Re: GNOME 3.6 feedback

[Allan Day <allanpday gmail com>]

Hi Steven,

I'm sorry you've had some difficulties with GNOME 3.6.

Please be aware that the marketing list is not an appropriate place
for general feedback. If you want to do this, you can use mailing
lists for the affected modules or file bugs.

I've provided a few notes below, but I don't intended to engage in an
extended discussion about these issues on this list - we can continue
elsewhere if you would like.

Steven Osborne <sakmerlin37 lavabit com> wrote:
> 1. The ACTIVITIES panel is changed, again; just when I was getting used
> to the 3.4-ish style ACTIVITIES, with all icons readily available to its
> right, I open up GNOME to find it missing; it took me a few minutes to
> get where it was located, and that was a frustrating few minutes.

It's not clear what you are referring to here. If it's the change in
the method to open the applications view, you might be interested to
know that this was guided by user observations we made: the previous
UI was not working well for many people.

> 2. Nautilus is missing the menu bar; this took me quite a bit longer to
> figure out, but I was finally able to find in the Ubuntu forums that you
> have to right-click on the GNOME title bar on the FILES icon to get
> preferences; I went through:
>
>   2.1 - gconf-editor
>   2.2 - dconf-editor
>   2.3 - gnome-tweak-tools
>
> and it was frustratingly unintuitive to right click on the title bar
> when every other program I use does NOT require that.

Yes, we recognise that that's an issue and are working to resolve it.

> 3. The blocky-looking notification bar area looks horrible; I'm afraid
> to look for the configuration for that area, as finding any
> configuration tools has been unintuitive and difficult.

"looks horrible" isn't a very constructive comment. Please say what
looks bad (in a bug report), and try to avoid emotive language. We
have some outstanding work to do here, see:

https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=682242

> 4. It is difficult to navigate with a mouse; granted the "GNOME" key
> (i.e., called the Windows key for Microsoft) and typing is wonderful;
> but, when I have to use a mouse, it is unwieldy and difficult; I do not
> have a touch screen tablet or desktop system and, unless something major
> changes in my life, I will not have one for the next 10 years or so; I
> don't need or want my desktop to mirror the simplistic touch screens
> found in iPhones, tablets, etc.

Again, please say exactly which issues you are having with mouse
input, using bug reports. I suspect that some of these issues are
already filed.

> 5. I just realized that I MUST slide the lock screen to unlock it using
> a password; this is beyond ridiculous; I have a laptop/desktop and not a
> touch screen, please let me just type my password in to unlock my
> workstation.

That has been fixed for 3.8: see
https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=686740

> 6. The notifications pop-up in the bottom-middle of my screen and just
> stay there until I have to stop what I am doing to click on it to go
> away; I do not want notifications, about anything, really; please
> provide a way to stop all notifications; heck, I can still access
> regedit in Windows 8 to turn off their balloons.

You can turn off notifications from the user menu in the top-right
corner of the screen. They can also be disabled through the new
notifications settings panel in 3.8.

> I am disabled, having had an aneurysm rupture last year and being
> frustrated aggravates my condition; unfortunately, GNOME 3.6 has done
> nothing but provide me pain, literally; I get massive headaches when I
> get frustrated to a certain level and my desktop experience with GNOME
> has been the most frustrating computer experience in my 25+ years of
> using computers.  It has been stated that the developers are no longer
> listening to their users; I can only hope this is not the case, because
> I will find a solution that works and whose developers are better
> connected to their user base.

Again, if you provide specific examples of what is causing you issues,
we will try to fix them.

> Overall, GNOME seems to be heading down the path to dumb down the user
> experience.  I have tried to like the GNOME 3.x system, but cannot get
> past the unintuitive changes.  Sadly, everyone I know that uses Linux,
> and I used to run the Linux Users Group, has dropped GNOME, but me, and
> 3.6 is causing me to doubt continued use of the desktop environment.

I'm sorry but I object to your reference to dumbing down. There are
plenty of opportunities for sophisticated usage in GNOME 3.

You obviously feel passionate about this issue, and we're grateful for
your support, but please don't take your frustration out on the
development community.

Best wishes,

Allan