GNOME Devs are rethinking the "Activities" button
https://www.omglinux.com/gnome-test-activities-button-replacement/Open linkView original on sopuli.xyzSyndicated from the fediverse. Read and engage on the original instance.
View original on sopuli.xyzhttps://www.omglinux.com/gnome-test-activities-button-replacement/Open linkView original on sopuli.xyz
68 replies
This is really cool. I install extensions to remove the Activities button and display a workspace indicator.
A lot of Workspaces might present a problem though. Currently, the Workspace indicator extension with collapse into a number after 8, or so, and I’m not sure how that scenario would work with the proposal.
Btw, they released it as an extension.
It seems more and more that the GNOME extension ecosystem is going to make it more customizable than Plasma one day
From my experience so far it's more like installing gnome extensions just to get a fraction of the customization of stock kde, and I don't really see that changing any time soon.
It's cool in some ways, but in my experience updates of GNOME breaking some extensions, or extensions being abandoned, etc made it a real pain.
KDE's user created widgets and kwin scripts is still more flexible and powerful, and Gnome has been falling behind for a long time. Pretty much everyone would have to give up on Plasma and choose to maintain Gnome extensions instead - I don't think that's likely.
Cant wait for them to revamp the package manager app to make discoverability better. ATM you have to sift through a lot of old and unsupported additions to find something that works well
thank
Well, I'm trying it out and I gotta say... I just don't care.
I mean, it looks nice, and I guess the extra info is good. On the other hand, I weirdly miss the word in the corner. On the other, other hand, it's such a small change I can't imagine getting upset about it if it became the default.
So... Yeah. Whatever's clever, Gnome team. I'm happy either way.
Haha, more folks should have this attitude.
I agree. I saw someone said something along the lines of "kill it with fire" an all I could thing was that sounds like a lot of effort for a couple dots in a corner.
I'm using it now and I feel the same way. It makes more sense to have a workspace indicator but I'm so used to the activities text at the top left that it just feels weird. I don't care if they change it it's just weird not having it after seeing it for 6 years
Configurability is the answer. Some people like it some don't, just have a setting to turn it off and it's fine
Personally I don't see much point in it as I just use the three finger swipe anyway, too much effort to mouse up to the top left and click it then navigate a GUI compared to just swiping left and right
Hmm, I wouldn't like having such a setting cluttering up my settings panel. Maybe they could allow the user to configure whether they want such a setting?
You'd need a setting to decide whether you wanted that configuration file too though, I'm not sure if I'd want it taking up space on my disk
It's not a terrible idea... I actually use the mentioned Space Bar and really like it (makes me miss i3 less :)).
Why'd you switch from i3? If it was for Wayland support, in case you didn't know, the Sway window manager is basically a drop-in replacement for i3, but for Wayland rather than X11. You can literally copy/paste your i3 config into ~/.config/sway/ and it will only need a few minor tweaks to get fully working!
I just made the switch this past week. The one caveat is Polybar doesn't work correctly with Sway, so I had to configure Waybar instead. Waybar has some cool features though, like being able to place the tray anywhere you want, so it was worth the effort to switch.
I don't use Wayland at all, though I am aware of Sway.
I switched to Pop and GNOME because... for lack of better phrasing, I wanted a more normal experience that I could recommend others. I used Void and i3 for about 6 years (Arch + i3 for years before that) and just wanted something I could recommend to new users and support them as well (hard to support something I don't use myself). Pop and GNOME with the tiling features is a happy medium for me. Far from perfect, but good enough.
Gotcha, fair enough! I run Arch with Gnome on my desktop gaming rig for similar reason, I just wanted a normal DE that I didn't have to tweak much. Laptop is where I have Sway/Waybar and experiment with different window managers and such.
I like it. Def more useful
As long as I can hit the top left for the activities or a similar/more useful screen, I am happy
Good! I don't get much use out of the button (or hot corner tbh) on a laptop. Gestures are king
Been using the PoC extension for a few days now and I'm absolutely in love with it <3
What das it do?
Read the article?
Basically, it replaces the word "Activities" with dots representing your workspaces, with the one you're on being a pill-shape. So if you had three active workspaces and you were looking at the third one it'd be kinda like this:
O O (__)
It doesn't affect the button itself at all, just changes the visual.
Literally never use the activities button. Happy to see it go.
That seems l like a fine addition, although visually an explicit number being shown would be enough and even better imho.
Still a piece of garbage. Can't they simply admit they were wrong and add a permanent panel with icons (like Windows or Mac) at the bottom of the screen and move on?
I'm guessing everyone who likes GNOME (me included) only uses it because of its unique workflow. And that's exactly why people were hesitant by GNOME 3 (besides the UI. I'm not a linux user from that time but damn the UI was weird seeing some old screenshots)
is it that unique?
For me it just strikes a nice balance between a full tiler and a classic desktop UI.
And in my book, you don't even need any extensions, the core product is fine as it is.
At the time they went in a different direction with Gnome 3 it wasn't so much the direction itself, as the fact they gave people no choice.
One day you were happily using your Gnome 2 desktop, the next you were being told "we're changing everything, deal with it". Not "hey we're forking Gnome 2 to try something new, see if you like it and maybe switch", no, it was "we're changing it and you're gonna like it".
It's this "mommy knows best" attitude that's always pissed people off about Gnome.
I can’t agree as I love Gnome and now feel lost when I have to use windows or MacOs. The way it uses the workspace and the way your screen isn’t cluttered with informations is great for someone like me.
And extensions are there to help you with almost every limitation you encounter.
You don't like your LEDs blinking Morse code of your 1s average combined CPU load?
Again, extensions aren't as polished as built in stuff. A prime example of this was when they ditched desktop icons, the extensions that followed fail sometimes.
@TCB13 @Dariusmiles2123 They do. It’s why I abandoned Gnome and even great distros like Vanilla will never be my choice because they default to Gnome. I’m honestly not even sure Vanilla can be altered to use KDE by the user. I never tried.
Or just you can use a different de and move on?
I mean if oyu don't like it, then don't use it or install an extension. I never missed a bar at the bottom and can find all open windows in the overview very quickly
Yes but extensions work to a degree and not out of the box. For instance, when they abandoned desktop icons a long time ago we never had and extension that delivered the same polished experience.
GNOME has some quite strict design guidelines (a "vision", if you will). And sticking to that a vision has enabled them to create a very polished DE (probably the most polished DE on Linux). What people get wrong is that GNOME wasn't really made for desktops. It was made for mobile devices (laptops, tablets, and in the future phones). Using GNOME on a "proper" mobile device really makes sense. No, that doesn't mean using a laptop connected to an external monitor all the time, or just using it at a desk all the time. It means using a laptop as a laptops, going out and about, using it without a mouse and using it with it's internal display.
I can certainly believe that. Yet, pretty much every desktop distro ships it as the default, which boggles my mind.
Well GNOME is the most polished, which means it eneded up being the most popular, which means GTK has the most apps, which makes GNOME look very polished, and the cycle repeats itself.
Also the vast majority of people use laptops, not desktops.
Why not? Plasma is much more usable out of the box for many users including myself. GNOME's out of the box experience is really lacking IMHO and requires me to install and configure several extensions just to get what I consider to be a functional UI. I know they have this vision for how they want people to use their OS, but that vision is not aligned with how I actually want to use it. The best way distros can vote against the design choices of GNOME is by making something else the default. The problem I have is that I generally prefer GNOME's app suite to KDE's, so that makes the decision a bit more complicated for me.
XFCE. Just as mature, also GTK-based, and a truly happy medium between predefined choices and customization without excessive complexity.
@thegreenguy @TCB13 yep this exactly I first used gnome on a laptop and the experience is great the gesture support makes all the workspaces and different overviews work perfectly
then I started using it on desktop and it just doesn't work the same. it feels clunky and far from as smooth.
Just use one of the 50 gnome 3 forks
😂 😂 😂 😂
Use the dash to dock extension
I'm using that and ArcMenu...
They weren't wrong. There is no need for a panel, you can just type what program you want. It's not year 2000 anymore.
Besides, Plasma is much more like Windows. It has panels, lots of windows and bugs.
Typing the name of the program you want is a 1970s thing.
Good response to be honest. :)
Only a bit tongue-in-cheek... :)
Sometimes typing something is better, sometimes just clicking a button is better. It just depends on... too many things to list.
Yes ironically desktop environments "revolutionized" computing by not having a way to type what program we want to then, after decades re-introduce that :D
Yep, because we realized the pointy clicky hand-eye coordination paradigm is often not an improvement.
@TCB13 @RoboRay I don’t remember a distro or DE that lacked a command line. Hell, even windows never actually abandoned it.
Sure, which makes it curious that the previous comment implied that it's a new thing since 2000 when it's actually a very old thing.
On that we can agree. And let me add more: inconsistent design.
@TCB13 @1984 still prefer it over Gnome. Besides, inconsistency often arises from the sheer number of programming frameworks involved. If there was a standard way to assure that programs could fill in UI elements to fit the DE it would help out.
As a non-programmer I don’t even know if that’s possible.
Dash to panel/dock + Arc Menu? ;)
I know it's contentious but for laptops and limited size displays I love the GNOME layout over KDE. Gestures are also way better, even on X11.
It does everything MacOS was trying to do, but executes it way better. I say this as someone who uses MacOS daily for work.
It has some pain points but there's a reason it's such a large part of the Linux ecosystem
@TCB13 @thegreenguy I prefer it the way it is. If you love the Windows design so much, just use KDE.
No, KDE is even worse than GNOME. GNOME has some sense of design and things are properly designed most of the time, consistent spacing between elements and whatnot, KDE fails on that. GNOME fails on providing a basic desktop experience to those familiar with Windows and macOS.
GNOME is easily modified to suit those workflows. Some distros even offer simple apps to do the heavy lifting of setting up a layout for you, like Manjaro and Zorin.
What do you use atm?
Because, once again, extensions and quicks fixes doesn't provide the same experience as built in features. Eg. GNOME 3.28 removed desktop icons and the extensions currently available don't provide the same polished experience.
Fair enough. Though if you've not tried a lot of these extensions recently I'd bet you'd be surprised with the quality that some of them have nowadays. Ubuntu for example uses a handful of GNOME extensions to replace lost functionality like taskbar icons and desktop icons with good enough quality that most of their users don't even notice it was ever missing.
@TCB13 @user8e8f87c it isnt just familiarity with windows. Remembering a window position should be common to all systems seeing as a workflow may well depend on it for fluidity.
@TCB13 Then use Windows or Mac.
I wish that's all they were wrong about...
You will do it the way they saw in that fever dream, for such is the way of Gnome.