this post was submitted on 15 Jan 2024
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I don't have the answer, though im positive someone else here does. On Fedora, an appindicator extension is included with the distro, but disabled by default, and this is still suboptimal UX.
The biggest offender for me was the overview at login change with gnome 40. It was so controversial that it even pulled in Matt Miller to weigh in on the matter directly. The exchange is extremely disappointing
I still use gnome, and I feel that it's still the most polished DE available, I'm just worried about what other changes they might incorporate without any user-centric reasoning.
Why does overview at login offend you?
There's at least a speech or post somewhere where the design is explained, and once I read it, I understood it more. It boils down to: there's no reason to be on the desktop page when no window is open. And the first thing you will do when logging in is to open a window, e.g. by taping on a pinned icon. Once I understood that there is a productivity increase, I liked it. Prior to that I even used dash to dock because I didn't understood GNOME's workflow. As soon as I understood that there's a broader concept behind it, which I didn't know back then, I stopped using it. Since using PaperWM, an extension that enables sliding tiling, extensions like dash to dock hindered my workflow because they don't make sense.
Yeah I actually like the change. It's one less thing to do when I turn on my PC and get to work.
On login, I either open an app, or I drag multiple apps onto multiple desktops, then get started. Both need the activities view open to do. It's useless to boot to an empty screen IMO.
I do concede that if you've configured hotkeys to open certain programs, it may be better to boot to desktop, though. And there's also the "this is what I'm used to after decades of using Windows" argument, which is valid, just look at other fantastic desktops that copy the Windows paradigm such as Plasma and Cinnamon, but Gnome has never tried to be like Windows, and I don't think they should.
I know that if you use dash to dock, there's an option to disable activities view. And probably a bunch of other extensions too, but idk, I don't use extensions.
Hey, valid question. In my case, I still have to use Windows for work, so I like to keep a uniform workflow (with dash to panel on linux).
I launch my regular apps with super keys and numbers (also have a shared terminal shortcut since I use conemu/cmder on windows), and the overview will block that until I hit super or escape (or at least did with gnome 40).
This scenario represented many of the responders in that thread. You could argue that this only really affects a subset of users who behave in such a way (keyboard centric with pinned shortcuts), and that gnome are working towards a more 'one size fits all' approach with overview at login, but this sort of behaviour is not seen on any other desktop environment, including Windows and Mac.
It's prompting that you must do something as soon as you log in, which I feel is jarring.
I wouldn't say I'm offended at the change, more that I'm disappointed in the gnome team's refusal to discuss the matter with their own end users. They were adamant about the change and shut down any prospect of a toggle for it.
With that said, Florian had kindly helped one of the members create a shell extension to disable it.
Meta+Numbers work on 45
GNOME extensions should be more accessible, KDE is a good (not perfect) example for this. If GNOME extensions were more accessible, the design choices wouldn't matter too much. Since when are we dealing with extensions and extension manager and neither is installed by default on most OSs.
True, they work regardless. DTP keeps a consistent look across my desktops, and I agree that having to install third party extensions is perhaps not ideal to reach that, but I was catering to a specific use case. I didn't mean to suggest that I dont find stock gnome to be a perfectly servicable DE.
In any case, the overview at login is still obstructive for my workflow, and I've resorted to disabling that with yet another extension.
I did try plasma 5.27 and 6 (fedora 40 rawhide) very recently. Can appreciate all the functionality it offers but maybe it goes a but too far. I found it sort of busy, the config menus were disorienting, and I found myself tweaking that ootb experience more than with gnome.
Damn, this thread you've linked... I can't believe they didn't even want to consider giving the user an option to choose the behavior for themselves.
It seems to be characteristic of the Gnome project's philosophy to do things in what they consider the best way rather than the way a new user might expect. It's an admirable commitment to deliberate design rather than copying, but it may also make it unappealing to some users. Personally I don't enjoy using Gnome, but I know people who love it. Thankfully in the Linux world we have options.
I don't know if I'd call that "admirable". It's not the first time I see Gnome team basically telling the users "STFU, we know better".