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GNOME 2.16 Released 473

Posted by samzenpus from the upgrade dept.
Kethinov writes "The GNOME Project has just released version 2.16 of their popular *nix desktop environment. Among many snazzy new features, is lots of new eye candy, including an experimental compositer in Metacity, feature enhancements, usability improvements, and much, much more. Ars Technica has a review."
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GNOME 2.16 Released More

GNOME 2.16 Released

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  • Sourceforge? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 06, 2006 @11:53PM (#16057190)
    Ugh, who wants to use a desktop environment that has a stinky foot as its logo/mascot?
    • Somewhere, in Texas, A moderator is missing it's funnybone.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by ajs318 ( 655362 )
      Last time I looked, the GNOME foot was bare. Bare feet do not smell. Feet kept in shoes smell, because perspiration cannot evaporate, and bacteria thrive in the warm, moist environment.

    • Here's another problem with Gnome branding (Score:5, Insightful)

      by mwvdlee ( 775178 ) on Thursday September 07, 2006 @08:46AM (#16058486) Homepage
      Tomboy, Notes application
      Alacarte, Menu Editor
      Baobab, Disk usage analyzer
      Totem, Video player

      WTF???

      Why not call the Notes application "Gnome Notes", the menu editor "Gnome Menu Editor", the Disk usage analyzer "Gnome Disk Usage Analyzer" and the video player, you've guessed it, "Gnome Video Player".
      I know developers like to give their applications noteworthy and unique names, but to a user this is only confusing and unnecessary. Especially considering all these are part of Gnome and will most likely not be used outside the Gnome environment.

      • Re:Here's another problem with Gnome branding (Score:5, Informative)

        by Medieval_Gnome ( 250212 ) <medgno.medievalgnome@org> on Thursday September 07, 2006 @09:17AM (#16058638) Homepage
        It's not quite that bad. When accessing these programs from the menu they *do* have the simple names you were hoping for.

        Totem is 'Movie Player'
        Baobab is 'Disk Usage Analyzer'
        Alacarte seems to be 'Menu Layout', although Ubuntu might have changed something here.
        Tomboy is unfortunately 'Tomboy notes'

        So overall they've managed to use fairly clear and simple names for these programs, much as you were hoping for.

      • Re:Here's another problem with Gnome branding (Score:5, Insightful)

        by g2devi ( 898503 ) on Thursday September 07, 2006 @09:51AM (#16058838)
        It's absolutely necessary.

        Think about it. If you run GNOME on a distro that uses the default GNOME applications, you'll see this on your menu item:

        Epiphany Web Browser

        but if you run Ubuntu, you'll see:

        Firefox Web Browser

        These are *different* apps with different features and limitations so they should not be given the same name (i.e. GNOME Web Browser) even if the naming convention is consistent within a distribution. By force-fitting the branding, you're eliminating the possibility that GNOME can change its mind about web browsers and you're making it difficult to support GNOME. And it confuses novices who buy "GNOME for dummies" books and expect one thing to work and has a different result because they're getting another app.

        Let's extend this a bit further. Suppose I want to run Firefox, Epiphany, Opera, and Konqueror. My menu would look like:

        Epiphany Web Browser
        Firefox Web Browser
        Opera Web Browser
        Konqueror Web Browser

        All these options are available and even a new user on my machine that only knew one of these browsers would see that they are all web browsers.

        What's wrong with unique names anyway? Is Excel any more descriptive than iLife or OpenOffice? None make sense, but all are well known. People like unique names since they're easy to remember. And for people who don't know what these apps mean, the old "OpenOffice Word Processor"/"OpenOffice Spreadsheet"/... menu items should give them all the information they need to know.

  • As someone who is currently running 2.14.2; what does this mean to me?
    • So the question becomes ... when will this be an Ubuntu automatic upgrade and will it be for Drake or Eft or even later?

      • Re:Probably that you're running Ubuntu, like me. (Score:5, Informative)

        by Hikaru79 ( 832891 ) on Thursday September 07, 2006 @12:11AM (#16057266) Homepage
        It's not a coincidence that Ubuntu's release cycle is the same as Gnome's -- six months. That's the defining feature of a new Ubuntu release: a new Gnome release. It was especially designed to be this way.

        So to answer your question, 2.16 will be in Edgy. And 2.18 will be in whatever comes after Edgy. And so on.
        • Well, you're partly right. Ubuntu was intended to be synched with the Gnome releases... but the versioning system works like this:

          date is in format: yy/mm/dd
          Ubuntu yy.mm
    • It means that you could now upgrade to GNOME 2.16... duh.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by hdparm ( 575302 )
      You may want to read release notes for 2.16. BTW, since last night this version is included with Fedora rawhide (just updated FC6, test2).

  • candy (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 06, 2006 @11:56PM (#16057203)
    Bring on the eye candy! There'll be heaps of complainers who say its unnecessary... but sorry, its necessary to bring linux gradually mainstream.

    • Re:candy (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Jake73 ( 306340 ) on Thursday September 07, 2006 @01:09AM (#16057471) Homepage
      I basically agree with this, but think the developers should find some real designer talent to bring it about. For example, the screenshots are horrible. They took window shots, then faded the borders to white, then added a drop shadow. If you can't tell that this doesn't look right, you're in the wrong league.

      Don't fade borders if you're compositing a complete window. Faded borders are the graphical equivalent of an ellipsis.

      And definitely don't add a drop shadow to something you've already faded to white. It looks ridiculous.

      • Re:candy (Score:4, Interesting)

        by hey! ( 33014 ) on Thursday September 07, 2006 @08:49AM (#16058496) Homepage Journal
        I stared at the first several screenshots trying to figure out what you were talking about, then I ran into the ones you mention. It made me wonder: why were some screenshots given this treatment, and others not?

        I think one visual design principle is this: if visual differences carry information, then pointless visual differences convey spurious information.

        The screenshots in question also seem to me to be a bit of a mixed metaphor. The drop shadow makes the things stand out from the page. This, I think, is an OK idea; it's not so much that the drop shadows tend to draw the eye to the screenshots (which they do), but it also conveys the messaage that these are concrete examples we are discussing; that is to say if we're looking at a screenshot of a graph, it's the window we are paying attention to, not the graph inside. By contrast, if there a graph that showed something like the lines of code in Gnome vs. time, you wouldn't expect it to get the drop shadow treatment.

        The mixed metaphor comes in this way: by fading the borders, the windows become less solid, yet they are still casting a shadow. The shadow appears to be cast by a sharp edge from a diffuse light source, but there is no sharp edge.

        What does it mean? It means nothing. Therefore it's poor communication because, unlike the drop shadows, it detracts from what is being said.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by anagama ( 611277 )
      Eye candy would be nice -- I've been using gnome for about a year now after I burned out on having to relearn where a particular setting control was in KDE whenever I sought to change something. But one thing that really bugs me about the gnome organization is how damn hard it is to find screenshots. Go to the main KDE site and you see a link for "screenshots" in the sidebar. Go to the main gnome site and you have to hunt far and wide for screen shots -- darn annoying.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by grcumb ( 781340 )

      I posted some first impressions about running GNOME on Compiz here [livejournal.com].

      The bottom line is that not all eye candy is created equal, but some of the features really have a positive effect on the user experience. I for one (heh) am looking forward to seeing a compositing window manager integrated tightly into GNOME.

    • Re:candy (Score:5, Insightful)

      by TractorBarry ( 788340 ) on Thursday September 07, 2006 @04:05AM (#16057897) Homepage
      The big trouble with focusing on eye candy is that GNOME has still got so much to do in terms of usability.

      For instance the support for consistent cut & paste, consistent support for keyboard shortcuts and a focus on providing functionality akin to the spirit of *NIXs "everything is a file" metaphor.

      For instance "all text should be accessible". In other words whereever I can see some text in GNOME I should be able to copy & paste that text (using the standard selection methods and Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V, Ctrl-Ins, Shift-Ins, menu items etc. etc.) This functionality should be available no matter whether the text is being displayed using a widget such as a list, button, status bar or text area etc. etc. Any application that displays a list should also allow me to save that list as a plain text file seperated by something like commas (anyone for CSV ?)

      And this functionality should be provided in the widget set itself so that simply by adding a widget to a GNOME application the features get built in without the developer having to realise why they're required or, if they've got any sense, eventually getting round to adding them after complaints from irate users.

      Any application that displays a list of files should allow me to double click on a file (or press "carriage return" or enter) and launch the default application associated with that file. Any application whatsoever. If I can't do this why is it showing me the file list anyway ? In exactly rhe same way I should always be able to select file(s) from that list and use copy & paste etc. Going back to my previous point I shuld also be able to save that file list in CSV format.

      Wherever there's a right mouse button menu this should also be available by pressing the right mouse button on the keyboard. Maybe a MAC keyboard doesn't have a "right mouse button" (don't kno never used n one ;) ? So what. They miss out, the rest of the world that does have one (i.e. the vast majority of us) gets to use it in the manner it was designed.

      On another note then for gods sake stop messing around with the right click menus. Using Nautilus you can select "paste" from the "edit" menu. But you can't right click in the file area and select "edit" > "paste" as doing so selects the nearest file to the cursor and removes ("greys out") the paste option.

      Personalised, "intelligent" menus are simply crap. Look at Microsoft Office or XP hiding things away etc. If there's data on the clipboard that can be processed by the application then paste should be available. Hiding the option is simply dumb. Dumb. Dumb. Dumb.

      Personally I use GNOME because I use Ubuntu but I find it so bloody hard to do anything productive due to it missing so many simple, easy to implement, features that it usually send me swearing back to Windows to get things done. I'm so fed up with Nautilus that I now share my home folder on the network and do all my file management from Windows Explorer.

      So enough with the eye candy already. Get the cake properly baked before you start adding fancy icing.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by killjoe ( 766577 )
        "For instance "all text should be accessible""

        Yes. I wish windows had this too. Nobody has it now though. It would be great if Gnome was the first windowing framework in the world to give us this.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by oohshiny ( 998054 )
        The big trouble with focusing on eye candy is that GNOME has still got so much to do in terms of usability. [...] Personally I use GNOME because I use Ubuntu but I find it so bloody hard to do anything productive due to it missing so many simple, easy to implement, features that it usually send me swearing back to Windows to get things done. I'm so fed up with Nautilus that I now share my home folder on the network and do all my file management from Windows Explorer.

        Well, all you have given us is a rant and

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by lahvak ( 69490 )
        For instance "all text should be accessible". In other words whereever I can see some text in GNOME I should be able to copy & paste that text (using the standard selection methods and Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V, Ctrl-Ins, Shift-Ins, menu items etc. etc.)

        Yes, I agree, I struggle with this all the time - on Windows XP

        Any application that displays a list should also allow me to save that list as a plain text file seperated by something like commas (anyone for CSV ?)

        How would you trigger it? A shortcut? An item in t

  • Almost sounds like KDE 3... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 07, 2006 @12:01AM (#16057224)
    I know I'm going to get modded Troll for this, but looking over the feature list, it really sounds like it's gained a lot of KDE 3 features. The GNOME webbrowser can now spellcheck. (Big deal, Konqueror has done this for ages.) There's now a method for visually displaying disk use in GNOME. (Again, Konqueror has done this for ages.)

    You can now add items to the programs menu (this is NEW?!), you can now set file permissions on multiple files (again, this is NEW?!). All in all it sounds like stuff that should have been there for ages.

    And, as always, I can't help but wonder what options got removed and now are permentantly set to "sensible defaults" because, as everyone knows, customizability is "confusing". Really an underwhelming release based on the articles. (Yes, I did read them!)

    • Re:Almost sounds like KDE 3... (Score:5, Informative)

      by cloricus ( 691063 ) on Thursday September 07, 2006 @12:55AM (#16057426)
      You're not a troll. You are stating the clear to see and the only problem with your post that I can find is that you don't think it is a good thing. Note Gnome had perms and the ability to add to the menus beforehand, just no where near as easily/well. Out side of the childish flame wars between kde and gnome the devs and community are getting on with life and taking features off each other while implementing new ones independently. Also moving into line with freedesktops specs. I think this is great for Linux desktop interoperability and really does allow people to use what they want with little hassle and not missing the features and functionality they really need.
       
      For the record I use Gnome, Enligthenment (DR17), and Blackbox and I refuse to even touch the peice of bloated crap that is KDE. :)

      • Re:Almost sounds like KDE 3... (Score:5, Informative)

        by a_karbon_devel_005 ( 733886 ) on Thursday September 07, 2006 @08:50AM (#16058501)
        Default KDE 3 takes up less memory and uses less resources to run than GNOME currently. Run them side by side and see for yourself. KDE is not bloated in comparison to GNOME.

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by Goalie_Ca ( 584234 )
          On a modern machine none run bloated... but kde's interface sure takes a bit of work. I'm glad in KDE 4 they are cleaning up the "bloated" ui. KDE apps rarely feel streamlined rather they feel large and overwhelming. KDE feels very busy...
    • Mod parent insightful. This is absolutely not a troll. I, for one, whole heartedly agree with these comments.

      Why has it taken this long to be able to set recursieve file permissions ?

      Why has it taken until now to be able to edit the menu (smeg notwithstanding) ?

      These features should have been in from release 1.0

      Sorry but GNOME really does suffer from some pretty basic usability problem which, as the parent posints out, could mostly be fixed by taking note of some of the good aspects of GUI design that hav

  • GNOME logo (Score:3, Funny)

    by youknowmewell ( 754551 ) on Thursday September 07, 2006 @12:04AM (#16057241)
    Nice logo :)

  • Does it work on Windows 95? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 07, 2006 @12:07AM (#16057251)
    This all sounds very exciting!

    I use Windows 95 and I'm finding it quite difficult to use. Can somebody please instruct me on how to install this GNOME on Windows 95?

    • Re:Does it work on Windows 95? (Score:5, Funny)

      by i3iz ( 982752 ) on Thursday September 07, 2006 @12:40AM (#16057373)
      it's easy to install. Type Format C: at the command line. Then hit Y

      • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Thank you very much for your help i3iz,

        I followed your instructions. However, I got the following message:

        Drive C: is currently in use by another process.
        Aborting Format.

        Have you any ideas on how I should proceed from here?
    • I know I'll sound humor-challenged, but... Cygwin works on Windows 95, and there are various projects trying to get various versions of Gnome running under Cygwin. UTFG and all will become clear.

  • But does it have a useable file-save dialogue? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by j1m+5n0w ( 749199 ) on Thursday September 07, 2006 @12:15AM (#16057284) Homepage Journal
    I use gnome regularly, but am always momentarily confused by the file-save dialogue no matter how many times I see it. Gnome is very nice in a lot of ways, but I think in terms of decent interface design, it needs a lot of work.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by darkmeridian ( 119044 )
      "Gnome is very nice in a lot of ways, but I think in terms of decent interface design, it needs a lot of work."

      It's a windowing environment whose purpose is to provide a GUI. I don't use Gnome because I want my Graphical User Interface too have a decent interface design. Otherwise, I'm better off with a command line.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by mkro ( 644055 )
      As long as we are discussing file requesters... Getting to -- and browsing -- hidden (dot) directories is a nightmare.
      Try this:
      Make a .porn folder in your home directory (Hey, real life scenario). Make a pictures subdir, and inside that a few other dirs (teen, goth, whatever you fancy). Now populate those directories with pictures, then try getting to them with Eye of Gnome. Yes, yes, I know what you are thinking -- with the-oh-so-linux-for-humans "Ctrl-L" key combo you CAN enter the URL of .dirs -- but can

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by ville ( 29367 )
      Patch your GTK+ to open the save-dialog expanded. Patch that works with 2.8.6 and 2.8.19 at least:
      http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Beautify_GNOME#Save_d ialogs_expanded_by_default [gentoo-wiki.com]

      // ville

  • Damnit! (Score:5, Funny)

    by suso ( 153703 ) * on Thursday September 07, 2006 @12:25AM (#16057319) Journal
    Just emerging 2.14 now.

  • Not bad, except (Score:3, Interesting)

    by subxero37 ( 985222 ) <[subxero] [at] [phatcode.net]> on Thursday September 07, 2006 @12:26AM (#16057323) Homepage

    I really wish they wouldn't use JPEGs for computer screenshots -- the lossy compression makes straight lines and text look terrible. PNG (or possibly GIF, depending on the number of colors used) is much more reasonable.

    Other than that, I don't understand why the --enable-compositor compile-time option isn't included by default. Logically, if the support is there, but the hardware isn't up-to-par or the X composite extention is not loaded, then the compositor just won't do anything. If everything is A-OK, then the compositor works as expected. For example, I compile support for my sound card directly into my kernel. One day, if I suddenly remove the sound card, my kernel will still work. So why not just turn stuff on by default?

    On the other hand, I can understand why some things aren't compiled in sometimes, due to size, but a compositor can't be more than, what, 100k of actual code? Anyway, I'm sure someone's gonna fire back at me.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by afd8856 ( 700296 )
      I thought Gnome only ships source, while distributions ship binaries. So it's a distribution's job to enable that option at compile time.

  • The important part: Mono (Score:5, Informative)

    by kestasjk ( 933987 ) on Thursday September 07, 2006 @12:30AM (#16057347) Homepage
    This release is very important because Mono is now a dependency! This single move pretty much moves Mono from an interesting project into mainstream OSS.

    As a C# fan, and knowing how much of a pain GTK was in C, I think this is a very good move. KDE has always had a better API, official Mono support with GTK reverses that! This could really clear up GNOME, and the Linux desktop generally.

    • Re:The important part: Mono (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Almahtar ( 991773 ) on Thursday September 07, 2006 @12:47AM (#16057398) Journal
      GREAT! Now The most popular OSS desktop is tying itsself to a Microsoft controlled standard! Sweet! Let's persue that further!

      C++ with use of the STL and a few BOOST libraries is still more powerful than C# (let's see you do inline grammar parsing with C#!) - and it's not under the control of a corporation that's proven it can't be trusted.

      • Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)

        by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Thursday September 07, 2006 @02:01AM (#16057617)
        Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by SandmanWAIX ( 674838 )
        Despite your negativity, I myself (as a Windows lead developer) am really looking forward to developing for Linux. Our current client/server software is currently only compatible with Windows and MS SQL Server, however over the next couple of years I am hoping to slowly move our codebase to compile under Mono and support MySQL/PostgreSQL under Linux. We have already tendered a Mono alternative to a large company where a Microsoft solution wasnt an option. Mono is a good thing. It might not be perfect, but i
        • I've yet to see a better cross-platform solution than Qt. It can be used with great languages like Ruby, Python, C++, and more... and it's worth every penny. Runs beautifully on Windows, Mac, and Linux with no modification to source.

          If you an truly cross-platform, go for a technology that is developed by a company that is actually committed to the idea. From everything Microsoft's done I have no reason to believe that they really want .net to ever be truly cross-platform.

          Oh, and I think of it less as

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by shutdown -p now ( 807394 )

        C++ with use of the STL and a few BOOST libraries is still more powerful than C# (let's see you do inline grammar parsing with C#!)

        Let's see you do a remote method invocation on any object of a non-specialized template class (which is what most of STL and Boost are) in C++. Or even simply dynamically load a template class from a shared library (you know, plugins and all). Heck, if you promise to not cheat, and not rely on everyone using a single C++ implementation (read: GCC), let's see how you're going to

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by jeswin ( 981808 )
      Not only C#, it could be just about any language which has a .Net compiler. Iron Python 1.0 [codeplex.com] just got released, which works with Mono as well. There are many others too, including Boo, Nemerle, an experimental Ruby.Net. Mono+Gnome might eventually be the reason for mainstream Linux desktop acceptance (with applications being compatible on Windows and Linux), as .Net apps get more popular. In the MS world, the .Net Framework is now the sole platform to build new apps.

  • God help Nautilus (Score:2, Insightful)

    by postmortem ( 906676 )
    Looks as bad as ever. Is there a single 'power' user that likes Nautilus?

    It is not customizeable -can't change single thing on the toolbar.

    Default view is useful for home directory only.

    Location bar (can be changed) is annoying with buttons instead of link.

    • Re:God help Nautilus (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Carewolf ( 581105 ) on Thursday September 07, 2006 @02:55AM (#16057750) Homepage
      Nautilus is not for Power Users. Not even Konqueror which is designed for Power Users is used by them. Power Users use the text shell.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by Oestergaard ( 3005 )
        Not for everything.
        Konq. actually does a decent job of showing directories with loads of images (8+ Mpixel jpegs/tiffs) as thumbnails. Something bash doesn't (yet) do well.

        The much cooler feature is, that the *same* file browser component is used in every KDE app - so when you want to burn a CD or whatever, K3B shows you the *same* thumbnail-view of your image catalogue as you used in Konq before when sorting the images. This may sound simple but it is such a basic necessity that it is beyond me why neither

  • Technically great (Score:3, Interesting)

    by NMerriam ( 15122 ) <NMerriam@artboy.org> on Thursday September 07, 2006 @01:08AM (#16057469) Homepage
    I remember years ago when Gnome was the eye-candy window manager all the kids were showing off. In looking through the screenshots, the most surprising thing is to see that nobody involved with the Tango [freedesktop.org] interface has ever seen what an actual shadow looks like.

    If you want to do flat shadows, cool, do them, they're easy and effective. If you want to do three-dimensional shadows, cool, they look even better but take a bit more work. But don't drop the same blurry ellipse at the bottom of every object and think that you're making a three-dimensional shadow, you just make everything look like it's standing on a blurry gray oval, and users really do recognize the less professional look, consciously or not.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by caseih ( 160668 )
      Tango is just an icon set, done with SVG. They use an elipse as a shadow instead of a "real" shadow. Big deal. The icons still are a cut above XP's icon set. I dont't know much about the workings of SVG, but I'd say real shadows would be difficult but doable. In any case, it's just an icon! It's not even 3D. At 128x128 it's not going to matter that much. I think you're just being pedantic. You're welcome to submit better icon shadows to the project rather than complain about things being unprofessi

      • Re:Technically great (Score:5, Insightful)

        by NMerriam ( 15122 ) <NMerriam@artboy.org> on Thursday September 07, 2006 @03:21AM (#16057807) Homepage
        Tango is not just an icon set, it's (theoretically) a whole set of guidelines for interface design, including icons.

        I wouldn't waste time critiquing an icon set, but if Gnome really is planning on following these guidelines and the Tango crew really intend for them to be comprehensive and used by all the major open source interface developers, it would be a good idea for their flagship example to be as professional as possible. The lousy shadows were literally the first thing I noticed when I opened the page.

        In any case, it's just an icon! It's not even 3D. At 128x128 it's not going to matter that much. I think you're just being pedantic.

        I'm sure the Tango folks will be thrilled to learn you really don't care about any of their work. They built a whole group, an extensive web site and extensive guidelines along with the hundreds of icons in the set, I should think they care about the work they're doing and want it to be more than just "good enough". If they want to produce results that are comparable to professional software, then they have to hold themselves to the same pedantic standard that professionals do. It's like building a house and not having the corners be square -- one of the subtle differences that separates most $100k homes from most $500k homes. The average person doesn't consciously notice all the little fit and finish details as they walk throught the house, but they do recognize that there is a difference in quality.

        Your professional help would be greatly appreciated if you feel inclined.

        These comments are my professional help, I charge for this stuff in real life. Shadows have shapes that relate to the shape of the object. A sphere, a file folder, and a box don't all produce the same shadow shape when illuminated. Shadows are darker at the center and where they meet the object, and then lose density and definition as they reach the outside edges. You can make a pretty good flat shadow by just shading two sides of an icon, but if you want to do a projected floor shadow then you have to represent the silhouette of the object as transformed through space.

        Doing a bad floor shadow is more work for worse results than doing a flat shadow. So my professional advice would be that if they are low on time, they should just do flat shadows, but if they want to spend the time, they should think more about how to achieve good projected shadows.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by IpalindromeI ( 515070 ) *
        I dont't know much about the workings of SVG, but I'd say real shadows would be difficult but doable.

        Pretty easy, actually. Using Inkscape, for example, if you already have the main icon drawn:
        1. Make a copy of the drawing, and select every object and path in the copy.
        2. Use the Path -> Union option to generate an "outline" object.
        3. Turn off stroke if it's on, and change the fill color to a light grey.
        4. Skew and squash the outline so it looks like a shadow.
        5. Make sure the shadow is behind the main drawing.
        6. You can ge

  • Usability improvements on the application level (Score:5, Insightful)

    by wysiwia ( 932559 ) on Thursday September 07, 2006 @01:56AM (#16057608) Homepage
    Usability improvements on the desktop are nice but when do people realize that usability improvements are desperately needed on the application level and only marginally on the desktop. What does it help if you have a perfect desktop but many of the applications one uses have a rather rubbish usability!

    Usability is always measured in a greater context, a context which goes far beyond the Gnome desktop but spans any desktop used. Just think how an American driver feels when he drives in England or vice versa. You might interrupt that's rather seldom the case but not with computer desktops. Almost each Gnome users uses a KDE application and even 60% use a Windows application (http://www.desktoplinux.com/cgi-bin/survey/survey .cgi?view=archive&id=0821200617613 [desktoplinux.com] at the bottom) and everybody knows the easyness of MacOSX.

    Sure application developers don't want to lose much time with usability they want to concentrate on functionality. So they can't follow multiple separate usability guidelines they simply don't have the time. Yet usability is a very important part in the acceptance of an application. To circumvent this, application developers should follow cross-desktop or cross-platform guidelines (http://wyoguide.sf.net/ [sf.net]).

    Yet Gnome might still follow the MacOSX way sticking to there own perfect way and be happy with a rather insignificant market share. Or they help working on fighting off the first "Top inhibitors of Linux desktop adoption" (http://www.osdl.org/dtl/DTL_Survey_Report_Nov2005 .pdf [osdl.org]).

    O. Wyss

  • Gnome! (Score:5, Funny)

    by SQLz ( 564901 ) on Thursday September 07, 2006 @02:06AM (#16057629) Homepage Journal
    Now with more KDE!

  • But does it feature... (Score:3, Funny)

    by MaineCoon ( 12585 ) on Thursday September 07, 2006 @03:17AM (#16057799) Homepage
    ... left-handed scrollbars?

    *ducks*

  • New GNOME, even more easier! (Score:5, Funny)

    by 4D6963 ( 933028 ) on Thursday September 07, 2006 @04:39AM (#16057951)

    FTFA : "Menu editing just got even more easier."

    Woot! Sounds like a lot! I also heard it was even more betterly eye-candier!

  • Yet STILL... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by DeathAndTaxes ( 752424 ) on Thursday September 07, 2006 @07:28AM (#16058304) Homepage
    STILL we gnome faithful are saddled with having only one desktop picture for all workspaces. This became ridiculous at gnome 2.10, IMO. Gnome devs still say they are all for the spatial paradigm (which I like, btw), yet they miss the opportunity to use different desktop pics for each workspace, which would make each workspace...different (wait for it) spatially.

    (I still use gnome every day.) ;-)

  • Ubuntu (Score:4, Funny)

    by Stephen Chadfield ( 7971 ) on Thursday September 07, 2006 @07:32AM (#16058315) Homepage
    I hear Ubuntu researchers are hard at work trying find the most depressing shades of brown to use in the default themes for their Gnome 2.16 based release.

  • Are the dependencies still growing like topsy? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Medievalist ( 16032 ) on Thursday September 07, 2006 @09:18AM (#16058646)
    Gnome drags an absurd number of dependencies into the distributions I use. It seems like you can't load Gnome without also loading several development libraries, a panoply of sound and video support (for hardware you don't physically have and software you have no desire to use) and various other fooferaw [freebsd.org]. I realize some of this is because of inept packaging on the part of certain distributions, but even when you take that into account Gnome's still a dependency nightmare reminiscient of Windows "DLL hell".

    When the number of dependencies required to run Gnome on mainstream distributions DECREASES, that'll impress me. Until then I am unlikely to care what new eye-candy it's sporting.

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