Paradigm shift going from Gnome2 to Gnome3

[Stuart McGraw]

On 06/20/2011 09:44 AM, Aaron Konstam wrote:
> There is a paradigm shift going from Gnome2 to Gnome3 which I have not
> seen discussed on this list.
> 
> Gnome2 is totally mouse oriented. Everything you want to do you do by
> moving the mouse and clicking. Obviously I am rerring to Gnome2 itself
> not applications.
> 
> However, in Gnome3 a large fraction of actions have been moved to the
> keyboard.
> 
> This is the same difference as that of creating documents in Word and
> Latex. And this change in paradigm used to be a hot topic.
> 
> Does anyone out there have an opinion pro or con about this shift that
> will no doubt be continued into the future with Gnome?

I too noted the mouse deprecation in Gnome 3.  Besides
alienating a large group of users who simply prefer using
the mouse over the keyboard when there is a choice, there 
is a second group also hurt by it -- people with an 
impairment in one hand.

I find the mouse offers the most efficient use when doing
screen-wide activities -- I only switch to using the key-
board when entering large amounts of text.  Because I 
only use one hand, excessive switching between mouse and 
keyboard activities is very ineffecient and aggravating.

The poor support for mouse operations in Gnome 3 has 
probably reduced my efficiency in window management 
activities by 80% or more.  

The biggest problem ISTM, and an over-arching one, is 
a design philosophy that seems to be, "we have no need 
for user preferences because we are going to get the 
interface right."

The problem is that no one size fits all.  Trying to
come up with a single interface that is optimal on 
everything from cell phones to high-def, multi-headed
workstations seems a fool's errand.  One size that 
is equally usable by mouse preferers's or keyboard 
preferer's...one size that works for word-oriented 
people and visually-oriented people...  If possible
(and I doubt it), Gnome 3 is not it.  

To cater to different uses and users requires different
way of accomplishing the same task, and different ways
of displaying results.  That is, provide the user with
preferences and options.

Imposing the set of preferences that work for a relatively
small, interacting set of developers on the much wider 
real world is bound to fail.

And, yes, I know there is customization via extensions.
The only reason I am still using Gnome 3 is the 
wonderful extension at 
  
  http://intgat.tigress.co.uk/rmy/extensions/index.html

But extensions have problems.  The author of the 
above extension says that he expects it to break with 
Gnome3 updates.  Extensions are a separate piece of
software that has to tracked, updated, re-installed.
Extensions don't come with the same quality expectations
that the base software has.  Extension writers get 
new interests.  Extensions often don't have the same 
access to the base software as the base software it
self and can be limited in functionality because of
it.

So would be far better if functionality like this were
integrated into Gnome 3, to be optionally activated
by user preferences.