Re: Thumbs up!

[Bojan Smojver <bojan rexursive com>]

On Mon, 2011-04-25 at 19:29 -0700, Adam Williamson wrote:
> This mail could perhaps do with more details. :)

The gist of it is:

- fallback mode means two Gnome experiences, so people like myself that
have a 3D capable desktop and a remote VNC session have to switch back
and forth between two different modes of operation (i.e. no consistency)
while using the same computer (really, really weird); Gnome 3 should
look and work the same anywhere, just like Windows or OS X do; Gnome 2
is better here, although I have Compiz on my 3D capable machine and
Metacity on the VNC desktop

- activities "overview" is a mistake; it causes unnecessary visual
change and it forces users to manage windows half in that view and half
in the regular view

- exposé behaviour in overview is compounding the previous mistake (i.e.
the separate overview problem); it changes position and size of windows,
forcing the user to visually search for windows yet again

- windows/applications switch in overview is yet another mistake; in
windows view, one can't actually see their windows the way they are,
because they have been shuffled by exposé (workspaces are mostly hidden
on the right, so that doesn't really count); applications menu should be
accessible directly from the normal view (users don't need to suffer a
visual change and forget what their current workspace looks like in
order to start a new app)

- dynamic workspaces are a mistake (although they look nice in theory),
because people that use workspaces use them precisely to be able to
visually locate different "activities" consistently; for example, if my
FF crashes in Gnome 3 and is the only window in my "browsing" workspace,
it will go to a completely different workspace on restart, therefore
forcing me to visually search for it yet again (or I have to reshuffle
everything again); combined with forced exposé (which most workspace
users don't need, because their windows are not overlapping/hiding each
other) it does exactly the opposite of what's desired (constant visual
change in window placement, instead of a sense of stability)

- dock (favourites) is in the wrong place, because most desktop screens
(and Gnome 3 is primarily a desktop system) have a lot less pixels
vertically then horizontally; in contrast, OS X dock is in the correct
place (and I'm no fan of OS X at all)

- removing two panels from Gnome 2 was an improvement (i.e. no need to
walk mouse up/down all the time); introduction of yet another status bar
at the bottom was a mistake (i.e. return to two panes, effectively)

- lack of right click functionality on the empty desktop is strange; if
users can get to some functionality that way, they should be able to
(like they can in Gnome 2)

I'm still working on some other critique, but the above are the main
points.

-- 
Bojan