Re: Disliking gnome 3

[Ben Greear <greearb candelatech com>]

On 08/30/2011 02:01 PM, Evandro Giovanini wrote:
> On Tue, Aug 30, 2011 at 3:45 PM, Ben Greear<greearb candelatech com>  wrote:
> > I couldn't find a better place to voice my displeasure of Gnome 3,
> > so I'm posting here.
> >
> > I really just want gnome-2 back.  Fallback mode sort of works, but its
> > still not as good as gnome 2 was.  I do work on my computer, not just
> > open one or two windows and browse the web.  I want one-click to open
> > new Terminals.  I want to drag the Terminal icon into the top task bar
> > to accomplish that.  Right-click should work without having to press
> > Alt.  I want the bottom task dock or whatever it's called so I can easily
> > select
> > from the multitude of windows I have on my desktop.
>
> I believe using "Alt" was a fix for a major usability issue with GNOME
> 2, where users would easily move things and panels around by accident;
> to fix that, eventually it was introduced that each panel and panel
> object could be locked in place, which made actually customizing
> things a pain in the ass and the codebase more complex. Using the Alt
> modifier makes the panel code easier to maintain and actually editing
> the panels more simple as well. And don't you just love the new
> feature where items are auto aligned to the left, right or center? I
> know I do. :)

For dragging stuff around a panel, that might make sense, but not for right-click menus,
and not for dragging stuff longer distances..you are unlikely to do that on
accident.

> As for your actual gnome-shell comment: in GNOME 3.2 you can quickly
> launch a new instance of an application by dragging it anywhere on the
> overview (in 3.0 you had to find an empty space). Launching new
> instances from the Dash instead of bringing focus to the application
> is not something that should limit you to web browsing in one or two
> windows at all; in fact, as far as I understand it's also the default
> behaviour for Windows, Mac and Ubuntu's Unity. A lot of RealWork gets
> done this way.

Can you just drag a Terminal icon into the top bar somewhere and then click it
to get new instances?  (Or any other app, for that matter..but for me, I
mainly use terminals like that).

> As a tip I'd recommend setting up a Super + T shortcut for launching
> new terminal windows. It's way faster if you often use it.

That could work for me, but not obvious for new users.  Clicking a big icon
on the desktop or small one in the top bar is much more obvious.

And of course that means putting icons back on the desktop by default.


And the minimize/maximize/close buttons on windows...bad idea to take those
away, especially when the window bars are already full of wasted whitespace..it's
not like it really saved anything to remove a few small buttons that folks
have been using for decades.

> Anyway, I hope you try out GNOME 3.2 as it fixes many small problems
> the original release had. I think you'll find that if you stick with
> it and try to experience some of the unique features of the Shell
> you'll quickly be a lot more productive with it.
>
> > Please have a one-click (or very few clicks) option to get the old
> > gnome-2 interface back.  If you want to have a new way of doing things,
> > that's fine too, but please don't break the old ways of doing things
> > so badly.
>
> It's very easy to switch GNOME 3 back to fallback mode from "System
> Info" in the System Settings.

It's easy once you find it, or read enough complaints on the web to find
someone talking about it, but I think it should be much more obvious, perhaps
as a option in gdm or something ("Classic Gnome", w/out compiz, which crashed
within 1 minute for me).

Thanks,
Ben

> Cheers,
> Evandro


--
Ben Greear <greearb candelatech com>
Candela Technologies Inc  http://www.candelatech.com