Ubuntu 11.04 has been released, and I’m very happy about it. I gave the news to many (Italian) media, I wrote the (Italian) press releases, I did several talks (Ubuntu parties, Universities, simple events) about the Unity allure. I said it’s new and fantastic. What else should a good promoter do?
Probably use it. But I’m sorry i will not use Unity. For many reason.
I’ll try to tell you some of them.
1 – I find Unity colours really uncomfortable to my sight.
Since from the very first time I’ve known Ubuntu and the GNOME desktop, I’ve been really excited by the opportunity to fine tuning my desktop, my theme, my spaces, a large part of my life, since I pass about 10 hours a day in front of my PC, for work and pleasure.
I’ve chosen a pink ambient, with glass window decorator, a large use of transparencies everywhere.
I hate brown tonalities, but I hate more black environments, so male ones, too much testosterone for my tastes.
Besides, I found the appearance of Launcher buttons (and Laucher itself really) so 70’s old fashioned…
Ok someone could tell me that I can use old gnome-panel but why should I use old stuff when the new could be so much finer? Why someone shouldn’t let me change my DE tones, only because I find pink/purple more comfortable then dark/brown?
2 – I find some difficulties in using an applications based dock.
I’m asking how people normally use PC: I have many windows (at least 15) and 3 or 4 applications open. When I’m looking for a specific minimized window in the taskbar, I find it immediately among many similar others, and I can call it with a single click. Otherwise I find an extreme waste of time find the application on the launcher and chose among windows. I click a Firefox/Libreoffice/Thunderbid icons once in a day, an then I have dozen of widows on my desktop.
I had a dock. I removed it. Please let me have a taksbar again, if I need. 🙂
3 – I found a lateral launcher a bit claustrophobic.
I have a normal panoramic screen, but the presence the a launcher in the exactly areas my eyes naturally goes (ask to Gestalt psychology or simply to art critic) give me a sense of occlusion and closure.
There are many other considerations, but these are probably enough. I know some some ideas (as Launcher based approach) will be kept and I accept it and really appreciate the effort to give users something new, but I ask: in a user experience desktop guided by designers where is the freedom of users? How can I call again Unity’s desktop mine?
Code is Poetry 
I agree with the second point you have discussed,here. There are some accessibiltiy difficulties when you are working with too many applications. Otherwise, I think its upto an indivdual whether he likes the aesthetics or not, isnt it?
It isn’t a mere use or aesthetic matter, I believe the ultimate sense is in the lack of opportunity that Unity gives to personalize our user experience. Probably because it’s a new project, but why should I avoid to give myself a change to make it better? 🙂
“Otherwise, I think its upto an indivdual whether he likes the aesthetics or not, isnt it?”
Uh yeah. So that’s why individuals should have the option to CHANGE things. Unity so far is a regression.
kubuntu
NO. This is not the way to handle problems (suggesting something else). You face problems head on, and when you are wrong you fix it.
– “With everything new comes a time of learning”
I think many of us got caught up in a surprise when first introduced to Unity. Although i had read up on it beforehand it still felt a bit awkward. It didn’t act and look as i wanted. The most frustrating part was that i could not customize it. I still gave it more than two month to see if it grew on me. It didn’t.
So when Gnome-shell became three-point-zero and stable i didn’t hesitate to switch. I was a little afraid that it would give me the same experience that Unity gave me. It didn’t. Just after a week i had the work flow in my blood stream. Everything is placed and work very logical. It looks good. Can change the theme and customize most of the things i want. The new notification system made me more productive and don’t get in my way. The thumbnail approach for task switching in the activities layer are awesome. I can switch to the wanted app as fast as earlier but with a greater accuracy. Before i had to “search” for the app i wanted and then click. I could do it even faster with “+typing ‘fi'” for firefox.
So even though you love the panel i encourage you to try Gnome-shell out. You will not get it at once. But give it a little bit of time and i am sure you will love it.
Hi Daniel,
Really the fact I feel Unity unpleasant to me (I feel, not it is…) pushed me in trying GNOME Shell, that I found very comfortable about use but shows me the same limits about customization.
I’ve been very lucky, because one of my friend customised the shell for me, (you can see my maverick desktop and my shell’s one here, on my italian blog), but it seems I can use GNOME 3 only on Fedora, and I really prefer Ubuntu. Moreover this post doesn’t want to be a battle in Unity/GNOME shell war, neither a rant about Unity, but only my two cent, as Ubuntu memeber, to make it better, if possibile, simply suggesting a way to decore the Canvas, as Paul call it in a previous comment.
Cheers 🙂
You could customize it pretty good with Gnome-Tweak-Tool. I don’t feel i miss any customization. One of the beauties with Shell are that it is based on javascript. Which makes it very easy to ad features. There are a bunch of extentions available and more are constantly popping in. Check this for instants: http://intgat.tigress.co.uk/rmy/extensions/index.html
I am currently using Ubuntu and Gnome-shell. I used a Minimal iso which only installs the base of Ubuntu and then added my preferred applications. Starting with the Gnome3 PPA of course. Thus i didn’t need to touch Unity and got a more responsive system. Currently there are also a Ubuntu Gnome Remix project (UGR) going. Can be found here: http://ugr.teampr0xy.net/home-1
I actually went on and visited the Fedora camp first but got homesick and did the minimal install. Their community was not that nice either. Did not feel very welcomed. If you are thinking about testing out another dist than Ubuntu i would recommend Arch or OpenSUSE.
Daniel, I feel you missed the point. Flavia wasn’t asking for an alternate desktop or distro. She is fully able to find it, if she want, or she is able to ask: “may someone suggest me $SOMETHING?”. She didn’t.
Flavia tried to raise a concern about current status and how could we manage those issues in order to make our software better for the end users.
@Daniel: The minimal iso with Gnome via PPA looks interesting to me – I’m going to try that. Thanks for the info.
I’m not understanding the first statement, about colors. Natty’s Unity has the same theme manager as Maverick’s GNOME. The unity bar background is not changable from the menu, that’s true, but I think there would be a way. What do you think about Radiance theme?
Paolo,
you know because you have seen it, how my PC looks like… Very very far from Radiance theme… 🙂
Yes, I meant another thing, I’m not talking about personal tastes. Do you think radiance is male tasted as the dark ambiance theme?
Sorry in advance if i offend you, but why is everyone doing like Unity is a conspiracy to take away THEIR customization power. Coding takes time… So what, it’s not perfect in it’s first big public release. The options will come, and i’m pretty sure in about half a year most will be satisfied by them. Half a year later, there will be more than the average customizer can ever need or use.
You can criticize it of course, but don’t take it so personal, it’s just the way it is. Use it, don’t use it, doesn’t really matter at this point. Just make up your mind how it has to be, that you’ll want to use it. Unity is like a blank canvas and now is the time to paint it, not to throw it away.
This is nothing personal, but i’ve read your statements in a hundred variations over the last few weeks and i just don’t get this attitude…
And btw i don’t use it either, maybe i will in the future, but for now, KDE is finally where i need it to be for my everyday use, so i take it, and i love it. The options are there, just not where they’re expected.
cheers
Paul
Hi Paul
thanks for your words. Yes of course I can use KDE, I can use GNOME Shell, I can use another distro. But my philosphy is try to make better what I have. I likes very much the canvas metaphor you used… I don’t mind what I expected, but what I had – a DE perfectly customizable and confortable for me – and what I refuse to have, a full updated OS that I find unusable. Ok you’re right, I could change my DE. But this seems to me declare myself won without fighting at all.
Cheers 🙂
Canonical, like GNOME, follows the “options are bad and confusing” line of thinking. Take a look at notify-osd. It’s been out for a couple years now. Patches to make it customisable have existed for about as long. There’s even a PPA to get this forked version. They just don’t want the patches. It’d add choice, and they can’t have that.
Hi Mackenzie!
I’m not sure to have got exactly your thought. Do you believe that less is enough, so we have to use what Canonical do for us, or shall we try to give our attempt to change what we dislike?
Hughs 🙂
This one of the reasons I’m losing my friendly leanings with Canonical.
exact same feeling on my side: i dont like it because:
– i feel better with a drop down menu than a shell; why wasting time with hidden path to find something while a panel let you see directly where your apps/data are.
– unity run with compiz: both are borked
– trying to be an OSX like is like losing his soul
– i dont need fancy eye-candy stuff eating space and ram
– lots of old config/hardware cant run that stupid design
Maybe canonical will realised than experienced users are chosing distro other flavours to get rid of these immature decisions.
try “SUPER+S” and “SUPER+W”. SUPER is the key with the Windows symbol on your keyboard. Then you don’t need the standard bottom panel.
Yes I DO need the bottom panel.
The only thing I agree with you is “I hate brown tonalities, but I hate more black environments, so male ones, too much testosterone for my tastes.”
Seriously they should remove any hint of brown because it makes Unity look really really dull and boring.
Aside from that, I love everything else: the Dash, the Dock(though it looks a little cluttered because of those white triangles), the title bar merging with panel, indicators, etc! I would say it is really a huge improvement over GNOME classic and better than GNOME Shell 🙂
I agree on the Gnome classic part but how could it be better than Gnome-shell? Have you even tested Gnome-shell? I am pretty sure you haven’t. Cause if so you wouldn’t have said it. What is better with Unity?
Hi Daniel!
Sorry, you wrong about me and the Shell. As I told I tried GNOME Shell and I found it more intuitive then Unity. I have had the lucky oppprtunity to customised it, but the point here isn’t what is the better DE, but what, IMHO Unity lacks to offer to be the very comfortable environment Ubuntu used to be. 🙂
Have you even tested Gnome-shell?
Of course 🙂
Cause if so you wouldn’t have said it.
Hah!
What is better with Unity?
IMO, Unity is better than GNOME Shell in many ways. The best thing I like about it is the merging of the title bar with the panel, it makes browsing the internet real awesome!
@barkton
You mean global menu.. when i used Unity that was one of my main concerns. Partly because i accidentally closed my Firefox a couple of time when just wanted to select a tab and partly when i had another app opened ontop of a maximized app in the background. I constantly focused the background app instead of choosing the menu. I always had to concentrate to not click wrongly. That was really frustrating…
I have heard that they will partly fix one of this problems by using sticky dialogs like they do in OSX. But to be honest that is even worse.
@Daniel
Never happened to me 🙂
As said many times before, free software is also about choice. So you choose to not use unity. Fine. I did choose to use it, and after a few days to get accustomed to it, I like it very much. It’s simple and efficient, and it does not get into my workflow. Also it gives me back some screen real estate, which is great (I work on a daily basis on a 1366×768 screen).
I never got the taskbar idea anyway, and always tended to put the window switcher on the menu bar in gnome…
So really, what do I want from a desktop manager :
1) access my apps launcher quickly. Unity does it perfectly : most common launchers in the launcher dock, the others accessible by typing and few letters in the dash.
2) find my way in my ongoing work
expose does it for me. If really I have a lot of windows for the same app, taskbar never worked for me, as it will either truncates the titles (to a point they are not readable), or hides windows in a common tab.
If I am really lost, compiz scale gives me the big picture.
What else ???
I can understand this is not true for you, but for me unity is the perfect fit. So I had to write it down.
I would encourage you to give Gnome-shell a try. As i have written in my other posts here. I agree that Unity is better than Gnome2 but when it comes to work flow neither of those can oust Gnome-shell. I tried to tackle the shortcomings of Unity for two month before i switched to Gnome-shell.
If you really feel at home with Unity i am glad for you. 😉
For the love of God. Stop it!
As some one said, I think (actually, hope) that some of the usability issues will be accommodated eventually. However, at present both Unity and Gnome3 are not working for me on a pure usability front.
This is the biggy: While having the bottom bar with window and workspace choosers in earlier versions was not ideal, I think the Unity and Gnome3 solutions are even worse. There’s too much additional mouse swishing and clicking just to get to the window of choice. Gnome 3 does a better job of the Alt-Tab option which allows you to pick the window across workspaces, but this is just marginally superior. On the whole, both a very frustrating on this front.
I agree that Unity and Gnome3 are prettier, but from a functionality point of view, Gnome2 hasn’t been beat yet. Fix the above gripe, and I’d probably pick Gnome3 over Unity. However, looking at the Workspace/Window paradigm we presently have, I really can’t see any way to avoid the bottom task bar.
I don’t know about you but i find the Gnome3 way equal or even faster than the Gnome2 way. And if you are missing an Gnome2 feature you could install an appropriate extension to solve it. http://www.webupd8.org/2011/05/new-gnome-shell-extensions-that-provide.html
The panel have limitations that the activities layer don’t. Especially if you run a lot of programs. It is both faster and more fail proof to select your app viewing large thumbnails or type the first letters than guessing.
I don’t really get the “when you run a lot of programs” point. What do you mean by that ?
In my personal experience, I don’t think I can work on more than 3 items in parallel. So at most I will have one or two Firefox (maybe with tabs, but it doesn’t count), my email client (but it could well be hidden and use message indicator), and a real app for the stuff I’m working on : LibreOffice OR eclipse OR gimp OR gedit OR …
At most I add a terminal and a nautilus window giving access to a distant server to that, and thats it.
And that all fits very in the unity launcher…
Maybe is it because using SSD allows to close / reopen apps without asking myself questions ?
What are the use case where you will have “a lot of programs” ?
@Franck
I am not talking about the Launcher of Unity but the bottom panel of gnome2 (i.e. taskbar). How the task switching/work places works on the different DE’s. Where Junker seems to prefer the Gnome2’s. This is something that both Unity and Gnome-shell does better in my experience. Gnome-shell even better than Unity.
@Daniel: Thanks for the link. Let me try it out – if I can get a few things I’m used to from the Gnome2 experience using these extensions in Gnome3, then Gnome3 it is.
Apart from my earlier gripe and the current inability to place program icons on the top panel (if I’m not wrong, it looks like the extension will allow this), I do like Gnome3 for all the screen real estate it releases. Its Places and Devices section also beats Unity (for me).
I do like Unity’s support for merging a window menu with the top panel – it saves space, but still looks a little clunky, though I’m not comfortable with the Launcher on the left. I agree it saves space on widescreens, but just don’t like it aesthetically. A launcher with much smaller icons on the top panel would be best for me, though I figure Canonical is setting it up for touch screens which might warrant the larger size. On current desktop use case, standard icons should be an option.
Yes, it’s probably going to be Gnome3.
I think you’ve spotted a good and really interesting point: the lack of transparency about the (planned) future customization features of Unity (but the same statement could be applied to GNOME Shell/OS).
That’s true: the current version of Unity is a canvas, so we all believe there will be improvements. But, also, we know Canonical aims for a recognizable brand of Ubuntu-as-a-product. So, for example, you’ll not allowed to move Launcher away from left edge, now and forever. Will it be the same for black Lenses, ’cause black means “elegance”?
I could agree with the general idea to prevent “revolutions” in user interface in order to keep the brand and the features you want to deliver. But enabling personalization is a different business, it’s to recognize people have different tastes and to allow people to have a comfortable and enjoyable place to work or play or browse or tweet.
So, in a range between 0 and 100, where Unity designers will place the slider of personalization? What should Ubuntu Community do if the planned value is… 5? 🙂 I’m sure exposing our ideas, our worries and our needs, as Flavia is doing here, is a value, not a menace.
And, no, sorry, IMHO “if you don’t like Unity, switch to $OTHER_KOOL_UI” is a failure for the Unity project itself.
(I had to answer here as it was not possible in the actual post.)
I know she was talking about Unity and it’s shortcomings. I didn’t know how she had solved her problem though and wanted to give an solution and encourage her by sharing my experience. Which i now know she found. In the second answer i wanted to inform that she still could use Ubuntu if she wanted as that was what she liked. She also didn’t seem to know about all the possible customizations in shell. So i took the opportunity to inform about those too.
To you i want to say: I have seen many misconceptions about customizing Gnome-shell. Sure, they are not always very user friendly or easy to find but that doesn’t mean they aren’t there. I have found Gnome-shell to more customizable than Unity.
Basically, i just wanted her to be happy. 😉
Thanks, but I think I don’t need to be informed about GNOME Shell features, I’m a GNOME Release Team member 😛
@Luca “elle.uca” Ferretti
I know. Your nicks web page revealed that to me 😉
You said that i had “missed the point” in the other post which i hadn’t so i wanted to explain why.
I didn’t want to use Unity either, I had my desktop customized exactly how I wanted it in Maverick and I didn’t want to change. But, I gave myself a challenge. I decided, before I even upgraded to Natty, that I would use Unity for at least one month before I switched to the Classic more (or more likely switched to Xfce).
I didn’t stick to the default settings completely, I shrunk the launcher size and replaced the window switcher with Scale, but I left it is mostly on the defaults. It’s been 3 weeks now, and I no longer have any plans to switch. It’s required some changes to my normal use, the lack of taskbar has made my use of Scale plugin more pronounced, but some of the changes have made my use much easier (Super+1 to switch to Chrome, Super+2 to switch to Thunderbird, etc).
So now I put the same challenge to everybody else. Use Unity exclusively for one month, and then decide if you want to switch to something else or not. One month gives you enough time to change your habits and muscle memory, to adapt to the new paradigms, and to really make an informed decision about whether or not it works for you.
+1. I totally agree with that.
I don’t understand why you consider black to be a male color. In Arabia, the women wear black in public and the men traditionally wear white. I know some women who really like black. Windows Vista had a black tint to the taskbar which was admittedly lightened significantly in Windows 7. Would you prefer OS X’s gray taskbar?
While brown was a prominent part of Ubuntu’s earlier themes, I don’t really see brown any more. Orange is still used for selecting, scrollbars, the close button, and the file manager theming.
Pink will never be Ubuntu’s desktop color but the current default wallpaper has light erupting on an aubergine background which looks pink-ish to me (& I believe the light will be even more intense in the next 2 Ubuntu releases). Radiance also looks pinkish to me (I guess because it’s trying to add an orange tint to gray). Gnome 3 has only one included theme, Adwaita. Alternatives haven’t really been written yet, but by 11.10’s release, Ambiance & Radiance will have been ported to Gnome 3.
The problem is if you do not like black then it would be impossible to change in Unity and is the only DE that doesn’t allow it. And i do not think she live in Arabia where ever that is. 😉 To be honest woman wearing black are pretty much just common in Saudia area. The rest of the arabic countries are using colours as vivid as here.
Take a look here for Gome3/shell themes: http://www.webupd8.org/search/label/gnome%20shell?max-results=10 An Ambiance now called Awance have been ported..
Hi Jeremy!
I don’t feel black as a male colour, e.g. I love very much wear black, as one of my friend (male) likes very much pink and purple, and I don’t believe there are male or female colours in absolute. What I regret is the tone, that I feel too much aggressive for my eyes. If you’ve asked me if I feel a black environment too much male and aggressive I have no doubt: yes, it is. I prefer light colours and transparences. But the problem isn’t in colour itself, but in the impossibility to redefine and choose what is better for each user.
I tried to use Natty with Unity, at the end I finished bu using kubuntu. My main problem was Gtalk. With unity it was impossible to use the fullscreen. The video was gray, the small video worked but not the fullscreen. Under kde I do not have any problem. I didn’t try with gnome classic, the classic Gnome is just awful.
I login with Ubuntu classic and use Dockbar instead of the normal window selector on my taskbar. I remove the upper panel and select another window theme and am very happy with it.
For now: no unity for me.
CHE BELLOOOOOOO ASSOLUTAMENTE D’ACCORDO CON TE FLAVIA
Start to use XFCE ^_^
Do not use the Xubuntu desktop and personalize it by yourself… its a great DE give it a try…
With his decision Canonical (and also Gnome with Gnome Shell) have choose to force the user experience to his experience like Mac Osx or M$ Windows, so why use it?
Because that would teach you a more effective way and a give you a better work flow than previously possible. XFCE and LXDE where not designed to give you a better work flow. They where made to be light and work on lesser hardware. And light normally means lesser features.
Also.. you would be equally forced by XFCE to a special user experience.
The better workflow is one for me, another for you and so…
The difference between a static and a dynamic interface is the freedom to choose everything component i want on my desktop, on my bar and so on…
The use of launch bar, the unity menu, the unity app menu forced to be static is not an example of freedom!
Xfce in the past was considered for lesser hardware machine… now it is not so, you must use the same application that work on gnome, you must use also the same effects (compiz!), you must use also the same with a graphic interface that is egual to the old gnome…
But if you like you can personalize the bar, the desktop , the menu and so on…
What i can choose with unity ? I can move bar to bottom? I can use old classic menu?
For do that i need to start a classic gnome session and personalized it myself… so unity is not usefull for me… Other people have the same experience… more of them use ubuntu for work not only for chat on facebook!
@Black_Codec: Well, i am actually referring to Gnome-shell and there you have the choice to do the above things you mention. The extensions allow you to do pretty much anything. And i am not kidding about the work flow. I did not think it was possible but it is. I just had to let it teach me. I have a much cleaner desktop thanks to this.
And of course are everyone’s taste different. It was your second sentence that triggered my response. It may apply on unity but not gnome-shell. The user experience is also unique and different on all DE’s, thus something you always have to learn no matter what you choose. 😉
after several weeks trying Xubuntu , i didn’t look come back to Unity nor g-Shell…
Ok!!! Hello. Here is my question. If you don’t use it because you find it uncounfortable to your sight, difficult to use and claustrophobic, why the fuck did you said to the people that it’s new and fantastic?
Do you understand that, at this point, your credibility is not more reliable?
Oh, finally! Someone recognized what I wrote!
But be monolitic could bring to a lack of prospectives. I’m Ubuntu member and I love talking to the people explaining what Ubuntu does for them and how.
Appreciate a project doesn’t mean delegate someone else the right to think or talk, or choose, contrariwise I know many people that easily talk about main project of Ubuntu (with GNOME/Unity ecc) but normally use KDE, Xubuntu, Lubuntu or other.
In fact there is a not-so-thin difference between talking for the community and talking to the community: I think I can keep on both roles, and help Ubuntu to grow up outside and inside. Do you?
I understand your point and, believe me, I agree a lot with you. Specially when you talk about the freedom to personalize the system, because, like you, also I regret and hate the homologation apple style.
But, this not justify you. Do you know that tale about the king who was naked but nobody admited it, until a child asked why in the hell the king was naked?
Well I found here the same situation. When you wrote that unity is uncounfortable to your sight – and the other things – you can’t still saying any more that is fantastic to the people. That should be hipocrisy.
Now, I’m not saying that you are an hipocrite, let me finish: I also understand why you made this post. It has the same motivations and make me remember when I wrote that Canonical was wasting the meaning of Ubuntu. I want to make a critic in order to improve the dialogue and the changes from an internal point of view.
Well, let me say you that it didn’t finish good. 😀 time by time I realize that I wasn’t so wrong. Canonical is doing a lot of things in order to attract people. Since they call private designers to make “their” – actually is Debian 😀 – system, the meaning of community is not more relevant. The old quest: quality or quantity? Canonical had chosen quantity.
First Ubuntu was like “my space” you know: you could modified your virtual space and make it good. Now it’s – and believe me, will be – like “facebook”, you have your interface, like everyone else, and you have to deal with it. But, “hey! there will be a lot of people that will use it to!!!” <- homologation.
Now, you know that the king is naked, and you can't keep looking his invisible clothes. You could wait until they make him decent clothes, or you could ask yourself if it's still useful to do talks in order to make grown a Company.
Anyway, between Unity and Gnome Shell I recomend the last one. Because it will have more chances to grow up from the user personalization point of view. And this would be thanks to the fact that Gnome is a foundation whereas Canonical is a Company.
Firstly i would like you to use a nicer language. Your tone is not very polite.
Secondly.. you didn’t understand her point. Basically it is. Ubuntu is great. Unity is currently not. Here are some things that need to change in Unity to make it great.
So nothing she said was wrong, bad or hypocritical. Her thought was very credible and reliable. She just wanted to spread some Ubuntu love even though she are not using Unity.
You on the contrary seems to be on another path spreading the word of the “evil” company who doesn’t care of the community. While the truth is no where close to that. Nothing have changed.. Ubuntu is still free. You can still choose Unity or any other DE if you like. Although i agree that Unity was the wrong way to go it is still a choice they have the right to take.
you realize that the tone is something that you can only check in an oral or spoken speech? This is a common error, people read what I clearly wrote and think that I’m “not polite“. If you could talk with me one in front to another you will realize that my tone is not bad or agressive.
Ergo, I’m afraid but I don’t have time to use what you call “nicer language”, which, in a nutshell, is: “write with care and love.” Certain linguistics call that Courtesy and let me tell you that is a waste of time. So, no please, I write things clearly and without insult anybody, don’t you like it? I coudn’t care.
Have I insulted or offended her? No. I even said that I really don’t think that she is an hipocrite. And we are having a dialogue.
“Ubuntu love“… that’s funny.
Notice also that, at no time I said that she said wrong or bad things. And, again, no: if you say that something is fantastic and a while after you say that the same thing uncounfortable to your sight, difficult to use and claustrophobic you are not credible any more. Bye.
@Santiago: That is not true and you know it. The tone are decided depending on how you use the words. There for it is extra important to think before you write. Normally people often read what is written. There for you need to be extra clear to not be misunderstood.
You said that she are a hypocrite and then that she are not. Isn’t that the same type of “moment 22” that you where trying to respond to?
The main problem though was that you didn’t understand what she tried to address.
Now, listen, I understand perfectly what you want to say. But that’s not called “tone”, that is an issue concerning the “courtesy” or the “politeness”. The point is that I’m not offending or insulting you or Flavia. I’m just saying the things clearly and in a direct way. The reason is that I’m not an English native speaker, and I don’t have time to applied courtesy. That doesn’t mean that I’m a “hater”, because I’m not writing with hate. I’m not talking about feelings*.
No, I said that if she act in a certain way “that should be hypocrisy.” And then I said that I don’t think that she is an hypocrite because I understood that she’s addressing this issues to the community and not to the people.
Now the problem is: She admited it, and the explanations – despite the fact that are compressible – doesn’t justify her, because she have already said what she thinks to all the people with this post.
This is an internal critic, published in a external way. Now everybody (even she) knows what she really thinks, how can she would continue to affirm the contrary?
——————-
*I want you to notice that the one who use some curious adjectives is you. I pay attention to the words. For example, you said that I saw Canonical as an “evil” Company, then you talk about some judgements that I never done, like : “So nothing she said was wrong, bad or hypocritical“. And in the end you talk about thetruth of the situation and a certain “ubuntu love“.
Coming back on topic:
I’ve been pondering over the Unity/Gnome3 “advances” after trying them all out (with extensions suggested by Daniel for getting launcher icons on the top panel) and have concluded as follows:
Unity/Gnome3 is problematic for my use case mainly because of the task switch problems they generate. In the absence of a task bar, it’s hard to switch between app windows visually, and this is worst when one window is hidden behind another. Alt-Tab offers a solution, but in Unity it’s not done optimally; in Gnome3 it’s done pretty well, though the main problem for both is that this involves more key presses, as opposed to a simple tab select off the task bar in Gnome 2.
Recalling discussions among Gnome 3 developers I recall the opinion by some that for good work flows it’s probably better to have a 1:1 match between work spaces and applications. I’m guessing that that’s why we’ve arrived at the present impasse (for me at least). I’m beginning to conclude that perhaps the only way we can do away with the task bar (the bottom panel in Gnome 2) is to enforce (or give the option to enforce) every app window is opened in a new workspace. Then the problem simplifies to just selecting the desired workspace, and does away with selecting possibly hidden windows within any given workspace. Unity and Gnome 3 may work for me then. Other wise Gnome 2 is probably the evolution of Unity and Gnome 3. As some one said, that is exactly where the current group of extensions is taking me minus, alas, something that solves the absent task bar problem. 😦
Mind you, I do like the space freed up in Unity and Gnome by the absence of the task bar. +1 for that. But -1 1/2 for not resolving this task switching problem!
Um, may be the Gnome 3 folks got it right after all. My use case gripe, when I really spell it out, was this:
If I’m in a workspace with several windows open, and the one I want to switch to is hidden behind where I am, I wanted to be able to go to it with waving my mouse (or hitting the windows button) to get to the view of open workspaces and then clicking on the window I want. However, short of using Alt-Tab, this is in fact what I have to do, and thinking about it, this is actually quite acceptable though a little tedious. Alt-Tab might not be much more tedious than this, after all, and both get me to the desired app window.
Having a 1:1 app window to workspace ratio would not save me the work of pressing the Window button or waving the mouse to the top left corner to view open work spaces, so I realize enforcing a 1:1 ratio would not solve my use case.
I really do like the cleaner view without the task bar at the bottom of the screen from an aesthetic view point. So I’d finally conclude that Gnome 3 gets a +1 from me (though I have to have my launcher icons on the top panel – and I do have it now thanks to Daniel’s link to the shell extensions). So for sure now, it’s Gnome 3 for me. Confessional DE selection now over and out.
Hahaha! A really nice review there Junkers. It was interesting to read about the experience you had of the extensions. I have not tried them myself as i concluded as you did in this second response that the default way was better. I’ll bet that future extensions will probably solve this eventually. Currently a dock like AWN or Cairo-dock working as a task switcher could do this though. Nothing i would recommend as i see them as unnecessary resource hogs. I find that i can do task switching as effective as i did before.. even more effective if i use the keys. The new way is also more visually appealing.
Thanks Daniel, I wasn’t sure I was making sense in the middle of all these UI changes! Yes, I’d say Gnome 3 is the best choice for me, and in that light, I believe the Gnome devs got it right. Lots of fine tuning still needed (font, color, background choices, location choices for the clock, tool tips, etc) but I can wait for them to come along.
From a desktop user’s view point, I’d say Canonical got it wrong. They may still be right when things move on to touch screens and stuff, but that’s still way off the area that serious desktop/workstation users care about. In other words, I think Canonical got their target users mixed up, or painted with too broad a brush.
We’ll see how it finally pans out, as both Unity and Gnome fine tune their current DEs which are both clearly in an x.0 state. 🙂