Re: GNOME 3.1.90 beta released!

[Denis Washington <denisw online de>]

Am 01.09.2011 15:22, schrieb Allan Day:
> Hey Denis!
>
> On Thu, Sep 1, 2011 at 1:18 PM, Denis Washington<denisw online de>  wrote:
> > Am 01.09.2011 11:34, schrieb Frederic Peters:
> > > Hello all,
> > >
> > > This is 3.1.90, and it's out! It's the first beta of what will be
> > > GNOME 3.2, enjoy it while it's time, the next beta (3.1.91) will
> > > arrive next week.
> >
> > I saw this in the release notes of gnome-control-center:
> >
> > "Power:
> > - Remove power and suspend buttons config (Bastien Nocera) (#652183)
> > (#657068)"
> >
> > I am sad.
>
> Oh dear, don't be sad!
>
> The intent behind those changes is to ensure consistency and
> predictability. If we know what the behaviour of the hard buttons is
> going to be, we can produce better designs elsewhere and it is easier
> to provide users with advice and guidance.
>
> Also, we really want to be able to specify separate long and short
> button press actions for the hard power button (like on a mobile
> phone). It is hard to accommodate that kind of behaviour within a set
> of preferences that are easy to understand.

Sounds interesting, though there is still the discoverability issue: you 
would have to know that a long button press powers off, and that 
pressing the power button gives you a shutdown method not accessible 
from the shell. (In fact, there are still a surprising number of people 
who still think that you must never ever touch the power button or risk 
your computer's health otherwise.)

Having said that, I'd like to make clear that the option itself is not 
what I am sad about. In fact, I would even be happy about the removal if 
the default behavior were sane and allowed me, and everyone who wants to 
do so, to easily discover a choose an energy-preserving full shutdown 
method. But currently, this is not the case, and this is what worries me.

> > I know that the GNOME design team has its reasons to promote Suspend; it is
> > great from a usability perspective, and I also suspend often and like it.
> > However, I feel that the rigor with which this is pushed upon the complete
> > user base of GNOME (minus those are knowledgeable enough to change a hidden
> > dconf setting) is not right.
> >
> > While suspending is convenient, many people do want to save power when they
> > don't use their desktop or laptop over night, or simply because they only
> > use it one or two hours a day anyway. I don't see this as a minor use case;
> > its a general consideration of many, enviromentally aware people, especially
> > in European countries such as Germany where the Green party is going strong
> > and we are already warned about the environmental impact of standby devices
> > in elementary school. Regardless of their technical knowledge, such people
> > will be put off by not being able to properly shut off, or having to jump
> > trough hoops to do so. They will think that GNOME doesn't care about the
> > environment. I don't want our wonderful community to make that impression.
> >
> > I don't want to start yet another flame war with this message (please, let's
> > be sensible and respectful when discussing this). Neither do I want to
> > denounce the design team; in fact, I greatly respect the design team for the
> > many things it has done to make GNOME 3 the awesome piece of software that
> > it is today, and that it will be tomorrow. I also don't want to throw
> > everybody from the design team in the same pot: there are GNOME designers
> > that are sympathetic towards some kind of compromise, as the discussion
> > around bug #652183 [1] reveals. However, I feel that the current situation
> > is not right, and that *something* has to be done to reach a solution that
> > combines a high degree of usability with easily accessible ways to act
> > environmentally responsible.
>
> I honestly think that the behaviour of those buttons is a separate
> issue from whether they should be configurable or not.

True. As I said, I'm not looking for configurability, but for an overall 
solution that allows to both suspend and power down.

> Thanks for the kind words. :)

You're welcome. :)

Regards,
Denis