Re: Gnome3 Feedback

On Tue, Nov 15, 2011 at 09:44:29AM +0100, Jonas Wagner wrote:
> I'm not sure whether this is the right place for some gnome3
> feedback. However, I hope that the feedback will be valuable for
> developers of Gnome.

Mostly use gnome-shell-list, but any list is fine.

> A few days ago, gnome3 entered debian testing and thus my machine.
> Here are a few first impressions.
> 
> * Overall, I like it... I'm not going to switch back, even though I
> have to change many of my workflows, and it's gonna need some time
> to adapt.

Cool!

> * My graphic card was not configured properly before the update, so
> the first thing I saw was gnome3's fallback mode. There was a popup
> informing me of this. It provided a link to a help page. However,
> the link led to the gnome3.org homepage, and as such was absolutely
> useless.

Please file a bug against gnome-shell so we can correct the link. Also
please a bug against websites so we can add a redirect. Lastly, maybe
bug against your distro to set it up immediately :)

> * To ease transition, I removed my ~/.gnome2 folder... apparently,
> this was not a good idea. In particular, now network-manager asks me
> every time about wifi passwords. Could it be that the default
> keyring is not re-created automatically? Any idea how I could fix
> this?

Some stuff is still stored under ~/.gnome2 and some other directories.

> * One of the first things I wanted to do was to change the desktop
> background. When using System Settings > Background, I can't select
> any .png file (the Open button is grayed out if I try)! It works
> when I open the png in eog, then select "Set as Desktop Background"
> from the context menu.

Should not happen. Please file a bug against gnome-control-center.

> * Adding applications to my favorites was painful. I go to
> Activities, then Applications, then select my app, then drag it to
> the favorites pane. When I do this, the screen changes and displays
> me the "Windows" part of the activities screen again! Why? So to add
> another app, I have to again click on Applications again, select the
> right category again, etc.

Please file a bug against gnome-shell or tell it on gnome-shell-list.

> * Files from my ~/Desktop folder are no more displayed on the desktop :-/
> 
> * What is the best way to switch between windows? The standard
> mapping of alt-tab no longer switches between two windows of the
> same application. It also changes virtual desktops sometimes. I've
> discovered alt-esc which works more intuitively, but the whole thing
> is confusing to me, and having two similar shortcuts needs a lot of
> thought.

alt-key above tab (usually alt-~) switches between existing windows.
takes some getting used to.

> * Closing the last window of a desktop opens the Activities screen.
> I dislike this. My workflow used to be (1) close the program I was
> using, (2) type ctrl-alt-left to go to the other desktop where other
> work was running. Now I need one more action, to explicitely exit
> from the activities screen.

Bring up on gnome-shell-list.

> * Opening a terminal on another desktop is very counter-intuitive. I
> use terminals a lot, hence I added it to the favorites pane. When I
> switch to a new Desktop, and click on the terminal icon in my
> favorites, it changes back to the old desktop and selects some
> already open terminal instead of starting a new one. I have to
> explicitely drag the terminal icon to some empty space to start it
> :(

Known side effect. Not sure what is planned.

> * I like the fact that I can start applications on another desktop,
> by dragging the app icon to that desktop. Unfortunately, it doesn't
> seem to work with some applications (Firefox and Thunderbird, for
> example).

Application has to properly support startup notification. File bugs with
the applications. Their startup notification support is broken I think.

> * Clicking on Activities > Applications shows an alphabetical list
> of all applications. Is this really useful? The list of categories
> is far away, on the other end of the screen.

Very well known :P  A redesign is planned, it'll totally change it, but
only exists in mockups and might change.

> * The direct search is cool! Is there a way I can extend it so it
> finds every file, not just recently-used ones? Recently-used is also
> a tad misleading, because files opened in non-gnome programs (or
> even vim compiled with gnome support) do not get added to this list.

No idea. Ask on gnome-shell-list.

> To summarize: many things I like, congratulations! It would be great
> to see some pitfalls ironed out. Feel free to discuss this or ask me
> if anything is unclear.

Thanks for feedback!

-- 
Regards,
Olav