Re: We want task bar back. Pretty please.

[Ryan Peters <sloshy45 sbcglobal net>]

First of all, I'd like to ask you to respond to the mailing list please. 
Add "gnome-shell-list gnome org" to the list of recipients of your 
emails so all of us, not just me, can get them. This is the second time 
you've done this so far, so I thought I'd let you know.

On 05/17/2011 10:46 AM, Tim Murphy wrote:
>     Because your blog won't let me directly comment for some reason
>     (maybe it's an add-on), I'm responding here:
>
>     I'm very glad that you gave GNOME 3 a chance! It's a well-known
>     fact around here that comments like "there's no taskbar", or "you
>     need to click a lot", or "there's no minimize/maximize buttons",
>     or even the ever-popular "If I wanted to use a smartphone
>     interface, I'd use a smartphone" show that the writer of those
>     comments has given little-to-no effort whatsoever to enjoy GNOME 3.
>
>
> I dispute the "fact" part of that claim.
>
> I also think that given the level of trouble required to acclimatise 
> to Gnome Shell, is it really all that great?

Your mileage may vary. As I said earlier on the mailing list (not sure 
which thread), it took less than five minutes to explain the concept to 
my family, all of which immediately picked up the concept (and my family 
is 5 people besides myself, ranging from 9 to 42).

> I've had to acclimatise to all sorts of horrible interfaces after 
> using better ones e.g. to Windows after Linux and you can get used to 
> almost anything.   I can even get to the point where it's difficult to 
> get back into the thing you prefer because you have hardwired all the 
> Windows crap ways of doing things.  Is that all there is to say about 
> it ?

This is a huge reason why so many people dislike GNOME 3. Instead of 
getting used to how it works, they complain that it's not exactly how 
they're used to using it. Many people have approached it with an open 
mind and, for the most part, enjoy it very much. If we enjoy it, then 
GNOME Shell has to be at least somewhat good, yes? Just because you do 
not see it as so does not make it bad.

> Imagine trying to sell people a product that took 14 days to like?   I 
> think that's really part of the issue.  People are not encountering 
> gnome shell because they want it but because someone has put it there 
> like a hump in the road and your alternative is to take the dirt track 
> diversion after you read the faq that tells you how to unpick the lock 
> on the gate.

Does Windows have new releases every six months? Is Windows a rolling 
release? On the most popular GNU/Linux operating systems, changes come 
very quickly. On Mac or Windows, changes are incremental and major 
updates are considered separate from the older software. This is how 
GNOME 3 wants to be treated; not as an "incremental update that's forced 
upon the users" like you suggest, but as a completely new desktop, and 
it must be seen as that or else a user's first impression will be 
sub-optimal.

Also, let me give you an analogy: say that GNOME 2 is a bicycle and 
GNOME 3 is a motorbike. Naturally, it still does the same things, but it 
does them in a different way that requires some re-learning. For some it 
might be a short period of time, for others, a long period of time. The 
requirement of fuel could be considered analogous to the hardware 
acceleration requirement; some people cannot afford it, but it's 
necessary for the design (and arguably, in the case of the motorbike, 
the addition of fuel and an engine is much nicer than having to pedal 
yourself). Arguably, the motorbike would take a bit of getting used to, 
and it doesn't have some advantages of a bike (faster start-up, easier 
customization, etc), but it gets you to your destination faster and much 
more elegantly than a bike does.

> It's ugly to read the putdowns on this list - telling people that what 
> they think is wrong and trying to put the onus on them to like your 
> software rather than the other way around.

We wouldn't do that *if they weren't wrong*. You have the false 
assumption that every complaint a user has is valid. Some things, like, 
"where is the taskbar?" are not considered regressions because GNOME 3 
replaces it with a dock, Expose-style overview, and a greatly improved 
Alt+Tab mechanism. It is simply unnecessary. Also, a good majority of 
these complaints about regressions have no good examples. Every once in 
a while I do read a good example of a regression and I agree that it 
needs to be fixed, but most of the complaints are the most immature things.

Expecting GNOME 3 to be like GNOME 2 is like expecting a roller coaster 
to be like a tricycle. It's a completely different beast and requires 
re-thinking the way you use the desktop. And no, this is not a bad 
thing, and in most cases takes much, much less time than "14 days". How 
long would it take to explain how to use Windows to somebody that has 
never used a computer? How about GNOME 3? The argument you have, if I'm 
reading this correctly, is essentially "we shouldn't have to re-learn 
how to use the desktop". Why not? If it brings improvement, as several 
people in this mailing list and on the internet have stated from 
first-hand experience, then it's a worthwhile change.

If GNOME 3 was considered the standard desktop, and nobody else was 
familiar with another desktop system, what if GNOME 4 switched to a 
Windows-like design (assuming, for the sake of example, that it's easier 
to use in the long run)? There would be people such as yourself claiming 
that we shouldn't have to re-learn how to use the desktop, yes? I think 
that explains the general position of the designers.

> Basically if gnome shell was a total option and won out by popularity 
> rather than by herding people

You can still use GNOME 2, just like how you can still use Vista now 
that Windows 7 is out. Several distributions support it.