GNOME 3 released

[Subject Delta]

Windows 7's Superbar actually combines the best parts of the OSX Dock, and the taskbar from previous versions of Windows. Going by my usage of OSX, I think it's far more useful than the dock in OSX, to assert it is a simple copy is pretty ignorant.

[LiquidSolstice]

  On 07/04/2011 at 23:18, .Neo said:

If you're unable to reply normally, just don't reply.

If you're unable to fathom that GNOME is not a sales tactic, that GNOME is not a profiting product, and that GNOME is creating by people who have a passion for free alternatives, then you probably shouldn't reply. It's not even that I don't agree that the Aero Snap is so similar, it's just the fact that for some reason this mortally offends you and you're in full GNOME-HATE mode over it.

Also, the irony of what you just said is that you seemed to be unable to reply without some snide image, so take your own advice, bud.

[+Majesticmerc MVC]

For anyone that's interested, Ars Technica did a decent review of Gnome 3 (link). In general, I have to agree with most of their points. The theme generally looks like crap. It looks like a GUI equivalent of those ?50 knock off games consoles that look like the Wii, but play Megadrive-era 2D games. And then to top it off, they went and got rid of the goddamn maximize button. I was (and still am) on board with removing the minimize button, but why remove the maximize button that people would actually use? Sure, we've got not-aero-snap functionality, but click-n-drag takes longer than just clicking alone.

Overall, I think it's a step in a... different direction, but I really think they should have done some useability testing with real people (i.e. more than developers and so called UX experts) before releasing. But then, therein lies the beauty of FOSS. If I continue to dislike it, I can choose a different DWM :)

[ZekeComa]

  On 07/04/2011 at 22:14, .Neo said:

At least Microsoft has the decency to give its own twist to things, so does Apple. I have no real objection to that. I just think it's pathetic that lately Linux developers don't bother coming up with their own stuff and just copy 90% of things left and right. But hey, that's the reason why these window managers on desktop Linux will always look like some poor hobby project rather than a serious product.

And you're right companies will always "borrow" ideas from each other, it's the near 1:1 copies I have issues with. Something you see a lot these days on Linux.

The Ubuntu team seems to be the only exception here. They do try to go their own route and when copying something at least they give their own spin to it. In most cases at least.

1. Ribbon UI by Microsoft

----- Knock off of some other companies

2. Task bar

----- Knock off of Apple's dock

3. Aero

----- Knock off of Compiz

4. Virtual Desktops

----- Knock off of Linux

Shall I continue before you make yourself look stupid. Every company, takes ideas off other people's work. It's the way it is in the software world. Either live with it or don't use computer. It makes companies have competition and to keep coming up with new ideas.

[OuchOfDeath]

  On 07/04/2011 at 23:19, Subject Delta said:

Windows 7's Superbar actually combines the best parts of the OSX Dock, and the taskbar from previous versions of Windows. Going by my usage of OSX, I think it's far more useful than the dock in OSX, to assert it is a simple copy is pretty ignorant.

Far more useful? What single feature is there that is more useful? Jump lists? If anything it's inferior simply because OS X has Expose on top of the dock. Best window management there is.

  On 07/04/2011 at 23:33, ZekeComa said:

3. Aero

----- Knock off of Compiz

That's not correct. Compiz didn't do anything that Aero does. If you're talking about both being compositing window managers, then Apple once again beat Linux and Microsoft to it. Pretty sure Apple had desktop compositing in OS X in 2001.

[Subject Delta]

  On 07/04/2011 at 23:34, OuchOfDeath said:

Far more useful? What single feature is there that is more useful? Jump lists? If anything it's inferior simply because OS X has Expose on top of the dock. Best window management there is.

I disagree, I found the design of Expose to be poor.

[OuchOfDeath]

  On 07/04/2011 at 23:37, Subject Delta said:

I disagree, I found the design of Expose to be poor.

What does the alt-tab in Windows looks like? It's a tiny expose. Functionally it's the same thing as well, except it's a bit too small to be useful(that can actually be edited) , and it doesn't scale programs according to their size either. Is alt-tab of poor design too? Also you didn't answer my question.

EDIT: You must also be one of the very few people out there who think Expose is poor design. It's by far the quickest and most intuitive window management in existence.

[ZekeComa]

  On 07/04/2011 at 23:34, OuchOfDeath said:

Far more useful? What single feature is there that is more useful? Jump lists? If anything it's inferior simply because OS X has Expose on top of the dock. Best window management there is.

That's not correct. Compiz didn't do anything that Aero does. If you're talking about both being compositing window managers, then Apple once again beat Linux and Microsoft to it. Pretty sure Apple had desktop compositing in OS X in 2001.

I'm talking about desktop effects (not spinning cubes), I mean giving Windows any kind of effects other than just transparency.

[SoapyHamHocks Member]

  On 07/04/2011 at 23:45, ZekeComa said:

I'm talking about desktop effects (not spinning cubes), I mean giving Windows any kind of effects other than just transparency.

How do you figure that? Longhorn had these effects back in 2003/2004.

[OuchOfDeath]

  On 07/04/2011 at 23:29, Majesticmerc said:

For anyone that's interested, Ars Technica did a decent review of Gnome 3 (link). In general, I have to agree with most of their points. The theme generally looks like crap. It looks like a GUI equivalent of those ?50 knock off games consoles that look like the Wii, but play Megadrive-era 2D games. And then to top it off, they went and got rid of the goddamn maximize button. I was (and still am) on board with removing the minimize button, but why remove the maximize button that people would actually use? Sure, we've got not-aero-snap functionality, but click-n-drag takes longer than just clicking alone.

Overall, I think it's a step in a... different direction, but I really think they should have done some useability testing with real people (i.e. more than developers and so called UX experts) before releasing. But then, therein lies the beauty of FOSS. If I continue to dislike it, I can choose a different DWM :)

Thanks for the review link.

As for the removal of maximize I think it's the right decision. In the current window management in Windows and Linux there are at least 3 ways to instantly maximize an application. You have the aero snap, the maximize button, and doubleclicking the titlebar. Why? Why is there so many ways to do one thing? What's the point? It's redundant. GNOME did this to remove redundancy. There is absolutely no reason why there should be so many ways to do the exact same thing. All are relatively arbitrary too. The Aero Snap implementation is an intuitive way of performing the task, and that's why it was implemented while at the same time removing the maximize button. Having so many ways to do the exact same way is needless UI complexity and clutter, and removing these redundancies is what makes the UI better as a whole. Another major redundancy that GNOME had before was that launching applications from the menus would re-launch an application if it was already opened. The Dash/Dock fixes this, and simplifies access to the applications as well(course Apple had this fixed long ago, and Windows 7 a year ago).

  On 07/04/2011 at 23:45, ZekeComa said:

I'm talking about desktop effects (not spinning cubes), I mean giving Windows any kind of effects other than just transparency.

Yeah, Apple had that in 2001 already, so the call on on the knock-off was incorrect.

[Southern Patriot]

  On 07/04/2011 at 23:15, ViperAFK said:

And apple wasn't the first to do a "dock" either. its an idea thats been kicking around for quite some time.

Yeah, it came from NeXT, which became the basis for OS X.

[Subject Delta]

  On 07/04/2011 at 23:41, OuchOfDeath said:

What does the alt-tab in Windows looks like? It's a tiny expose. Functionally it's the same thing as well, except it's a bit too small to be useful(that can actually be edited) , and it doesn't scale programs according to their size either. Is alt-tab of poor design too? Also you didn't answer my question.

EDIT: You must also be one of the very few people out there who think Expose is poor design. It's by far the quickest and most intuitive window management in existence.

I rarely use alt+tab so I don't particularly care, I tend not to have large amounts of windows open at once.

[ViperAFK]

  On 07/04/2011 at 23:33, ZekeComa said:

3. Aero

----- Knock off of Compiz

Don't know why people alway say aero is a knockoff of compiz, compiz's initial release was the same year vista went RTM... And I assure you ms was working on aero long before that. I believe some of the early longhorn builds had dwm. If anything apple had it first with aqua. I don't think any of them are knockoff's of each other, some idea's are simply common sense.

[tiagosilva29]

  giga said:

Modal sheets & Nautlius

Same as a not-very-recent release of GNOME2.

  giga said:

Date and Time

Taken from OpenSUSE, Ubuntu.

  Majesticmerc said:

I was (and still am) on board with removing the minimize button, but why remove the maximize button that people would actually use?

Because you can maximize by double-clicking in every clean section of the bar.

[micro]

Hmm, just installed on ubuntu. I dont like it...

[tensegrity]

There are still some issues and bugs in the current 3.0.0 release, especially lack of configurability but it is approaching a stage where it will be stable enough for most people. The new Fedora 15 beta has Gnome3 as default, and presents a pretty well polished version. I quite like the "new" way of managing windows.

[.Neo]

  On 07/04/2011 at 23:23, LiquidSolstice said:

If you're unable to fathom that GNOME is not a sales tactic, that GNOME is not a profiting product, and that GNOME is creating by people who have a passion for free alternatives, then you probably shouldn't reply. It's not even that I don't agree that the Aero Snap is so similar, it's just the fact that for some reason this mortally offends you and you're in full GNOME-HATE mode over it.

Free does't mean the GNOME team has a right to steal everything left and right, something companies paid good money for developing.

[ViperAFK]

Gnome is hardly "stealing everything left and right" You are being ridiculous. If you've actually USED gnome 3 is works VERY differently from osx, windows, and even gnome2. There are a few similarities but its hardly some osx knockoff like you are making it out to be.

[Knife Party]

  On 24/04/2011 at 15:19, ViperAFK said:

Gnome is hardly "stealing everything left and right" You are being ridiculous. If you've actually USED gnome 3 is works VERY differently from osx, windows, and even gnome2. There are a few similarities but its hardly some osx knockoff like you are making it out to be.

+1 - some people think certain features should only be limited to certain platforms. Get over it.

[HawkMan]

I think it's more a matter of Gnome admitting that they took these ideas, or in some cases blatantly copied the functions from somewhere else, rather than pretend they invented something that's works exactly as it does in another OS and has been there for years.

[amon91]

  On 24/04/2011 at 15:38, HawkMan said:

I think it's more a matter of Gnome admitting that they took these ideas, or in some cases blatantly copied the functions from somewhere else, rather than pretend they invented something that's works exactly as it does in another OS and has been there for years.

You could say the same about every single desktop environment on the face of the earth. KDE, especially v3, resembled Windows 2k a lot, at least on the surface. GNOME, even GNOME2, has always been pretty mac-like in some ways, again, on the surface. They're not knockoffs, the have their own identity, they're just slightly familiar with other already established environments.

[argonite]

I don't mind copying.

It's just that GNOME 3 doesn't copy RIGHT. It just looks awful. I would be happier if GNOME 3 just straight up re-created the Mac OSX design pixel perfect, at least then the padding wouldn't be out of control.

[Jen Smith]

  On 23/04/2011 at 16:44, tensegrity said:

There are still some issues and bugs in the current 3.0.0 release, especially lack of configurability but it is approaching a stage where it will be stable enough for most people.

No surprises there, A new "point zero" release is typically going to be a bit quirky, needing some refinement etc etc. The first KDE 4 release for example was a lot of fun, in a a geeky masochistic sort of way.. significantly better now than it was. Vista didn't get a healthy dose of "sucks less" until SP1, etc etc.

  On 24/04/2011 at 15:53, amon91 said:

You could say the same about every single desktop environment on the face of the earth. KDE, especially v3, resembled Windows 2k a lot, at least on the surface. GNOME, even GNOME2, has always been pretty mac-like in some ways, again, on the surface. They're not knockoffs, the have their own identity, they're just slightly familiar with other already established environments.

Exactly, this has been going on since forever. Pick an OS, any OS, and I'm sure you'll find a "heyyyyy they stole that from _____" thread somewhere. Can probably trace "idea borrowing" in software to well before the Alto, CP/M, Unix, etc etc, and it's nothing unique to software. If Microsoft or Apple had a problem with it, I'm sure they'd have released their army of patent lawyers at the GNOME Foundation by now.

That said, sure there's some similarities, but yea hardly a knockoff by any stretch, it's still it's own thing. Don't care for it myself, but when I was experimenting with it I was never for a moment confused as to which DE I was working with, and some of the new features are actually pretty slick. Especially liking how they're handling workspaces.

[xxxxxx.xxxxxx]

I really do hope that someone forks out Gnome 2 and keeps development going. I cant stand this new look, Gnome has always been my choice. :no:

[tiagosilva29]

Have anyone already seem the sad mac?