Paradigm shift going from Gnome2 to Gnome3

Tue Jun 21 03:47:18 UTC 2011

On Mon, 20 Jun 2011 18:38:46 -0600, Stuart McGraw wrote:

> On 06/20/2011 03:00 PM, Alexander Volovics wrote:
>> On Mon, Jun 20, 2011 at 12:57:24PM -0600, Stuart McGraw wrote:
>> 
>>> 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.
>> 
>>> 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, ....
>> 
>> Do you people actually work with Gnome 3.
> 
> Yes.  Been using it every day for almost two weeks now.

I have been working with it for approximately 2 weeks as well. I've 
chosen to stay in Gnome 3 for a while rather than KDE (which was my 
preferred environment on Fedora 14). GTK applications look really bad in 
KDE on Fedora 15. I haven't decided if it's the font, the theme, or a 
combination of both.

Also, upgrading from Fedora 14 to Fedora 15 caused my KDE menus to assume 
Gnome categories. There's no more "Development" category, but there is 
now a "Programming" category in my KDE start menu.

I'll get over it . . .

> 
>> If you are a versatile mouse user I suspect that you can actually work
>> just as fast with the mouse as with the keyboard. Jab the pointer in
>> the upper left corner, click on an app in the dash or swerve to the
>> right and click on 'applications', click on the app you need if you see
>> it immediately in this monstrous platoon of icons, or go even further
>> to the right and select a category (Acessories, Games, etc) and click
>> on an icon there to open an app.
> 
> Exactly my complaint.  Up to the top right corner to get the overview,
> click the Applications button.  Then, from the left side of the screen,
> a wild, nearly full width traverse over to the right side to select a
> category, then back again to the left side of the screen to select the
> icon if it happens to be on the left.
> 
> Compare that to Gnome 2 where I go to the left side of the screen and
> click Applications, move the mouse an inch or two to select a category
> in the menu, move another inch or two to select the app.
> 

This is one of my major complaints concerning Gnome 3. There is a lot of 
full screen traversal needed when opening applications or switching 
workspaces. I have a 1680x1050 screen, so this is quite annoying.

I am also a software pack rat. The default Gnome 3 applications display 
is "All". On an old Dell 8200 with a 2.8 GHz P4, 1.5 GB memory, and an 
NVidia 7600 GS video card the display takes several seconds to generate 
the first time I do this.

I am then presented with an alphabetic listing of programs (and their 
icons). Unfortunately a mouse-over doesn't pop up a window displaying the 
description of the program. Fortunately I remember what most of them do, 
but every now and then having a description pop up would be nice.

At any rate, having many uncategorized choices is not (IMHO) a good user 
interface design. Fortunately, I can slide my mouse pointer back to the 
right, then type in the name of the program to activate a search.

Yuck.

I've taken to using Alt-F2 a lot. If at all possible I avoid using the 
Applications window.

> Why at least couldn't the Categories list (and scroll bar) in Gnome 3 be
> to the left of the icons so that one encounters it "on the way"?
> 
> Same with workspaces -- up to the extreme left corner, then all the way
> to the extreme right side of the screen to show the WS summary.  Now I'm
> presented with a bunch of mini-images of workspaces. Which has the
> window I want?  Can't tell because all the windows are overlapping. 
> Take best guess an select one.  Now I can see which windows are in the
> WS.  But damn, they are all white Terminal windows or similar that look
> the same.  Squint and see if I can identify some familiar text.
> 
> Eventually, possibly after a couple wrong guesses I find the window I
> wanted.

I usually don't have too much trouble finding which workspace I need to 
be on. Most of my programs are fairly distinctive on this size of screen. 
That plus alt-tab helps a bit since it works across workspaces. My only 
issue with alt-tab is when I have more than one window open for a 
particular program. I then have to use the arrow keys to select the right 
window. Also oddly enough arrow keys continue to work once they're 
invoked in the alt-tab sequence, but you cannot begin the sequence with 
alt-<arrow>.

I also like to keep certain applications together in certain workspaces. 
This fits my workflow. In Gnome 2 (and KDE), I would just open the 
application in the appropriate workspace. In Gnome 3, I have some minor 
tricks that work.

1. Switch to a desired window (see above for the left-right mouse dance)

2. Hit escape

3. Alt-F2 and type in the command name

This is contrasted by just choosing the desired workspace in Gnome 2 or 
KDE. I've not found anything that matches the activities idea in KDE 4. 
In KDE 4 I can define a collection of workspaces as an activity, then 
define applications for each workspace. By choosing a defined activity, I 
then launch a bunch of tools in predefined locations and I'm up and 
running.

> I am not anti-Gnome 3 -- I am really making an effort to work with it. 
> But most everything I've read here recommends avoiding the crazy back
> and forth mouse movements by using keyboard shortcuts and as I said that
> is not a preferable option for many people. And even ignoring that there
> are issues like finding windows in WS as described.  (There are also
> some real WTF things like why is the "not found" message presented on
> the left side of the screen far from the text search box on the right
> side?)
> 

I'm not ant-Gnome 3, however I do find the lack of configuration 
capabilities disturbing. However, KDE 4.0 was not the best experience 
either. I will be interested in seeing how Gnome 3.2 shakes out.

The mouse interactions though, plus the (lack of) software organization 
really drives one to use the keyboard a lot more than one did in Gnome 2 
or KDE. I'm actually OK with this, since I am more of a keyboard person 
than a mouse person, but I imagine I'm not in the majority.

>> When the app is open you jab the mouse pointer in the upper left corner
>> again, select the app with the mouse pointer and drag it to a
>> workspace, etc. You have everything you ever had, point and click, drag
>> and drop, just in a slightly different desktop arragement.
> 
> But one that requires far more mouse motion and clicks than Gnome 2 to
> do the same operation.
> 
>>From poking around in the Gnome 3 design docs it is
> becoming clear to me that no one has actually done any real usability
> testing on Gnome 3 or quantitative comparisons to Gnome 2.
> 
>>[...]
>> So on the whole there is no paradigm of keyboard use and Gnome 3 is
>> certainly not advertised as such. Read the 'Desktop Help' under the
>> ring buoy icon and pay no attention to 'misunderstood marketing jargon
>> and hype' and 'biased reporting of opinioted users'. Experience it
>> honestly for yourself.
> 
> I have.  And that's why I responded in this thread.

I admit it, I'm an opinionated user. I have spent a while understanding 
how I work, and what facilitates my workflow. I'm a tools-oriented 
person, and I arrange my tools in order to help me get work done. Tool 
organization and workflow are highly personal, and once I've set it up I 
can commit it to muscle memory.

Gnome 3 so far has been getting in the way of this. I find that I have to 
change my workflow habits to match Gnome's view of how I should work. 
Some of the ideas are not bad (alt-tab through all the applications), 
some are annoying (mouse travel distance to operate the interface), and 
some are frustrating (Category All in Applications which takes several 
seconds to open).

The interface seems a bit slower as well. I've not done the Phoronix 
graphics test suite yet, but qualitative measurements put Gnome 3 10-15 
percent less responsive on the same hardware as Gnome 2.

All in all, it's been a bit clumsy and slow. The speed will hopefully 
improve in later revisions, but I'm not as optimistic about the 
clumsiness.

. . . . . just my two cents.

/mde/