Re: The good, the bad, the insane

[Martin Häsler <martin haesler googlemail com>]

On 05/23/11 15:13, Ryan Peters wrote:
> Hi Martin,
>
> On 05/23/2011 06:05 AM, Martin Häsler wrote:
> > Hi ,
> >
> > After having followed this list for quite some time, I now feel 
> > compelled  to weigh in.
> ...
> > The insane:
> >
> > Suspend/Shutdown:
> >
> > I think this is the first design decision ever made in any desktop 
> > which made me angry.
> > Leaving aside, that suspend - resume doesn't work with many laptops 
> > and especially desktop PC's,
> > I simply cannot understand the thought process behind this decision. 
> > There was no need to change the old behaviour,
> > and to say making Suspend default, because it would save energy, is 
> > so blatantly wrong, I'm at a loss for words.
> > That a machine uses less energy when turned off should be obvious.
> > Please go back to the old behaviour and make a lot of users happy. 
> > (especially us treehugging Germans :) )
> Before I say anything, let me state that I am not a developer or 
> designer of this project. From what I've read *from* the designers, 
> though, the decision was made for consistency's sake, not necessarily 
> saving energy. The menu has the same function that the power button 
> and closing the window list do: suspending. Shutting down, when you 
> think about it, is something that you rarely have to do (some people 
> don't shut down their desktops for long periods of time, while others 
> only shut them down once or twice per day). Compared to navigating a 
> program's GUI, switching workspaces/windows, and launching 
> applications, this is something that is rarely done, so, for the sake 
> of consistency, it would make sense to optimize towards a behavior 
> that, for most users, would be preferable when walking away 
> (suspending). The preferred way to shut down, which indicates that 
> you're done using the computer, is to log out first and use GDM (which 
> takes a few more seconds, but I can't think of a situation where you 
> have to shut down a computer faster that that).
Sorry, but you got that wrong. AFAIK the behaviour of the Power button 
was changed to default to suspend to be consistent with the menu choice. 
Pressing the Power button used to show the Power
Off / Cancel dialog. Also, please note that its called Power button, not 
suspend button.