I have been busy the past month so I haven’t had a chance to try out the most recent builds of Gnome-Shell I looked today and I have to say its looking really slick. I took a few screenshots
It is looking awesome but the bottom bar is gone. I like the idea of having one bar but in the current branch there is nothing to control the windows other than alt+tab. I love the idea of breadcrumbs in panel to have the window management in the one bar. The sidebar is still a little ugly too. It is after getting faster since I last played about with it, in particular the application and document search. Still Gnome-Shell is looking a lot better than Gnome-Panel in my opinion.
I still wonder how canonical and the ubuntu developers will change it. The black look of Notify-OSD would look really at home I think.
+1 for needing a bottom panel.
Seeing as Gnome Shell is going to be a part of Gnome 3.0 whether we like it or not I’ve been trying to warm up to it. My thing is that although the feature of big menu (2nd and 3rd screenshots) may prove to be a great feature for dropping apps onto desktops, it just looks like way to much screen real-estate being taken up to select an app to launch. Can you expand on your reason for the quote “Gnome-Shell is looking a lot better than Gnome-Panel in my opinion.” Why?
breadcrumb in panel…
by separating shaded/minimized windows from active windows really improves usability of GNOME.
So I agree with you. The idea is great!
We need combined menu/title bars, even if that means the window decorator covers up part of the app’s window. Also, min/maximumize/close.
…then maybe I’ll switch back from Xmonad. Just, you know, because it seems someone might be in the mood to reevaluate poor assumptions at this point.
I think that they’re going in the exact wrong direction with this … hierarchiel menus aren’t nearly as friendly or usable as, say, Gnome Do. Especially when it’s set up as a combination object dock / launcher.
I just hope the GNOME Global Menu Applet works with Gnome Shell …
Pingback: Shane Fagan (shanefagan) 's status on Saturday, 15-Aug-09 19:42:43 UTC - Identi.ca
Hmm, I don’t really get it yet but I guess it’s still young. Looks like Gnome is trying to do an uber-menu, think this might be overkill. Just tried Linux Mints menu and liked it alot. Maybe this will get trimmed down a bit.
Looks horrible to me. Sorry..
Well…, the gnome-panel isn’t necesary at all. Just put a dock on it :p. Gnome-Do (with docky) for example, if not AWN, if not, Slim Dock, if not… something else.
BTW, is it easy to install it?, and it’s barely usable?
Thanks
I kinda like it.
I think the Mint-menu sucks hard btw. Worst menu ever.
I like that it only has one bar at the top
slick. I used to be a KDE fanatic, but Gnome-Shell has a lot of potential imho. Just keep things nice and simple, please.
I think they need to ditch the sidebar, which just seems to take up space and duplicate what’s shown in the apps screen.
I wonder if everyone who’s said (in other discussions as well) that it takes up far too much screen space realises that the big apps menu thing is just there when you activate it – most of the time one of the workspaces is active and fills your screen as usual.
I personally love the proposed breadcrumbs idea, and I also think there’s some mileage to be had with more integration of window decorations and panels. Somehow.
I hope you guys seen this mockup
http://dreadknight666.com/2009/07/revolutionary-window-manager/
I think gnome shell is the complete wrong direction to take.
Merging the menu with the panel like they have done just makes things worse than it currently is. They should make things more modular not force a fugly ideal on people and developers which will just make things harder down the line when people want to take a different approach. But hey lets just forget about what got into this mess and do another complete rewrite a few years down the line due to an inability to comprehend what makes for a good foundation.
You can see why I hate gnome shell over here ->
http://tretle.co.cc/2009/01/30/gnome-30-and-user-interface-design/
Im quite the opposite I really like Gnome-Shell I think that it is the right way to do things and that innovation is what make Free and Open source software great. We put our heads together and come up with useful ways to do things. Gnome-Panel is basic and does the job at the moment but compared to our rivals microsoft and mac we are lagging behind. We need something special and Gnome-Shell love it or hate it is special and unique.
Hello,
Instructions to build GNOME-shell in Ubuntu.
See:
http://www.futuredesktop.org/gnome-shell-in-ubuntu9.04.txt
Shane,
If you like the breadcrumbs idea take a look at my blog http://linux4kix.blogspot.com. I work on a branch of gnome-shell that integrates breadcrumbs with live window switching.
Very nice! I really think this is much better than gnome-panel.
Oh no I hate the bottom panel, id much prefer to have one panel on the top. Its because my laptop has a small screen and 2 panels is a little too big.
It is a lot better than Gnome-Panel, its cool and has nice flashy buttons and a very simple easy way to make use of the multiple workspaces. Gnome-Panel was designed a long time ago using technologies that have become old. Clutter is new cutting edge and has the ability to match the slick interfaces coming out from Apple and Microsoft.
Aye. My first customization in any Gnome desktop, is to “merge” the top and bottom panel into one.
They dont have any customisation stuff yet though other than changing the code.
@shanefagan: I meant generally, as opposed to two panels …
Ah now I understand but still the top panel isnt too bad. You dont need to go up there too much anyway.
Actually, I keep the top panel, and remove the bottom one, but nevermind..
They only have the menu system for people to have something familiar I think. I only use the search feature to open programs. Its very handy.
You need both menus and searching, because sometimes one is faster than the other. Also, menus allow discovery of new apps faster than searching does.
I agree both are needed.
Ah you cant make everyone happy. Id say you should still try it and see, it looks a lot better than my screenshots. You really have to see it to get the full wow effect of it. Plus it doesnt change the ubuntu theme yet so just imagine it without the brown.
Its fairly easy to install just follow the instructions here
http://live.gnome.org/GnomeShell
I dislike the sidebar too but you can disable it so its not really a problem.
That is bloody awesome.