A User's First Look at GNOME 2.0 550
Gentu writes: "OSNews has just published a review of the Gnome 2.0 desktop environment and its verdict is not so positive. The author feels that the new version is limited in many ways and with a UI not well designed."
Re:Gnome and KDE are more or less the same these d (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Don't listen to the article. (Score:3, Informative)
Either way, I doubt I'll be running Gnome on my main machine any time soon, whether 2.0 or 1.4. Enlightenment works just great for me. Simple, nice looking, customizable, and effective.
Re:Some valid things, and a lot of not-so valid (Score:3, Informative)
Take a look at the reviewer's name.... and her website http://www.eugenia.co.uk/ [eugenia.co.uk].
Re:Some valid things, and a lot of not-so valid (Score:4, Informative)
Ignored release notes
Ignored Various READMES
Ignored known gotchas
The reason galeon wont work is that the mandrake rpm sounds like it is compiled with nautilus1 support, and nautilus 1 has been clobbered
The one thing loud and clear through all the development process is INSTALL GNOME2 IN A SEPARATE PREFIX!!
Personally I cant think of anything missing with my install of gnome2 (parallel with gnome1.4)
If people cant read release notes they should just pull down ximian RPMs
REDTUX
Re:Bad quality (Score:2, Informative)
Let's see you try to be funny in Greek, you fatuous arsehole.
TWW
Wow... (Score:2, Informative)
Anyway, sounds like Gnome 2 is a lot like Gnome 1... very amateurish and lacking the 'polish' of the commercial OS's, especially where the help files are concerned. At least the fonts are better and Nautilus seems workable but from reading the review, it's nothing to write home about.
*sigh* (Score:1, Informative)
"smooth resizing (with medium success, I might add - when compared to MacOSX and BeOS 6-Dano's algorithms/techniques),"
Just as a sidenote, this is probably an issue of X, not Gtk. I just tried Gtk2.0 on DirectFB and that just flies. Too bad there is no real windowmanagment using Gtk on DFB yet, I would love that.
"For example, the memu panel, merely includes 3 options. Same goes for the other setting panels (when available), they lack the flexibility and number of options found in the previous version of Gnome."
You got this wrong. The main philosophy of Gnome 2 is, that less is sometimes more. The idea is to create an enjoyable user experience by default instead of letting him choose between "six equally broken ways to do it" (great quote from Havoc Pennington). That's why there are much less preferences, not because there is anything yet to be ported (preferences would be the first thing to be ported over).
Later you state that exactly this would be a good thing.
"I found this default configuration, bone-headed, at best. The panel on top only includes an 'Applications' and 'Actions' menu, then you get a huge unused space and then, at the right most side, you get the clock, and a menu which is equivelant to a chooser/finder as found on MacOS. It was a matter of time, before I deleted my bottom window list and embedded it on the main panel"
Why is this "bone-headed"? I'm sure everyone at Gnome would be happy for some reasonable arguments, so it can be changed to the better. The default makes perfect sense to me. The menu at the top left (where else), clock on the topright. In between there is enough place for your launchers and applets (not "wasted" space like you put it) and at the bottom there is the taskbar. I don't see the merits of having a taskbar "integrated" into another bar, why should this be more intuitive? Or is your argument that two panels are waisting screen estate? Some clarification would be nice.
"People will always argue that we are lucky that there is an option to do so, but the main point is, that the default configuration is what most people use. It is common knowledge that only a small percentage of users actually change (or have the right to change, in a business environment) their desktop and add/remove icons, themes or configurations. If the default configuration is not intuitive, most people will still live with it."
You just discovered the one big idea behind Gnome 2. If you think a default isn't right, provide some logical arguments please. I suggest to read the Metacity README file, it's very interesting and the same philosophy basically applies for the whole GNOME project. http://cvs.gnome.org/lxr/source/metacity/README
"My only problem with Nautilus was the inclusion of GTKhtml 2 as the main HTML renderer. GTKHtml is still extremely buggy. Its font sizes chosen are making the webpages unreadable, while it can't browse links that have relative destination even if these links are on the same server (eg. comment.php instead of www.osnews.com/comment.php)."
That is because Nautilus is _no_ webbrowser. It's a filebrowser (just because Windows and KDE have a combined File/Webbrowser doesn't mean Gnome has to as well). And there _is_ a difference between viewing a HTML page and browsing the web. GtkHTML is fine for the beginning to view HTML pages. Later there will be a Galeon component integrated into Nautilus.
"The other important problem is the largely unfinished Help included. Only a handful of topics are discussed. A shame really. A commercial company would have never ship an OS or desktop environment with no real Help files."
And neither will Ximian.
"If this is how open source works, there would not be a chance that I would recommend any of this to my friends or family. Of course, such things prove right the people at MSNBC saying that Linux (and the rest X-based OSes) is not ready for the desktop. I am only here, to my dismay of course, to prove their conclusion right."
This is the part that made me angry. Just as with proprietory software, there is "free" (as in no cost) Free Software and commercial Free Software. When comparing commercial proprietory software to Free Software, you have to compare it to commercial Free Software of course! So you should rather look at Ximian, they are doing a fine job. So far they are mostly targeted at buisiness consumers though, because it's not really appropriate for home desktop users anyway. But it will one day and when it is, there will be a company making it "complete". To draw the conclusion from a free Gnome 2 release targeted mostly at developers to "Free Software isn't able to deliver commercial quality releases" is just plain unfair. Even comparing Free Software to commercial software is showing a complete lack of understanding because Free Software _is_ by definition commercial software because anyone is allowed to make money from it. But not everyone does. And you can't expect anything from those who don't!
I completely agree with you that Gnome 2 lacks a lot in features, etc and I guess that most Gnome developer will also agree with you. Gnome is really a new base, removing a lot of old crap and trying to make things "right". It will grow from now.
It's your best right to say that you don't want to use something that is still lacking as much as Gnome 2 does and that you wouldn't recommend it to Joy User but I'm really getting angry when I see this mindless bashing of their efforts.
Re:Menu choices (Score:4, Informative)
Nautilus is a desktop and file manager. Of course turning it off gives you a naked desktop, because you no longer HAVE a desktop-manager. How is this Nautilus' fault?
But please do not listen too much to what the reviewer said, because it is totally opposite to most others experience.
Firstly, for all persons I've ever spoken to about GNOME 2.0, it feels way faster than GNOME 1.x
Secondly, there is a centralized place for configuration. It is called "Desktop preferences" and it is either in the GNOME-menu, or in "start-here:". The reviewer got this fact completely wrong, almost on the edge of malciciousness.
He does have some valid points however. The theme-issue is inherited from GNOME 1.x, and was sadly not possible to fix in GNOME 2.0 without much delay.
The other issue, which does speak against intuitivity is the menu-panel. It makes no sense to move the menu-panel, as it is totally meant as a top-menu in all it's design.
However it is still possible to remove the menu-panel and just use a bottom GNOME-panel like Windows or KDE. You just have to create the new panel before you remove the menu-panel, as GNOME won't let you remove all of your panels.
Re:Bad quality (Score:3, Informative)
It's a her, by the way, but good points none the less. She works hard at OS News.
Re:Some valid things, and a lot of not-so valid (Score:3, Informative)
So, the oprions are: have Gnome1 installed as well; run Galeon from CVS; or wait until Galeon for Gnome2 is out.
/Janne
Re:configurability (Score:3, Informative)
Here's something people fail to realize: even if you dislike your interface in some way, with a well designed interface and some training, you can be faster with the interface that is subjectively offensive than the one that you feel is somehow 'comfortable'. Configurability is the hallmark (in general) of a poor UI design. It means that you didn't know how to do it properly in the first place, so you're passing the buck to the user.
The advantages of a rigidly stardardized interface are often completely ignored, but they're what allow most people to sit down at any computer and start typing.
Give it some time (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Gnome and KDE are more or less the same these d (Score:2, Informative)
Keyboard. Hmm, try turning on 'full keyboard access' in System Prefs. You can now hop around the UI using just the keyboard. As for delete word etc. try emacs equivalents (work in all cocoa apps at least). There are alternatives as well. I just use those since I devote brain space to the damn things.
Multiple desktops. space (http://space.sourceforge.net) does a little of what you want. However I agree, Apple should add it themselves.
Themes. Colors are ok, but I generally against the ui makeover that some apps seem to delight in. They usually just cover for faults in the original UI. (not an original pov, I should add).
Scriptability. I think you should look at scripting again. There are many languages for scripting, including (IIRC) javascript. They just hook into AppleEvents which provides the underlying functionality. They can also go over the network (see sharing - allow remote apple events).
Stupid messages. I'm surprised by this, since Apple are generally pretty good at this. But they aren't perfect. I think asking whether it is ok to continue is fine, but I don't know the details of the case you cite.
Widget usefulness. Let's hear it for the volume dial on QT 4 (was that the one?). Terrible. They seem to have been fixing these (QT has certainly improved). The worst offenders seem to be Apple's own media apps, which is pretty bad.
I think some of your points are valid, but OS X is generally pretty good. They seem to have half an idea about this stuff.
Re:NO menu editor?!!?!?! (Score:2, Informative)
Dropping buggy features is a good thing. Releasing a product promptly is a good thing. Releasing a product without an important usability feature is a bad thing. Two out of three ain't bad. Even if you think it's an obvious blunder, try to keep your criticisms polite and constructive. It's a volunteer effort.
Re:Gnome and KDE are more or less the same these d (Score:4, Informative)
Way to do your research, lil buddy.
The AppleScript system is open. In fact, AppleScript just happens to be the default language Apple gives you to use within their "Open Script Architecture" (OSA).
For example, you could use JavaScript [latenightsw.com] to tie into all the hooks AppleScript can. There is an older list [applescrip...cebook.com] of other OSA languages available as well.
As an experienced programmer, I find AppleScript useful. When I'm scripting a bunch of Mac apps, the english-ness and gimpy-ness of AppleScript has never bothered me. Why? Because I'm not doing any "real" work. If I'd like to do a combination of "real" work and scripting apps, I could easily use a language from the above list, or call the script events from C or a C module access by a real language.
Re:Is it possible to Cut'N'Paste yet ? (Score:1, Informative)
What you describe is COPY & Paste, einstien.
What doesn't work with the X selection buffer is Paste-to-Replace. Very common operation on Windows/Mac.
Re:Gnome and KDE are more or less the same these d (Score:2, Informative)
Yes, it is. I spend 10-12 hours each day sitting in front of a computer screen. Reading dark text set on a light background may be fine for paper, but when that light background is essentially a glowing white light bulb, your eyes REALLY have to work hard to keep that black text in focus. Personally, I enjoy not needing glasses, and so I use a theme (gtk) that uses a dark grey background with light-grey text (or when forced to use Windows at work, I at least tweak my editor to look similar). This has the effect of SERIOUSLY reducing my eye strain.
So yes, colors are quite important, and though Aqua may look nice for the average user, it's not such a good them for programmers (and I would do my best to change it if my mac could actually run OSX - as it stands, I'm running a light-on-dark theme in OS 9).
-xris
Re:sawfish 2.0 (Score:3, Informative)
As for the 2 panel quirks, please report the bug to either GNOME or Ximian (who's going to release Ximian GNOME 2.0 soon). It should be *really* easy to fix. It sounds like a bug that no-one noticed. If you're quick, it might end up in the next Ximian or GARGNOME update.
Re:first try: (Score:1, Informative)
the gnome2 gtk themes spec has changed (read the docs)
easy to convert.
AA fotns work fine. again, read the install docs
as for themes... the whole point of it being configurable, is themes.
xmms isn't gnome gkrellm isn't gnome.
sawfish uses gtk themes.
if you want a coherent look without doing anything, then a highly visual configureable desktop environment is not for you.
and sawfishes config utils (for 2.0) work fine.
Re:Gnome and KDE are more or less the same these d (Score:1, Informative)
We've [asktog.com] done a cool $50 million of R & D on the Apple Human Interface. We discovered, among other things, two pertinent facts:
Where's your fifty million dollars worth of research, cmkrnl?