I always feel like I must be crazy because Gnome / GTK threads are always filled with comments about how terrible it is. Personally, I find it to be the most aesthetically pleasing and usable desktop environment I’ve used (having spent many years on Mac and Windows). I’m not sure what the disconnect is.
Anyway, good thing we all have a wealth of choices. If you don’t like Gnome, there’s a huge universe of choices available to you! Long live OSS.
I'm fine with Gnome, but what bothers me is when really basic features are missing.
For example replacing a desktop wallpaper with a solid color required manual config changes. Even Windows 95 let me do this from the GUI. Removing the wallpaper is useful for VNC connections for example.
I wonder if the frequent dropping of features (the primary reason Ive seen people give for their gnome hatred) is part of why it currently looks so amazing.
Less features means less to maintain (which is important for an open source, free product).
Until AlphaCode can maintain a codebase as large as gnome, we should probably keeping the workload of open source devs as small as possible.
I like GNOME too. It's the most usable Linux GUI I've tried to far, with Cinnamon a close second.
I like the fat title bar with controls. It's like the Windows 7/macOS aesthetic without wasting space for a title bar above it.
To me, the people complaining that the save button should be on the bottom instead of the top have the same limited view as the people who complain that macOS has the window controls on the top left instead of the top right. It's an arbitrary difference that they claim goes against human intuition but I have seen no proof of any of that, only assumptions based on what direction they read in.
I don't use the save button, I hit enter after typing a name. I don't hit the open button, I double click. Maybe that makes me weird, but I think the "problem" is grossly overstated.
Seems to me like some people just want to go back to the GNOME2 days and that's fine. I may think it looks janky and outdated, but that's what some people like.
Luckily, they don't need to use modern GNOME, there are projects out there that replicate the older design style. I don't see what constantly harping on the newer UI adds if you're not going to be happy with it anyway. Unlike with Windows, where I sorely miss the glory days of Windows Aero, there are alternatives one click of a button away. Just install something else, anything else. KDE and LXDE allow you to recreate your weird old setup with some tweaking, go use that.
However, I do have some problems with the way the GNOME team operates sometimes. There have been attempts to address the file picker problem that went absolutely nowhere. The decision to completely abandon all styling options also disappointed me. The unreasonable demand of forcing client side decorations onto everyone because of their preference annoys me greatly. I like the stuff made for GNOME on GNOME but I wouldn't use it on any other desktop environment or operating system because the "let's do everything ourselves" approach makes applications look incredibly out of place.
Of course, the constant ranting about any change that doesn't turn GNOME back into GNOME2 only drives forward the segregation between devs and their users. After all, if nothing GNOME does is ever any good according to the loud minority, why even bother listening to them?
The most used Linux distros out there are Debian, Fedora and Ubuntu, all of which ship GNOME out of the box. There's a good reason for that.
I like gnome: it works, its easy to use, it looks pretty, it's free, and it doesn't feel like it's being run by a corporation that wants to control what I do. Sure there's some design things that aren't right, but I don't feel that it matters a lot, a certain other OS is popular while having a zillion design things that aren't right.
I guess because some of us, old timers that still believed in the year of Linux Desktop back in the GNOME 2.0 days, got fed up with all the incompatible rewrites, JS for extensions, removal of preferences into extensions, asking devs to write XML based UI layouts by hand,....
At least Microsoft, Apple and Google have the market share, and economic incentives to justify putting up with rewrites.
You could share your thoughts or (positive) feelings about one of those design decisions that cause discontent: putting confirmation buttons and other UI controls on the title bar, when the natural human way of processing visual information is top-to-bottom (so a confirmation button makes more sense at the bottom area of a dialog).
Do you feel that the crowded title bar design decisions are aesthetically pleasing and usable? (would really like to know the opinion on these topics from users that like how it's been done, instead of users who hate it, for a change)
Yeah. It’s fine. It doesn’t bother me. Gnome’s UI is consistent, has good fonts and margins, is minimalist, and gets out of my way. It has all of the settings I need in one consistent, easy to search place. I get the entire screen available to me with no huge useless dock or similar thing taking up real estate. It just works and works mostly how I want. :shrug:
It’s obviously not for everyone, but I like it. I also appreciate the focus and the way they cut out features that add complexity and inconsistency to the UI. So, I’m general, I’m a fan. It’s not perfect, but I like it a whole lot.
I agree. I’ve made a transition to Apple in my phone and tablet but as much as the M-series is tempting I’ve just built a new PC for GNOME/Fedora exclusively. It’s truly my favorite UI for a computer.
Anyway, good thing we all have a wealth of choices. If you don’t like Gnome, there’s a huge universe of choices available to you! Long live OSS.