Re: GNOME 3 from Fedora user's perpective - request for changes

[Adam Williamson <awilliam redhat com>]

On Tue, 2011-04-05 at 15:52 +0000, JB wrote:

> go to my original post and re-read my description of what I found wrong as 
> a user.
> Their new menu system is the old GNOME 2 menu system, hidden below artificial
> and unneeded Activities plus Windows and Applications menu items.

'Artificial' is a meaningless description. Any computer program by
definition is entirely artificial. Please try and say precisely what you
mean, rather than shoehorning as many vaguely negative-sounding
adjectives as you can into each mail.

What exactly is it that you _mean_ when you say 'artificial'?

It would probably help to read the GNOME Shell design document to
understand the concept before you condemn it. You don't seem to really
get the concept of the overview, in your messages.

> It did not contribute anything useful, only introduced difficulty with
> managing windows and getting access to those hidden menus underneath them.

The idea is that while you're working, you're working; you focus on the
task at hands. You then access a separate interface for 'management'
tasks - launching apps, moving them around, dealing with workspaces and
so on. This is the overview. The two activities are kept clearly
separate rather than being smooshed together.

As has been noted, this is very familiar to anyone who uses a smartphone
interface; they do much the same thing.

> If we techies bark at something dysfunctional like that, what can we expect 
> from non technical business end users, who just want to do their task easily
>  and the way they used to do it ?

Your complaints are hard to take seriously because you seem to assume
that the design is some kind of evil plot to make things harder to do
(you've referred to it as a joke or trick or something similar several
times); this is clearly ridiculous and has the effect of making your
arguments less compelling, because it makes it obvious that you have not
understood, or even tried to understand, *why* GNOME Shell is designed
the way it is. You will come across as more convincing if it's clear
that you actually understand the design, but think it's incorrect (and
have good reasons why) or can be improved (and have good suggestions
how). Right now you're basically saying 'OF COURSE the old way of doing
it was the Right Way and OF COURSE any change to that is just an evil
plot to make things more difficult', which isn't likely to convince
anyone they need to change things.
-- 
Adam Williamson
Fedora QA Community Monkey
IRC: adamw | Fedora Talk: adamwill AT fedoraproject DOT org
http://www.happyassassin.net