Re: We want task bar back. Pretty please.

[Denys Vlasenko <dvlasenk redhat com>]

On Fri, 2011-05-06 at 12:37 -0500, Ryan Peters wrote:
> On 05/06/2011 11:16 AM, Denys Vlasenko wrote:
> > On my previous installation - Fedora 13 - it was Gnome 2.
> > I just installed Fedora 15 and it uses Gnome 3. Oops.
> >
> > Having suddenly to learn a new UI is not what I planned to do this
> > weekend. I have some other work to do.
>
> If you don't want to learn a new UI, *do not upgrade*! This should be 
> obvious. It should be even more obvious that Fedora 15 *isn't even 
> released as stable yet*.

I *can't*. I develop software for Fedora/RHEL, I must test it.
Therefore I must upgrade to a new Fedora from time to time.
Moreover, I am participating in Fedora distribution testing
before it is released. Someone does this work, I'm sure you know it.
I'm one of those guys.

>  If you have "better things to do than learn a 
> new UI", why on Earth did you switch and somehow expect it to be exactly 
> the same as before?

See above.

> > What should I do if I find some changes to be regressions
> > (from my POV, of course)? I thought I need to let developers know
> > what users (in this case, me) think. How else would they know?
> >
> > Your suggestion seems to be "to shut up, or write an alternative".
> > Nice.
>
> Our suggestion is to *learn how to use the interface* and to stop 
> insulting the developers and designers. If you change to a new version 
> of a desktop environment which has a new design, you should *not*, under 
> any circumstances, expect it to be the same as previous versions. If you 
> have work to do, do it in a stable, familiar environment instead of 
> fiddling around with GNOME 3.

That' what I was doing for a long time. Now it is the time to upgrade.
For me, it's not something I can avoid. I can only postpone it
for a week or a month.

>  Do that when you have time to learn how to 
> use it, please, instead of begging us to reverse a good portion of the 
> design work.
> > Of course you are entitled to choose how to treat your users.
> > Consider, though, that users will take only certain amount of abuse
> > before they leave.
> *ahem*:
> 
>    1. You twist everything we say and make it sound like we're insulting
>       you, when it's clearly the other way around.

I came with *specific* complaints (not blanket "Gnome 3 sucks"
statement) *and some proposals how to change it*.

So far I got dozens of RTFM-class responses and *only one* response
which proposes a small, partial step towards improving UI in a direction
I want.

Who is more rude?

>    2. You say things are regressions, even after we make substantial
>       effort to prove to you that they are not, in fact, regressions.

"Regression" in UI is a somewhat subjective term, I think.

>       Some things might be regressions, like your example where you
>       launch four applications, but that can also be sped up by pressing
>       the windows key instead of using the hot corner.
>    3. Some of what you do consider regressions are some of the most
>       trivial things possible. Where "favorites" can be located, moving
>       those dialogs that don't even need to be moved, and the existence
>       of a permanent window list are so easily overcome as long as you
>       approach GNOME 3 with an open mind.
>    4. You somehow think that we're treating you badly by not changing
>       things back to the way they were. What you call "abuse", everyone
>       else on this mailing list calls "support".
> 
> If you have better things to do than use GNOME 3, don't use it until you 
> can find time to learn it and get used to it. If you can't approach 
> GNOME 3 with an open mind, this mailing list will not hep you. That is 
> something you need to do on your own.

What I do not see in the above is how do developers actually accept some
user input. As you described, I have only two options: use Gnome 3 as-is
(no matter how inconvenient is it), or use something else. Where is
option 3: "give developers feedback so that they can make it more
convenient"?

And yes, feedback sometimes (even "mostly") takes form of negative
comments: "I don't like X", "Y is broken", and so on. I don't think you
need to be offended by it. I as developer receive such comments from my
users every day.

I think that my responsibility as a user/tester is to make sure I'm not
simply venting my frustration at software not working as I need it to,
but talk about *specific* elements which can be improved. I think I'm
doing exactly this.

-- 
vda