We've been trying this web apps thing for over a decade, and a few things should be abundantly clear by now:
- Web apps will always have worse UX than nice native apps. The barrier to entry may be low, but so is the ceiling on what you can build
- The web fundamentally assumes a client-server paradigm no matter what you tack onto it, making it a bad fit if you care about privacy
- Anything we add to browsers can and will be used for adtech/surveillance
The future is going to be awesome 🌈
https://blogs.gnome.org/shell-dev/2020/12/18/gnome-shell-ux-plans-for-gnome-40
I will be mentoring someone (might be you?) this summer as part of GSoC to port one of the design toolings apps to GTK 4.
It's also a great opportunity to get familiar with gtk4-rs & librsvg ;-)
Details at:
https://wiki.gnome.org/Outreach/SummerOfCode/2021/Ideas
With GNOME 40, most core apps are going to have rounded bottom corners.
Many third party apps have already had them for a while but if your app doesn't yet, you still have a few weeks to get it in shape before 40 ;)
Relevant docs: https://gnome.pages.gitlab.gnome.org/libhandy/doc/master/HdyWindow.html
Another is @exalm who somehow pulls amazing demos out of thin air and does a lot of behind-the-scenes plumbing for both shell and apps. They give us pretty animations, gestures and all manner of adaptiveness
Random shout out for @brainblasted who has done amazing work right across @gnome 40 adapting apps to new patterns and fixing longstanding UX bugs
This will be an amazing release and a lot of that is thanks to Chris
I got one more change in for GNOME 40: better tab completion in the file manager! It's bothered me for a while now, so I'm especially excited that I got to improve it: https://www.jwestman.net/2021/02/17/files-tab-complete.html
Huge thanks to @antoniof_gnome@twitter.com
for reviewing this just in time for the release!
I was just reminded of this gem: https://github.com/k9mail/k-9/issues/2998
It's the perfect intersection of open source user entitlement, fragile masculinity, change aversion, and bikeshedding. Really precious ❤️
#MadeAThing …and a year later @brainblasted finally got it out into the world (Thank You :-) )
Typography is another little “tool-app” from the @gnome Design Tooling Team as a companion to (Colour) Palette offering buttons to copy various css classes/characters you may need in your app/mockup
Along the way we got a couple of gtk4 bugs ironed out, thanks @exalm et al for the help with that
As ever some nice artwork from @tbernard
https://flathub.org/apps/details/org.gnome.design.Typography
Up now: a blog post on how you can use the flatpak CLI to develop, test, and create distribution tarballs for your applications: https://blogs.gnome.org/christopherdavis/2021/02/16/developing-with-the-flatpak-cli/
User research played a big part in GNOME 40 designs. It has helped guide specific choices that have improved the overall design and will make it a better experience for users.
Learn more about our user research in this update from the GNOME Shell & Mutter blog: https://blogs.gnome.org/shell-dev/2021/02/15/shell-ux-changes-the-research/
I once read that the conflict between Montagnards and Girondins wasn't so much about ideology or policy, but rather the individual people just not liking each other.
Now, I'm not saying free software development is in any way comparable to french revolutionary politics. But man, some people are incredibly hard to work with even though we agree on almost everything in principle.
Debian: *still ships alpha*
Ubuntu: Hey mate, your 0.2 that you wrote in a delusional fever that doesn't even work anymore? Delish.
me: Oh no.
Intersectional Hipsterism