Our great sponsors
-
-
SurveyJS
Open-Source JSON Form Builder to Create Dynamic Forms Right in Your App. With SurveyJS form UI libraries, you can build and style forms in a fully-integrated drag & drop form builder, render them in your JS app, and store form submission data in any backend, inc. PHP, ASP.NET Core, and Node.js.
-
cinnamon
A Linux desktop featuring a traditional layout, built from modern technology and introducing brand new innovative features.
-
WorkOS
The modern identity platform for B2B SaaS. The APIs are flexible and easy-to-use, supporting authentication, user identity, and complex enterprise features like SSO and SCIM provisioning.
Good observation.
Turning off extensions is where OP lost me. In the last year, the single biggest quality of life improvement for me has been discovering the Argos[0] extension, which basically lets you put whatever text/menus you want in the top bar by writing scripts that print to stdout. To save space, I hid the dock (I use [1] as a replacement alt-tab), so the top bar is the only piece of screen that isn't OS chrome.
On my top bar right now I have the time in four time zones (including the ever-important UTC to save a mental calculation when logging at logs), the name of the current Wifi access point, and some VPN details gleaned using a combination of ip r, ping, nc, and curl. Another extension shows free RAM. I look at them dozens of times a day.
[0] https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/1176/argos/
[1] https://gist.github.com/cbd32/cbec9a32b32bd9e93b0d2696c71b5f...
I agree that there is a balance between customization and "cleanness" in design and implementation.
However, I think the GNOME 3 and 4 designers went too far and alienated many users:
https://www.zdnet.com/article/linus-torvalds-finds-gnome-3-4...
https://medium.com/@fulalas/gnome-42-the-nonsense-continues-...
https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/wte7tr/gnomes_design...
https://linuxreviews.org/GNOME_Developers_have_Made_Their_Mo...
https://www.osnews.com/story/133955/gnome-to-prevent-theming...
When a designer's "coherent vision" eclipses the needs of the software's users then users get frustrated and either fork the project or go to another project. MATE (https://mate-desktop.org/), Cinnamon (https://github.com/linuxmint/Cinnamon), and Unity (https://unityd.org/) exist largely because of how far the GNOME 3 designers went and how they were not willing to compromise their "coherent vision":
https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=121162
https://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=1910
https://web.archive.org/web/20101129161856/http://www.pcworl...
I agree that there is a balance between customization and "cleanness" in design and implementation.
However, I think the GNOME 3 and 4 designers went too far and alienated many users:
https://www.zdnet.com/article/linus-torvalds-finds-gnome-3-4...
https://medium.com/@fulalas/gnome-42-the-nonsense-continues-...
https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/wte7tr/gnomes_design...
https://linuxreviews.org/GNOME_Developers_have_Made_Their_Mo...
https://www.osnews.com/story/133955/gnome-to-prevent-theming...
When a designer's "coherent vision" eclipses the needs of the software's users then users get frustrated and either fork the project or go to another project. MATE (https://mate-desktop.org/), Cinnamon (https://github.com/linuxmint/Cinnamon), and Unity (https://unityd.org/) exist largely because of how far the GNOME 3 designers went and how they were not willing to compromise their "coherent vision":
https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=121162
https://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=1910
https://web.archive.org/web/20101129161856/http://www.pcworl...