[clug] Gnome3

[Chris Smart]

On Sun, 26 May 2019, at 23:04, George at Clug via linux wrote:
> Chris, 
> 
> 
> 
> Do you use a desktop or a laptop mostly. How many monitors does the
> computer that you are using have ?
> 

Laptop mostly, with second external monitor.

> To answer the question "Can you tell me the reason why tray icons are
> useful?", I normally use Weather (outside temperature), Time & Date,
> Volume control for mic and headphones, a quick way to access
> networking (particularly Wifi), status of chat (Discord), a great
> place to pin screenshot, Workspace switcher for four workplaces. Only
> occasionally do I pin a CPU performance indicator.  
> 
> 
> 
> A visual workplace switcher is easier for me than pressing keys
> combinations I have to remember, maybe when I have used it lots I will
> get used to it, after all I should not consider Super + Page Up or
> Page Down that hard?
> 

I use ctrl alt up and down because they are very easy compared to super page up/down and my hands are usually on the keyboard.

Nothing stopping you from using the mouse if you want, though. You can click Activities which will show you all workspaces, then click on the workspace you want.

If you really need a taskbar you can always enable one through an extension. Personally I found that having a taskbar kept me stuck in my old comfortable way and not really experiencing GNOME 3 the way it was designed. But of course you're welcome to use GNOME 3 however you want - if it doesn't do what you want you can try extensions and if not, write your own, and if not, install Mate or some other desktop.

> 
> 
> Since Gnome already displays Time & Date, Network link, Output volume,
> Power off, log off in a tray, it just seems strange it does not allow
> other things too.
> 

It does allow it, it just doesn't do it by default.

> 
> "Instead of hitting Enter to open the program, just press Ctrl +
> Enter. Super easy."  - I would not even know how to hit "enter" to
> start a second instance of an application ?  I guess you just typed
> the name of a program, I am not effective at typing names of computers
> so this is not something I do. I use a mouse to manage the opening,
> position, and selection of applications. My hand is only on a keyboard
> when I am typing in text into a word processor or programming text
> editor, running a command at a terminal. Then I am thinking about the
> next activity, my hands are resting, usually away from both the
> keyboard and mouse. Like Brenton, I have been very much mouse oriented
> in the way I work.
> 
> 

Yep, that's when I search for apps as per previous email.

If you're use to using a mouse then instead of left clicking the app shortcut,  just right click first and then left click to open a new window? It's one extra click.

If you want to change the default behaviour and make it open a new window by default you can do that with an extension. There are about 100 extensions available in Fedora, but you can also get them from the website, e.g.:

https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/600/launch-new-instance/

As Brenton mentioned, GNOME has the option of classic desktop which is more like GNOME 2 if you want to try that. Don't know if your distro packages it.

Maybe also install gnome-tweaks (gnome tweak tool) and see what you can tweak.

-c