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Re: First Impressions of GNUStep
From: |
cehardin |
Subject: |
Re: First Impressions of GNUStep |
Date: |
Sun, 15 Jun 2003 13:40:01 -1000 |
On Sunday, Jun 15, 2003, at 11:39 Pacific/Honolulu, Raphael Bosshard
wrote:
Hello there!
I just recently discovered GNUStep, so some of the impressions may be
inaccurate or even wrong, but people judge by first impressions. And
because you can't gain some first impressions on GNUStep again, I will
try to provide you with the thoughts and impressions of a first time
GNUStep user.
(There was a thread in the mailing list archives, the title was
something like "Why has GNUStep not as many users as KDE or Gnome" or
something alike. This mail also tries to answer that question and
tries provide some ideas deal with these "problems".)
Everything written here is my opinion, so please, take no offence.
First Impressions:
- Where is the taskbar, dammit? It's quite a change if you are used to
Gnome (in my case) or KDE. Heck, even OSX has a "taskbar" these days.
I'm working on something in these lines. It is a dock which looks NeXT
like but behaves more Os X like.
- Windows covering other windows of the same application. OSX (and
partly MS Windows with windows that don't apprear in the taskbar) has
the same problem: There are two problems with this situation: You have
to know that there is a window beneath the window. And to bring this
window to the top, you must first move the covering windows.
Neither Gnome nor KDE have this "problem" because the only windows not
appearing in the taskbar are modal.
On OS X the "solution" is to use the APPLE~ key to cycle between
windows of the current application. It's really the quickest way, much
better than trying to click on a taskbar button. Then there's the
APPLE-Tab, which does interapp cycling. GNUstep should have similar
characteristics IMO. ALT-TAB works like crap using window maker and
there is no equivalent of the APPLE~.
In short, you bring up a good point here
(This one is quite tricky. Have to talk to some of the other students
tomorrow on how to solve this. Do it like KDE, all windows in the
taskbar? or like OSX, a single icon for the applications brings all
windows to front. But how to access covered windows in this case?
Tricky...)
As I mentioned before, Os X does this with APPLE~, it works awesome.
I think gnustep should have a similar keyboard command for intra-app
window cycling.
- Strange menubar (NSMenu). Perhaps it's just me, but it gets always
in my way. I'd prefere a OSX solution. The menubar (in my humble
conditioned opinion) should stick somewhere where it doesn't interfere
with the other application windows. And it should probably be
horizontal aligned - it's more desktop-space preserving this way.
Oh goodness, here we go. This is a religious issue around these
parts....
I don't see the use of tear-off/detachable menues. GTK had/has the
same feature but they may be going to disable it per default. (There
was a discussion about that topic a while ago, but I don't know what
the current oppinion is)
They work very well with vertical menus, they complement each other.
- Applications: There are very few native GNUStep-Applications and
there is no "killer-application" that would propagate GNUStep. But
maybe there will appear some opensource/free software OSX applications
that can be ported to GNUStep. Who knows.
A web browser would be nice.
(I'd like to try a native GNUStep-Browser, probably with khtml - Apple
already did a great job by providing the wrappers to ObjC.)
- Look and Feel. GNUStep feels and looks like a desktop of the
nineties. Maybe it should follow the path of OSX. Or try something
completly new. But that is just the opinion of an ignorant,
un-enlightend and stupid hollow head.
another religious topic around these parts.
Splitting the GNUStep-Project into two seperate projects (GNUStep
Framework and GNUStep Desktop) would be a good idea.
Interesting....
Last, but not least: GNUStep is no eye-candy. Really. Maybe a new
default theme would help here. Or some new icons. There was an
interesting proposal at OSNews some time ago. Maybe some of Eugenia's
ideas could be incorporated.
Yes some better icons would be nice... i still have those new ones I
made back in December which nobody seemed to want....
Questions:
- How difficult would it be to implement gnome-vfs-like features.
Could gnome-vfs even used for stuff like smb/bzip/ftp-browsing?
- Does GNUStep intent to support freedesktop.org?
- Should GNUStep be a unix-hacker only desktop or also a desktop for
Uncle Tom?
I think it can be for both.
- What is the state of Apple's NextStep-extentions like drawers? Do
you plan to implement them?
Are drawers patented?
I hope you don't take my heretic thoughts to serious.
i hope others don't as well.....
Discussion is GOOD and should be encouraged.
Have fun,
Raphael
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- Re: First Impressions of GNUStep, (continued)
- Re: First Impressions of GNUStep, Pascal Bourguignon, 2003/06/17
- Re: First Impressions of GNUStep, Eric Christopherson, 2003/06/21
- Re: First Impressions of GNUStep, Charles Philip Chan, 2003/06/21
- Message not available
- Re: First Impressions of GNUStep, MJ Ray, 2003/06/23
- Re: First Impressions of GNUStep, Eric Christopherson, 2003/06/23
- Re: First Impressions of GNUStep, cehardin, 2003/06/20
- Re: First Impressions of GNUStep, Banlu Kemiyatorn, 2003/06/23
- Re: First Impressions of GNUStep, Alexey I. Froloff, 2003/06/18
Re: First Impressions of GNUStep,
cehardin <=
Re: First Impressions of GNUStep, Alexander Malmberg, 2003/06/15
Re: First Impressions of GNUStep, Lars Sonchocky-Helldorf, 2003/06/16
Re: First Impressions of GNUStep, Lars Sonchocky-Helldorf, 2003/06/16
Re: First Impressions of GNUStep, MJ Ray, 2003/06/16