Overall, like it and think this is a good direction. It didn't really take me long to adjust to. I do think we need to communicate this a _lot_, because change is hard and there exist a lot of negativity around GNOME changes in general (even when such negativity is really ironic). Let's make sure to get positive messaging out there.
Personally, I think we should take this a step further and make an always-on dock a configurable preference. But one thing at a time. :)
Anyway, here's my feedback after running with this for a week:
* The latest mutter update in the copr broke my ability to log in my existing account (getting the sad face "can't do anything"). Haven't had time to really diagnose yet. That makes me a little worried that others might experience something similar. For non-techie users this basically says "your machine is dead and now you have to reinstall".
* Super-L does not lock the screen. Actually that shortcut just plain doesn't work no matter what I set it to.
* I really find overview-zoom and unzoom animations to be too slow. Turning them off is, however, too jarring. Hopefully Impatience will be available as an extension again, but I think we should consider making the default a little faster and perhaps proving options in Tweaks. (I know this isn't new, just missing it from not having that extension.)
* That said, when using the scroll wheel, the switch workspace animation feels too _fast_. It's easy to get lost if I have more than two workspaces. I know, it's all subjective, but that's my impression.
* Speaking of extensions, obviously the redesign is going to impact a lot of them. Is the popularity sort on https://extensions.gnome.org/ meaningful? We should consider explicitly testing the top 20 or so and commenting on compatibility.
* I don't have a strong opinion about horizontal vs. vertical workspace alignment, even after using it for a week. Either is fine with me. However I had previously used always-zoom-workspaces, and there's not really a logical place for that in the new design. The net result of this is that I forget what's on my other workspaces and open up more new windows and workspaces in general throughout the day.
From reading other feedback, I think many people have a strong opinion about this even though I don't. One factor might be multi-monitor; if I have two monitors side by side, the side-scrolling workspaces are confusing and vertical makes more sense. Also, on a 16:9 panel vertical space is precious, and especially so on 13" or 14" notebooks -- making a side dock more logical.
I know we don't like having a lot of options, but I wonder if having a 90° rotation mode for this might be a worthwhile option, where the dash (and "top" bar) are on the sides and workspaces go up and down.
* Okay, this is long-standing rather than new, but it seems like this redesign is an opportunity to address. I find the word "Activies" puzzling. It's always on screen in a very prominent place, and isn't very descriptive. I know it comes from the idea of activity-centered design, but that actually makes things worse because that's not what the UX really ended up being. And, it's been a while, but in the past I've encountered people who thought the whole desktop environment or even OS was called "Activities".
The menu on the top right doesn't have any words; maybe this could also bceome an icon? I get the rationale for not making it a brand icon, so I'm not asking for that specifically, just... _an_ icon. (Sadly, the most logical thing for it would actually be what's printed on the Overview key. But that's not really a possibility!)
* Launching something from the dash using the mouse requires a LOT of mouse travel: up to the top left corner, then down to the middle. Then, it seems that new windows prefer to appear back up in the top left, so it's back up to there again. Maybe:
1. the botton edge of the screen could also be "hot" and bring up the overview, and
2. new windows could bias more towards appearing in the center of the screen even if that makes more overlap.
* Actually point #2 might be important enough that it's worth calling out directly. The top left of the screen is rarely where I want a non-maximized window to appear.
* The borders around the window positions in the overview make for even less real-estate in that view, which is unfortunate. I don't have a great suggestion, except maybe thinner margins.
- Bonus thought though: although it's not apparent onscreen in normal use like the Endless logo is, (which is something I'd still like), maybe we could make those margins Fedora Blue instead of gray, to give a little bit of distro-specific theming?
I love that GNOME's main UI uses neutral colors, but since this won't distract the eye while you're actually working in an application, maybe it's something we could do.
(Actually, what I'd love for my own personal configuration is a black background screen and the stars and gas clouds from the F33 wallpaper in the overview margins... or, for a default, I can see a design with a pattern which complements the default wallpaper, rather than just a plain color. Maybe too busy, though. Just thinking out loud!)
* If I click the "show applications" icon, and then start to search, the transition from the app panel with workspaces at the top to the search is kind of jarring. I think this would be better if the workspaces were _below_ the application icons rather than above.
* A dash-to-dock feature I miss: I want the terminal icon to launch a new window rather than focusing an existing one. I know that's not new in this design but it'd be nice to not have to use this extension. I might be able to train myself to middle-click, but I'd rather swap the behavior.
* The first time I dragged a window to a new workspace, I was confused as to where it went. I think it's probably the right behavior, just a surprise. Maybe an animation can help here?
* If I have a single window on the second workspace and drag it to the third, that second workspace (naturally) becomes empty. If I then immediately launch a new application or new window without leaving the overview, that new app lands on that workspace and everything is fine.
If, however, I don't launch a new app and return from the overview, the empty workspace is collapsed, which in pratice means that the window I dragged to the right is now back on the workspace in front of me, and there are still just two workspaces.
There's not even an animation making this smooth, but even if it were, it really feels like strange behavior. Consider not collapsing single empty workspaces between occupied ones.
On Tue, Jan 19, 2021 at 4:35 PM Matthew Miller mattdm@fedoraproject.org wrote:
Overall, like it and think this is a good direction. It didn't really take me long to adjust to. I do think we need to communicate this a _lot_, because change is hard and there exist a lot of negativity around GNOME changes in general (even when such negativity is really ironic). Let's make sure to get positive messaging out there.
I've been using GNOME 40 Alpha for a few days now, I figured I could piggy-back on this thread, with the hope that the right people will read it.
The overall feeling I have is that the redesigned shell is a bit flashier than before, but a little less productive for me, for one particular reason. My only major issue with it is that I feel a bit claustrophobic in it, because I no longer see at a glance how many workspaces I have, which workspace I'm on, and what my other workspaces contain. As a background - I'm a heavy user of workspaces, I constantly switch between them. I mostly don't put two maximized windows on the same workspace. I also use workspaces to separate apps by type of work, so e.g. a web browser on the first workspace, dev tools or perhaps VMs on the second, a chat on the third, a personal browser on the fourth, etc.
In GNOME 3, after pressing a single Super key (or an extra mouse button I mapped to it), I could see all my workspaces with all my apps and easily figure out where I am and where I want to move to, or just switch between windows on the current workspace. In GNOME 40, this is no longer possible, I can either invoke a view to switch between apps on the current workspace (the overview), or invoke a view to have an overall view of all workspaces (the app grid view). This requires me to do some mental gymnastics *before* I make an action (should I hit Super or Super+A, what do I want to do, is the next window on this workspace on somewhere else?). Whereas in GNOME 3, I could hit a button and *then* decide, while *seeing* the windows (instead of remembering them), which felt more natural, more convenient, and ultimately more productive. So in GNOME 3 I felt like "seeing my stuff", in GNOME 40 I feel like "looking for my stuff".
This is perhaps also emphasised by the fact that the app grid view is only easily reachable from the keyboard. When holding just my mouse, after triggering the overview, I need to travel across the screen and manage to hit the 9 dots button just to have a bird's-eye view of all my workspaces. That's a lot of precise effort needed for something I was used to doing very frequently with just a single mouse button press. When using the touchpad gestures (which I love, by the way), it still requires me to do two gestures, and their animations are annoyingly slow.
I would really really love it if you could add some kind of workspace indicator to the overview screen (at the top, bottom, or over the windows preview e.g. in a corner), which would show on which workspace I currently am and what the other workspaces contain (just app icons would serve well enough). It could be really small, but it would help a lot. (Not sure if this is a good argument, but even Windows 10 show you a workspaces overview at all times). The same info could be shown on the "switch workspace overlay" that appears at the middle of the screen when you press Ctrl+Alt+Left/Right. Instead of just black and blue rectangles, those rectangles could contain app icons, and it would help people navigate.
Except for this one problem, I don't really have any other major design issues with it. Sure, it still has some rough edges, but the implementation is far from over, and so I expect those corners to get polished over time. It looks pretty good and I quite like some parts already (e.g. the touch gestures).
- I really find overview-zoom and unzoom animations to be too slow. Turning them off is, however, too jarring. Hopefully Impatience will be available as an extension again, but I think we should consider making the default
a little faster and perhaps proving options in Tweaks. (I know this isn't new, just missing it from not having that extension.)
I only find them slow when using the touchpad gestures. I wrote about it in more details here: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-shell/-/merge_requests/1547#note_101236...
- That said, when using the scroll wheel, the switch workspace animation feels too _fast_. It's easy to get lost if I have more than two workspaces. I know, it's all subjective, but that's my impression.
Do you have a free-scrolling wheel? When using a wheel with dents, the switching feels absolutely fine for me. Although my mind has problems remembering whether scrolling up means moving left or right, perhaps I'll remember it after longer usage.
- I don't have a strong opinion about horizontal vs. vertical workspace alignment, even after using it for a week. Either is fine with me.
However I had previously used always-zoom-workspaces, and there's not really a logical place for that in the new design. The net result of this is that I forget what's on my other workspaces and open up more new windows and workspaces in general throughout the day.
Vertical has the benefit of making it easier to fit the "all workspaces preview" on the screen, because of displays' aspect ratios. Horizontal is probably what people are more familiar with, from phones.
I'm glad I'm not the only one feeling a regression here in the general awareness of where my windows are.
- Launching something from the dash using the mouse requires a LOT of mouse travel: up to the top left corner, then down to the middle. Then, it
seems that new windows prefer to appear back up in the top left, so it's back up to there again. Maybe:
the botton edge of the screen could also be "hot" and bring up the overview, and
new windows could bias more towards appearing in the center of the screen even if that makes more overlap.
- Actually point #2 might be important enough that it's worth calling out directly. The top left of the screen is rarely where I want a non-maximized window to appear.
You can enable "Center new windows" in the Tweak tool. It's the lesser evil for me. It would be great if Shell could be a bit more friendly in choosing a new window location. Currently it makes more sense to me to choose "center new windows", because if I open just a single window, I can immediately work in it (opposed to having it opened in the far top left, from where I'd need to move it). Once I open a second window, both options are similar, I need to grab it and move it somewhere else (but it's easier to grab in the middle of the screen).
- The borders around the window positions in the overview make for even
less real-estate in that view, which is unfortunate. I don't have a great suggestion, except maybe thinner margins.
I do have suggestions. Yes, the windows seem unnecessarily constrained and small (even though they might be of the same size as in GNOME 3, I didn't measure that). It would help if the windows could actually extend *over* the zoomed-out wallpaper edge, so they would kinda look like floating in front of/above the wallpaper. I don't see any reason why they must be fit inside the rectangle. Quite the opposite, it would look pretty modern to break the boundary (when needed, e.g. many large windows on a single workspace) and it would be easier to recognize their contents.
I do understand why the wallpaper is zoomed out (I think), to indicate that this is just a single workspace and along the right edge you can see peeking a different one. If you make the margins thinner, this message might be less obvious. I'd solve that by appending an arrow overlay over the peeking edge of the next workspace on the right (or left). The arrow would make it clear that there's a next workspace there, even with thinner borders, and it would also make it clearer where to click to get there (currently you can click anywhere on the peeking workspace bar, but it is not really obvious.
- A dash-to-dock feature I miss: I want the terminal icon to launch a new window rather than focusing an existing one. I know that's not new in
this design but it'd be nice to not have to use this extension. I might be able to train myself to middle-click, but I'd rather swap the behavior.
Just the terminal icon, or any icon? In the first case, that would make it inconsistent, and in the second case, that would make it less user friendly, I feel. I defined a custom shortcut to launch gnome-terminal in Settings and I use that to invoke new windows. But, since I have it at my second place among favorites, it would be nice if I could have an alternative to middle click when using Super+number shortcuts. Currently Super+2 always focuses the existing terminal window, it would be nice if e.g. Super+Shit+2 could launch a new one (like a middle click).
- The first time I dragged a window to a new workspace, I was confused as
to where it went. I think it's probably the right behavior, just a surprise. Maybe an animation can help here?
This is one of the very rough edges of the redesign, I feel. Moving windows feels *very* unpleasant. It's like an animation is missing or something, everything happens too suddenly and there is no easy check that the operation happened correctly (because there is no preview of all the workspaces visible). This action would benefit from a much slower animation (if there is some in the first place, or adding it), or alternatively keeping the workspaces zoomed out after the move (so that a person can move other windows easily, without constant zooming in and out), until a person clicks a workspace to zoom into.
If I have a single window on the second workspace and drag it to the third, that second workspace (naturally) becomes empty. If I then immediately launch a new application or new window without leaving the overview, that new app lands on that workspace and everything is fine.
If, however, I don't launch a new app and return from the overview, the empty workspace is collapsed, which in pratice means that the window I dragged to the right is now back on the workspace in front of me, and there are still just two workspaces.
There's not even an animation making this smooth, but even if it were, it really feels like strange behavior. Consider not collapsing single empty workspaces between occupied ones.
I created a video here: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-shell/-/merge_requests/1547#note_101254...
The animation would help, but perhaps the best solution would really be to not automatically remove an empty workspace which is not the last one. Add a close button to it, and people can close it if they want.
I do have one further request which I'm not sure whether is design-related or implementation-related. Please highlight (put a colored border around) the current workspace in the grid app view. You can switch between workspaces in that view, but it's very hard to tell which workspace is currently selected. Also, highlight the target workspace when moving windows (or app icons) to them (in all views). That will make drop operations much more pleasant. Thank you.
On Fri, Jan 22, 2021 at 02:53:47PM +0100, Kamil Paral wrote:
I'm a heavy user of workspaces, I constantly switch between them. I mostly don't put two maximized windows on the same workspace. I also use workspaces to separate apps by type of work, so e.g. a web browser on the first workspace, dev tools or perhaps VMs on the second, a chat on the third, a personal browser on the fourth, etc.
Yeah, I'm ending up with a browser window on every workspace with lots of duplicate tabs.
Long ago I had a setup where I had named workspaces and had configured particular tools to launch on specific ones. That was very productive for me. The GNOME workflow doesn't support that very well -- instead, it's great for ad-hoc grouping and moving things out of the way. You can get it all set up, but when you have to reboot and restart things it's all gone.
- That said, when using the scroll wheel, the switch workspace animation feels too _fast_. It's easy to get lost if I have more than two workspaces. I know, it's all subjective, but that's my impression.
Do you have a free-scrolling wheel? When using a wheel with dents, the switching feels absolutely fine for me. Although my mind has problems remembering whether scrolling up means moving left or right, perhaps I'll remember it after longer usage.
Yes, free scrolling wheel. Interestingly I have no problem with the direction mapping -- whatever it is doing seems obvious to me.
You can enable "Center new windows" in the Tweak tool. It's the lesser evil for me. It would be great if Shell could be a bit more friendly in choosing
Ooh, thanks!
- A dash-to-dock feature I miss: I want the terminal icon to launch a new window rather than focusing an existing one. I know that's not new in this but it'd be nice to not have to use this extension. I might be able to train myself to middle-click, but I'd rather swap the behavior.
Just the terminal icon, or any icon? In the first case, that would make it inconsistent, and in the second case, that would make it less user friendly, I feel. I defined a custom shortcut to launch gnome-terminal in
Hmmm, good point. Mostly just the terminal, but in general, I use the overview to switch between windows not the dash, so clicking on an icon there to get an existing window just isn't something I do.
I created a video here: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-shell/-/merge_requests/1547#note_101254...
Thanks -- yes that's exactly it.
On Fri, Jan 22, 2021 at 2:53 PM Kamil Paral kparal@redhat.com wrote:
I would really really love it if you could add some kind of workspace indicator to the overview screen (at the top, bottom, or over the windows preview e.g. in a corner), which would show on which workspace I currently am and what the other workspaces contain (just app icons would serve well enough). It could be really small, but it would help a lot.
On the very same day I decided to write this essay (or perhaps even a day earlier, but the copr repo wasn't fully up-to-date), the new gnome-shell received workspaces preview in the overview mode. Eh, why didn't I wait one more day? :-) Thanks a lot!
The same info could be shown on the "switch workspace overlay" that appears at the middle of the screen when you press Ctrl+Alt+Left/Right. Instead of just black and blue rectangles, those rectangles could contain app icons, and it would help people navigate.
This million-dollar idea is still available, though :)
Kamil Paral kparal@redhat.com wrote: ...
On the very same day I decided to write this essay (or perhaps even a day earlier, but the copr repo wasn't fully up-to-date), the new gnome-shell received workspaces preview in the overview mode. Eh, why didn't I wait one more day? :-) Thanks a lot!
I'm assuming that the new workspace thumbnails are doing the job for you. Please let us know if they don't, for whatever reason.
Allan
On Tue, Jan 26, 2021 at 12:56 PM Allan Day aday@redhat.com wrote:
Kamil Paral kparal@redhat.com wrote: ...
On the very same day I decided to write this essay (or perhaps even a
day earlier, but the copr repo wasn't fully up-to-date), the new gnome-shell received workspaces preview in the overview mode. Eh, why didn't I wait one more day? :-) Thanks a lot!
I'm assuming that the new workspace thumbnails are doing the job for you. Please let us know if they don't, for whatever reason.
Yes, that's what I was asking for, thanks.
On Tue, Jan 19, 2021 at 10:34:58AM -0500, Matthew Miller wrote: ....snip....
- Super-L does not lock the screen. Actually that shortcut just plain doesn't work no matter what I set it to.
This is really anoying. ;(
I really hope it's just a bug and will be fixed. :(
Having to go to the menu and select 'lock' is a drag.
Will comment on the rest when this lands in rawhide (the lock thing already is in).
kevin
On Mon, Jan 25, 2021 at 01:32:34PM -0800, Kevin Fenzi wrote:
- Super-L does not lock the screen. Actually that shortcut just plain doesn't work no matter what I set it to.
This is really anoying. ;( I really hope it's just a bug and will be fixed. :(
Yeah, it is this: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-shell/-/issues/3541
On Mon, Jan 25, 2021 at 16:41, Matthew Miller mattdm@fedoraproject.org wrote:
On Mon, Jan 25, 2021 at 01:32:34PM -0800, Kevin Fenzi wrote:
- Super-L does not lock the screen. Actually that shortcut just
plain
doesn't work no matter what I set it to.
This is really anoying. ;( I really hope it's just a bug and will be fixed. :(
Yeah, it is this: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-shell/-/issues/3541
.. which was fixed in https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-settings-daemon/-/merge_requests/215
On Tue, Jan 19, 2021 at 10:35 AM Matthew Miller mattdm@fedoraproject.org wrote:
- Okay, this is long-standing rather than new, but it seems like this redesign is an opportunity to address. I find the word "Activies" puzzling. It's always on screen in a very prominent place, and isn't very descriptive. I know it comes from the idea of activity-centered design, but that actually makes things worse because that's not what the UX really ended up being. And, it's been a while, but in the past I've encountered people who thought the whole desktop environment or even OS was called "Activities".
So, this is something that has puzzled me for a long time... Is there a reason why this isn't a brandable element?
I honestly expected this to be something where we could put the horizontal Fedora logo + wordmark variant (especially with the new upcoming logo making this nicer looking, even in monochrome).
Also, like Matthew, I don't really understand the term "Activities" in this context...
On 2021-01-25 1:49 p.m., Neal Gompa wrote:
Also, like Matthew, I don't really understand the term "Activities" in this context...
"Activities" is a term to describe the list of applications originally on Sugar Desktop environment initially intended for One Laptop Per Child project.
See https://activities.sugarlabs.org/en-US/sugar/
On Tue, Jan 26, 2021 at 12:13 AM Luya Tshimbalanga luya@fedoraproject.org wrote:
On 2021-01-25 1:49 p.m., Neal Gompa wrote:
Also, like Matthew, I don't really understand the term "Activities" in this context...
"Activities" is a term to describe the list of applications originally on Sugar Desktop environment initially intended for One Laptop Per Child project.
But that's not what it does in GNOME? Clicking on "Activities" takes you to the desktop overview. So shouldn't this be called something else?
On Tue, Jan 26, 2021 at 11:20 AM Neal Gompa ngompa13@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, Jan 26, 2021 at 12:13 AM Luya Tshimbalanga luya@fedoraproject.org wrote:
On 2021-01-25 1:49 p.m., Neal Gompa wrote:
Also, like Matthew, I don't really understand the term "Activities" in this context...
"Activities" is a term to describe the list of applications originally on Sugar Desktop environment initially intended for One Laptop Per Child project.
But that's not what it does in GNOME? Clicking on "Activities" takes you to the desktop overview. So shouldn't this be called something else?
Historically, this has nothing to do with that, and nothing to do with the KDE usage of the word activities. Activities was just chosen as a term to cover "things you might want to interact with next"
* Windows you have open * Workspaces * Applications * Your documents [since removed]
There's a pretty high bar for changing this - you'd invalidate a lot of user experience, a lot of existing documentation/search results on the internet. Is there really a significantly more meaningful word to refer to "windows and workspaces and applications"?
Owen
On Tue, Jan 26, 2021 at 11:56:22AM -0500, Owen Taylor wrote:
There's a pretty high bar for changing this - you'd invalidate a lot of user experience, a lot of existing documentation/search results on the internet. Is there really a significantly more meaningful word to refer to "windows and workspaces and applications"?
Yeah, I'm afraid there isn't one. On the right side of the bar, we have a drop down arrow rather than words; why not something other than words on the left side as well?
Matthew Miller mattdm@fedoraproject.org wrote: ...
On Tue, Jan 26, 2021 at 11:56:22AM -0500, Owen Taylor wrote:
There's a pretty high bar for changing this - you'd invalidate a lot of user experience, a lot of existing documentation/search results on the internet. Is there really a significantly more meaningful word to refer to "windows and workspaces and applications"?
Yeah, I'm afraid there isn't one. On the right side of the bar, we have a drop down arrow rather than words; why not something other than words on the left side as well?
When we recently did user testing on the shell, it was like the testers didn't really see "Activities", and it would often be the last thing that they tried in the top bar.
My theory is that this is because it's a label - it doesn't attract your attention in the same way a simple shape. I also wonder whether it's to do with the fact that "Activities" is more of a past-tense noun rather than a call to action ("start", "launch", etc).
So I'm interested in using an icon and think it's something we could explore (and hopefully test). The challenge right now is the height of the panel and what kind of icon could comfortably fit into that space. Going down the icon route might require other changes...
Allan
On Tue, Jan 26, 2021 at 6:24 PM Allan Day aday@redhat.com wrote:
When we recently did user testing on the shell, it was like the testers didn't really see "Activities", and it would often be the last thing that they tried in the top bar.
I'm not surprised, it doesn't look interactive to begin with. If it had some color or shown a short animation after logging in, it would get more obvious. I'm not saying I want it, I don't know (it depends, as always), but I believe it would work better for newcomers.
My theory is that this is because it's a label - it doesn't attract your attention in the same way a simple shape. I also wonder whether it's to do with the fact that "Activities" is more of a past-tense noun rather than a call to action ("start", "launch", etc).
There's a reason why the Windows 95->XP start button had "Start" written on it, and why it's still called the Start button to this day [1]. I wouldn't mind having it called the same way ("Start" and perhaps even a logo, could be even your distribution logo), I'm not in the "we must never take inspiration from Microsoft" group, and it would immediately be familiar to mostly everybody.
I'm not saying it's the best idea ever, perhaps there's a better word to use. But Start instead of Activities would improve the purpose of the button, I believe, at the expense of some "MS copycat" remarks.
[1] https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/open-the-start-menu-4ed57ad7-ed1...
I'm not saying it's the best idea ever, perhaps there's a better word to use. But Start instead of Activities would improve the purpose of the button, I believe, at the expense of some "MS copycat" remarks.
I personally would avoid the "Start" button to be called "Start" because I do not believe that "Start" really covers what can be done after pressing it, so I would rather call it "*Actions*". However, I am also supportive of a symbolic button, because the word "Start" has disappeared from Windows, too, if I remember correctly. So, although copying from them does not bother me much (even if it bothers me "a bit"), naming it "Start" would not only look like copying from them, but also being out-dated.
[1] https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/open-the-start-menu-4ed57ad7-ed1...
desktop mailing list -- desktop@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe send an email to desktop-leave@lists.fedoraproject.org Fedora Code of Conduct: https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/project/code-of-conduct/ List Guidelines: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines List Archives: https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/desktop@lists.fedoraproject.or...
What bothers me even more is that now, my session always starts *on the activity screen* and not on a regular screen, which is different from what I have been used to, and pressing the *Super* key cancels the Activity screen and brings me back on the regular where I could not do anything, so I need to press *Super* again.
--
Lukáš Růžička
FEDORA QE, RHCE
Red Hat
Purkyňova 115
612 45 Brno - Královo Pole
lruzicka@redhat.com TRIED AND PERSONALLY TESTED, ERGO TRUSTED. https://redhat.com/trusted
On Wed, Jan 27, 2021 at 10:46:44AM +0100, Lukas Ruzicka wrote:
[...] However, I am also supportive of a symbolic button, because the word "Start" has disappeared from Windows, too, if I remember correctly.
I wish keyboards had a generic symbol on the Overview key, rather than literally the trademarked Microsoft logo. Because that's the obvious thing to put there.
Failing that, I think there are two symbols that make sense:
⋯ dot dot dot. The universal "there is more here". Android previously used a double row of dots for its app drawer.
☰ "hamburger menu". Yes, it's a cliche, but a familiar one, which is a good thing. And apparently the unicode symbol often used to approximate it is actually the trigram for Heaven, which is kind of awesome.
On Wed, Jan 27, 2021 at 4:35 PM Matthew Miller mattdm@fedoraproject.org wrote:
On Wed, Jan 27, 2021 at 10:46:44AM +0100, Lukas Ruzicka wrote:
[...] However, I am also supportive of a symbolic button, because the word "Start" has disappeared from Windows, too, if I remember correctly.
I wish keyboards had a generic symbol on the Overview key, rather than literally the trademarked Microsoft logo. Because that's the obvious thing to put there.
Failing that, I think there are two symbols that make sense:
⋯ dot dot dot. The universal "there is more here". Android previously used a double row of dots for its app drawer.
☰ "hamburger menu". Yes, it's a cliche, but a familiar one, which is a good thing. And apparently the unicode symbol often used to approximate it is actually the trigram for Heaven, which is kind of awesome.
Once upon a time Acer Aspire One netbooks came with a cute little house icon on their Super keys, at least the ones with linux.
The house does not look bad.
On Wed, Jan 27, 2021 at 5:05 PM Alexander Ploumistos < alexpl@fedoraproject.org> wrote:
On Wed, Jan 27, 2021 at 4:35 PM Matthew Miller mattdm@fedoraproject.org wrote:
On Wed, Jan 27, 2021 at 10:46:44AM +0100, Lukas Ruzicka wrote:
[...] However, I am also supportive of a symbolic button, because the word "Start" has disappeared from Windows, too, if I remember
correctly.
I wish keyboards had a generic symbol on the Overview key, rather than literally the trademarked Microsoft logo. Because that's the obvious
thing
to put there.
Failing that, I think there are two symbols that make sense:
⋯ dot dot dot. The universal "there is more here". Android previously
used a
double row of dots for its app drawer.
☰ "hamburger menu". Yes, it's a cliche, but a familiar one, which is a
good
thing. And apparently the unicode symbol often used to approximate
it
is actually the trigram for Heaven, which is kind of awesome.
Once upon a time Acer Aspire One netbooks came with a cute little house icon on their Super keys, at least the ones with linux. _______________________________________________ desktop mailing list -- desktop@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe send an email to desktop-leave@lists.fedoraproject.org Fedora Code of Conduct: https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/project/code-of-conduct/ List Guidelines: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines List Archives: https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/desktop@lists.fedoraproject.or...
On Wed, Jan 27, 2021 at 4:36 PM Matthew Miller mattdm@fedoraproject.org wrote:
On Wed, Jan 27, 2021 at 10:46:44AM +0100, Lukas Ruzicka wrote:
[...] However, I am also supportive of a symbolic button, because the word "Start" has disappeared from Windows, too, if I remember correctly.
I wish keyboards had a generic symbol on the Overview key, rather than literally the trademarked Microsoft logo. Because that's the obvious thing to put there.
It's not an insurmountable problem. Don't put the trademarked logo in there, just use something similar. I use Simple Tab Groups extension in Firefox [1] which has several icons to indicate "a tab group", which is basically a set of windows in the desktop sense. The default icons to pick from are visible here: https://i.imgur.com/GsuBVfo.png
I like the one highlighted, because it's aesthetically pleasing to me, and it indicates that not all groups (or windows) are alike/uniform. If such an icon was in front of Activities, I think it would convey the "windows" meaning quite well. And the color of one of the blocks (you can imagine it's the currently focused window) would make the button stand out (and we could switch to an uncolored icon once there is at least one window present on the current workspace, i.e. the color would only draw your attention when you have no apps/windows started, gently hinting "press me...") ;-)
[1] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/simple-tab-groups/
On Wed, Jan 27, 2021 at 10:34:49AM -0500, Matthew Miller wrote:
On Wed, Jan 27, 2021 at 10:46:44AM +0100, Lukas Ruzicka wrote:
[...] However, I am also supportive of a symbolic button, because the word "Start" has disappeared from Windows, too, if I remember correctly.
I wish keyboards had a generic symbol on the Overview key, rather than literally the trademarked Microsoft logo. Because that's the obvious thing to put there.
As an off-topic aside... does any place still make little stickers for this key? I know in the past I had seen tux ones and I think Fedora ones (but I might be misremembering). I looked a bit a while back but couldn't find any.
Failing that, I think there are two symbols that make sense:
⋯ dot dot dot. The universal "there is more here". Android previously used a double row of dots for its app drawer.
☰ "hamburger menu". Yes, it's a cliche, but a familiar one, which is a good thing. And apparently the unicode symbol often used to approximate it is actually the trigram for Heaven, which is kind of awesome.
Or even the three .s type menu...
kevin
On Wed, Jan 27, 2021 at 10:07:46AM -0800, Kevin Fenzi wrote:
As an off-topic aside... does any place still make little stickers for this key? I know in the past I had seen tux ones and I think Fedora ones (but I might be misremembering). I looked a bit a while back but couldn't find any.
https://www.thinkpenguin.com/gnu-linux/tux-super-key-keyboard-sticker
We still have some Fedora logo ones in some of the conference swag boxes.
If people buy enough Lenovo laptops with Fedora preinstalled, we can go back to them with a request. But it'd need to be _a lot_ a lot. :)
desktop@lists.fedoraproject.org