Gnome 2.4 Release(d) 566
chendo writes "Gnome 2.4 will be released today. Here is the link to the article on Ars Technica. GNOME 2.4 is the result of quite a bit of work toward complying with the GNOME Human Interface Guidelines (HIG), which mainly focus on user interface consistency and predictability. This release has also undergone some general polish, and it can finally be said that the GNOME 2 platform has achieved maturity with this release. The Epiphany web browser, a major new component of GNOME, also makes its debut with this release. (From Footnotes)"
Re:Gnome development outpacing KDE? (Score:2, Insightful)
Draw what conclusions you like from that....
Re:Still major usability issues... (Score:5, Insightful)
Disclaimer: Haven't used pure Gnome in quite a while, perhaps some of the points below have been handled by now.
I hate the fact that the Windows taskbar reflects the order in which the apps are launched and then cannot be changed. If you're going to have a taskbar interface, then fair enough chronological order seems a sensible default. However once launched, I really want to be able to drag that indication to whatever position I want in the taskbar.
For example, at work on my NT4 box I have a standard set of apps open most times. They are Notes (ugh), two Firebird windows, Putty and a Remote desktop connection. Apps after that can come and go, but I want those apps always in the same place so I don't have to hunt for them later.
I'm also an OS X user, and although I'm aware of criticism of the dock there's certainly one thing to be said for it - your most frequenctly used applications always appear in the same place, both for launching and for bringing to the front.
As a quick aside - anyone else remember the Apple Human Interface Guidlines circa System 7-era, incorporating the Principle of Muscular Remembrance? The idea is that important stuff is always in the same place, every time, so that the user doesn't even have to conciously think about where to find things. It's the reason Macs have a single menu bar, at the top of the screen. It seems to me to also be a key thought behind the dock.
Cheers,
Ian
GNOME 2 (Score:4, Insightful)
Unlike some other browsers, in Epiphany you will not find half a dozen ways to use tabs and manage cookies and bookmarks, as Epiphany is targeted towards the average user.
And IMHO that's the wrong approach. *Especially* for the less technically inclined it would be better to have as many different ways as possible to do something. If you look at usability studies they always say how the test persons all tried different things to do the required task and how half of them got stuck on the way and didn't know what to do. One thing Windows gets right is that there is always more than one way to reach your goal. (e.g. you can adjust the time by double clicking on the clock, by using the context menu of the clock, by using the control panel etc.)
Having one elegant solution is nice and appeals to the mathematician in us all but if you look at speech there are many different ways to express a thought, perhaps one is more elegant than the others but all may be correct and logical. (to go back to the clock example: user A thinks "I want to change the time, that should be possible by doing something with the clock thingy" but in user B's opinion it's "I want to change a setting, it should be in the control panel")
IMHO, GUIs should try to enable users to do things their way and therefore it's better to have as many approaches as possible for a task
jm2c
Re:Gnome development outpacing KDE? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Still major usability issues... (Score:3, Insightful)
I normally have a great number of windows open. As most start their entry in the taskbar with the application name and then the content of the application I normally can't read which specific instance of an application that button means (the entry would look something like this: "Galeo...") Therefore I think it's better for instances of the same program to be as far apart as possible because that way it's easier to remember which one you wanted. (actually I solved the problem by having the taskbar on the side and rather wide but I know a lot of people who don't want their taskbar hidden by other windows and therefore can't do it this way)
jm2c
Hmmm (Score:1, Insightful)
For all practical purposes, KDE3 won the war. I liked some of the stuff of Gnome, but the fact that it's filled with scads of unsupported apps from the Gnome 1.x days, and these apps DO NOT respond to the Gnome Config tool, makes the desktop inconsistent and ugly. KDE wins hands down, even the older apps are 'well-behaved' when it comes to configurations
Printing? I hope Gnome fixed that. Printing from Konqueror is a snap, from Galeon, gads, I hope you can figure it out.
Gnome 2.2 left me totally in the cold, and the complaints over KDE being slow were fixed massively in 3.1.1. Half the Gnome 2 apps seem to totally ignore Gnome Config settings.
Sorry folks, but I'm almost a KDE believer now. Gnome needs a lot of fixing.
( And while they aren't Gnome apps, can anyone tell me how to ENLARGE the UI font sizes in the gimp? 10pt doesn't cut it when running at 1280x1024! And PLEASE put a button in Mozilla to configure the UI font, or set it up to listen to KDE/Gnome config, so I don't have to look around for an obscure webpage on setting up userconfig.css to modify it! It's been out for 3+ years now! Fix it! )
Great discussion of GUIs (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Gnome development outpacing KDE? (Score:4, Insightful)
I would love to hear your rationale for saying that. How has Gnome surpassed KDE? How has KDE's interface grown stagnant? I agree with the SVG comment part, but that's not KDE's "fault" (not that it's anyones "fault", but...). I can be 100% honest when I say: There is nothing major not offered in KDE that makes me even think of it as growing stagnant, and certainly not with the 3.2 release in the works.
(I'm not trying to start a war, there's good things about Gnome as well, I just prefer KDE and would like to hear why you feel that it's getting "left in Gnomes dust right now")
Re:GNOME 2 (Score:5, Insightful)
One thing Windows gets right is that there is always more than one way to reach your goal.
Is 'tabbed browsing' a goal or a method? I'd suggest it's the latter. And methods should always be logical and consistent. By offering various unecessary preferences on how your tabs behave, you provide the user with a means to confuse themselves. However, if the most logical default method is used, then there is no confusion available to occur and the user finds it intuitive. If the method is not intuitive, then a different setting should be used.
As for multiple paths to reach all goals; it depends on the goal. The clock example is a good example of multiple logical paths to the one goal. Double clicking to activate, right clicking to bring up the contextual menu, and an appropriate entry in the control panel. These are all routes that a user might try to take to configure the time on their computer.
All logical routes should be available to any goal, but sometimes there is only one logical route. For instance, you would not want multiple ways to disable popups in Epiphany, just a simple entry in the preferences for Epiphany.
Do not confuse methods with goals, nor assume all goals have multiple intuitive pathways.
Re:Great discussion of GUIs (Score:3, Insightful)
Different applications make use of different interface toolkits like GTK+, Qt, Tk, Swing, AWT, Xaw, Fltk, etc. Unless a container toolkit of some kind is developed (that supports GTK+ and Qt at the very least), this is going to be a major roadblock.
A better solution that would be amazingly helpful to Linux on the desktop is if KDE and Gnome could come together and tackle this as a team.
Re:Epiphany? (Score:2, Insightful)
Another freaking browser? (Score:1, Insightful)
I'm sorry, but this is part of the force that is killing desktop acceptance in the open-source community. Everyone, their dog, and their 2-bit Saturday whore thinks they need to develop another web browser to share with the community. Suddenly we now have, what, 40ish browsers to choose from?
I mean, I have great faith that there are just *shitloads* of developers out there that just have bleeding gums of excitement thinking about developing on yet another browser, but really....isn't enough enough?
Personally, I think Gnome has dick-envy over KDE's Konq, but that's no good reason to go out and develop another application to suck up the resources of the community in useless flogging of a concept already cemented.
Folks: I. think. we. have. the. web. browser. figured. out. Unlike the myriad of good web browsers, don't you think there are other places to spend your time contributing to the community, such as printing, sound, interoperability, and a million other more worthy things? Anyone got a spare lens, because we need a little focus around here.
Re:Browsers... (Score:1, Insightful)
Hmmmm... maybe this is why Microsoft does exactly the same thing with Windows..... Nah. It must be because they are "evil".
Think about it.
Re:Great discussion of GUIs (Score:4, Insightful)
Mac may be better. I haven't really used one in years.
Re:Great discussion of GUIs (Score:2, Insightful)
To be honest, what the end user sees as the OS is the interface. They shouldn't care that they are running Linux or FreeBSD, only that they are running KDE or Gnome.
So at home I run Linux/KDE and FreeBSD/KDE. I'll give Gnome another try when the file dialog is brought into the 90's.
Re:Browsers... (Score:5, Insightful)
Hmmmm... maybe this is why Microsoft does exactly the same thing with Windows..... Nah. It must be because they are "evil".
Because you can't get rid of Internet Explorer in Windows. If you don't like Epiphany, you can delete it and use Firebird or Konqueror or whatever instead, and Gnome will keep working.
Try to install XP without IE.
Re:current gnome 2.x issues (any devels listening? (Score:2, Insightful)
Its very annoying! (And no I can't force my screen to render 1024x768 - X won't run in that mode)
Re:Hmmm (Score:3, Insightful)
WHAT WAR? There never was a war. This isn't commercial software we're talking about, it's open-source.
KDE is going in the WRONG direction for non-technical users. GNOME is going in the right direction.
KDE gets more complicated, more feature laden, and harder to use with every release. Yes, it does *everything*, but at a price. My mom has no trouble with GNOME and Epiphany. KDE, on the other hand, makes her head spin.
"Printing? I hope Gnome fixed that. Printing from Konqueror is a snap, from Galeon, gads, I hope you can figure it out."
I have no trouble printing from Epiphany or GTK2-based-Galeon. I have no idea about GTK1-based Galeon.
"Half the Gnome 2 apps seem to totally ignore Gnome Config settings."
Not in my experience.
If you have specific complaints about anything being "broken", POST A BUG REPORT! Complaining about how "bad" GNOME is on Slashdot helps no one.
Re:Another freaking browser? (Score:4, Insightful)
Mozilla, Firebird and Galleon are all good browsers, but none of them currently conform with GNOME's HIG, and none want to.
To be a usable desktop environment, GNOME needs a browser that will integrate well with it, and so Epiphany fills this gap.
Honestly, does the user care if there are five different Mozilla derivatives, each for a different desktop environment, when they have the one they want installed? It won't confuse anyone, and it will provide choice to those who might want it.
Go back to your troll cave.
Got that right (Score:4, Insightful)
It's just chic. The problem is that everybody (being Gnome and KDE) won't be satisfied with a good operating environment. No, they have to do an entire user experience. In other words, they each want to be responsible for 95% of the graphical software used by any linux user. And that's just not rational. Case in point: KOffice, KDE's abominable attempt at an Office suite. As you say, why spend so much time making something that sucks so bad?
For what it's worth, never let it be said that open source developers are above reinventing the wheel. When profit is not a consideration, there's no boss to point you toward making things that have a market. We definitely need a greater degree of specialization.
I want to get the KDE and Gnome devs in two separate rooms, and lock them there until they swear never to make another browser, office suite, or useless widget again until they have the basic environment rock-solid.
Re:GNOME: Armageddon (Score:3, Insightful)
I have news to you: 99% of computer users *don't* care about the filesystem, they don't want to customize their desktop, they don't know what a kernel is.
GNOME is changing what Linux is. Yes, you may not like it. You're not supposed to. You may complain that GNOME is "polluting" other projects. That's a necessity. There is no interoperability without cooperation.
GNOME is simpler. It has less options. It has less features. It's built around the idea that "less is more". If you're the type of person that needs to tweak everything, then by all means, use KDE! But most users don't care about tweaking. For them, computers should be "transparent". They don't care how their word processor works, how their desktop looks (so long as it's not super-ugly), or how many virtual desktops there are. They don't care about kernels or Xfree or window managers.
So you see, your complaints miss the entire point. GNOME was not designed for "linux geeks", it was designed for normal people.
GNOME is simple because that is what it needs to be. It has a consistant set of standards. GNOME is making Linux into a platform that works "out of the box". People don't care what their desktop looks like or how configurable it is: they simply want to get their work done with as little interruption as possible. That is the goal of the GNOME project: to replace every Windows desktop with a GNOME desktop. And the're a lot more likely to succeed than KDE.