Proposed F19 Feature: Cinnamon as Default Desktop

[Michael Scherer]

Le samedi 09 février 2013 à 11:34 +0000, Ian Malone a écrit :
> On 9 February 2013 00:37, drago01 <drago01 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Sat, Feb 9, 2013 at 1:23 AM, Martin Sourada <martin.sourada at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> >>  * Gnome 3's target audience does not enclose majority of Gnome 2's
> >>    target audience, though it *does* have some intersection. Many of
> >>    those are seeing this as arrogance.
> >
> > Being different does not imply different target audience ... same
> > thing and discussion happened when GNOME 2.0 got released.
> > Now the haters from back then want GNOME 2.0 back ;)
> >
> 
> Gnome 2 slowly returned to the old behaviour in many ways. Gnome 3 is
> starting to do this.
> 
> >>  * Some trivial stuff is taking months to years to re-implement (shut
> >>    down).
> >
> > Nonsense. Shutdown has always been implemented. It just got presented
> > differently.
> >
> 
> Hidden. On the bizarre assumption users didn't need it.

based on the assumption that showing "hibernate, suspend, reboot,
shutdown, log out, lock" was asking too much questions and that we could
do better. See http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/11/21.html for
the rational of the problem.

And if people had discussed with the designers, they would have seen
designers answering "yes, the current design is not perfect, we are
aware, but we do not know how to do better, we have to think about. For
now, we have to release".

In the end, you have to select a design and release. Contrary to the
popular belief, Gnome took in account the KDE 4 releases lessons and
pushed gnome-shell for 2 releases to avid the stability issues ( and to
be fair for KDE4, the biggest stability issues came mostly from Nvidia
(http://vizzzion.org/?blogentry=819 ), but of course, people prefer to
blame free software developers rather than questioning their choice of
using a closed source binary )

And the assumption was that using the power button would have been easy
enough for people to get it ( since people do get it for like almost
every possible electronic stuff and likely all computers stuff except a
few one ). It doesn't seems a totally bizarre assumption to me.

> >>  * Gnome 3 is going the I-know-better-then-you-what's-good-for-you
> >>    way.
> >
> > Sure by giving you an extension system that allows you to do whatever
> > you want with the desktop ....
> >
> 
> Is anyone doing that?

That's the problem. Most people prefer to talk rather to do work. 
And then complain that the others do not do exactly what they want for
free and immediately.

> >
> >>  * We think Gnome 3 is doing similar type of mistake as Windows 8.
> >
> > GNOME3 has nothing to do with windows 8 other than both work better on
> > touch devices then previous releases .... supporting new hardware
> > isn't really a bad thing imo.
> 
> And neither much contemplated that the interface that's appropriate
> for a mobile phone is not appropriate for a desktop. 

Gnome-shell is not mean to be used nor appropriate for a mobile phone.
And despite being rather usable on a touch screen ( I tested ), it is
still not sufficient there for 1 million of details ( Vincent Untz talk
also said the same, see gnome people to see the details ).

Gnome 3 and Gnome-shell is not for a smartphone because :

1) none of the applications are suitable for a very small screen ( like
a phone ). Just try with Xnest. Or use a VM with a ridiculously low
resolution.
 
2) given the resolution of a regular smart phone, the icon on the upper
bar would either take too much space in order to be usable, or would be
hard to hit. Unless you use a stylet, but I didn't see any smart phones
proposing this since 2008. That's for example a problem that plagued the
illume interface on the SHR distribution for the free runner.
Please also note that the upper bar cannot be expended, while it is one
most smartphones. So to be used on smartphone, you need to adjust it.

3) the only phone I know who can have a view of all applications is the
N9 on Meego. And that's just to close applications, not to move them to
another desktop or anything. Neither iPhone nor Android does it, and not
even talking of symbian os. So the whole interaction is rather
different. And of course, there is no keyboard shortcut for the feature,
since n9 do not have keyboard. So again, you would have to make
adjustment.

4) gnome-shell search need a keyboard. There is more and more refinement
on it, because that's a important part of the system. Nowadays, most
phones do not come with a keyboard, neither do most tablets. And the few
phone with a keyboard are having a numeric keypad. Typing anything is
slow in the best case. So again, that's something that would need
adjustment for a smartphone.

So when the developpers say this is not made for a phone, when there is
actual strong evidence that it doesn't work on a phone, why do people
insist on the contrary ?
-- 
Michael Scherer