
Xfce 4.16 development phase starting - Chaekyung
https://simon.shimmerproject.org/2019/10/19/xfce-4-15-development-phase-starting/
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ohazi
If you like client-side decorations, the annoying part is that every
application you use needs to be modified to draw their own windows in this new
style. This takes years, and the intermediate period looks inconsistent. Even
in the ideal "endgame" state where all of your apps have switched over to the
new style, each app draws their decorations and organizes their menus and
buttons slightly differently, so this state also feels inconsistent.

If you _don 't_ like client-side decorations, the annoying part is that there
doesn't appear to be a good way to opt-out. You can configure your window
manager to draw the system title-bars anyway, so that you at least have
consistent pin/minimize/maximize/close buttons, but then you usually end up
with a double menu. But also, the process of applications moving to this style
usually involves throwing away the standard File / Edit / View / ... / Help
menu bar, which can be incredibly annoying if not done thoughtfully.

I stopped using gedit because everything is now buried under a single
hamburger menu, and interacting with it is infuriating.

~~~
kfrzcode
I haven't had issues w/ i3wm and polybar on debian, but I'm somewhat of a
zealot when it comes to reducing "noise" on my desktop and am happy to deal
with the foibles that pursuit entails.

~~~
ohazi
I've been happy with Xfce since Gnome lost me with v3. I've also found myself
relying so much on my tile-window-left/right/NW/NE/SW/SE shortcuts that using
a computer without them has become aggravating.

I think I'll probably hold out until Xfce becomes too unusable and then just
bite the bullet and pick a tiling wm.

~~~
btrettel
I could have written this comment.

I tried awesome around 2012 for a while but found that I didn't like it. My
tastes and habits have changed substantially since then so I might try awesome
or another tiling WM. Before I used Gnome I used IceWM and I might give that
another try too, as I think it has some basic tiling features.

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katmannthree
Part of me is happy to see this, IMO CSDs do make applications look cleaner
and more aesthetic.

The other part though expects this to be a compatibility nightmare. Are XFCE
CSDs going to work out of the box in GNOME? KDE? Are we going to fragment
Linux applications a third time, adding in XFCE-specific apps to the GNOME and
KDE/QT fragmentation we already have?

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aclsid
I started playing around with Linux since Redhat 5.1, and it is amazing that
after all these years, some people still don't get it when it comes to good
UI/UX design. The fonts look all out of place even on window titles.

I thought, well it is an open source project with people doing this on their
spare time, maybe I should contribute to that project to help, but the issue
is so widespread that there really needs to be a frank conversation about it
so that all the teams start doing some basic polish on the presentation.

I'm very glad though that the font rendering nightmare is over in Linux and
funny enough, IMHO now Windows has the crazy font rendering.

~~~
kgwxd
It all boils down to the fact that it just doesn't matter. Any hangups exist
mostly in our heads, and everyone has different hangups so there's no winning
the battle. Some people think consistency is important, I find it causes me to
get confused more often, like driving around a cookie-cutter neighborhood
where you're never quite sure you're pulling into the right driveway, even
though you've lived there for 5 years. Corporations have salaried design teams
that need to constantly prove their value, when really they could have stopped
working in 1995 and we all would have been just fine.

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zozbot234
The differences between LXDE (the original branch, not LXQt), Xfce, MATE are
basically fading away by now. I wonder if they could all standardize on a
shared code base.

Heck, even GNOME3 is not _that_ crazy if you ignore the whole Gnome-Shell bit
(and yes, Cinnamon basically forks Gnome-Shell, as opposed to providing an
entirely independent environment.) One could easily have an alternative
"shell" portion providing an Xfce- or MATE-like experience, while still
relying on the basic desktop-app suite that we get as part of that project.

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jammygit
The main reason I use gnome is the keyboard shortcuts. I tried most other
desktop environments and I just needed the mouse too often. Being able to see
all open applications with Super is really nice too.

~~~
crispinb
I'm relatively new to recent desktop Linux, having been on macs for past
decade or so. As Gnome is my distro's default, I've stayed with it for
simplicity and am having a hard time finding what so many people dislike about
it. As you write, it's very keyboard-navigable. It's quick on my (fastish)
laptop. It's kind of spartan & minimalistic compared to macOS & Windows 10,
which seems like a good thing.

I can see the appeal of i3 etc, but if all you want is a relatively mainstream
DE that works & stays out of the way, Gnome seems about right to me.

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kstrauser
First, that's awesome. I'm glad that Xfce provides a lightweight, sane
alternative to GNOME.

Second, OMG it's 2019 and we still haven't developed the technology that would
allow us to take screenshots that aren't covered in cute women. That was
initially kinda cool 25 years ago when we were starting to get computers
capable of rendering JPEGs in a reasonable amount of time. It seems less cool
now when people are still using them to brag about their comprehensive K-pop
collections.

To be clear, I have nothing whatsoever against cute women. I married one. But
guys, a little real talk: these kinds of screenshots do nothing to make us
look more professional. Can we start showcasing literally anything else, like
our collections of tropical fish, or birds, or beaches, or...?

~~~
sunseb
It's kind of crazy that almost everything is seen as offensive these days.
These girls will be fine I promise.

~~~
kstrauser
I’m not remotely offended. I just think we could put a better foot forward
when we want to be taken seriously.

~~~
pnako
This is a Linux website. This is what Linus has to say about being
professional:

    
    
      Because if you want me to "act professional", I can tell you that I'm not interested. I'm sitting in my home office wearing a bathrobe.
    

I'd rather see k-pop pictures (although I don't care about this trend) than
pictures of Linus in his bathrobe.

~~~
kstrauser
Uh, can I opt out of both? :-D

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kelnos
Much better article, from the source:
[https://simon.shimmerproject.org/2019/10/19/xfce-4-15-develo...](https://simon.shimmerproject.org/2019/10/19/xfce-4-15-development-
phase-starting/)

Not sure why the linked article is describing all this stuff as some big
"secret"; the Xfce development list has been public forever. It's also weird
to call Simon's public blog "secret".

~~~
jammygit
> Let’s start with one very important and obvious change: we will drop Gtk2
> support with Xfce 4.16. This will have a concrete effect on old Panel
> plugins or Gtk2 applications that rely on libxfce4ui.

I read a blog by dedoimedo who complains constantly at how willing Linux
developers are to break things / not maintain compatibility. It makes me think
of how I take for granted how so many of my old pc games will still run on
windows 10. Not that the telemetry is acceptable

~~~
jolmg
I wouldn't say "Linux developers". To me, it seems that not only are the Linux
kernel developers incredibly concerned with backwards compatibility, but so
are many other projects. In my view, it's only in the context of DE stuff like
Gtk/Gnome that backwards compatibility seems to go out the window.

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thiccly
Creepy website. I bet those women didn't consent to having their pictures
being used like that. This isn't /g/.

~~~
thaumasiotes
Are you worried about their legal rights in the images?

If you're part of a performing group, having images of you splashed all over
accompanied by statements of how much people like you ("Who is the most
talented Twice member and why is it Nayeon?") is generally considered to be a
good thing.

~~~
thiccly
>having images of you splashed all over accompanied by statements of how much
people like you

If only. These are selfies of women being used in the logo space. It changes
to a new selfie every time you reload. Very creepy.

~~~
claudiawerner
It looks like they're pictures of women from K-pop/Korean popular media groups
overlayed with the site's name. It doesn't look like they're really selfies in
the sense we understand it. They're not random people.

~~~
thiccly
Well for a website about a permissively-licensed operating system, the author
clearly has no problems violating copyright licenses by using these girl's
photos in branding.

