Well, it doesn't have a tray per se, so what would minimize actually do? That's not good criticism that it's different from win XP ergo bad.
For maximize, it's double click on the top bar, or super+up. It has a huge target for the mouse and it's super intuitive. Unlike having a 3 or how many state maximize button that just elongates my window along one axis for some reason.
For minimize, just put it on another workspace you don't use. I think it's a much better mental model, and the tray itself is absolutely not intuitive (the number of times I had to explain to elderly relatives that this tiny icon here is where your window went to. No, this another icon that looks almost the same, but doesn't have that border - how intuitive - was not running it's just pinned. Oh and yeah on this one you have to just hover over, no not click, because there are multiple windows grouped together)
It’s not that gnome is bad because it doesn’t fit the windows archetype. It’s bad because its archetype is just worse.
The dock is basically awful, because you can’t read application or window titles, windows auto-stack and require extra hover and clicks, and it’s not able to hold very many open applications. A (preferably vertical) windows XP style taskbar gives you more information and functionality for less space. It’s just better.
Same thing with tray icons, which hold quick functionality for apps that mostly run in the background. It’s good for things like discord or an email manager. It’s perfectly intuitive - you’ve closed an app but it’s still running in the background, just like your iPhone. Even android basically has tray icons in the control panel via persistent notifications.
> Well, it doesn't have a tray per se, so what would minimize actually do? That's not good criticism that it's different from win XP ergo bad.
It doesn't fit with workflows I have. Ergo Gnome does not 'just' work.
> For maximize, it's double click on the top bar, or super+up.
Very discoverable.
> It has a huge target for the mouse and it's super intuitive.
No, it's not intuitive. I use it, but only because I read about it on the internet.
> Unlike having a 3 or how many state maximize button that just elongates my window along one axis for some reason.
You might want to read Apple human interface guidelines for what those buttons actually do. It's even explained in the OS (although I admit, not very front and centre).
> For minimize, just put it on another workspace you don't use. I think it's a much better mental model,
I don't. I don't want the equivalent of a junk folder on my phone filled with apps I can't delete. I want to be able to delete those apps. Just the same, I want my background programs to be out of the way, not visible, in the background. I don't want to always have that one workspace that's just dead space.
> and the tray itself is absolutely not intuitive (the number of times I had to explain to elderly relatives that this tiny icon here is where your window went to.
What program even made that talk happen? Even if a program ends up in the tray, you can reopen it the normal way without issues.
> No, this another icon that looks almost the same, but doesn't have that border - how intuitive - was not running it's just pinned.
What are you even talking about here? What are you talking about when you say 'pinned'? If the icons look the same, that's a fault with the program, not the idea of a tray.
> Oh and yeah on this one you have to just hover over, no not click, because there are multiple windows grouped together)
Grouped windowed in the taskbar is a misfeature and should never have been implemented. I'll agree with you on that point.
> You might want to read Apple human interface guidelines for what those buttons actually do.
Almost every app on MacOS does whatever they want with the minimize and close buttons. They are completely useless to me, you never know what will happen. And this isn't a recent problem, the way multiple windows are treated as one app is just unintuitive.
> Almost every app on MacOS does whatever they want with the minimize and close buttons. They are completely useless to me, you never know what will happen.
It's gotten worse over the years. I wish developers did better.
> And this isn't a recent problem, the way multiple windows are treated as one app is just unintuitive.
It's largely the same on Linux and Windows as far as I know, or do you mean just as far as the traffic light buttons are concerned?
- MDI applications, for example old Photoshop and old Excel, can have multiple child windows inside of a single window. If you close the main window with the X button then everything closes.
- If you start multiple instances of an application you'll see multiple instances in the taskbar. On MacOS this is not really the intended way, you are supposed to have multiple windows. Afaik you can only launch multiple instances from the command line.
On Windows there are apps that minimize to tray instead of closing. I'd say that this is a similar problem but its a bit better than Slack on MacOS that just minimizes to Dock when you click the X button.
> - MDI applications, for example old Photoshop and old Excel, can have multiple child windows inside of a single window. If you close the main window with the X button then everything closes.
You can do the same on MacOS?
> - If you start multiple instances of an application you'll see multiple instances in the taskbar. On MacOS this is not really the intended way, you are supposed to have multiple windows. Afaik you can only launch multiple instances from the command line.
Are there any MacOS programs that don't allow you to have multiple windows of the app open, thus not giving you the equivalent experience? (cf. Firefox will let me have two browser windows open. I don't need two separate instances for it to act as though it were). I've never had this issue before, but that might just be me.
> On Windows there are apps that minimize to tray instead of closing. I'd say that this is a similar problem but its a bit better than Slack on MacOS that just minimizes to Dock when you click the X button.
There are apps like that on MacOS too. I don't think that's really the intended way to do things, and what Slack does sounds even worse than that, but that's a Slack problem, not a MacOS problem.
I just keep my windows maximized all the time. What would I need minimize and maximize buttons for? If I have need for several windows next to each other, Gnome gives me handy keyboard shortcuts.
> Sorry for wanting background programs to run in the background and get out of my way.
Sounds like those "background programs running in the background" should be user daemons instead of GUI applications.
> I just keep my windows maximized all the time. What would I need minimize and maximize buttons for?
I have too many windows open to keep them all maximised.
> If I have need for several windows next to each other, Gnome gives me handy keyboard shortcuts.
Those are undiscoverable and should not be the only option.
> Sounds like those "background programs running in the background" should be user daemons instead of GUI applications.
Shoulda, coulda, woulda. I manage with the programs that are, not the ones that could be. I'm not interested in developing my own DE, not redeveloping all the other programs surrounding it.
One isn't even a GUI application. The second sees regular use with a GUI, but only for reconfigurations that take less than 10 seconds.
My workflow works for me, and has for the past 10, probably 20 years if you include earlier programs doing the same kinds of things. Why would I want to relearn a new UI for only marginal benefits?
> Those are undiscoverable and should not be the only option.
Super left right up down. Literally the most logical, and what's used everywhere. And just grabbing and "squeezing" it onto the target edge works, for longer than on the other two major desktops.
> Super left right up down. Literally the most logical, and what's used everywhere.
It's used everywhere and it's completely undiscoverable. Both are true at the same time.
> And just grabbing and "squeezing" it onto the target edge works, for longer than on the other two major desktops.
Good, that's another option. Now, the only thing missing is the default option that's been in use on computers for over 30 years, namely maximise and minimise buttons.
It doesn't. I don't see why you think I've said that. You're the one who brought that up as an option. My point is that I still want minimise and maximise buttons as an default viable option.
> I have too many windows open to keep them all maximised.
You can have as many windows maximized as you want. There's not upper limit to maximized windows.
> Those are undiscoverable and should not be the only option.
Just do ` + appname` and you'll jump to the window in question. No discovery required. The WM will do the discovery for you.
> Shoulda, coulda, woulda. I manage with the programs that are, not the ones that could be. I'm not interested in developing my own DE, not redeveloping all the other programs surrounding it.
> One isn't even a GUI application. The second sees regular use with a GUI, but only for reconfigurations that take less than 10 seconds.
The not-gui application you could put into a user-defined daemon (check [0] on how to create user services). The GUI-for-reconfiguration thingy you can put on a workspace, then it's out of your way and still accessible for reconfiguration.
> Why would I want to relearn a new UI for only marginal benefits?
To be snarky; "Why would I want to relearn riding for a new horseless carriage with only marginal benefits?"
> You can have as many windows maximized as you want. There's not upper limit to maximized windows.
I phrased that wrongly. Sorry about that.
I constantly maximise windows, and I often minimise them too. I use the buttons for that. Sometimes i double click the title bar, and sometimes I just drag to the top. Neither of the latter two, or any other way to maximise or minimise windows, implie that the buttons shouldn't be there. I still use them, regardless of the other options, and I like it that way.
> Just do ` + appname` and you'll jump to the window in question. No discovery required. The WM will do the discovery for you.
Knowing that you're supposed to do ' + appname' is undiscoverable.
> The not-gui application you could put into a user-defined daemon (check [0] on how to create user services). The GUI-for-reconfiguration thingy you can put on a workspace, then it's out of your way and still accessible for reconfiguration.
No thanks. I'm good.
> To be snarky; "Why would I want to relearn riding for a new horseless carriage with only marginal benefits?"
To be even snarkier: Why live? I still haven't found a good reason. But while I'm doing it, I don't want to make my existence harder.
Relearning a new UI doesn't have any obvious benefits. People would have told me about the benefits by now. The horseless carriage has obvious benefits. People have told me about those, and it didn't take much to convince me. It shouldn't take much to convince me to relearn a new UI. The UI simply has to be good and have features which make my life easier. Gnome isn't and doesn't have any, going by the times I've tried to use it and the ways people try to convince me that it's actually good.
> Relearning a new UI doesn't have any obvious benefits. People would have told me about the benefits by now.
Gnome for me has the benefit of being usable without ever actually touching the mouse. I can keep my fingers on the keyboard without ever having to lift my hand and push around the mouse to switch applications, to start applications, find applications. The only time I need to use the mouse is if I'm using applications that have some kind of obligatory/mandatory mouse usage, e.g. Blender or Gimp or the like.
Most of the programs I use require the mouse often enough that this isn't really a workflow I'm interested in. And even if those edge-case actions can be done without a mouse, it's usually some arcane keyboard shortcut to do so, which isn't actually any faster than just using the mouse unless you've already optimised your way to only using the keyboard.
Surely you realize that using a computer in this fashion in the modern era is relegated to a fraction of a percentage of people, right? I agree with the sentiment that an OS should be usable without a pointing device, especially for accessibility reasons or instances where a pointing device is faulty or unavailable, but it should also consider the other 99.999% of general purpose computer users.
It should be usable by both a mouse-only, by both a keyboard-only and with a combination of the two.
Accessibility is paramount in and of itself, but it also has the added benefit of helping non-standard situations. Like I occasionally use my desktop over TV from bed with only a mouse, or the reverse, I may only have a keyboard at the time. Or I'm just eating/drinking something.
Gnome performs splendidly here, windows and Mac, much less so.
I'm curious; why do you minimize windows? What's your use case for that?
I remember that I stopped minimizing windows when I stopped putting application starters and folders on the desktop - this was the one thing that forced me to minimize windows, because otherwise I couldn't access those (obviously).
> I'm curious; why do you minimize windows? What's your use case for that?
Because there are windows behind the one I want to minimise that I wish to see. Each of my monitors has at least two programs on it, most of which are best viewed maximised (a video, a full screen game, a remote session to a different desktop, a text editor, probably more in some extreme cases).
> I remember that I stopped minimizing windows when I stopped putting application starters and folders on the desktop - this was the one thing that forced me to minimize windows, because otherwise I couldn't access those (obviously).
My desktop isn't quite sterile, but there's nothing there I need immediate access to. And if I do, I use the file manager anyway.
Even just yesterday there were comments pointing this out: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49802633
> has some idiotic model that your app can run with no windows
Sorry for wanting background programs to run in the background and get out of my way.