Post #198,673
3/14/05 9:32:21 PM
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What about those SMB shares?
Hey,
Rather than arguing about what "accessible" means, as the discussion has leaned thus far, perhaps it can be guided back toward the topic you raised - namely, how does one browse SMB shares from Gnome? :-)
Being a fan of the Workplace Shell, I think a good GUI is discoverable. If the user wants to modify things, they should be able to do so. If a programmer wants to make extensions to the shell, there should be documented hooks and a relatively easy way to do so. In OS/2, it was easy to do so with the REXX interpreter that came with the OS. And there were hooks for compiled languages as well. If you wanted to have a different font and bitmap background in each of your folders, you could so so. If you wanted a folder to be a remote FTPable directory, you could make it so. If you wanted gradients in your titlebar before IBM decided to make them available, you could. If you wanted to backup the shell customizations and transfer them to another machine, you could. But it didn't change the fact that the shell worked pretty well out-of-the-box.
My recollection is that early on Gnome was sold as being built on a better framework than KDE, that it was more extensible, more easily programmed using OO methods, etc. The shell designers can't know how users are going to want to use the shell 5 years from now. They should have a mechanism to allow extension and customization of the shell by users who are willing to poke around a bit. They should encourage an enthusiast community so that new programmers will want to work on it. Doing so doesn't mean that Sun or IBM or whoever can't have a standard version with "sane defaults." By deliberately hiding stuff and removing customization tools, as they have apparently done, they're shooting themselves in the foot, IMHO.
Browsing SMB shares is something that a reasonably modern OS shell should do very easily. If Gnome is so cripled these days that it can't, then something is very messed up.
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
(Who thinks Gnome is beautiful but hasn't investigated it closely because of the earlier discussions here about the difficulty in customizing it.)
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Post #198,686
3/15/05 1:32:23 AM
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You can do all of that!
You've got the very thing you need - the source code. If you want rhomboid windows, off you go. If you'd like REXX scripting in GNOME, off you go. That's the whole idea of FOSS. GNOME is extensible by you, with no restrictions except your own ability to do so.
As for browsing SMB shares? Yes. It can.
Not trying something because you've heard you can't "tweak" it or "fine tune" it is silly; give it a go! You might actually like it!
Peter
[link|http://www.ubuntulinux.org|Ubuntu Linux]
[link|http://www.kuro5hin.org|There is no K5 Cabal]
[link|http://guildenstern.dyndns.org|Home]
Use P2P for legitimate purposes!
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Post #198,717
3/15/05 6:50:05 AM
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Couldn't prove it by me.
And there was no place to tweak settings. So it either worked or didn't.
And you know what?
It didn't. No shares.
[link|http://www.runningworks.com|
] Imric's Tips for Living
- Paranoia Is a Survival Trait
- Pessimists are never disappointed - but sometimes, if they are very lucky, they can be pleasantly surprised...
- Even though everyone is out to get you, it doesn't matter unless you let them win.
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Nothing is as simple as it seems in the beginning,
As hopeless as it seems in the middle,
Or as finished as it seems in the end.
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Post #198,825
3/15/05 4:15:41 PM
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Worked out-of-the-box for me.
Double-clicked the "Computer" icon, and there was the local network listed along with the various drives on my computer. --\r\nYou cooin' with my bird?
\r\n[link|http://www.shtuff.us/|shtuff]
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Post #198,832
3/15/05 4:44:58 PM
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Which means what?
That you are one of the 'targeted users'?
After all, if it didn't work for me, I must have needed something special, something that required tweaking. Therefore, by the reasoning displayed so far, I wasn't one of the targeted users. Which means it's not a problem, but a feature.
Right?
[link|http://www.runningworks.com|
] Imric's Tips for Living
- Paranoia Is a Survival Trait
- Pessimists are never disappointed - but sometimes, if they are very lucky, they can be pleasantly surprised...
- Even though everyone is out to get you, it doesn't matter unless you let them win.
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Nothing is as simple as it seems in the beginning,
As hopeless as it seems in the middle,
Or as finished as it seems in the end.
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Post #198,858
3/15/05 7:58:14 PM
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Honestly?
SMB is something you either do or don't. If it doesn't work then that's a bug that no configuration in the world would help. --\r\nYou cooin' with my bird?
\r\n[link|http://www.shtuff.us/|shtuff]
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Post #198,867
3/15/05 8:30:10 PM
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Uh huh. Yah. This discussion is OVER.
Have fun watching Gnome spiral into darkness.
[link|http://www.runningworks.com|
] Imric's Tips for Living
- Paranoia Is a Survival Trait
- Pessimists are never disappointed - but sometimes, if they are very lucky, they can be pleasantly surprised...
- Even though everyone is out to get you, it doesn't matter unless you let them win.
|
Nothing is as simple as it seems in the beginning,
As hopeless as it seems in the middle,
Or as finished as it seems in the end.
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Post #198,870
3/15/05 8:46:41 PM
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Really?
If SMB is buggy, and you offer configuration as a solution, then all you've gained is a configurable bug. Why not actually [link|http://bugzilla.gnome.org/|report the problem]? --\r\nYou cooin' with my bird?
\r\n[link|http://www.shtuff.us/|shtuff]
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Post #198,875
3/15/05 9:15:35 PM
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pull the other one
if config works elsewhere but not in gnome, why do you pull the finger on the app? Gnome is now cack, it used to be useful. Now keep the smelling the gnome rose and hoist its praises, we use something that works
billfor us. The lusers will bow down to the gnome while cursing its deficiencies. The rest of us move on.
thanx,
bill
All tribal myths are true, for a given value of "true" Terry Pratchett
Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free american and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 48 years. meep
questions, help? [link|mailto:pappas@catholic.org|email pappas at catholic.org]
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Post #198,908
3/16/05 1:19:10 AM
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s/darkness/being the defacto Linux standard DE/
:-)
Peter
[link|http://www.ubuntulinux.org|Ubuntu Linux]
[link|http://www.kuro5hin.org|There is no K5 Cabal]
[link|http://guildenstern.dyndns.org|Home]
Use P2P for legitimate purposes!
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Post #198,721
3/15/05 7:38:43 AM
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Behold! The new BMW Gnome 75!
New! Sweet lines! Sane defaults! New!
It has the seat and steering wheel positioned so that 65% of drivers won't have to adjust them. (What? You're not in the 65%? Well you can unbolt the seat and drill holes in the floor for new mounting points, but such modifications are not recommended. Dimensions are provided in the BMW Gnome 75 Professional Modification Kit, but modifications are not recommended.)
Please do not add an XM radio to your new BMW Gnome 75. We have carefully considered the User Experience (TM) and the iDrive system on the BMW Gnome 75 is not designed to use XM. While adding XM to the new BMW Gnome 75 is possible, please note that modifications are not recommended.
Please do not compare the new BMW Gnome 75 to the previous BMW Gnome 45 model that had electric seats, a tilt and telescope steering column and XM as a factory installed option. That's not a fair comparison because the BWM Gnome 75 is a new model.
While some may like the adjustability and extensibility of the Acura KDE TL, we think you'll like the BMW Gnome 75 much better. Why? Because flexibility is bad.
>:-)
Cheers,
Scott.
(Who tried to install Ubuntu so that he could get more experience Gnome, but it wouldn't work for me though it ran from the live CD.)
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Post #198,827
3/15/05 4:18:44 PM
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Ah, yes.
When you don't know anything about the field you want to criticize, just make stuff up and pat yourself on the back for being so right about it. \r\n\r\n Let me know when you actually want to have a discussion about usability, I'll be here. --\r\nYou cooin' with my bird?
\r\n[link|http://www.shtuff.us/|shtuff]
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Post #198,830
3/15/05 4:38:48 PM
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Happy to oblige. :-/
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Post #198,848
3/15/05 6:30:27 PM
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When in doubt, claim superiority.
If you push something hard enough, it will fall over. Fudd's First Law of Opposition
[link|mailto:bepatient@aol.com|BePatient]
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Post #198,853
3/15/05 7:49:54 PM
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Re: When in doubt, claim superiority.
It's not my fault that the straw man is a fallacy, ya know. \r\n\r\n So here's a serious response to his caricature: some people want to get out their tools and special-order stuff from the auto-parts store and spent months or years customizing every detail of their cars. Other people just want to get in their cars and drive. \r\n\r\n The former group should be using, at the very least, KDE, though I'd really recommend Enlightenment; they are exactly its target audience. The latter group are the people GNOME is developing for. --\r\nYou cooin' with my bird?
\r\n[link|http://www.shtuff.us/|shtuff]
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Post #198,884
3/15/05 10:00:20 PM
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That's a false dichotomy.
I just want to drive the car too. But I also want to be able to QUICKLY choose amongst several options, not spend 8 years configuring the damned thing. I used to be able to do that with GNOME. Now it's an easter egg hunt to find exactly the right obscurely named registry entry to fiddle, if it even exists any more. I've given up to a certain extent because I just want to get my work done, but that doesn't mean I'm happy about it.
One person's "sane defaults" are another person's pain in the ass.
Lots of configurable options don't ruin usability unless the developer creates an unusable configuration application. It's not as if the configuration panel is always there. You have to open it up before your brain (according to you) is numbed by the bewildering array of options. God forbid people might actually fiddle with them. That would NEVER happen. People are sheep who are just be content with the spoon-fed "sane defaults".
Anyone who believes that that sort of user is going to be a desktop Linux user is living in a reality distortion field.
Regards,
-scott anderson
"Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson..."
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Post #198,887
3/15/05 10:27:40 PM
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Nobody ever said "no configuration"
Just less configuration and more usable configuration. --\r\nYou cooin' with my bird?
\r\n[link|http://www.shtuff.us/|shtuff]
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Post #198,889
3/15/05 10:37:23 PM
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Neither did I.
Regards,
-scott anderson
"Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson..."
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Post #198,895
3/15/05 11:24:27 PM
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We seem to be talking about different things.
(Your tone is rather off-putting at the moment.) I started participating in this thread by talking about my view on the value of having an extensible desktop that can be easily modified by programmers or users without having to dig out gcc. (Specifically, the Workplace Shell that I was using in 1992.) You are talking about usability and usability testing. The two topics don't necessarily intersect. My reply to Peter was tongue-in-cheek: 1) Peter has mentioned wanting a BMW as his next car, and b) it was a car analogy, 3) it had a >:-). I guess I should have included The Sign: [image|/forums/images/warning.png|0|This is sarcasm...] My reading is that part of what was removed from Gnome recently is planned to be [link|http://www.freebsd.org/gnome/docs/faq2.html#q12|restored in 2.12]: 12. How do I edit my GNOME 2 menus?
There is no way to add, edit, or rename GNOME menu items in GNOME 2.10 aside from manually editing the .desktop files themselves. However, deskutils/gnome-menu-editor can be used to deactivate items already in your Applications menu.
Enhanced menu editing is currently planned for GNOME 2.12. I guess the value of simpler menu editing is recognized among the developers... My $0.02. Cheers, Scott.
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