Re: Thumbs up!

[David Prieto <frandavid100 gmail com>]

Bojan,

- 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

For me it's not. It saves me the effort of managing windows half as windows (obviously) and half as tiny taskbar list items.
 

- 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

It doesn't. Overview places windows according to their previous position. A window you placed to the left will also be at the left in Overview. Plus, there's an animation showing you where each window went.

The taskbar, on the other hand, DID change item placement. It didn't place windows according to their position but to the order in which they were opened, forcing you to search for them (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

No they haven't.
 

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)

If they just want to start an app they can just ignore all that visual change, I'd say. as for the Applications menu itself, I don't think people are even supposed to use it all that much. The Shell is search-based, so if you want to open Firefox you'd just press the Logo key, then "f" and hit enter. Which on the long run saves a lot of time as opposed to pointing to the Applications menu, then Internet and then Firefox.

The Applications menu is there for these cases where you don't remember the application's name (or description, really). Wouldn't make sense showing it by default.
 

- 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

In my case, I use them to get out of the way windows that I'm not gonna use for the time being. You know what is a good way to visually locate different "activities" consistently? The Dash. You open the Overview, you go to the Dash and there's everything, so you won't even have to stop and think if the app you want to reach is in your current workspace or in a different one.

Really, the tools are all there. I think the problem is that you're using them from a Gnome2 perspective. Which is fine, it does take some time to adapt.

- 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)

I suspect the Dash (what you call Dock) is there in order to be near the Activities button (and the hot corner). If you were using just your mouse you wouldn't want to take it to the top-left corner and THEN to the bottom of the screen every single time, now would you?

OS X has no Activities button and it shows its Dock all the time, so it makes sense for them to place it at the bottom.
 

- 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)

Again, no it doesn't. I can use my screen up to the bottom, that space has not been taken. It's only the bottom-right corner that's taken by the message tray. Not that you need to walk your mouse up and down either, because opening the Overview will also show your notifications (hence the name). You can take your cursor up OR down, depending on what's handier to you at that moment.
 

- lack of right click functionality on the empty desktop is strange

Now here's something I can relate to. Not being able to click on the Desktop does feel weird. It IS a change. It's there for several reasons, but they're pretty long to explain and I'm not sure if you're interested in them. I'd have no problem in explaining them, then.