On 4 May 2018 at 12:54, D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk <talk@gtalug.org> wrote:
| From: Val Kulkov via talk <talk@gtalug.org>

| Gnome 3.28 feels like a significant downgrade to me, coming from 16.04
| Unity interface.

Why?

(This isn't a challenge -- I'm hoping to learn something that I can
adopt from the answer.)

| I played with it for a few days in an honest attempt
| to get used to it and make the most use of it. No, I am missing too
| many time-savers from Unity.

Like what?

1. Useless workspaces in Gnome.

Avoiding the use of mouse saves me a lot of time. I use Alt-Tab to switch between windows, and I try to limit the number of open windows to three, maximum four on a given workspace. This way I can avoid using mouse and avoid using Super-W to "spread windows" which do not always appear in a predictable order.

Where I need to have more than three or four windows open at the same time, I distribute open windows between workspaces. In Unity + compiz, switching workspaces is done with Alt-Ctrl-<arrow> by default. Then in another workspace I can, for example, open and edit two documents and switch painlessly and accurately between them with a single Alt-Tab while having tons of open windows in other workspaces. This is a _huge_ time saver for me.

Where I must concurrently keep three or four documents open at the same time with the same application like LibreOffice Writer, it becomes a little difficult to know which document I am switching to with Alt-Tab, especially where Alt-Tab icon bar collapses all open files into the same app icon. In such case I use "Shift Switcher" (a compiz plugin) with Super-Tab. It gives me the same functionality as Alt-Tab, but with a preview of contents of other windows, by the way all of them appearing in a predictable order.

Gnome 3.28 supports workspaces, but Alt-Tab works across all workspaces in Gnome -- basically, across all open windows no matter what workspace they are placed into. I could not find a way to tell Gnome to limit the list of windows for window switching with Alt-Tab to a current workspace.

The loss of the ability to limit Alt-Tab to only windows in a current workspace was perhaps the most painful loss for me.

I should also mention that some eight years ago I got diagnosed with tendonitis in my right elbow. Holding computer mouse in your right hand for decades is what gives you tendonitis (eventually). With some therapy, my tendonitis now appears to be mostly gone. I have now learned to use mouse by both hands and I now hold mouse interchangeably in my left or right hand, but most importantly -- I have learned to avoid using mouse whenever possible.

On a side note, when a Windows user observes me switch between workspaces (I use desktop cube with cube rotation), quite often I get amusing questions like "whoa, how did you do that?" I like that. It's fun, and it's an opportunity to show off the power of Linux to those poor souls.

2. The loss of HUD.

HUD may have been the most mis-understood and under-utilized Unity feature. There are people who hate it. I totally love it. It saves me time. It saves me the necessity to remember where exactly in menus or toolbars a less-often-used function is, or even remember the name of the function. If I need to save a document as a PDF in LibreOffice, I simply hit "Alt" then type "PDF" and here we go, the desired function is right in front of me. I simply need to hit enter. No mouse interaction involved.

If I cannot even recall the name of a rarely-used function, I can start typing what I think its name should be and most often I get the desired function in a list that appears. Awesome.

3. Gnome 3.28 removed desktop support from Files. It's not that I often put icons on my desktop -- I rarely do that -- but I do not like being told what to do and what not to do with my desktop. Making decisions for me is very much the Microsoft Windows way, something that in my opinion contradicts the core Linux principles.

Yes, Ubuntu 18.04 ships with Nautilus 3.26 to allow desktop support for the time being, but for how long is this going to continue before the desktop support is removed completely?

4. I agree with Stewart Russell that Nautilus, with the stripped functionality, is quite useless. One of the first things I did after installing Ubuntu 16.04, and now Ubuntu 18.04, is to install Nemo as the main Files application.


|  I am missing my Thunderbird icon in the
| system tray.

It's trivial to add those in the Gnome Desktop or Shell or whatever
the proper name is.

While running Thunderbird, the icon will be there.  Just right-click
on the icon and ask to pin it.  While you are there, unpin all the
cruft you don't intend to use much.


I do not want Thunderbird to occupy an open window. I do not want an extra window on my workspace at all -- see my comments above about the workspaces and limiting the number of open windows. I want Thunderbird to "minimize to tray" and stay there. The MinTrayR (MinimizeToTray revived) add-on for Thunderbird, after application of the appropriate pull request for MinTrayR, works to, as the name suggests, minimize Thunderbird to the system tray. When I get new mail, Thunderbird systray icon turns blue. Then I can review how many new messages I have per account, can activate Thunderbird window that shows me exactly the screen I minimized, can invoke "compose message" without opening the main Thunderbird window, etc. This is convenient and useful and saves me time.

In Gnome 3.28, Thunderbird cannot be minimized to system tray. It appears that the system tray functionality has been severely reduced in Gnome 3.* to the point of being quite useless.
 
| Finally, I gave up and switched back to Unity + compiz
| and now I am happy again.

Glad to hear that you are happy.  The future of Unity appears a bit
challenging.

I am well aware that there is most likely no future for Unity and definitely no future for Compiz as we know it. This is sad.

For as long as I possibly can, I am going to stick with what I have right now, Unity + Compiz, because they are damn convenient and useful and save me a lot of time. At least, I will stick with them until I can find something that is somewhat comparable in convenience and usefulness.