Re: gnome-list Digest, Vol 109, Issue 9

From: Marcus Rhodes <marcus1 thinqware com>
To: gnome-list gnome org
Subject: Re: gnome-list Digest, Vol 109, Issue 9
Date: Sat, 18 May 2013 17:06:55 -0600

HUD is the antithesis of the GUI. What's it even doing there? Remember the computers of the 1980s? You got a blinking command prompt. And that was all. So you flipped open a HUGE book, and started reading volumes of very poorly written instructions that walked you through a year or two of computer science before informing you that the way to find out what programs you could even try to run required a lengthy and cryptic command string.

Menus! 'Menu-driven' was the jewel in the crown of the then two competing DEs: Windows and Finder. The other was standardization. Prior to Mac and Windows, UI design was a free-for-all. If there even were menus, some appeared in the middle of the screen, some in the top-left corner, others in the bottom-left. Some required a single keystroke, other combinations, and some allowed only cursor/arrow key navigation and selection via the enter key. Otherwise, one key toggled between command mode and entry mode, and the command mode was, once again, our old command-line friend.

No. Standardized menus are the only way to go. And HUD improves on menus how? It doesn't! It returns us to the blinking command prompt AND the UI free-for-all. (Well, actually, 'the web' resurrected the UI free-for-all. But now the DE developers want to make the OS UI like the madness that rules on the web.)

Do you get that?

Try your system settings ... How keyboard friendly is that? Not at all. Would you beguile me that there's a simple command I can enter in the HUD to avoid having to use the settings screen?

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To: gnome-list gnome org
Subject: gnome-list Digest, Vol 109, Issue 9
Date: Sat, 18 May 2013 22:44:40 +0000

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Today's Topics:

   1. Re: gnome3, yet another negative feedback (Marco Scannadinari)
   2. Well said... (Sergio de Almeida Lenzi)
   3. Re: Well said... (Marcus Rhodes)


----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message: 1
Date: Sat, 18 May 2013 13:03:53 +0000
From: Marco Scannadinari <marco scannadinari co uk>
To: enaut <enaut w gmail com>
Cc: gnome-list gnome org, abvgdee mail ru
Subject: Re: gnome3, yet another negative feedback
Message-ID: <1368882233 2457 14 camel baguette8>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"


        I don't get you! Never ever has Gnome been so usable with only a
        keyboard. I mean lauch a program ex firefox with 3 keypresses
        ('windows key, then f, then enter) try to be that fast in
        terminal or in Gnome2 ;) !

Well, I can get to epiphany or firefox with the first three characters
then a [tab] key:
    epi[tab] == epiphany
    fir[tab] == firefox

Then enter. I like the shell a lot and its search function, but I just
wanted to defend the terminal :).

        In my opinion the same holds for the mouse with all the buttons.
        You use  the left click to work in current context, right click
        for more options in current context, middle click to open a new
        context, the wheel to do all sorts of scrolling. I think there
        are hardly any functions missing?

I think a lot of the critisism is because of the lack of familiarity and
often the removal of features without either end-user-consultance /
warning or an obvious reason (ie. Removal of transparency option in
gnome-terminal - end-users were not warned of the change and wouldn't
care about gconf migration if they were). Another one that annoys me is
the lack of close button on the window in full-screen apps, although
this should be resolved in 3.10, it's still deeply annoying to remomber
to either press Alt + f4, or click on the app context menu and click
'quit'.

?0.02
-- 
Marco Scannadinari <marco scannadinari co uk>




------------------------------

Message: 2
Date: Sat, 18 May 2013 15:53:41 -0300
From: Sergio de Almeida Lenzi <lenzi sergio gmail com>
To: Marcus Rhodes <marcus1 thinqware com>
Cc: gnome-list gnome org
Subject: Well said...
Message-ID: <1368903221 23052 33 camel lenovo lenzicasa k1 com br>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

Em Sex, 2013-05-17 ?s 19:14 -0600, Marcus Rhodes escreveu:

> Well, I've had about enough.
> 
> Who is Adam Tauno Williams, and for whom does he speak?  Not me.  And
> clearly not most of you,

not me either

> as the looming failures of Metro, Unity, and Gnome3 (not to mention
> KDE's equally useless and counter-productive 'modernity') all
> demonstrate. 

Indeed I stopped to work with kde (not qt) because of these...  Skilled
people (people with skill  on desktop usability) is not more than 5%...
this includes you and perhaps all those in the gnome, freeBSD lists..
Once they learn to work in a way, it is very hard to them to use a new
way even if
that way is more efficient than the other, they will move only if there
is a need to move (they move from dos to windows because they need a
browser an GUI...) Remember that new 3D interface for unix/linux that
have a cube and the user could have 6 desktops running on each side of
the cube??? Who uses it??? it is fantastic but no one uses it any more
just because they (the people) can do things they want using the old
interface... They do not move from windows to Linux because linux is
better, if they can do what they need to do on windows.. If you must
create a "new" need, people has move  to the new (android, ios for
example...) interface because they want to access internet (facebook) on
their cell phones (because using a notebook on windows is not
practical).. that is why windows had 98% market share 10 years ago, and
now have only 28% (internet access by browser).. People want freeedom of
choice, that is why androi will prevail over IOS.. Sansung offers NNN
ways for you access internet with android, for any budget.. 

>  (And these examples are relevant.)  (Where did you learn logic?)  Or
> is he not watching the download/sales figures?  Not that facts would
> matter.  He merely asserts his own, minority opinion is if it were
> established fact, when, clearly, it is not.
> 
> Indeed, he appears to me to be the Gnome3 variety of the deservedly
> much-maligned M$ Evangelists: Chauvinistically proclaiming the
> (imagined) virtues of the object of their veneration in the futile
> hope of silencing critics.  But the lion roars against the wind.  He
> should know when to shut up.

I know that world must evolve, no problem, create a new gnome3, but do
not kill gnome2 (or are you afraid of gnome 2.32??) If gnome3 gets so
better, fast, easy, to use have more features than gnome2, people will
move without complains... 

> 
> To those who, like me, hope for sanity and/or reality to return to the
> DE developers, you have my support.  Keep up the fight.  Refuse to
> 'upgrade' (which might instead be called a downgrade).  Switch to Mate
> or Cinnamon or LXLE or Xfce, and refuse to go back to Gnome.  I still
> use Ubuntu 10.04 on most (4) of my machines, and experimenting with
> Mint on another.  I'm determined to find a way to make Mate work well
> enough to suite my needs.  Once it does, Gnome will never see me
> again.

That is why I rebuild gnome2.32 from scratch using an archlinux
distribution (642 modules compilled over a 45 days, with the help of the
FreeBSD ports)
and gnome2.32 is back running in kernel 3.9 with systemd.. compilled
with gcc4.8.  runs very well in a US$300 lenovo g475.. I setted up even
a distribution repo to work with... Several (about 120) users uses it...
(it is distributed in a new samsung momentus 320Gb HD, installs in 5
minutes).
have 10Gb size.. 

> 
> I used tablets and PDAs from pen-Windows (1996) until I surrendered my
> Clie in 2005.  It is with considerable authority and experience that I
> can say that I, for one, will NEVER again touch my screen because I
> will never again use a device which warrants it.  (I don't even want
> to have to use the mouse or touchpad any more than absolutely
> necessary.)  (And if the DE makes it more necessary, I'll be finding
> one that doesn't.)
> 
> And I don't care how powerful any phone becomes; It's form factor
> necessarily precludes any possibility of it becoming my work tool.  My
> phone will be very small and simple with a big battery, and my laptop
> will tether through it.  Otherwise, it will be a phone, and nothing
> more.  And the laptop's UI will NOT look anything the phone's crippled
> system, which means that it also will NOT remotely resemble Unity or
> Gnome3.  EVER.  No matter how much Tauno insists that it will happen.
> It won't.

Ditto!!!!

> 
> Look, Tauno, all touch UIs suffer from the same malady: They are
> *compromises* imposed by the form-factor, not the preferred mode.
> Where the form-factor does not dictate such a compromise, the need and
> want for a better, more productive solution will always prevail.
> That's why Windows eclipsed DOS to begin with.  Not because it was
> 'modern' or even 'cool'.  It actually enhanced productivity.  UI/DE
> developers who fail to recognize, and adapt to this reality will find
> themselves eclipsed by those who do.  Geez!  Even Microsoft has woken
> up to their mistake, and is promising to give users back their
> desktops, and, more importantly, their start-menus ... for free.
> 
> Learn the lesson of jQuery and jQuery mobile.  They had the wisdom to
> provide (and maintain) both, rather than abandon the desktop in favor
> of a lowest-common-denominator, one-size-fits-all approach necessarily
> deferring to touch-screen-hobbled devices.
> 

Well said...
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Message: 3
Date: Sat, 18 May 2013 16:44:15 -0600
From: Marcus Rhodes <marcus1 thinqware com>
To: Sergio de Almeida Lenzi <lenzi sergio gmail com>
Cc: gnome-list gnome org
Subject: Re: Well said...
Message-ID: <1368917055 2682 148 camel dione>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

Thank you, Sergio.

"That is why I rebuild gnome2.32 from scratch using an archlinux
distribution (642 modules compilled over a 45 days, with the help of the
FreeBSD ports)
and gnome2.32 is back running in kernel 3.9 with systemd.. compilled
with gcc4.8.  runs very well in a US$300 lenovo g475.. I setted up even
a distribution repo to work with... Several (about 120) users uses it...
(it is distributed in a new samsung momentus 320Gb HD, installs in 5
minutes).
have 10Gb size.. "

You should create an installer.  You could become famous, a hero even.

"Remember that new 3D interface for unix/linux that have a cube and the
user could have 6 desktops running on each side of the cube??? Who uses
it??? it is fantastic but no one uses it any more just because they (the
people) can do things they want using the old interface."

Excellent point!  I would add, who uses it for anything truly practical?
I've had a lot of people try to convince me that they really use the
cube, but I've never seen any benefit to it even when they use it.

And this shows that the UIs were already beginning to push some strange
and largely useless eye-candy on us long before the advent of this
touch-mania.  Fortunately, such stuff could just be ignored or disabled
without repercussions, but how does one do that with Gnome3?  The
'classic' mode?  Hardly.  That's nothing more that a half-hearted nod to
tradition.  Hardly a usable productivity tool.  I guess we should have
seen the media-center mavens on the march even then.  And maybe that's
why LXLE, Xfce, and Enlightenment were started: Their developers could
see the handwriting on the wall way back then.

"I know that world must evolve, no problem, create a new gnome3, but do
not kill gnome2 (or are you afraid of gnome 2.32??) If gnome3 gets so
better, fast, easy, to use have more features than gnome2, people will
move without complains..."

Exactly!  I've heard the Gnome DE head say that Gnome2 had reached the
end of its life, and that it just couldn't be further developed.  But my
question is, developed into what?  More spinning cube absurdities?  What
exactly did it need to do?  Because, so far, I'm not seeing anything in
3 that 2 couldn't have done just as well.  Could it be that UI designers
have just become so focused on the tool that they've forgotten that it
is not an end in itself, but rather the means to an end?

Let me breach another example of how this touch/media-center mentality
senselessly spreads like cancer.  Look at gedit.  I know it wasn't
perfect.  Even I had some recommendations.  But whatever I tried to
suggest simply got thrown back in my face.  Like, for example, adhering
closer to the common standards by using, say, Ctl+F4 to close a
tab/document instead of Ctl+W, or at least giving the users the power to
configure that binding.  Instead of that very sensible change, we got a
new, touch-oriented search 'dialog'.  Seriously?  In a text-editor?  Was
someone thinking perhaps that users would be editing text via a
touch-screen?  Or was the decision just to make that feature more
harmonious with the surrounding UI?  Either way, it makes no sense.  Of
all the many, many improvement that could have been made to gedit, this
is the one that made the cut?!  Really?!

I'm donating to the Mate project right now, and from now on.  Maybe
they'll take my suggestions seriously instead of mocking and ridiculing
me.  I advise everyone else who wants a keyboard-friendly, minimalist DE
to do the same.  What the media UI developers clearly must feel are the
millions, and even billions of users filling their in-boxes with
requests, even demands for the latest, coolest, gee-whizziest,
touch-driven, spinning-cube eye-candy should, of course, feel free to
support their favorite DE, too.  But, apparently, they already do, or we
wouldn't be in this situation.  Unless, of course, those hordes of eager
users begging for touch features are just imaginary.

Oh, and a word about icons and other GUI elements...  Do you know where
they really came from?  I mean aside from the obvious if pathetic
attempts at skeuomorphic familiarity like trash-cans and cassette-player
controls.  It offered third parties a way to push their logos into our
eyeballs.  And that really doesn't strike me as fitting into the Linux
paradigm.

Think about it.  Do you always know what those GUI symbols mean?  Or an
unfamiliar logo?  No.  Of course not.  But how do you look them up?  You
can't.  So the UI developers added text labels right from the start.
And where labels didn't seem appropriate (tool bars and such), they
added text balloons that appear when you hover over the icon.  At least,
when they remembered to do so.  I'm looking at the Evolution composer's
toolbar (which, for some genius reason, I can't disable) (any of them)
(so much for less-is-more, eh?) right now wondering how on earth my wife
is supposed to know that the magnifying glass = search, but the
magnifying glass and pencil = replace when she doesn't even get a
text-balloon to tell her what they mean.

I mean, some things are good, great even.  I love scrollbars (which
Unity bizarrely eliminates).  I don't use my mouse on them, but the eye
acquires from a scrollbar very quickly what used to have to be rendered
something like: "You're seeing 345-361 of 1232 lines."  So I'm not
against GUIs.  I really love them.  And I love the standardization they
brought to the applications.  But I'm against taking it too far, and all
this touch stuff is far beyond too far, especially when the keyboard is
rendered next to useless, and well organized, text-only menus are no
longer available.  At all.

Here's a thought.  Lose the toolbars (or at least make them optional),
rationalize the menus, ensure mnemonics (you know, those little
underlined characters in the text labels) are available everywhere, and
exploit accelerator/short-cut keys (Ctl+O, Ctl+P) more fully, and win
back your fans.

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