This reminds me of not being able to right click in Files in list view for creating a new document or pasting something, because it only accepts a right click in an empty area. Yet, in list view, as soon as you have a few files and the window is full, you’re given no empty area to click in.
I saw some people have the same issue [0] in the past, and it’s not really been fixed either [1].
I always had the same issue, even with the file explorer that I'm using currently (Thunar, XFCE's file browser). I never really looked for a solution, I kept changing the view (go from list view to to icons view) in order to find some empty space to right-click on.
Your comment and seeing that there are bug reports about it prompted me to think more than 5 seconds about this usability annoyance. I found a cool shortcut on Thunar: holding the control key + right click anywhere (including on a file) will bring up the right-click menu, from where I can create a new folder, paste, open in the terminal...
That's XFCE's Thunar solution to this problem. It was just not easily discoverable, but it's a good enough solution according to me, as I don't mind using the keyboard. Maybe it's the same on Gnome's File or Nautilus or other file explorers softwares, I don't know.
Edit: looking at it more closely, in Thunar the ctrl+right-click will show the "create new folder" option only if no file is selected. Otherwise it shows the contextual menu of the selection (hence the create new folder would not appear). So basically we have to unselect the files ... by clicking on an empty area (so back to square one) ... or we have to know about another keyboard shortcut (the "Escape" key) to clear the current selection before doing the ctrl+righ-click. Not ideal either.
I've noticed a similar thing on some web pages. For example BBC news where the link for a story is its whole tile/rectangle area, the obvious link text, any picture, and a large amount of white space. It's only relatively thin gaps between tiles that are inert background to click on.
I can see this making sense for a touch-first design and I can appreciate that focus for BBC news website, however focusing back on software like gnome it seems that similar aims crept in trying to make it serve multiple input methods at the same time and how you could have variations on the UI for touch or mouse (and you could also make assumptions about the screen and viewing setup and what's appropriate)
I often try to open a new Terminal window in my current folder like that. Which often is impossible for the same reason. So I navigate up, until I find a folder that is not full, open the Terminal there, and ‚cd‘ down to the folder i wanted…
I find this debatable from a UI/UX perspective. I think that the designers made the right choice here, because a context menu should show actions which can be applied to the object I right clicked on. "New Document" isn't really some function of a file or folder icon. Even worse: when I right click on a folder, should the "New Document" menu item create a new doc in the current folder? Or in the one I clicked on?
It would be better to have these common tasks in a separate menu item in the icon bar where they are always available, in addition to the context menu when right clicking on empty space in a window.
As cocoto pointed out in one of the child comments, you can click the three dots left of the search button, that one always works. I found out about it today.
left side of the list has a small column with a blank space... sure it requires mouse movement if you are not close with your pointer
i would love the empty area right click menu despite if we clicked on a file, like Blender shows all options for Vertex/Edge/Faces (each right click menu arranged horizontally) if you have all of them selected on Select Mode when editing objects
Finder's design is extremely similar to GNOME Files! And so the inherent downsides of the design language are present in Finder too, such as it being harder to drag windows around or click to activate windows.
But macOS does avoid most of the UI papercuts the author points out. It's not perfect, but let's go through the list.
- View Options: Finder has a similar-looking icon that does the same thing. But in Finder, the little arrows on the right of an icon are always part of the same button as the icon itself. Finder doesn't use split buttons in the way the author complains about.
- Help: The macOS User Guide explains all the icons and what they do. But you don't actually need to go that far, because macOS has a feature where if you click Help and start typing, it will show menu items (from any menu) that match what you typed. In this case, if you start typing "list", it will show the "as List" menu item, which achieves what the author wants. (I guess I should point out that macOS does have a menu bar at the top of the screen, and all the actions you can take by clicking icons can also be taken through the menu bar.)
- Tooltips: Finder doesn't have tooltips for the locations on the left pane, only for the icons in the toolbar. Even there they take a while to appear.
- Navigation: I'd ding Finder here because there is no location bar at all (only an 'open by path' dialog that's kind of buried). Even going to the parent directory is not exposed in a particularly obvious way. Still, at least Finder doesn't have something that looks editable but isn't.
- Scrolling: macOS has hidden scrollbars by default, but they stay at the right of the window. They don't jump to the left like the author is complaining about.
The macOS/OSX Finder really isn't an example of good UX. It always felt like a half-assed and unloved port from NeXTStep which then was quickly abandondend.
In general, Apple has lost its UI mojo in the last decade or so, macOS shouldn't be used anymore as an example of a good desktop UI.
In my opinion, OS X Finder is the most defective file browser of them all.
It always makes me laugh when some people believe the marketing of Apple saying that their OS is the most ergonomic when it is totally not the case.
Things like creating a new folder is a nightmare, if you are in the kind of a tree view and try to create a folder or paste a file, it will end up in the top parent folder.
When you sort by recent date it does not make any sense: you have files from the most recent to the oldest, but for a given day, like the last day or week, they are ordered in the opposite way (oldest to newest).
There are hundreds of other stupid decisions like that.
In the same way, who had this brillant (ie stupid) idea that the enter key will edit the file name name instead of opening it? Using a major keyboard key for an operation that you rarely do!
And macOS finder has one of the pathetic designs in similar to Apple simplicity but its supposed to be used for other way. Taking inspiration from that design is shooting yourself and half baking it is like making sure you screw in both ways
Oh GNOME, hiding "Power off" option under additional submenu, that user wouldn't accidentally click it, and then putting "Format" right next to "Safely remove drive" in Files.
Same kind of thing exists on Windows - for eg USB mass storage devices, ‘Eject’ and ‘Format’ are listes next to each other in the menu…
One is harmless - the other potentially destructive
Was happy to read this, as I've often imagined doing this myself (i.e. thoroughly hashing out commentary on a bunch of nits in a GUI that annoy me and I'm convinced should be better).
I agree that ctrl+L is a weird shortcut in a vacuum, but it's one I've known for 15 years, originally from using browsers. And it always makes me happy that Windows and Gnome (and Nautilus, which isn't the gnome default but is still present) all share it, which is nice for old/power-users.
(but actually, on re-read, the complaint may not be with the shortcut at all, and purely with the "no other way")
There's something in the room (I think it's an elephant), but not mentioned in the post, which is that the current Gnome UI is very Windows 11-like, while screwing up a lot of the details (hover-text, location bar being clickable).
(After using Gnome with 14.04 and 20.04, I had stability issues in 22.04 and am now happily on XFCE; long-term stability ftw)
Maybe the arrogance is the worst feature of GNOME approach. They make this studies and constantly repeat how focused are they on usability that when an individual finds it not usable (not in that words) it's double frustating cause is like GNOME saying: "our average users are happy so you must to be handicaped"
> It's worth mentioning that I agree that the modern design paradigm probably is friendly to beginner users in many ways. But at some point, people stop being beginners. People who use computers several hours per day, performing a wide variety of tasks in many different programs, should also be taken in to account when designing software. As such, my critique comes from the point of what's usually called a "power user". It's also worth considering that the more an interface hides, the less it offers by way of opportunities for a user to grow and learn.
After that I find it a bit rich to complain that one has to use a keyboard shortcut (even as others have said that's even incorrect), especially for a function that requires using the keyboard anyway.
I also find the arguments about no up button and the list view unconvincing. The list button was immediately obvious to me from the screenshot (and I don't use gnome or any filemanager) and I actually appreciate a window that does not put lost of buttons that present duplicate functionality everywhere (and it's harder to hit? What argument is that, by his own admission he's been using computers for 35 years, but can't use a mouse to hit a path?).
This really just reads like one of the typical rants where someone become somewhat proficient with some system, now considers themselves a "power user" and expects everything else to work exactly the same. The same people often complain that terminals break with "standard shortcuts" because they can't copy with ctrl-C...
The basics: you are not your users. Just because it’s easy for you, doesn’t mean it’s easy for others. That is the entire basis of usability work. I cannot believe how resistant the tech community, like above, is to the very basics of human cognition.
It’s your comment that’s the rant. OP has actual data from decades of research they are applying.
I would have clicked the down arrow that’s attached to the list icon to get the list options.
It wouldn’t even occur to me that the icon could be a toggle (both because it is not rendered as one, and because I’d expect more than two view options).
You don't need a keyboard to use a text field. You could be pasting a path.
Or using some assistive technology like dictation. Or be using a phone where there's a way to type but no way to press ctrl (althouth the UI on a phone should be judged along other lines).
> The same people often complain that terminals break with "standard shortcuts" because they can't copy with ctrl-C...
It does break with standard shortcuts. And worse, there's absolutely no consistency between terminal applications on which shortcuts to use. It's a mess, and complaints are warrented.
How do you find out what that keyboard shortcut is?
I only found out when reading a similar article as the OP many years ago that complained about the removal of the textbox.
Otherwise I never would've known it is possible to activate the path textbox with a keyboard shortcut.
A UI needs to be both easy to use and discoverable. If "power users" have trouble discovering where the features they need are, why do we think the rest of the UI is easy to use/discoverable for everyone else?
(Although TBH I rarely use UI, and normally just use the terminal, except when upgrading the firmware of my keyboard, in which case I use Jade's file manager).
> The list button was immediately obvious to me from the screenshot
It was immediately obvious to the author as well -- it was the first thing they clicked on! Or rather, they clicked in the little arrow next to it, that looked like it was part of the same button. When it brought up something entirely unrelated, they very reasonably assumed that it wasn't what they were looking for.
If I type <ctrl>-s filename <enter>, then I expect the current file to be saved with filename (perhaps with an extension appended).
The gtk-2 behavior was to start searching the list of files/directories when you type filename, then select whatever is highlighted when you press enter.
Anyway, I’m not going to install gnome to find out.
It’s not surprising the file browser is as bad as described in the article. After all, jwz’s cadt (cascade of attention deficit teenagers) model of software engineering was meant to explain the behavior of the gnome project.
I don't get the obsession with "clean" UIs, nor how hiding everything and replacing it with tons of whitespace and nondescript icons can be "calming". It's sterile and unwelcoming like an empty house or unused workshop.
The worst part of GNOME, files included, is the gtkfilechooserwidget.c, in both gtk3 and gtk4, having a bug which errors out and pops up if you paste a file path into a file->open dialog. Gtk devs say the filechooser code is so spaghetti no one wants to work on it to make filename-entry location-mode work by default again. And I agree, I tried for a year on and off to patch it myself in gtk 3.22 and 3.24 and I could only ever fix it for the first launch of File->Open for a given process. Subsequent Opens would error out again.
GNOME UI, and now Gtk since 2014, is not written with people who use the keyboard in mind. That's it's biggest UI weakness.
These complaints aren't invalid, but I do wonder how many users actually get tripped up on these things. If you want a list view, clicking on the icon that looks like a list isn't a crazy thing to do. I agree the dropdown behaviour is a bit strange.
Equally, it's accepted that a bunch of today's Gnome apps have title bars with controls inside them. I don't think it's that jarring that if you don't click on a control accurately and then start dragging the mouse, you're going to move the window.
this is anecdotal, but I just asked three non-techie friends who never seen GNOME before to change my Nautilus app to list view. Neither of them needed more than 5 seconds to do it.
I switched to Nemo after I got tired of Nautilus moving all the buttons for no particular reason every Gnome release, but a few versions ago they had a pattern that was genuinely good: a dropdown next to the current directory in the navigation bar, with everything you can do in the current directory (paste, create directory, open terminal, etc.). This was really neat, traditionally you have to access those by right-clicking some whitespace in the list/grid view, but in the list view there is only a narrow band of empty space to right-click, usually you accidentally click a file. So this was a genuine innovation in UI design. Unfortunately they since removed it again.
A personal annoyance with Gnome Files is that every time a file is deleted it shows an annoying toast over the tabs notifying you about the files being deleted.
I don't use Gnome since the days of version 2, which was really nice and friendly. But I was impressed by how well the latest iteration works in a tablet.
That's a great advantage, because it's the same UI as a desktop. Plus, they have made sure all core applications work well using a touch UI.
As a GNOME user, I kinda understand what they want to achieve, but they are seriously short on resources, so there is really little substance to all the rosy aspirations. They are also very oppinionated, which then turns away a lot of liberal developers that just want to scratch their own itches.
As for file manager usability, I grew up with Norton commander and pretty much gave up on ever seeing power user addressed file manager. It's fine for simple office type stuff that I bother few times a month on my Linux system but that's basically it.
When I have any more elaborate needs I fall back to plain old terminal with something like git or maybe even midnight commander, because that's what's getting the job done.
What I find really sad is, that they have like a million bindings to every programming language there is (including one that they made up) and I have no idea how they want to maintain that codebase. The basic API still looks somewhat antiquated and disjointed, but now it's in JavaScript and Vala. So even the more OCD type developers that would accept the design language constraints are frustrated that it looks so sad under the hood.
But I mean, I get it. Building a consistent desktop environment with a clean design language is hard and especially expensive. I'm impressed by what GNOME actually manages to get done with the few resources that they have. Is it anywhere close to being consistent and complete. I don't think so.
But than again, I mostly just use the desktop environment to open Chrome and the terminal, so for me it's perfectly fine.
Always a reminder for people who are frustrated with the state of Gnome... I've found KDE to be _very good_ for people who want to see options up and center. In a way KDE is definitely more Windows-like and Gnome more Mac-like in its approaches, and you can see this very directly with the screenshotter tools packed into the various environments.
Definitely worth it for people frustrated at Gnome's cleanliness-to-a-fault.
(Full disclosure: I donate to both and apprecaite them both existing)
I don’t like most of what gnome did to its UI over the years, as I use titlebars, scrollbars, and menus heavily.
But I consoled myself with the idea that at least it was done to make it more friendly for touch devices—that I didn’t happen need at the time on my PCs.
Guess what? Fast forward a decade. Just got a new linux tablet and come to find out gnome is often shitty and unusable there too. Menus tiny, often keyboard only interfaces! Phosh is decent but none of the video players have a UI in the ballpark of Netflix/Android. All the touch targets are TINY, no tap in the center to play/pause, no tap on sides to skip either. Often have state bugs where the UI won’t hide after an interaction. Won’t stay full screen.
I had to install a new file manager named Portfolio that was actually touch friendly.
Making things round is not enough.
So much was lost and we didn’t even get a good touch interface out of the bargain! And their broken interfaces have infected mate, xfce, cinnamon as well.
[+] [-] jiehong|1 year ago|reply
I saw some people have the same issue [0] in the past, and it’s not really been fixed either [1].
[0]: https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1150025
[1]: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/nautilus/-/issues/3445
[+] [-] gawa|1 year ago|reply
Your comment and seeing that there are bug reports about it prompted me to think more than 5 seconds about this usability annoyance. I found a cool shortcut on Thunar: holding the control key + right click anywhere (including on a file) will bring up the right-click menu, from where I can create a new folder, paste, open in the terminal...
That's XFCE's Thunar solution to this problem. It was just not easily discoverable, but it's a good enough solution according to me, as I don't mind using the keyboard. Maybe it's the same on Gnome's File or Nautilus or other file explorers softwares, I don't know.
Edit: looking at it more closely, in Thunar the ctrl+right-click will show the "create new folder" option only if no file is selected. Otherwise it shows the contextual menu of the selection (hence the create new folder would not appear). So basically we have to unselect the files ... by clicking on an empty area (so back to square one) ... or we have to know about another keyboard shortcut (the "Escape" key) to clear the current selection before doing the ctrl+righ-click. Not ideal either.
[+] [-] keyringlight|1 year ago|reply
I can see this making sense for a touch-first design and I can appreciate that focus for BBC news website, however focusing back on software like gnome it seems that similar aims crept in trying to make it serve multiple input methods at the same time and how you could have variations on the UI for touch or mouse (and you could also make assumptions about the screen and viewing setup and what's appropriate)
[+] [-] kaanyalova|1 year ago|reply
There is an image showing the right clickable areas on the issue you linked
https://gitlab.gnome.org/-/project/1/uploads/50ac36ab40f9049...
[+] [-] Lukas_Skywalker|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] Cockbrand|1 year ago|reply
It would be better to have these common tasks in a separate menu item in the icon bar where they are always available, in addition to the context menu when right clicking on empty space in a window.
[+] [-] Refusing23|1 year ago|reply
too many tabs and i cant right click the top bar and reopen a closed tab, or whatever
the small empty spot between the tabs and the minimize/close buttons, provide a different right click menu
[+] [-] berniedurfee|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] edg5000|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] luqtas|1 year ago|reply
i would love the empty area right click menu despite if we clicked on a file, like Blender shows all options for Vertex/Edge/Faces (each right click menu arranged horizontally) if you have all of them selected on Select Mode when editing objects
[+] [-] okasaki|1 year ago|reply
You can tell you're on the gap when no item is highlighted.
[+] [-] mixmastamyk|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] comex|1 year ago|reply
Consider the current macOS Finder:
https://a.qoid.us/20240907-finder.png
Finder's design is extremely similar to GNOME Files! And so the inherent downsides of the design language are present in Finder too, such as it being harder to drag windows around or click to activate windows.
But macOS does avoid most of the UI papercuts the author points out. It's not perfect, but let's go through the list.
- View Options: Finder has a similar-looking icon that does the same thing. But in Finder, the little arrows on the right of an icon are always part of the same button as the icon itself. Finder doesn't use split buttons in the way the author complains about.
- Help: The macOS User Guide explains all the icons and what they do. But you don't actually need to go that far, because macOS has a feature where if you click Help and start typing, it will show menu items (from any menu) that match what you typed. In this case, if you start typing "list", it will show the "as List" menu item, which achieves what the author wants. (I guess I should point out that macOS does have a menu bar at the top of the screen, and all the actions you can take by clicking icons can also be taken through the menu bar.)
- Tooltips: Finder doesn't have tooltips for the locations on the left pane, only for the icons in the toolbar. Even there they take a while to appear.
- Navigation: I'd ding Finder here because there is no location bar at all (only an 'open by path' dialog that's kind of buried). Even going to the parent directory is not exposed in a particularly obvious way. Still, at least Finder doesn't have something that looks editable but isn't.
- Scrolling: macOS has hidden scrollbars by default, but they stay at the right of the window. They don't jump to the left like the author is complaining about.
[+] [-] hedora|1 year ago|reply
If you don’t believe me, fire up https://macos9.app on a machine with a mouse, and try organizing / browsing some files.
[+] [-] flohofwoe|1 year ago|reply
In general, Apple has lost its UI mojo in the last decade or so, macOS shouldn't be used anymore as an example of a good desktop UI.
[+] [-] LeoPanthera|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] greatgib|1 year ago|reply
It always makes me laugh when some people believe the marketing of Apple saying that their OS is the most ergonomic when it is totally not the case.
Things like creating a new folder is a nightmare, if you are in the kind of a tree view and try to create a folder or paste a file, it will end up in the top parent folder.
When you sort by recent date it does not make any sense: you have files from the most recent to the oldest, but for a given day, like the last day or week, they are ordered in the opposite way (oldest to newest).
There are hundreds of other stupid decisions like that.
In the same way, who had this brillant (ie stupid) idea that the enter key will edit the file name name instead of opening it? Using a major keyboard key for an operation that you rarely do!
[+] [-] stuaxo|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] eptcyka|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] nitinreddy88|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] hulitu|1 year ago|reply
So MacOSX is going also downhill in GUI design. Good to know. /s
[+] [-] butz|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] rollcat|1 year ago|reply
Meanwhile both: cramming so many controls into title bars there's nowhere left to click to move the window.
I recently spent a week with OS X 10.5 on a G4, I think it was peak desktop.
[+] [-] tveyben|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] gertlex|1 year ago|reply
I agree that ctrl+L is a weird shortcut in a vacuum, but it's one I've known for 15 years, originally from using browsers. And it always makes me happy that Windows and Gnome (and Nautilus, which isn't the gnome default but is still present) all share it, which is nice for old/power-users.
(but actually, on re-read, the complaint may not be with the shortcut at all, and purely with the "no other way")
There's something in the room (I think it's an elephant), but not mentioned in the post, which is that the current Gnome UI is very Windows 11-like, while screwing up a lot of the details (hover-text, location bar being clickable).
(After using Gnome with 14.04 and 20.04, I had stability issues in 22.04 and am now happily on XFCE; long-term stability ftw)
[+] [-] PeakKS|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] asmor|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] n3storm|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] cycomanic|1 year ago|reply
After that I find it a bit rich to complain that one has to use a keyboard shortcut (even as others have said that's even incorrect), especially for a function that requires using the keyboard anyway.
I also find the arguments about no up button and the list view unconvincing. The list button was immediately obvious to me from the screenshot (and I don't use gnome or any filemanager) and I actually appreciate a window that does not put lost of buttons that present duplicate functionality everywhere (and it's harder to hit? What argument is that, by his own admission he's been using computers for 35 years, but can't use a mouse to hit a path?).
This really just reads like one of the typical rants where someone become somewhat proficient with some system, now considers themselves a "power user" and expects everything else to work exactly the same. The same people often complain that terminals break with "standard shortcuts" because they can't copy with ctrl-C...
[+] [-] savolai|1 year ago|reply
It’s your comment that’s the rant. OP has actual data from decades of research they are applying.
Quoting myself: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41303387
[+] [-] hedora|1 year ago|reply
It wouldn’t even occur to me that the icon could be a toggle (both because it is not rendered as one, and because I’d expect more than two view options).
[+] [-] persnickety|1 year ago|reply
Or using some assistive technology like dictation. Or be using a phone where there's a way to type but no way to press ctrl (althouth the UI on a phone should be judged along other lines).
[+] [-] continuational|1 year ago|reply
It does break with standard shortcuts. And worse, there's absolutely no consistency between terminal applications on which shortcuts to use. It's a mess, and complaints are warrented.
[+] [-] edwintorok|1 year ago|reply
Otherwise I never would've known it is possible to activate the path textbox with a keyboard shortcut.
A UI needs to be both easy to use and discoverable. If "power users" have trouble discovering where the features they need are, why do we think the rest of the UI is easy to use/discoverable for everyone else?
(Although TBH I rarely use UI, and normally just use the terminal, except when upgrading the firmware of my keyboard, in which case I use Jade's file manager).
[+] [-] gavinsyancey|1 year ago|reply
It was immediately obvious to the author as well -- it was the first thing they clicked on! Or rather, they clicked in the little arrow next to it, that looked like it was part of the same button. When it brought up something entirely unrelated, they very reasonably assumed that it wasn't what they were looking for.
[+] [-] baybal2|1 year ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] hedora|1 year ago|reply
If I type <ctrl>-s filename <enter>, then I expect the current file to be saved with filename (perhaps with an extension appended).
The gtk-2 behavior was to start searching the list of files/directories when you type filename, then select whatever is highlighted when you press enter.
Anyway, I’m not going to install gnome to find out.
It’s not surprising the file browser is as bad as described in the article. After all, jwz’s cadt (cascade of attention deficit teenagers) model of software engineering was meant to explain the behavior of the gnome project.
[+] [-] userbinator|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] superkuh|1 year ago|reply
GNOME UI, and now Gtk since 2014, is not written with people who use the keyboard in mind. That's it's biggest UI weakness.
[+] [-] lol768|1 year ago|reply
Equally, it's accepted that a bunch of today's Gnome apps have title bars with controls inside them. I don't think it's that jarring that if you don't click on a control accurately and then start dragging the mouse, you're going to move the window.
[+] [-] yoavm|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] arnaudsm|1 year ago|reply
If you're a power-user that likes having many toolbars, don't use gnome, there are other amazing DEs made for you
The main strength of the Linux desktop is its diversity
[+] [-] ruuda|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] MrDresden|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] nextos|1 year ago|reply
That's a great advantage, because it's the same UI as a desktop. Plus, they have made sure all core applications work well using a touch UI.
[+] [-] skriticos2|1 year ago|reply
As for file manager usability, I grew up with Norton commander and pretty much gave up on ever seeing power user addressed file manager. It's fine for simple office type stuff that I bother few times a month on my Linux system but that's basically it.
When I have any more elaborate needs I fall back to plain old terminal with something like git or maybe even midnight commander, because that's what's getting the job done.
What I find really sad is, that they have like a million bindings to every programming language there is (including one that they made up) and I have no idea how they want to maintain that codebase. The basic API still looks somewhat antiquated and disjointed, but now it's in JavaScript and Vala. So even the more OCD type developers that would accept the design language constraints are frustrated that it looks so sad under the hood.
But I mean, I get it. Building a consistent desktop environment with a clean design language is hard and especially expensive. I'm impressed by what GNOME actually manages to get done with the few resources that they have. Is it anywhere close to being consistent and complete. I don't think so.
But than again, I mostly just use the desktop environment to open Chrome and the terminal, so for me it's perfectly fine.
[+] [-] rtpg|1 year ago|reply
Definitely worth it for people frustrated at Gnome's cleanliness-to-a-fault.
(Full disclosure: I donate to both and apprecaite them both existing)
[+] [-] mixmastamyk|1 year ago|reply
But I consoled myself with the idea that at least it was done to make it more friendly for touch devices—that I didn’t happen need at the time on my PCs.
Guess what? Fast forward a decade. Just got a new linux tablet and come to find out gnome is often shitty and unusable there too. Menus tiny, often keyboard only interfaces! Phosh is decent but none of the video players have a UI in the ballpark of Netflix/Android. All the touch targets are TINY, no tap in the center to play/pause, no tap on sides to skip either. Often have state bugs where the UI won’t hide after an interaction. Won’t stay full screen.
I had to install a new file manager named Portfolio that was actually touch friendly. Making things round is not enough.
So much was lost and we didn’t even get a good touch interface out of the bargain! And their broken interfaces have infected mate, xfce, cinnamon as well.
[+] [-] quaintdev|1 year ago|reply
What the hell they were thinking while building finder?
[+] [-] NayamAmarshe|1 year ago|reply