or the down arrow?)
- A "hammer" icon next to the word "fetching". Because... Hammer Time! Also, yeah we use a hammer to fetch things. I think that's something we can all get behind.
- another two down-arrows. One probably opens out options for the "hammer" bar. The other...?
- an up and down arrow. Maybe this actually changes the options for the "hammer/fetching" bar.
- A search magnifying glass (no search field curiously).
I currently have ~12 windows open (Win11 explorer, office, dev / terminal apps, sublime, Firefox, signal) : almost every one of them has a different top bar.
Also, something about "Podcasts" in what is presenting as a Rust IDE. Looking more closely at the rest, I assume this is because it's the name of the project being edited, but it's still confusing. Fundamentally the title bar is being split in two, with a separate part for each main column of the window, as if it were really two windows docked together.
I... disagree. GNOME Builder is GTK4 and Libadwaita, with lots of custom widgets to build out the "IDE-lite" experience.
It looks like this because it's also how XCode and Visual Studio looks. I don't like it, I don't use Builder, but the design isn't foreign.
Visual studio does not look like this, because it uses text instead of icons. Which both uses less space, and is much easier to parse.
The gnome style client side decorations versus traditional menu bars is just bad. It works okay if your application has like… two buttons. Which, to be fair, is many gnome apps because they’re so feature-anemic. But once you have many functions, it becomes a mess that wastes huge amount of screen space.
Nobody wants to adapt because the workflow is worse. Things take longer, more clicks, and more information is hidden, necessitating submenus and more submenus.
Simple example: you have 3 file manager windows open. Go choose the correct one with the directory you want. On my KDE setup, the window is right there in the dock. I can see the window title and know it’s the correct window, so I click it.
On Gnome, first I drag my cursor to the left to show the dock. Then I click the icon, because of course app windows stack. Then I squint at the thumbnail and find it. Or, alternatively, I open the overview and hunt for it. Maybe it’s on a different desktop, I hope not.
The workflow is just worse, and this extends to basically every workflow in gnome. It only becomes okay when you abuse keyboard shortcuts, because the actual desktop UX is so bad. And people will actually turn around and claim that gnome is good because of keyboard shortcuts!
No, it’s not! Every desktop has keyboard shortcuts. Gnome is the only one that forces you to use them, because the interface is so obtuse, slow, and obnoxious to use.
probably_wrong · · focus · HN ↗
Here's an idea that I believe I read in HN as "the original purpose of the desktop": add a Desktop Manager that manages which icons are on your desktop and makes it easy to switch.
The desktop is kind of weird, in the sense that it's prime real estate but, at the same time, there's an expectation that you shouldn't put too much stuff there, and then it ends up cluttered anyway. I think it's worth trying a stronger separation between "Desktop" and any other regular folder, emphasizing that the Desktop is where you place links to the files you need right now, but with a mechanism to clear it completely (without losing data) and another to switch which icons you see right now, kind of like browser tab groups. That way, when you're working on a project you place the files you need on the desktop and when you're done you clean it up.
reddalo · · focus · HN ↗
I'm still mad at GNOME developers for ruining such a good desktop environment.
Luckily, Linux Mint managed to create a good environment that is as pleasant as using GNOME 2.
officialchicken · · focus · HN ↗
gf000 · · focus · HN ↗
probably_wrong · · focus · HN ↗
First, dialogs could not be dragged to the side. It took me less than one day to realize that, when it comes to naming a file, I need to look at the document to remember, for instance, the name of the institution I'm writing to. If I can't move the Save dialog then I have to cancel, find the name, remember it, and start the save process again, at which point I also lost the folder I had navigated to.
Showing app icons without categories is useless to me because sometimes I don't know what the app is called, only what it does. I know I have a webcam app and I know it should be under Video, but I have no idea what it's called. Gnome's flat hierarchy makes it harder for me to find what I'm looking for.
Removing the individual window menus and the icons for minimizing and maximizing kills the muscle memory I've built over the last 30 years - same reason why I hate that the X button on Mac doesn't really close the program.
But on the topic of Mac, that's for me the main problem: that Gnome 3 wanted to be MacOS and copied their ideas regardless of whether they make sense to their users. I know the things I mentioned above may sound small but those are constant papercuts that remind me every 5 minutes that I didn't use to have so many papercuts. I can't imagine that anyone did a proper usability test before dropping what, to me, were breaking changes.
There were other factors like the attitude of "this is how it is now so take it or leave it", but the whole process led me to realize that I don't want to think about my window manager and that, if I'm thinking about it, then it's getting in my way of doing actual work.
gf000 · · focus · HN ↗
It's GTK, not gnome and I agree it's not the most logical behavior, but I don't think it's all that relevant to the general workflow the gnome-shell provides.
> App icon without categories
Folders are a native feature of gnome-shell, it's on your distro for not using it.
> Maximize, minimize
Getting used to something is surely a strong effect, but I don't think it's a fair criticism in and of itself, otherwise every change would be unequivocally bad. See my broader reply here: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49829080">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49829080
I really don't think gnome copied too much stuff from mac, especially that I like gnome and pretty much dislike Mac. Gnome people have a pretty well thought out design and workflow idea, so this criticism doesn't fly. I can accept that you may not like that design idea, but it's definitely not a cheap, no thought copy of Mac.
probably_wrong · · focus · HN ↗
On categories: I don't think the Debian people had a big input into how the menu was supposed to look like. I'm willing to bet that it's the default seeing as, again, it's also the default in MacOS.
But on the main topic: I believe that good design should be invisible, and Gnome 3 was the absolute opposite of that. Take Firefox mobile: one day they asked me if I wanted to try the new layout with the navigation bar on the bottom, I said yes, and I never looked back because it made my life SO MUCH easier. In contrast, Gnome's Wikipedia page has an entire section titled "criticism" detailing entire distros that dropped it and successful forks that kept the old behavior. I therefore feel strongly against the idea that it was "well thought out", or more precisely, I think it may he been "well thought out" but not "well tested with the actual users".
premysl · · focus · HN ↗
- Window title bars - Menu bars: removed while copying macOS, but no global menu either. If only it was like macOS! - Symbolic icon craze - Autohiding a context menu after 0.5 seconds of holding the button (since GTK 3) - The top right area in GNOME's Hell - The "Apps" view in GNOME's Hell, which also has a Dock wannabe - Nautilus is basically Finder - Nowadays animations that you can't turn off
Most of the damage to GNOME has been done in version 3. I've converted away from anything GTK 4 because I can't stand it anymore.
Though I admit that it's cohesive and if you expect very little, it kind of works. Also there's probably nothing better for touch screens.
EdiX · · focus · HN ↗
gf000 · · focus · HN ↗
You may want to read that sentence again, and change the subjects around. Maybe it's gnome doing stuff differently that you can't accept because it's not win 98?
tecoholic · · focus · HN ↗
But, if you do see the arrows there and think - why are there so many arrows and dots? It looks like bad UX. They you can see the issues others are talking about.
seanhunter · · focus · HN ↗
- a "+"
- a down-arrow which presumably opens some sort of menu
- a hamburger menu (why is this different to the down arrow?)
- a "..." menu (err, isn't this the same as the hamburger menu and/or the down arrow?)
- A "hammer" icon next to the word "fetching". Because... Hammer Time! Also, yeah we use a hammer to fetch things. I think that's something we can all get behind.
- another two down-arrows. One probably opens out options for the "hammer" bar. The other...?
- an up and down arrow. Maybe this actually changes the options for the "hammer/fetching" bar.
- A search magnifying glass (no search field curiously).
- A cross.
reddalo · · focus · HN ↗
makapuf · · focus · HN ↗
zahlman · · focus · HN ↗
gf000 · · focus · HN ↗
How about actually talking about the topic at hand, which is the gnome shell and its UX?
someonebaggy · · focus · HN ↗
bigyabai · · focus · HN ↗
It looks like this because it's also how XCode and Visual Studio looks. I don't like it, I don't use Builder, but the design isn't foreign.
preg_match · · focus · HN ↗
The gnome style client side decorations versus traditional menu bars is just bad. It works okay if your application has like… two buttons. Which, to be fair, is many gnome apps because they’re so feature-anemic. But once you have many functions, it becomes a mess that wastes huge amount of screen space.
someonebaggy · · focus · HN ↗
xeyownt · · focus · HN ↗
And you don't want to adapt.
Just watched a video of a guy ranting on Gnome 3 14 years ago, the reasons are just wtf, mentioning things I almost never used in my life.
I also had issues, but just learned to get over it and now my workflow is excellent while requiring only minimal customization.
preg_match · · focus · HN ↗
Simple example: you have 3 file manager windows open. Go choose the correct one with the directory you want. On my KDE setup, the window is right there in the dock. I can see the window title and know it’s the correct window, so I click it.
On Gnome, first I drag my cursor to the left to show the dock. Then I click the icon, because of course app windows stack. Then I squint at the thumbnail and find it. Or, alternatively, I open the overview and hunt for it. Maybe it’s on a different desktop, I hope not.
The workflow is just worse, and this extends to basically every workflow in gnome. It only becomes okay when you abuse keyboard shortcuts, because the actual desktop UX is so bad. And people will actually turn around and claim that gnome is good because of keyboard shortcuts!
No, it’s not! Every desktop has keyboard shortcuts. Gnome is the only one that forces you to use them, because the interface is so obtuse, slow, and obnoxious to use.