Yeah agreed, I think even Mozilla has done that for some addons with Firefox.
I just like the simplicity of Gnome and that the workflow is based around workspaces which is similar to tiling window managers although with tiling window managers you can customize more and it’s easier to customize. But now days I don’t care for customizing my desktop, the only thing I customize is my wallpaper.
No. This the place to discuss beyond boredom the same things that have been discussed beyond boredom so many times before 
Over and Out!
Authoritarian developers tend to develop software that prioritizes ideology over usage. Sure it’s their software, they do whatever they want to do, but then we can also criticize them for it. It’s a double-sided freedom as it should be. It starts being annoying when those same developers establish control over many others, like in GTK.
It’s because of this authoritarian and “know it all” attitude of developers that Wayland is still in a state that is equivalent to alpha testing.
I’m not the person you asked, but…
I’ve just started two days ago an experiment of my own, forcing myself to use GNOME.
From the top of my head:
Lastly, the implementation of a screenshoting tool as part of the shell recently was cool and all but the resulting tool doesn’t even have annotation functionality…
So you essentially HAVE to install a different one.
And replacing it is way harder than it needs to be, you get greeted by permission errors from the get-go, see for example flameshot issue.
Some people say that extensions are fine because “GNOME is intended to be used with extensions”.
But in my personal view, the GNOME devs don’t do enough for me to trust the review process.
For example I still haven’t found an easy way to access the reviews of a specific extension.
So I have to google it, HOPE that it has been crawled, so that I can then browse the reviews.
Furthermore, it appears as if all reviews are being done by the same one Person (the developer of “JustPerfection” Extension).
At least that seems to be a pattern for all reviews I have successfully managed to browse so far.
For that one person, I was not able to find a face or the occupation, which for me is a big deal when we are discussing “trust”.
I thought you said “Groundhog day” is my favorite movie? After all don’t we all love Billy Murray and Andie MacDowell.
The solution i see is making the Top XX extensions official. GNOME tests that their extension system works with gnome fallback and things like Ubuntu’s extensions and Fedora’s background logo one.
That way is a good compromise between their strict vision for a desktop but still making everyone happy and most users can sleep at ease knowing that their systems are both secure and stable.
Other than, MAYBE, tray icons (which are under development through a freedesktop initiative for a new protocol, which by the way has been dragged for ~2 years by Gnome devs, currently awaiting for “hackfest around FOSDEM”), this is never going to happen for “random” extensions no matter how many people use them!
Thanks for pointing those out!
About 1: never realized that one would be useful because I had gotten used to the notification area in the top middle of your screen.
About 2: That might depend on the person I don’t care for a copy history on my home system, especially not when copying passwords.
About 3: What would that add to the workflow since removable drivers show up in Nautilus or whatever file manager you use?
About 4: Can you even though that with pavucontrol? I’ve only see it can be done by by editing default.pa.
About the screenshot tool, what do you mean with annotation functionality. Do you mean that you can’t configure which details you want in the default screenshot names so that you can tell the difference between the files without having to open them. If so, then I agree.
I have one comment about Nautilus. I have noticed that when you have a folder with pictures on your system it will show the preview of the pictures. But when opening a folder with pictures on an nfs share it won’t display the preview of the pictures, it would be nice if they did something about that.
Final thoughts after your reply. I agree Gnome should do more by making popular extensions native(as someone else here mentioned as well). However I like the simplicity of Gnome since I don’t customize anything now days anymore except for my wallpaper, I also used KDE Plasma for a while but there were so many settings I would never change and if I did decide to change one it would be hard to remember what setting I changed because there were too many to remember.
To be fair, I’m not (yet?) used to The Workflow™, but I am very used to have a static indication there.
For example maybe I completely forgot I have XY application running.
Of course. I respect that.
I just personally find that having multiple entries improves my efficiency and my workflow very often!
Also I never copy-paste passwords anyway. I use password managers (but again, that may differ from person to person).
An example similar to #1:
I forgot my usb from last time on my laptop because there is no indication.
I’m not using/reading it, but its there pulling energy and getting hot for no reason.
Heat can affect usb drive lifespan.
Absolutely you can
Annotations meaning eg highlighting, underlining, numbering, blurring etc.
Think editing that is closely relevant to the information of a screenshot. (Eg numbering steps/instructions, or an arrow with text “press here”).
This is what made me give it a try.
To be more specific, I find that some GTK applications that try to follow Gnome’s guidelines are exceptional!
Eg I used Foliate after using Okular for ages, and I was blown away by how simple but beautiful it was.
Same for Gnome Boxes. Extremely simple, does what needs to be done for simple use.
That said, my experience with Gnome itself (as a DE) is not the same feeling so far.
It’s not “simple”, its “lacking”. (My subjective opinion)
I came across a Youtube video that made me understand the Gnome workflow better, back when Gnome3 first came out I didn’t like Gnome either and didn’t understand it because I used Gnome2 before and that was still a classic desktop workflow. I wasn’t until about half year ago when I came across this video that I decided to give the new Gnome another chance since I understood the idea more after having watched it.
Great UX experience should always require watching 30 minutes video explaining it…
I’m joking, just joking (not)!
Gimme a slack, imma clown!
What do you use, a tiling window manager?
So you build all your packages and dependencies yourself too then, since package managers are bloat as well?
I’m pretty sure I’ve watched that video before.
The biggest issue with the Gnome Workflow™, is that more often than not the answer to the question
How do I <something>?
is
Why would you want to do <something>?
This no way to “solve problems”.
This is like asking how you turn your car to avoid falling from a mountain, and someone answers
“Well, why are you driving on a mountain?”
The bottom line is it doesn’t matter.
If I want to do X or Y, there MUST be a way to do it.
See, I started watching the video again, and I couldn’t stop myself from laughing (t=190s):
The desktop environment should not be in the user’s way.
Take my example with flameshot.
The moment I try to replace the “lacking” screenshoting tool integrated in Gnome shell with my own solution for my own needs, the Desktop comes at my face like “Nah bro. We don’t do that here”
That maybe using a tiling window manager is the better solution for you than using Gnome?
That is completely irrelevant.
I was perfectly happy with KDE Plasma. (That still is irrelevant)
What is relevant is how do the GNOME devs with their own moto being “Don’t be in the user’s way” expect me to go about installing my own Screenshoting tool?
They probably had some solution in mind, and I want to know it.
Am I supposed to save a completely useless screenshot, then edit it?
And where do I edit it?
Am I allowed to edit it in Krita, or do I MUST use GIMP (same way I MUST not use flameshot)?
You need to tell that all the i3, bspwm, etc. users.
The first time I tried i3wm it took me about a day to figure out and configure and longer to perfect it, that included scrolling through documentation so those 30 minutes are nothing compared to learning how to setup a tiling window manager.
A screenshot is a screenshot. What is useless about a screenshot?
