When being configurable is more important than being useful
-
Good idea: make window automatically resize to half of screen when moved to edge.
Good idea: make window resize to quarter of screen when moved to corner.
Good idea: let people enable or disable corner-snapping depending on whether they find it useful or annoying.
Bad idea: Ubuntu's extremely fine-grained configuration.
I checked what happens when you make left edge snap to right half, and surprisingly, it works flawlessly.
-
@G?ska This makes me think people may be right about some OSS developers being intentionally hostile to it's users.
-
"being able to snap to the right while moving left is an integral part of my personal workflow, and I will bitch non-stop in the mailing list if that functionality will be removed"
-- stereotypical Linux useralso this XKCD
-
Compiz is like the tinkerer's dream. It is deliberately ultraconfigurable for people who spend one day each week reconfiguring their PC and do weird stuff because they can. One must never start Compiz Settings. Never. Unless, that is, you want to waste hours of your time finding that sweet balance on the window wobbliness setting.
-
@Gąska said in When being configurable is more important than being useful:
I checked what happens when you make left edge snap to right half, and surprisingly, it works flawlessly.
Not having this feature has single handedly affected my productivity a lot for my entire career. Now that I know Ubuntu has this, I can be 100x more productive. I'll be installing Ubuntu now. Thanks.
-
@marcodave said in When being configurable is more important than being useful:
also this XKCD
I will note that both airplanes and elevators are susceptible to malicious attackers
-
@admiral_p said in When being configurable is more important than being useful:
One must never start Compiz Settings.
Without Compiz Settings, Ubuntu is less configurable than Windows 7 Starter. I don't remember what it was now, but I've had to install it because it was the only way to disable some "feature" that made the computer nearly unusable to me.
-
-
-
@Gąska I'm curious, does the presence of ą make it sound different than if a is present?
-
@stillwater wikipedia was more useful than expected to answer that
In Polish and Kashubian, ą is right after a in the alphabet but never appears at the beginning of a word. Originally ą was a nasal a but in modern times, its pronunciation has shifted to a nasal o sound. The letter doesn't simply have one determined pronunciation, but most often it will be pronounced /ɔw̃/, or just simply /ɔ/ followed by a nasal consonant with a place of articulation that appears in the Polish language. Therefore, ą will sometimes be pronounced as /ɔn/, /ɔm/, /ɔŋ/, /ɔɳ/, /ɔɲ/.
Unlike French but rather like Portuguese ão, nasal vowels in Polish are asynchronous: they are pronounced as an oral vowel + a nasal semivowel [ɔw̃] or a nasal vowel + a nasal semivowel.
-
@stillwater "ą" sounds like a French trying to say "on". While "a" sounds like a normal person saying "a".
-
@Gąska said in When being configurable is more important than being useful:
Not that you'd be able to view it, but typing @gaska actually brings up your username...
-
@PJH said in When being configurable is more important than being useful:
@Gąska said in When being configurable is more important than being useful:
Not that you'd be able to view it, but typing @gaska actually brings up your username...
But it seems one of the others has gone and done it anyway...
-
@sockpuppet7 said in When being configurable is more important than being useful:
nasal vowels in Polish are asynchronous
Damn kids and their asynchronous frameworks!
@Gąska said in When being configurable is more important than being useful:
@stillwater "ą" sounds like a French trying to say "on". While "a" sounds like a normal person saying "a".
Hey!
-
@Zerosquare technically, it doesn't disqualify French from being normal. But it does English.
-
@Gąska said in When being configurable is more important than being useful:
Bad idea: Ubuntu's extremely fine-grained configuration.
It is also strangely incompatible with the usual GNOME policy of not making things configurable.
-
@Gąska said in When being configurable is more important than being useful:
Without Compiz Settings, Ubuntu is less configurable than Windows 7 Starter. I don't remember what it was now, but I've had to install it because it was the only way to disable some "feature" that made the computer nearly unusable to me.
Yup, that sounds much more like Ubuntu.
-
@Bulb said in When being configurable is more important than being useful:
@Gąska said in When being configurable is more important than being useful:
Bad idea: Ubuntu's extremely fine-grained configuration.
It is also strangely incompatible with the usual GNOME policy of not making things configurable.
The difference might be purely semantic, but I thought the GNOME policy is to not have features to begin with. Lack of configuration is thus just a corollary.
-
@Bulb said in When being configurable is more important than being useful:
the usual GNOME policy of not making things configurable.
My "favourite" instance of this was screensaver configuration. As I recall, Ubuntu switched from a screensaver library that allowed settings for individual screensavers (e.g. custom text for "3D text", configurable directory for picture slideshow, etc), to one without that, instead relying on "sensible defaults". Someone raised a defect against this, saying that some screensavers by their nature need to be configurable, and the response was basically "Fuck you,
give me moneystick your slideshow pictures in~/Pictures"
-
@topspin it has lots of features. Like scrolling on launcher(?) bar(?) popping windows on and off screen. Or middle-click-drag moving the window no matter where you click. Or start(?) menu(?) showing a few dozen recently opened files. I hate those features and I want them all gone - but there's no option for it (except the middle click drag, through this CompizConfig program IIRC).
-
@topspin said in When being configurable is more important than being useful:
I thought the GNOME policy is to not have features to begin with.
Another word for "feature" is "potential bug".
This is actually a good policy if, like most Linux projects, they're suffering from a severe lack of manpower. Saves a lot of testing hours. (Of course that assumes they test anything ever, which being open source-y is a big questionmark.)
Then that strategy goes straight into the sewer by including this "compiz" dialog anyway. But at least those guys apparently tested the ridiculously illogical combinations of settings. Apparently.
-
@blakeyrat said in When being configurable is more important than being useful:
Then that strategy goes straight into the sewer by including this "compiz" dialog anyway.
Compiz is not part of a standard Ubuntu install (anymore). @Gąska's OP is very misleading in that regard. He installed an additional third-party program and then bitched about "Ubuntu".
-
@blakeyrat said in When being configurable is more important than being useful:
This is actually a good policy if, like most Linux projects, they're suffering from a severe lack of manpower. Saves a lot of testing hours.
It's a good policy if you know and care about which features your users need most. Which means, among other things, listening to users feedback.
But GNOME doesn't do that. Instead they use the method: "we remove stuff because we can, and we don't have to listen because we know better".
-
@dfdub would it make you feel better if I bitched about GNOME instead?
-
@Gąska Compiz isn't part of GNOME either and cannot even be used with GNOME 3, so that'd be even more wrong.
-
@dfdub weird, I'm using GNOME 3 right now (or at least
apt searchsays my gnome-shell package is version 3.18.5-0) and I very definitely use Compiz. And it's been there by default. Maybe TRWTF is Ubuntu installing by default two pieces of software that cannot even be used together?
-
@Zerosquare said in When being configurable is more important than being useful:
But GNOME doesn't do that.
GNOME's users are Linux dweebs. If they listened to their user feedback, they'd just end up re-creating the compiz dialog but with even MORE options for each menu.
-
@blakeyrat you're conflating Linux users with open source fucktards. There's millions of perfectly sane Linux users who care about things like UX, usability and hate tinkering with settings. Granted, most of them don't use Linux because they want to, but because they're forced to (just like you're forced to use git).
-
That's a very linuxy thing. I'd say in the pre-Ubuntu days, it would have been weird for any program to NOT have a bunch of menus like that. I guess things are really changing a bit.
I still don't think that by itself, having extra choices is a bad thing, as long as there's a button to reset them all to default. However in practice it does lead to (or get caused by) careless UI design.
-
@Gąska said in When being configurable is more important than being useful:
weird, I'm using GNOME 3 right now (or at least apt search says my gnome-shell package is version 3.18.5-0) and I very definitely use Compiz. And it's been there by default.
Are you sure you're running a GNOME Shell session right now? Because if you are, changing any compiz settings has zero effect. GNOME Shell is tightly coupled to mutter and no other window manager will work with it.
Maybe TRWTF is Ubuntu installing by default two pieces of software that cannot even be used together?
I assume you upgraded from a version that used Unity? Because I cannot see any other reason why you'd end up with a system like this unless you willingly installed both desktop environments.
-
@Gąska said in When being configurable is more important than being useful:
There's millions of perfectly sane Linux users who care about things like UX, usability and hate tinkering with settings.
Yeah but those aren't the ones building Linux or contributing to Linux or even posting in Linux forums. And they're not paying customers either. So
.
-
@dfdub said in When being configurable is more important than being useful:
@blakeyrat said in When being configurable is more important than being useful:
Then that strategy goes straight into the sewer by including this "compiz" dialog anyway.
He installed an additional third-party program and then bitched about "Ubuntu".
IT'S IN THE REPOSITORIES SO IT'S PART OF THE OS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
-
@anonymous234 that's not true, but it's a reasonable approach nonetheless.
-
I like the inconsistency between "upper" and "top" the best.
Also, what is the difference between "Maximize" and "Fill Screen"?
-
@The_Quiet_One
about 30px vertical
-
@Gribnit It's an old discussion around here where I insist that installing the LTS version of Ubuntu doesn't mean the third party software in the repositories should also be LTS (aka really old) versions and everyone else disagrees.
-
@anonymous234 Tying software versions to OS versions is the dumbest idea of all the dumb ideas in the Linux ecosystem.
(Yes I know you can add "PPAs" and there's a brand-new packaging format that supposedly solves this only 20 years after it should have been solved. Putting a bandage over a retarded idea doesn't make it any less retarded.)
-
@Gąska said in When being configurable is more important than being useful:
I don't think URL slugs can have question marks in them.
-
@blakeyrat said in When being configurable is more important than being useful:
Yes I know you can add "PPAs"
PPAs are literally just an easier way to install a package source. You can install a package source without using a PPA.
-
@anonymous234 said in When being configurable is more important than being useful:
@Gribnit It's an old discussion around here where I insist that installing the LTS version of Ubuntu doesn't mean the third party software in the repositories should also be LTS (aka really old) versions and everyone else disagrees.
18.04 is "really old" now? There hasn't even been a new non-LTS release since then.
-
@blakeyrat said in When being configurable is more important than being useful:
Tying software versions to OS versions is the dumbest idea of all the dumb ideas in the Linux ecosystem.
That's dumb.
-
@ben_lubar said in When being configurable is more important than being useful:
18.04 is "really old" now? There hasn't even been a new non-LTS release since then.
There's a new LTS out!?
I might have to update all my configuration management scripts. But probably not until I feel a need to upgrade. If ever...
-
@dfdub said in When being configurable is more important than being useful:
I assume you upgraded from a version that used Unity?
I AM on a version that uses Unity. Ubuntu 16.04 LTS.
-
@Gąska said in When being configurable is more important than being useful:
I AM on a version that uses Unity. Ubuntu 16.04 LTS.
Then I have no idea why gnome-shell would even be installed. You're definitely not using it.
In that case, I have to take the comment about Compiz back, though. Unity is built upon Compiz, so it's installed by default - the only thing you probably added is the settings app.
-
@dfdub said in When being configurable is more important than being useful:
@Gąska said in When being configurable is more important than being useful:
I AM on a version that uses Unity. Ubuntu 16.04 LTS.
Then I have no idea why gnome-shell would even be installed.
I have a very good idea why it would be installed.
If it wasn't work computer, I'd uninstall it and see how many things would break, just to see how much truth is in what you say. There might be a transitive dependency between gnome-shell and some other part of Ubuntu. That, or Ubuntu maintainers really don't know what they're doing.
-
@Gąska said in When being configurable is more important than being useful:
Ubuntu maintainers really don't know what they're doing
Now there's a possibility I can get behind!
-
@Gąska does your machine stutter and lag when there's animations on-screen? if so, you're probably using gnome shell.
I say this as someone who just tried the latest Ubuntu LTS using intel graphics on an i5-5xxx machine, and whose desktop suffered from frequent stutter and lag when doing the simplest things. ugh.
-
@blakeyrat So in case of GNOME, they shouldn't listen to their users' needs? So they'd create software that's more useful for people that don't use GNOME anyway?
-
@anonymous234 said in When being configurable is more important than being useful:
I still don't think that by itself, having extra choices is a bad thing, as long as there's a button to reset them all to default. However in practice it does lead to (or get caused by) careless UI design.
Having optional features and settings doesn't make anything harder to use for the people that don't use it, as long as you put it somewhere it doesn't confuse non-users of said features.
I always configure my KDE window decorations to include an "always on top" toggle left of minimize/maximize/close. That comes in very handy sometimes, even if 99% of users don't need that. And you can't do that without 3rd party tools on either windows, OS X, or gnome (and new gnome apps don't respect the system's window decorations anyway and shit all over it)
If you don't use such a feature, you'll never even go into the settings dialog to change window decorations, so there's no way it can confuse you.
Ą - Wikipedia
