[tuomosipola]

It seems strange that Gnome is heading to an non-intuitive direction. You could have all the cool stuff but I think you also should provide the familiar Desktop metaphor elements. I already made a comment about the missing type-ahead search in Nautilus file browser, which decision destroys many people's workflows.

[sandworm101]

>> It seems strange that Gnome is heading to an non-intuitive direction.

Really? I've never heard anything but non-intuitive ramblings from UI design people. None of them seem to ever actually use computers. Rather, they dream up use cases based on contrived scenarios. I want one thing: The icon is where it was yesterday. Gnome, unity all the others have one job: Let me launch the program I need and get the F out of my way. UI stability is why I years ago abandoned the chaos of Ubuntu for the stability of Mint.

Windows XP got it right. Start button->office->word. Start button -> Email. Most everything after that is fluff.

[dvfjsdhgfv]

> Windows XP got it right.

I'd say Windows 95 in this context. XP was the first stable version of Windows (yes, the first one deserved to be called Windows 1.0), but the Start menu was working well in Windows 95/98/ME, too.

[digi_owl]

I'd say the label of stable goes to Win2k. XP was in many ways Win2k with new theme and a more aggressive license verification scheme.

[mjevans]

XP would also boot / run quickly compared to NT. It was more desktop focused instead of desktop as an afterthought.

[lainga]

>Let me launch the program I need and get the F out of my way.

That is a philosophy DEs should have, but (if you'd like suggestions) which XFCE most cleanly follows.

[amenod]

I love it for this. I got burned by both KDE4 and Gnome... 3? (starting as actually usable WM, then getting drunk on success and thinking they can and should reinvent the modern desktop). I would love Xfce even more if they fixed some small UX shortcomings (like being able to sort opened apps the way you want to, being unable to set anything in Indicator plugin and similar), but even so it's at least stable and useful. Kudos to developers!

[devcpp]

You can enable drag-and-drop in the Window Buttons panel Item. As for Indicator, yeah, it's a bit of a mystery. But I don't think much is missing there.

Other examples of missing stuff: - Complex shortcuts: you can't set keyA and also keyA+keyB as shortcuts work on keyPress rather than keyRelease. So no SuperKey and also SuperKey+L/D/R and such. - Easy window resize: the dragging thing is exactly 1 pixel wide. Gotta use Alt+Right-click to resize.

But you get used to XFCE's tiny quirks, it really gets like heaven after some work.

[sandworm101]

That's my favorite mint flavour.

[bonzini]

What's wrong with Windows key->type "email"->Enter? That's how GNOME works.

[petepete]

Yes but that doesn't fit the accepted narrative that Gnome has sucked since V3 and the devs hate the users so much they go out of their way to make them less productive.

Incidentally, I'm part of the silent majority that enjoys Gnome and loves the emphasis on clean simplicity. No, it's not perfect, but it's moving in the right direction.

[dm319]

will it open another instance if one is already open, or switch over to it?

[TeMPOraL]

Seconded. Also I have the impression that everyone in the UI design space forgot that the software is means to an end, not an experience, and it's supposed to help users achieve their goals in maximally efficient way.

(Oh wait, but actually companies make money by making software into experience, so I guess that's where the overall trend comes from.)

[walterbell]

We need the equivalent of CSS user stylesheets for UX, where user preferences can contextually override publisher/designer preferences. The relationship between the user and other sources of “design input” can be adversarial. Open-source rule engines can help users to negotiate this adversarial space.

[teddyh]

> CSS user stylesheets for UX

Isn’t this, quite literally, what Gnome Shell Extensions are?

https://extensions.gnome.org/

[opencl]

Gnome extensions are weird because the UX around them very much feels like an attempt to actively discourage their use.

-using the website to install extensions requires both a browser extension and installing chrome-gnome-shell, not installed by default by most distros

-UI to configure extensions is in Tweak Tool, again not installed by default in most distros and full of the things GNOME people don't really want you to touch but will begrudgingly allow

-the second most popular extension is an improved UI for managing extensions

-the API is poorly documented and new releases always break tons of extensions

[digi_owl]

Extensions are a fig leaf towards power users in the hopes that they will be distracted long enough that they forget to complain between releases.

[walterbell]

Thanks for the pointer. Looks like the docs are scattered: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/13107743/documentation-f...

[dm319]

> missing type-ahead search in Nautilus file browser

I'd forgotten this! Very frustrating when you're used to using this to switch to a file in that directory. I also missed split-screen functionality, and the inability to right click and fire up a terminal from that location. Oh, and also looks like they've dropped being able to double-click on an executable .sh file to run it.

Luckily none of this bothers me as there is Caja.

[rav]

>> missing type-ahead search in Nautilus file browser

> I'd forgotten this! Very frustrating when you're used to using this to switch to a file in that directory.

I agree, but FWIW you can press Ctrl-L to focus the address bar, which allows you to enter a relative path, e.g. name of a file/directory in the current directory.

[q3k]

Restore sanity by applying the following patch: https://code.hackerspace.pl/q3k/q3kverlay/tree/x11-libs/gtk+...

(or just use this overlay if you run Gentoo)

[sametmax]

Any tutorial on this ? And above all, how to automate it so that it's applied after updates ?

[halkotron]

You can try https://launchpad.net/~lubomir-brindza/+archive/ubuntu/nauti...

I'll try to keep it up to date.

(or the Nemo file browser, which also retained split-window functionality)

[q3k]

Depends on the distribution you use. Some (Debian, Ubuntu) make it extremely annoying to apply your own patches to packages, while others (Arch, Gentoo) make it very easy.

[sametmax]

This one is so annoying to me. I keep typing names of file and it searches it recursively, so instead of going to what I want faster, I waste time.

It's such a weird decision, as searching recursively something is a rare task, so having a dedicated button would be fine. While going to a file/folder in the current dir is pretty much the basic interaction with a file manager.

I don't get their reasoning there.

If somebody knows of any trick to get the old behavior back (even patching the damn nautilus), I'll take it. I'll probably upgrade in a few month and I'll need it badly.

[dm319]

Can you install Caja? Someone posted a patch in reply to my comment just above.