Feedback

[Marc Fouquet <marc fouquet gmx de>]

After installing Ubuntu Natty with Gnome Shell from the PPA and using it 
for a few hours, I also want to give some feedback.

First of all Gnome Shell appears conceptually nice and consistent (this 
is my main criticism regarding Unity, which is inconsistent and buggy in 
many places). I am not sure yet if I like the new workflow better than 
the traditional one, but I will definitely test it for a longer period 
of time.

My main points are the following ones:

====== Suspend instead of Shutdown ======

Surely this has been discussed extensively, I just want to mention that 
suspend simply does not work for me (tested on two computers, both do 
not wake up correctly).

Generally I like the gnome philosophy of simplifying things by removing 
options. But leaving non-technical users with a default setting that 
does not work is not a good choice.

====== Switching Applications ======

Before actually testing Gnome Shell in "production use" with many open 
windows, I had imagined that switching applications in the expose view 
would work a bit faster and more efficient. With many windows I often 
find myself spending time on searching for the right one, as their 
minified versions look very similar.

I think in the expose view, each application's icon should be shown in 
the minified window. This way finding the right window would be easier.

Also for my feeling, the animation when opening and leaving the 
activities view takes a bit too much time.

====== Minor remarks ======

- I really miss a way to launch applications on startup. In Ubuntu the 
"gnome-session-properties" dialog can still be accessed from the command 
line, but settings are ignored.

- When opening a picture in Gimp, only one of Gimp's multiple windows 
(the actual picture) appears in the Gnome Shell expose view. When I move 
this window to a different desktop, the other windows (the toolboxes) 
stay on the old desktop. Obviously I can not work with Gimp without 
toolboxes and I have no way of getting them to the new Desktop using 
Gnome Shell. Using the context menus of the Toolboxes title bars is a 
workaround, but not a nice one.

- I would suggest adding hotkeys to snap windows in different ways, i.e. 
to use only the top right quarter of the screen (i.e. Super - Keypad 9). 
Such a feature would be nice for power users and it would not disturb 
regular users.

- One nice thing: Gnome Shell works well with Guake.

Regards,
	Marc