I've been using GNOME 40, first with the Copr and then F34 prerelease, since mid-January. I posted some first-week responses, and I thought it might be helpful to follow up with some thoughts from more extended use.
Overall, I'm finding the change to be fine. There's nothing that, like, upsets me.
The two systems I'm using this on are:
* desktop at my treadmill desk with one large monitor; trackpoint keyboard with mouse I normally use only for gaming
* laptop at my regular desk, with secondary monitor
On the single-monitor system, I'm adapting pretty well to the new workspace layout, but I do still find it more awkward than the previous setup.
I generally put personal mail, chat, etc., on workspace one, RH stuff on workspace two, games/steam on workspace three, and then use workspace 4 for a whatever I'm currently doing if it needs its own space. I previously used the Always Zoom Workspaces extension, and while it was a little bit of a pain to get this set up after a reboot, not really a big deal. I'm definitely finding relaunching and rearranging things to be a more-time consuming task now. I thought maybe I could drag icons from the App Drawer view to the workspace I want them to run on, speeding things up a little bit, but it turns out not.
I know Wayland doesn't have the support for this right now, but it seems like a nice feature would be a way to pin applications (or even specific windows of a given application) to a certain workspace.
Anyway, also, I notice that I'm generally always reaching for the mouse rather than using the trackpoint (which I normally prefer while treadmilling), because of the scroll wheel to switch workspaces. I set up hot keys for Super-1,2,3,4 for the first four workspaces, but
1) I'm not finding I'm training myself to use them, and 2) Super-4, for some reason, lauches the fourth item on the dash rather than switching the workspace. I can't find this defined anywhere.
I also notice that I _never_ use the hot corner. It's just too far away from everything. I always use the overview key, even when using the mouse otherwise. I think I'd like a hot bottom edge instead.
Meanwhile, on the laptop + external monitor, without really planning to, I've just given up on using more than one workspace. I can't find an arragement where it works in a way that the logic clicks. I basically now use the two monitors as separate workspaces.
I still think the borders in the overview take too much of the space. I'd rather more room to see my windows clearly. On a perhaps related note, I'm also really glad to see Native Window Placement updated for GNOME 40, because while the default is fine for one or two windows I always end up confused if I have more than that open in a workspace, and Native Window Placement fixes that for me.
Speaking of extensions: Hide Top Bar, Caffeine, and Impatience all seem to work. None of which are must-haves, just things I like.
Also, I see that the behavior I reported when you have a single window on workspace 2 and drag it to workspace 3 is improved. It's still a little confusing if you then fail to immediately run a new app, but at least it's more clear what's happening.
Overall, I'm a little less worried about this than I was, but I think there's definitely some work to be done still especially around workspaces and multiple monitors.
Overall, I'm finding the change to be fine. There's nothing that, like, upsets me.
The app launcher bar at the bottom is odd, really odd, and less convenient for mouse users with "Activites" (and app menus) in the top left corner increasing the requirement to move the mouse pointer all over the screen. I know one can press the Windows key, this new default is questionable.
On 2021-03-12 2:55 a.m., Michael Schwendt wrote:
Overall, I'm finding the change to be fine. There's nothing that, like, upsets me.
The app launcher bar at the bottom is odd, really odd, and less convenient for mouse users with "Activites" (and app menus) in the top left corner increasing the requirement to move the mouse pointer all over the screen. I know one can press the Windows key, this new default is questionable.
Users running on MacOS will likely feel at home with the app launcher bar at the bottom. The mouse movement is about slight speed from the wrist and the mouse pointer itself.
For 2-in-1 convertible laptops using a tablet pc pen, it is hardly a big deal.
-- Luya Tshimbalanga Fedora Design Team Fedora Design Suite maintainer
On Sat, Mar 13, 2021 at 11:35:50AM +0100, Michael Schwendt wrote:
On Fri, 12 Mar 2021 18:29:56 -0800, Luya Tshimbalanga wrote:
Users running on MacOS will likely feel at home with the app launcher bar at the bottom.
And that is sort of a primary goal of that change?
No. I suggest you read the development blog posts about this over at https://blogs.gnome.org/shell-dev/ before making any assumptions.
It contains a lot of reasoning behind the decisions and the overall design, its goals, how decisions were made, how user testing was performed and what it showed, and how feedback from the community was incorperated, and how things can improve further.
Jonas
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