Re: Design choice for suspend option only

[Mark Blakeney <mark blakeney bullet-systems net>]

On Fri, 02 Mar 2012 14:35:13 -0800, Sriram Ramkrishna wrote:
> On a Mac, I never ever think of shutting down, I just close the lid and
> then open up again.  Why?  Because suspend is nearly instantaneous.

I use a Mac laptop also, and I *usually* suspend, but not always. E.g. if 
I am planning to leave the laptop unused for a few days then I shut it 
down. On my MBA with SSD the cold bootup time is almost as quick anyhow.

But this is the problem - the Mac still presents the user with the 
shutdown option. Gnome-shell remove/hides this option. And please don't 
suggest it is still there with the Alt key - that is so un-discoverable 
that I was shocked when I googled it that first day I tried gnome-shell. 
I thought the Gnome philosophy was to make things obvious to users?! 
Having menu options change text while a key is held down - I have never 
seen this before in my life.

Look, I really like gnome-shell. I like Unity also but think gnome-shell 
is cleaner and simpler. Overloading the single meta key/hotspot for all 
of launcher/ search, dash, activities/apps view, and multi-desktop 
management etc is smart and intuitive to learn. That suspend only option 
just stands out as an odd one and seems to be universally ridiculed 
around the forums. It is a slight against an otherwise nice design. I was 
interested to find the history of how and why that design choice came 
about.