Well-known tech journalist Nicholas Petreley tried Gnome 2.6 but he got baffled by the default Nautilus 2.6 behavior to open each folder on a new window and also from the inability to change colors on a GTK+ theme through a UI. On a positive note, Gnome’s Tim Ney informed us about the Guadec 5 event.
Gnome 2.6: Living Down to a Low Standard
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
147 Comments
2004-05-13 3:16 pm
Gnome 2.6? I haven’t even figured out how to properly change the wallpaper yet. Sad really…
If you represent a typical Gnome user, then I know why so many people are unhappy with it. 😮
I remember a long time ago OSNews linked to some of the original proposals for a spatial browser in Gnome.
I can remember thinking at the time they were being very pedantic about it, everything in the spatial mode had to be spatial and nothing else because it would not fit the spatial model.
I thought this was a mistake, that they were letting the pedanticness get in the way of usability, other systems have decidely non-spatial functions even in spatial mode and users can still use them, these systems are more useable because of this.
BeOS in it’s spatial mode still gives you the ability to navigate using a single menu and the individual windows allow you to see the levels above that directory. This is a mix of styles and works very well as you can get around the problem of having dozens of windows on screen. It’s what I use – I have never used the web-browser model in BeOS and have no desire to. On the Mac I used the web-browser model because I couldn’t figure out how to navigae using a menu (I’ve since been told this is possible though).
I think the Gnome people have made the mistake of thinking useability is about treating users as idiots, they should not have been so pedantic in their spatial mode.
Useabiity is not about removing options, it’s about having sesible options and having additional options in the right place, you should not have to go to the command line to change fundamental GUI options.
Don’t know but the locking down of features would really fit in with what corporates want: a unified desktop that they can control that the worker bees can’t bugger up.
Make sense?
This article exposes the total lack on consistency on the Linux platform in general. He picks on GNOME specifically, but most Linux GUI applications are just as bad.
Linux has been successful on the server for 2 reasons:
1) You really don’t need a GUI on a server, so user’s don’t have to look at it.
2) Legacy Unix apps. port nicely (and cheaply) to Linux.
Other than that Linux is going nowhere, because of poorly designed software like GNOME, etc…
Please differentiate the critics about something and the form to say it. The articule title is: “Gnome 2.6: Living Down to a Low Standard” So, you expect to hear good arguments about why GNOME 2.6 is bad at least.
A better title for this article is: “I hate GNOME!”. I don’t like spatial folder either, I also hate this behavior in Windows 95 (mostly because if you need to navigate through a 15 folder to find something you got 14 folders open that you don’t need), but I don’t write articles like that.
Please don’t put these kind of bad quality articles. I love the comments, but the article is a very bad one.
Most of the people that hate spatial nautilus are windows or kde people (my sole desktop has been kde since v2.x). What people really miss is that the goal of Gnome is simplicity, much like MacOS. If I were to set up a computer for a complete neophyte, the desktop would be Gnome 2.6. It is simple, logical, and functional. I agree with “Andrew D”, this is exactly why Gnome is popular for the business desktop. There is a reason why Sun and RedHat chose Gnome.
If you are a power user/tinkerer, go with KDE, it has MANY more options. Gnome users hate KDE for the same reason KDE users hate gnome. KDE’s goal is functionality, Gnome’s goal is simplicity. There is a reason why there are two dominant *nix desktops. Different people have different tastes. Move on, get over it.
Hey, is it still so difficult to change the font size of the gnome terminal? Since I have weak vision, that’s a very important feature for me, and since gnome 1.x, it has been always complicated to impossible to change the font size.
In fact, a colleague of mine who uses gnome 100% of the time, wasn’t able to change the font size – he only managed to have 2 sizes (a lartger and a smaller), and that’s it.
I have not been using gnome in the last 1 year, so I don’t know if this particular thing improved, but if I was forced to use it, I would make sure konsole is available.
Open the Gnome terminal and click the ‘Edit’ menu, then select ‘Current Profile’. You will see the font selection, colours etc. You can use any font in whatever size you like.
On spatial nautilus, I found it irritating until I read the comment here somwehere about using middle click to open a new folder and close the current one. Makes more sense now, but I’m still not *totally* convinced.
What is interesting about the article is that it’s such a small (literally bite sized
issue to sort out, yet it generated so much antipathy.
Really, a single change to a default option is not such a big deal, and hardly requires a complete reworking of the Linux kernel and Gnome desktop to implement.
Now, if he ranted about the confusing mime type configuration, I would have some sympathy….
Maybe the wording on the menus needs to improve in gnome-terminal, to change the font size go to `Edit’ and then `Current Profile’.
I guess it makes sense for someone who wrote the code to
call the beasts `profiles’, but I agree it is confusing if you have never poked in that menu.
Miguel.
I can only disagree with the author. I am very happy with the evolution of Gnome during the 2.x versions.
I have tried many Linux-distributions since kernel 0.97, always being interested but never making the switch.
with Gnome 2.4 and now 2.6 the Gnome desktop was the final reason for me to finally switch all my PCs (notebooks, server) to Linux. I find the spatial Nautilus to be a great advancement over every [Linux] desktop before. when they get rid of the last inconsistancies, I will be even more happy.
honestly. my fault was to look mostly at SuSe in the last 3-4 years – they make huge effords on KDE, but used to nearly ignore Gnome in terms of integrating with the distro. KDE still makes me look for something different whenever I am forced to use it. if I had seen a good Gnome-based distro before I might have been on Linux for a while now…
please people at Ximian, Red Hat, Sun and whoever contributes to this piece of software: continue your great work! thank you all very much.
Carsten
Not sure it is what you want, but gnome-terminal has “View -> Zoom in”.
But if you really want to permanently change the terminal font, open your font preferences (Main menu -> Preferences -> Fonts), and change the “Terminal font” to something bigger.
It’s very easy…
I always thought Gnome was lame. A cheap cheesy Win 95 clone is what I thought in year 2000. I recently tried Gnome 2.6 on Fedora test 3 and was blown away. This is the only Linux user interface to adopt human interface design standards in order to simplify computer use. This is what is done in OS X to insure consistancy accross multiple computers and applications. A user is not liable to become confused as to how to use an OS X app because it looks and functions just like every other OS X app. And while Linux is all about choice, the freedom to deal with fewer choices is still a freedom, and it is one that I value. As a long time KDE user I have tweaked every aspect of the KDE interface until I am sick of it. I want a consistant interface that is simple and attractive with limited options for fiddling. The spatial file manager is great, but it can EASILY be turned of in Gconf. This writer sounds like a disgruntled newbie. Since when did Linux have a registry. I thought it used clear text files in the /home and /etc folders. If he don’t like Gnome so much then why use it? If he don’t like Linux (which I suspect) then use XP. Gnome 2.6 pulled me totally away from KDE.
To change the desktop wallpaper, right-click on the desktop and choose “Change Desktop Background”.
Alternativeley, you can go to Main menu -> Preferences -> Desktop Background.
And, cherry on top of the cake: you can also drop a picture file on the desktop using the ALT (or META) key pressed, and choose “Set as background”. It even works for folders other than the desktop.
Now, how hard is that ?
remember win95, remember old GEM in atari ST series…
when you open a folder while pressing ctrl it
1° if spatial view was the default
open the new one in the same windows
2° if browser view was the default
open the new one in a new windows
what is hard with that ?
just have an option to set the default choice and modify the comportement of the modifier key………..;
I can’t underdestand those guys anymore…..
for those who cares about their data :
never, never, never copy one folder into one whith the same one in order to make the destination one updated
this bug is around like forever (since 2001) and they just don’t care !!!
They don’t feel the need to be consistant in their own paradigm, how would they care the opinion of their shrinking users base ? for them, it’s a meuh point (as joey would say)……
I like spatial nautilus, but I was sick of it I think, anyway I would not have _any_ problem to use it again.
I just read the nautilus 1/4 of nautilus –help and I realized that with nautilus –browser I can get the old look, so in the sessions I went to the startup programs and I just added another argument “–browser” and now everything works.
I have no problem with it and I like it.
Years ago, when I introduced myself to linux via Mandrake 6, I tried a few different de’s/wm’s. With KDE, I was able to be productive in the shortest amount of time. Gnome had inconsistencies which I never spent the time to figure out–I just switched back to KDE and got back to work.
if you got work done on mandrake 6 you could get work done on gnome 2.6
Linux was hardly as good in 1998 or whatever, especiallly mandrake
I’ve used computer since the DOS days. I still run some DOS machines and have used Xtree as file manager. The first Windows version of Xtree used tabs – this was in the Windows 3.1 days.
I loved the feature, because I would save various views of my data in tabs and keep them loaded. Say it would display “*.doc” – all my .doc files no matter what the directory.
I do alot of archiving of data that is stored it directories based on month or year or other criterea (this is data generated be computerized calibration equipment in manufacturing). I generate a lot of data files, and tabs used to help out alot.
I’m surprised no one else has considered tabs in file managers.
Open the Gnome terminal and click the ‘Edit’ menu, then select ‘Current Profile’. You will see the font selection, colours etc. You can use any font in whatever size you like.
That’s exactly what Marcin did, but he only managed two sizes (a small and a slightly larger one). The third profile just wouldn’t change the font! Maybe a bug in that version of gnome terminal?
I am arriving too late for this discussion but…
wel said about Gnome 2.6. It sucks bad ! becuase of spatial view, can’t change colors unless the default themes, can’t stick windows !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! in all desktops
(this is a really unix feature many of us noted missing)
Luckily we can opt for KDE when in a rush situation to get the work done in less time,
that’s the main purpose of a window manager.
I don’t really want full tab support in nautilus, that seems like too much to me. I want a Nautilus to use the same widget that the Open/Save dialog uses for the file tree. Of course this would basically fill the same job as the up menu currently in nautilus. Its been my experience that that menu really makes the spatial nautilus easier to work with, and that its something that people who don’t like it have missed because unless you know that its a menu, you don’t even think about it. Using the same widget as the Open/Save would reuse a good widget not used anywhere else, and would also present the directories to the user more quickly. It would also help if that new widget, and the folder icons were ‘springloaded’ when drag and dropping, but as Apple has that patented, its doubtful that will happen.
I’d also like to see Pseudo-spatial behavior. Spatial style windows (with the changes I suggested above.). Directories on the desktop being ‘top level’ directories would open in new windows. directories inside these would open inside that window, unless you double middle click on them.
The other option that I’ve found that really makes the spatial style more workable is the option to use home as desktop. This saves you from having to constantly go through the home directory icon to constantly open your files. But it also depends upon you keeping your home directory clean and orderly, so its definately not for everybody.
I’m surprised no one else has considered tabs in file managers.
You can configure Konqueror to open each folder on a tab (i’ve done it with KDE 3.2)
Victor.
…. end why can’t one choose not to show window content when resizing or when moving a window ?
OK, maybe I am too primate …, I meant, too primitive when using a GUI but all this features (stick a window and not show window content) were not seen in Gnome 2.6.
They could put an option on the “windows” dialog of the “Settings” Panel — if the user prefered it he/she could choose it.
*sigh*
If anyone wants the answer to the question “why hasn’t there been anything revolutionary in WIMP interfaces since it’s invention?” then the post I’m replying to is your answer. Look at all the noise generated over what’s effectively some small differences. People hate change. They hated it when the loom was invented, and they hated it when the car was produced, and they hated it when the first GUI’s were produced, and I’ve seen nothing to indicate that that perception about people has changed. Now of course we have mass produced clothes, and speedy and comfortable cars, plus GUI’s that make us productive, so that should tell you something about how accurate our reluctance really is.
>>Tabbed file browsing would also work for Internet file
>>upload/download – again, you nearly get this with
>>Konqueror today.
>>If you want to look at the metaphors, “tabbed folders” is
>>a much closer metaphor of my desk-side filing cabinet,
>>where I quickly move between folders for different
>>activities.
>>(And it would innovatively break away from the Windows 95
>>tradition (:-)
AMEN BROTHER!
»» and speedy and comfortable cars, plus GUI’s that make us productive, so that should tell you something about how accurate our reluctance really is. ««
(my keyboard map is in trouble currently «« sorry )
I didn’t understood completely your point.
I am NOT reluctant to NEW ideias but I use the lighest gadgets possible and resizing windows whit no content shown is used by me for years (speccialy in Windows OS and KDE or FVWM), I like it, I can’t use it in Gnome.
I also stick many windows like XOSVIEW and XCLOCK while I do important or heavy tasks with a lot of windows or terminals opened in my four virtual desktops (hence the low memory usage the better »» = not show windows content !)
I only think that it is usefull as a feature, thus Gnome living up to a (very) low features standard, … for no reason I might add.
As I wrote some time ago, before my comment was moderated.. “gnome is getting worse and worse from version to version”. The guy just wrote what I wrote. As old saying says: “if you desing system for morons only morons will use it”.
So my advice is that GNOME developers should be the only people who use it.
But don’t worry if you don’t like this version of GNOME, the next one is going to be worse. Mark my words.
“There are ultimately only two alternatives in the intellectual life: either one conforms desire to the truth or one conforms truth to desire” — Michael Jones.
Many of the criticisms here are by those who actually know that GNOME is nice. But because of their desires or other unmentioned reasons they have chosen to be intellectually dishonest and lie against the truth.
My question to all of you here is this: Are you saying that GNOME sucks just because you want it to suck? Are you saying that GNOME sucks just because it makes you feel good and makes your preferred desktop look good? You know the answer to those questions. What matters is what you know in your head, heart and mind about GNOME, not what you say in public about it.
Are you intellectually honest by admitting the truth and not just what suits your desire?
… the vocal critics say: i like the new spatial Nautilus.
It’s not like i am managing my files all the day and the few file managing tasks i have to do are easy and fast with Nautilus 2.6.
Generally i think the importance of file managers is overestimated when it comes to day by day use. The times when i had to use a FM to start applications or build my launch menu are long gone and were mostly never existent on GNU/Linux (or Unix for that matter) systems, courtesy to sensible $PATH settings and a superior file system layout.
Somebody who needs a FM to navigate his /usr tree should be reminded that you shouldn’t allow root to login to X out of safety reasons.
Anyway, i think the Gnome 2.6 release, including Nautilus, is the best yet. Keep up the good work.
Anyway, i think the Gnome 2.6 release, including Nautilus, is the best yet. Keep up the good work.
– agreed
I have never been a big fan of gnome nor KDE. I use fluxbox on most of my boxes, but I use gnome2.6(slackware/dropline) on this one, and I really like it. I agree that the spatial feature shoulod be easier to disable, but give it a rest with the bashing people!
I don’t agree with the spatial Nautilus idea because it is not what people are used to and has been rejected. Even if you had a WinFS/meta file type setting, you still have containers of files and objects and you need to be able to view them. However, long protracted tree-lists are not a good option and we need a better way of representing files and data in general better.
Here’s what gets me: GNOME refuses to switch to single-click as its default on the grounds that it would confuse people. Yet, they have no qualms about adopting a very inconvenient and unfamiliar spatial system that hasn’t been seen for about 5 years.
Everyone knows that single-click is easier to understand and better for you and yet the GNOME devs refuse to use it.
What this really shows is that GNOME is now really nothing more than trying to make a slightly updated version of MacOS <10.
I’ve been there and I don’t want to return to those days. If GNOME keeps pissing off its userbase like this, expect the ROX environment or XFCE to become more and more popular for dissappointed GNOME users. That’s what happened with me. After being ignored or flamed on the GNOME mailing lists for too long, I learned about <a href=”http://rox.sourceforge.net/phpwiki/index.php/Screenshots“>ROX-Fi… and switched over to it full-time.
It’s super fast, can be used with any wm and has options like editing symlinks that other file managers don’t have.
I’m shocked by most of the comments here. I really hate theese “but some user might want to change the color of his UI” arguments because
a) that obviously means that the default colors are bad. So we should better spend time improving them instead of everyone feeling like a big hacker because he can customize his desktop. I know some people need to tune their cars while others love to fiddle around with their computer, but that shouldn’t really be the target audience of a desktop environment.
Also the “but some” is a really silly argument, just consider these:
“but some users could prefer to have their desktop upsidedown because they love to hang their monitor ceiling”
What we really need are apps to get our daily work done, not having more possibilities to spend our free time with strange computer tuning.
I’m using Mandrake10/Gnome2.6 at home. I kept the spacial feature as I profoundly like it. It feels more differently than Windows, keeps me warm.
I use Windows XP at job. And so I use explorer.exe with the “browsing”-style of navigation through folders.
I understand why people seem to like the browsing approach very appealing. Maybe because it’s very very simple. You don’t have to manage many windows, but just one. I think it’s suited for straightfoward people. I’m going from point A to point B that’s it, that’s all.
The Spacial approach feels to me like the powergui way to fly. When you become at ease with a GUI, you’re normally not afraid having a lot of windows opened with anything: lots of filemanager windows, lots of applications running wild, in short, abusing of your desktop.
I noticed while working a lot with Windows XP that I have regulary went to My Computer because I need another filemanager browser because I didn’t want to close the first one because I need to acces the files there quickly. And eventually I will redo the process climbing to 4-5 browsers.
I think the spacial way is really great to a person like me who spread itself to a lot of different places in it’s hardrives or network drives.
Is konqueror bad, I don’t think so. Is spacial Nautilus bad, I really, really don’t think so.
Everyone knows that single-click is easier to understand and better for you and yet the GNOME devs refuse to use it.
That’s one thing I don’t agree with. People are used to double-clicking (even Mac engineers have admitted that they would have thought differently about the one-button mouse), and from a usability point of view, double clicking is a good idea. You can quite easily single-click on something by accident and, quite possibly, have something bad happen.
I don’t agree with Spatial Nautilus, but I don’t think a discussion about how file and data can be viewed differently is a bad idea. Tree views aren’t going to disappear, and spatial views by themselves are a massive step backwards, but I can’t help feeling that with WinFS/meta-data’d filing systems a possibility, there can’t be something different (not new) discovered out there.
I don’t agree with the way that Spatial Nautilus has been shoved in in the name of usability, but just talking about it could have some interesting side-effects.
Actually, I think using spatial as the default has some interesting consequences. A lot more people will have tried it out and there will be lots more feedback. This is kind of an experimental feature that needs more work to be really useful, which means that feedback is crucial.
If it doesn’t work out as well as hoped, then it’s just to make browsing the default next time. If the feedback can make it work really great, then maybe it can continue as the default nautilus way.
And someone, please hack together a color selection tab for the theme manager, that’d pawn ;D
Mouse gestures! My favorite extension for Firefox is the radial context menu, which combines mouse gestures with a pie menu. It’s more intuitive than keyboard shortcuts and promotes spatial and muscle memory, just like spatial file browsing.
It’s also innovative and does not exist by default in either WinXX or OSX. Why aren’t open source developers more interested in this type of interface?
I would say that there are definitely problems with Gnome2.6, but they do not include the two mentioned in the article. For example, it annoys me that I can’t edit launchers on the desktop, that I can’t have shortcut keys for apps, that there is no sign of mouse gestures, that gedit repeatedly forgets its recent files list…
However, I still use and like it. The combination of spatial view for general use and tree-based browsing for digging through the file system works very well for me. I have 8 desktops right now, so if I am working on a project, I have all my folders open and arranged, and I can switch to them all in a second.
Also, spatial view has encouraged me to organise my files a lot better, so I can actually find things now with two or three clicks that before I would have had to type in *.ext filters or similar.
And also, single click opening is confusing for many people, the main issue being that there’s no intutive way to select files; dragging a box is something that I have had to explain to people before, and if that’s needed to select a single file…
It would be nice to hear of different ways people have found to make the process of file management more efficient. There seems to be suprisingly many ways to improve this. I have already found a couple of good tricks reading these comments. There are presumably different approaches for different tasks; when do you change your approach? It would be great to see detaild real world scenarios for effective file management in different situations. Software tutorials and even computer books don’t really seem to teach this. They tell you what tools are available and how to use them, but they don’t tell you which tool to use when or how to combine these tools to make your work flow. This is also something that Nautilus and concept of spatial management might benefit from: giving users different file management case studies, where same task is done both browser style and spatially. It would be nice to know, if there already are some web resources for this subject.
Yeah, I already knew that… Problem is I can’t get the thing to work right. Like say I have a directory I’ve created and placed a bunch of image files in. In Gnome 2.4, selecting one of those images is pretty easy. 2.6, I can’t get it to take the image, don’t know why. Shoot, I’d use bsetbg if it comes to it, but come on, this is supposed to be a convenient desktop. Has me going back to flux and company.
I use spacial mode since FC2T1 and I love it.
My favorit file manager :
– nautilus
– bash
bash rules >-)
For everyday use Spatial Gnome 2.6 is great. You can use the “Shift” Click approach to keep your desktop clean and if you want to traverse back up the file navigation tree you can easily do it dropping to any of the higher folders along your current window path. What can be more difficilt. It also allows for true drag and drop GUI utilisation for folders and files which the traditional browser doesn’t.
It is as easy if not easier than having a toolbar along the top with navigational buttons and the single window approach.
Horses for courses but for everyday use centered around a home folder tyhis is ideal. For System file hunting then try right clicking on your desktop home folder/Computer folder and select Browse. Really hard, NOT. Some you folk just need to get a life. Oh and I’m enjoying my Gnome High Contrast theme to. Simple and elegant without all the Bull Sh1t some desktops display now days.
type “nautilus –no-desktop –browser”, or make a desktop link to that command. no need to make any changes to gconf. It’s really not THAT hard to read docs and manpages.
why should I be expected to read docs in order to change something about my gui? Shouldn’t there be a setting that has a gui that I can change instead? I don’t have to type some command line to do this in windows, it is part of the gui to be able to change it, so why shouldn’t I expect the same in linux?
http://www.whiprush.org/2004/05/crack_pipes_for.html