Comments on: Planning for change

By: Stu

Stu — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 15:20:01 +0000

@ulrik seeing this thing about sloppy focus made me want to have a look at it again, but jhbuild stopped working when it couldn’t find a modern version of pyrex
[even then might be a bit of a mission for me as I don't know my way round the gnome source, if I could find the actual patch that removed the original functionality though that would be a good start]

By: ulrik

ulrik — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 12:52:14 +0000

@Stu: Brilliant suggestion of yours in that linked bug report. What a shame to see that it is so old!

By: Stu

Stu — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 18:51:59 +0000

Sometimes I get the feeling that options are removed by people that don’t understand them so assume they are not used.

For instance (Disclaimer: This is a bug I’m cc’d on)

‘Option “Show minimized windows on all desktops” missed ‘
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=128535

By: Stu

Stu — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 18:43:20 +0000

@Adam Tauno Williasm, @Anders Gah! You’ll can pry my sloppy focus from my cold dead hands!

I hope this preference is moving to another caplet, just living in gconf is not enough.

[+ Saying this will be in some future 'advance options' is not great either, this also hasn't come to pass ]

By: Benjamin Otte

Benjamin Otte — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 20:55:41 +0000

My problem with this is growing bigger, because everythime it’s Jon McCann announcing that it’s not worthy anymore and then removing it. Without a lot of reasoning.
I’d like to have a solid understanding of why the things he proposes are a bad idea and I’d like to have those grounded in research, so that when someone asks I don’t have to tell them “Jon thought it’s bad” but “99% of our users don’t use it, but 20% get confused by it”, which is a much better metric.

Otherwise I’d like Jon’s powers, too so I can change the default panel layout to vertical, as it’s obviously better.

By: calum

calum — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 20:31:44 +0000

Just to be clear, I have NO problem at all with GNOME moving forward, and removing things we don’t think are necessary any more.

But doing it at the last minute before a release, so that (at best) most users will never notice until the next time they go to look for that feature, is a very unsatisfactory and unprofessional approach to change management, IMHO.

By: Adam Tauno Williasm

Adam Tauno Williasm — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 20:15:47 +0000

ARGH! You touch my sloppy focus and I’ll burn your village! Sloppy focus is the correct mechanism not that incessant clicky focus. And yes I’ve been using X since before LINUX; I guess that makes me a remnant, a keeper of the one true focus, bringing its wise an ancient message to younger generations.

But I’m okay with cleaning up the dialog; I’ve got no problem skipping over into gconf-tool or whatever to make it work. I’ll be able to do that in several less clicks than you.

Removing infrequently used UI elements is a virtuous act; continue lest we be mistaken for our wayward [and so darn ugly!] brother KDE.

By: Rui

Rui — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 19:33:19 +0000

Well, GNOME is upstream. Downstreams are free to patch or even not ship the latest version if it doesn’t meet their requirements.

GNOME itself *must* move forward or risk becoming obsolete as, arguably, those “UNIX desktops” have become by modern standards.

By: Shaun McCance

Shaun McCance — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 14:37:11 +0000

Thanks, Calum. Vendor support costs are exactly the kinds of issues I was trying to get at when I was talking about the documentation impact, since the big business case for documentation is that it can reduce support costs. It’s nice to have this kind of input.

By: Andreas Nilsson

Andreas Nilsson — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 13:34:03 +0000

Something that slightly worries me with the thread is that any interface additions are welcomed with open arms, while removals are met with skepticism, even though both scenarios open up to increased support calls. (“What is this?” “I can’t find X because there are too many things in here”) Do we have a culture of “More is more” that we fail to recognize?