The #Gnome HIG is actively watering down what once was a desktop environment made exclusively for pixel precise pointing devices (a.k.a. the mouse) to the least common denominator (a.k.a. fat fingers). Who are they designing for? Tablet users? Not professional *nix workstation users doing real work, it seems. #LinuxUsability

#LinuxUsability: It is not a proper desktop if you can't FREELY position items ANYWHERE... Why don't most desktop environments get spatial orientation right?-- In #helloSystem we will follow principles laid out by @siracusa. At the moment I am rewriting the Filer from scratch: https://github.com/probonopd/Filer/

Spatial orientation means that every item in the filesystem has one (and only one) location (pixel coordinates) on the screen, and you can logically group and visually arrange things. It is suprising how few (any?) open source file managers get this right, to this day. #LinuxUsability #helloSystem

What makes a desktop environment a "desktop" environment? For me: Mouse (not touch) centric operation. Icons on the desktop. Trash can on the desktop. (Global) menu bar. Small applets in the menu bar (e.g., for volume, time, etc.). Drag and drop. Application files with application icons. File associations (ideally with creator codes, so that the application which created a document also opens it by default). Now: How much of this does #Gnome actually support? Almost none of it. #LinuxUsability

Am I the only one who thinks file associations are handled terribly bad in XDG compliant file managers? Just because these are all .stl files, it doesn't automatically mean that I want to open them all with the same application. And I want the icon to reflect which application gets to open a file. #LinuxUsability

In the example with no title bar, how do I know that it is Telegram I am looking at? Giant step backwards. Window title bars have been around since 1984, and they are serving a specific purpose. Don't mess with them.

More on #LinuxUsability: https://medium.com/@probonopd/make-it-simple-linux-desktop-usability-part-1-5fa0fb369b42

First they crippled menus, then they crippled window decorations, now GNOME designers want to cripple window title bars, even in non-GNOME applications? They are there for a reason.
Don't let GNOME design ideas pollute the application landscape. Enough is enough.
https://wiki.gnome.org/Initiatives/CSD
#LinuxUsability

@nathand In fact, #helloSystem was born out of frustration with the state of #LinuxUsability, and to address everything that is discussed in the article series.

@nathand Me too! I have written a 6-part series on #LinuxUsability where those pesky hamburger menus are featured prominently as a negative example https://medium.com/@probonopd/make-it-simple-linux-desktop-usability-part-1-5fa0fb369b42