On Sun, 01 Jul 2012 12:41:39 +0100
Alan Pope <alan.pope@???> wrote:
> On 01/07/12 12:31, john lewis wrote:
> > I think what is happening with interface designers is that they are
> > assuming we are all going to be using tablets or screens with touch
> > interfaces and recent "improved" GUIs are designed with this in
> > mind.
> >
>
> I hear this a lot. Mostly from people who have never actually tried
> Unity/GNOME Shell on a touch screen. You should try it, it sucks. :)
>
> If you look on youtube there's loads of videos of people trying out
> Unity on tablets. It's far from an ideal experience, and I wouldn't
> say it was designed for it. I think the big iPhone-style icons in the
> launcher make people thing that, but Xandros on the Eee PC some years
> back had a 'harry big buttons' experience too..
OK! So maybe they aren't designed with touch screens in mind. I don't
have one and am unlikely to ever have one so I'll never know.
So we are left with an interface that is designed for a different
audience than quite a few of us who have been following this
thread.
My original problem with Gnome3 was that it didn't have static work
places.
My mode of working is that once logged in I only open half-dozen apps*
and have each app maximised in its own separate work place and use
Ctrl-left or right arrow key (or the mouse) to move between them.
This was hairy with Gnome3's floating work places.
I have no idea what unity does with work places but I know that windows
XP and early versions of OS/X don't have the concept of multiple places
at all.
(OK I am aware there is an app that gives (sort of) this functionality
to XP).
So maybe I'm in a minority of one in the way I work, but I'm not alone
in not liking the current trend in GUIs. And as for it being easy to
get used to a new way of working why should we have to?
A common reason given as to why businesses are reluctant to upgrade
between versions of windows is the cost of retraining staff to use a new
interface.
*I rarely need anything other than a mail-agent, a browser and a pdf
reader, plus a couple of x-terms which with zim and osmo easily fit in
one workspace.
--
John Lewis
Debian & the GeneWeb genealogical data server
--
Please post to: Hampshire@???
Web Interface:
https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire
LUG URL:
http://www.hantslug.org.uk
--------------------------------------------------------------
