[softirq]

GNOME has come a long way, but its stubborn insistence on not having a desktop with a real application launcher remains a huge usability misstep. GNOME's marketshare is the desktop, and so the initial value proposition of a hybrid UI seems very much wishful thinking, while the keyboard based workflows it seems to want to enable are better served by tiling WM such as Sway, and do not make sense for the "default" WM that is picked up by casual converts who are used to a point and click system. Overall it's just a confusing mess for new users, which Canonical/System76 rationally get rid of (which is probably a majority of the GNOME user base).

So why does GNOME continue down this path. Is it a fear of being "just like everyone else" by using a tried and true dock/application bar? Is it a desire to not be the front running WM and be more "niche" to power users? I still don't really understand their decision making process.

[yoyohello13]

I’m not sure what you mean by application launcher. Is Super not enough?

Super, type 2 or 3 letters of the program I want, enter. Works really well for me.

[colanderman]

Vocally seconding this. I wanted to not like Gnome (longtime wmi/wmii/i3 user) but its application launcher (and actually everything to do with the super/three-finger swipe/hot corner system) is superb. I'm amazed how equally highly usable it is via keyboard, mouse, and touch.

[softirq]

No it's not, for several reasons:

1. Average users primarily use mouse based workflows.

2. Super isn't discoverable.

3. It confused users coming from other DEs.

4. It actually takes more keypresses than clicking a favorited app on a dock that is always available.

Overall it's less discoverable, less efficient, and not baked into the mind of computer users who are coming from almost any other bistro.

[foresto]

> Super, type 2 or 3 letters of the program I want, enter. Works really well for me.

I don't use GNOME and can't speak for softirq, but what you're describing sounds to me like a command line interface. I can imagine two problems with it:

- Ergonomics. People who usually keep a hand on the mouse would have to move to the keyboard whenever they launch an app, and then move back again. Not a showstopper, but definitely a time waster. (And perhaps just as annoying to some people as it is to me when no keyboard shortcuts are available for common actions.)

- Discoverability. If someone knows what they want to do but doesn't know (or forgot) the names of the apps that can do it, they're left to type in guesses until they find something that works out. Also, if they just want to browse the apps that came preinstalled on their system, an application launcher provides, while a command line interface does not.

[Intralexical]

> Super, type 2 or 3 letters of the program I want, enter. Works really well for me.

You've just described basically every modern desktop user interface. Windows Start Menu ("Windows Key"), Cinnamon menu, KDE defaults, XFCE (w/ Whisker Menu), etc. all support the [Super]→[Start typing]→[Enter] launch workflow.

[SkyMarshal]

Same. Every OS I use always make sure it has this kind of simple app launcher. Super key -> search field -> autocomplete -> enter -> app starts. What more do you need? Most OS's have a version built-in nowadays. Seems like a solved problem.

[wwarek]

Right? Also much faster than, I guess, scrolling with mouse through some menus

[Klonoar]

Personal opinion but to me this is the best way of moving around a computer - to be point where it’s all I do in macOS as well. Can’t remember the last time I saw a dock there.

[wmf]

That's completely undiscoverable.

[tadfisher]

> remains a huge usability misstep

Evidence? The Gnome project has performed UX studies[0] to validate their design, and has continually made changes in response (some of which I disagree with, FWIW).

[0]: https://wiki.gnome.org/Design/Studies

[softirq]

You just linked to studies that directly support my point:

"On the other hand, new users generally got up to speed more quickly with Endless OS, often due to its similarity to Windows. Many of these testers found the bottom panel to be an easy way to switch applications. They also made use of the minimize button. In comparison, both GNOME 3.38 and the prototype generally took more adjustment for these users.

“I really liked that it’s similar to the Windows display that I have.” —Comment on Endless OS by a non-GNOME user"

[int_19h]

In my career, I witnessed several software UX changes that elicited massively negative user feedback once released - and every single one of those was backed by a UX study. It seems that if you have really strong opinions about what you want your software to look like, engineering UX studies around that is not difficult.

[hobo_mark]

We just deployed RHEL9 and had to quickly revert gnome because users (and me!) had no effing idea how to use it.

For instance, no button to minimize and maximize a window, no taskbar to switch between windows, what the actual...

[Longhanks]

Evidence? No other somewhat popular desktop rejects "core desktop ideas" the way gnome does. Both windows and Mac have desktop icons, tray icons, a task bar/dock, minimize and maximize buttons...

[blueflow]

It is infuriating that they used systematic approaches to UX and still came up with the current thing. I said it before, too many implicit gestures that are not discoverable until you google for it.

Last time i tried GNOME was last week and gave up after a day.

[addicted]

Gnome is a DE designed to be used by distributions.

Gnome doesn’t have an opinion on a desktop application launcher because it expects the distribution to add it.

The only distributions which don’t are GnomeOS which is intended for developing Gnome, and Fedora, which is intended to be a bleeding edge distribution to mass release stuff before it’s included in RHEL.

Turns out, however, that a lot of people actually like the default Gnome look and so are happy with using Fedora.

But in practice this isn’t an issue for anyone because their distribution will come with an application launcher.

And even better you can completely change and/or add an application launcher because they are implemented through extensions.

[ragnese]

> Gnome is a DE designed to be used by distributions. > > Gnome doesn’t have an opinion on a desktop application launcher because it expects the distribution to add it.

I don't think this is true at all. Where have you read this? If GNOME intended for distributions to customize it, I can't imagine why they'd keep harping on about how custom theming is awful. See: https://blogs.gnome.org/alatiera/2021/09/18/the-truth-they-a..., and https://blogs.gnome.org/tbernard/2018/10/15/restyling-apps-a...

I'm honestly surprised they still support adding extensions via extensions.gnome.org.

[softirq]

Every DE is designed to be used in a distribution. I think what you are trying to say is that GNOME is designed to be "finished" by the distribution, which is a completely made up idea. Show me where GNOME says you need to finish the DE yourself during integration. GNOME is designed as a complete DE, the reason Canonical/System76 change it is because it's poorly designed for new users/casuals, which is their user base.

[pjmlp]

Two things that made me switch to XFCE, JavaScript based extensions affecting performance, complete refusal to add back support for Windows shading (roll up).

[panick21_]

That's why System76 is writting extensions in Rust and runs them in seperate processes.

[pmarreck]

which extensions are js-based?

there's no gnome extension to do roll-up windows?

[johnny22]

I would assume that it's because there are more people like me who use gnome. I kept using gnome 3 from gnome 2 because gnome 3 worked the way I was already using gnome 2.

I tried using tiling window managers, but they didn't give me the niceties of the out of the box gnome experience. I do have one extension for topicons. (sometimes I use gsconnect, but not recently) I don't need anything else.

[mdasen]

I've been enjoying Budgie for this reason. It feels like a "normal" desktop experience with a taskbar at the bottom, something like a start-menu with the search functionality we're used to, and without anything really trying to be fancy or transparent. It just feels "regular".

The criticism some people have of Budgie is that it feels like a customized version of GNOME rather than its own thing - but that's what I'm looking for. I'm not looking for something to ditch the good parts of GNOME. I'm looking for something that will just give me a regular desktop where things feel like what macOS or Windows have been offering for a couple decades.

[VyseofArcadia]

Out of curiosity, why Budgie over XFCE, MATE, or LXDE? All of those are pretty much just a "normal" desktop experience with a taskbar, something like a start menu with search, or anything trying to be fancy or transparent.

Nothing against Budgie, I'm just curious what made it stand out for you.

[stonogo]

It took me a while to figure out what you mean by "real application launcher" but I think you mean that hitting the top left corner menu (or the Windows key) launches the fullscreen window overview plus launcher and that's not enough for you? I guess the "Dash to Dock" extension is what you're after but I can't say I've ever missed it. I don't really use the keyboard for it, but every time I use a non-GNOME system I badly miss the ability to just click in the corner to manage programs, whether switching between them or launching new ones. If GNOME got rid of this I would probably stop using GNOME.

[whalesalad]

the app launcher really only works on a laptop with gestures. pain in the butt with a mouse, especially on a large display.

[olliej]

Last time I tried gnome it was in an Ubuntu install I think which had a weird launcher that imo didn’t work particularly well.

I’m not sure what you are meaning by a launcher here - to me there’s a fairly reasonable ambiguity about what is meant. On windows people still seem to use shortcuts on the desktop as a primary launcher (especially given the current start menu abomination, sheesh talk about destroying one of the most effective bits of UI MS ever produced), on Mac I actually mostly use spotlight (though that usage is subject to the “secret chord” problem), but most normal users use the dock for common apps and the applications folder for everything else.

I keep meaning to retry kde at some point but I’m waiting for more asahi work to support my desktop (they are reasonable to focus on the laptops but my laptop is my work machine so less willing to surrender disk space when llvm builds already consume half a TB).

It’s weird to me that back when I was a primarily Linux user gnome was The(tm) commercial Linux desktop and kde was the clunky also-ran, I assumed the gnome was destined to win in the long term due to gtk APIs, commercial support, and at the time seemingly more polish and completeness. I guess things can change given a decade or so of development :D

[webkike]

Gnome has a built in extension called “Applications Menu” that is just that.

I don’t really use it that much. I find opening search and typing what I want much faster. Or I use the dock

[jacooper]

Because not everyone likes a classic app launcher? I like how reliable gnome's search is, it replaces the start menu.

I just click super, see my workspaces, all of my running apps and can just directly start typing and find the app I'm looking for.

Why would I ever need a start menu? It's soo good that KDE added something similar recently.

[mushufasa]

Not sure how much this is still true, but as I recall, GNOME used to have a 'start' launcher like Windows, and removed it because of a lawsuit (gates/ballmer era Microsoft). That was the big motivation for gnome 2 to 3, and also why canonical split off unity for a while

[cm_silva]

I know it's not perfect but I use the 'dash to panel' extension

[ragnese]

> while the keyboard based workflows it seems to want to enable are better served by tiling WM such as Sway

This is where I think your analysis starts to break down. Tiling and keyboard-oriented are almost orthogonal. There's no a priori reason that a tiling WM has to be keyboard-oriented, nor that floating WMs are inherently less accommodating to keyboard-oriented workflows. As an anecdote, way back in my youth, I had all kinds of keyboard shortcuts for resizing and moving windows by different amounts in my Openbox WM setups. Likewise, I really tried to like the popular tiling WMs (i3, xmonad, AwesomeWM), but I eventually realized that I can't literally be focusing on content from multiple windows simultaneously, and it makes way more sense for me to size and position each window so that I can optimize my interactions with that one when I am focusing on it.

> do not make sense for the "default" WM that is picked up by casual converts who are used to a point and click system. Overall it's just a confusing mess for new users, which Canonical/System76 rationally get rid of (which is probably a majority of the GNOME user base).

Let's be real, though. The year of Linux On The Desktop is not coming--hell, The Desktop is pretty much dying altogether. So, I really don't care if we optimize for the "casual computer user" who just happens to stumble into a chair in front of a Linux desktop, because that person doesn't exist. It may sound selfish, but I rather they optimize for users who already exist.

> GNOME has come a long way, but its stubborn insistence on not having a desktop with a real application launcher remains a huge usability misstep. > [...] > So why does GNOME continue down this path. Is it a fear of being "just like everyone else" by using a tried and true dock/application bar?

GNOME is actually fairly close to macOS in this regard. Yes, macOS has a dock with an application launcher, but if I didn't already know what the application launcher icon looks like, I'd have no idea how to get to its application launcher: the icon I'm looking at right now on my work Mac is a square icon with a 3x3 grid of colored squares inside it--what the hell does that mean? Is it a color picker app? Some kind of Tetris or Candy Crush game?

GNOME's top-left stupid oval button is equally bad, but not worse, than macOS's UX discoverability, IMO.

And I have to wonder how truly "intuitive" the Windows situation is, either. The old Windows versions used to have the word "Start" on the button, which at least gives some kind of hint that my computing journey "begins" there. I think since Vista or 7, it's basically just been the Windows icon. I suspect it's more intuitive than the macOS or GNOME analogs, but probably only a tiny bit if I were to sit someone down who hasn't used a Windows PC in their life.

[petepete]

> So why does GNOME continue down this path.

Because it's great and everyone apart from a tiny but incredibly vocal minority get on just fine with it.

[yoyohello13]

All these comments just want Gnome to be like every other DE in existence. MF'er leave my preferred DE alone, go use KDE if you want a traditional DE.

[greyw]

GNOME seems to be least buggy DE and gets out of my way when doing things. A nice bonus is that it also looks and feels good.

I used to use plasma but it was just too buggy for me. Just today a random user realized that installing a theme from the built-in theme selection thingy deleted all his data...

I have some hope for cosmic DE as it seems like they try to emulate GNOME's workflow with some twists.

[iknowstuff]

Yeah! GNOME is wonderful. I can’t with the neckbeards.