This is asinine. Literally every search that I've ever seen for the Nautilus file browser is people asking how to turn off recent and starred.
They just need to offer us the ability to remove or add anything we want. That's all. Not push something on us.
Literally never met anybody in my life who use the starred option. If I ever do, I'm going to ask why because it seems unintuitive to search for a file based on a marker, instead of maybe a tag or...I don't know...use the search?
After removing the global menu bar that was enough to move me away from Gnome. And it's sad because I love how simplistic that desktop environment is. However, I just can't be supportive of all these odd UI decisions they're making.
Note: I mistakenly put Debian in the title when it should have been Gnome. If one of the moderators can fix that for me that would be great. If not I'll just resubmit it.
It used to be that you could remove the Starred and Recents from Nautilus.
Perhaps one of them still can be, but trying any of the guides on the internet on doing so now will probably fail. Gnome locked them in.
I have actually honestly wondered if the Gnome devs sometimes do these things out of spite.
As I said: As long as I can remove Recent and Starred then all is right in the world, but that does NOT sound like the direction they are going, based on the language of the article.
That's why we have to read the entire article and not just the alarmist titles.
Personally, I'm happy they are at least considering a redesign as Nautilus could definitely use a bit of polish.
For example, bookmarks are stored at the bottom of the sidebar, which defeats the purpose of having quick access to them. If you have even one external drive things get pushed down even further. It's just uncomfortable to have to either resize or maximize the window to gain access to something that was explicitly labeled as important.
Same thing with starred items, they are hiding behind a pointless link. Sure, it's just one click away so it's not as bad, but if you really have that many starred files and directories that it they need to have their own special location, then what's the point? If everything is important, nothing is important.
The obvious solution is to treat every sidebar entry as equal and remove the concept of having "permanent" and "user-controlled" sections... but I'm not so sure the Gnome team has the right idea of what people want:
I think simplicity is key, just treat every sidebar entry equally. A sensible default would be to include the default directories found in $HOME, plus the special case of the trash can to easily recover items accidentally deleted. After that, let the user add/remove as needed. Even if the order remains alphabetical this already would make the sidebar much more interesting.
Per the article, the proposal was to remove the entries.
It then goes on to suggest that it may become more editable:
Plus, users are free to re-add these (and other) shortcuts back to the sidebar if they want — a task that will be improved if a new ‘editable sidebar’ mockup gets implemented.
If a new editable sidebar is implemented.
The proposal from Gnome is to Remove.
I notice that the article carries a very strong slant.
That is what I mean.
The article carries a Strong Tone of "The Medicine tastes good."
For years, we have watched Gnome repeatedly remove features. For years, articles and Gnome Devs both touted that the medicine tastes good. For years, we watched the users complaints over the removals ignored. For years, articles touted that there will be restoration of features from independent improvements. For years, those improvements never developed.
This is a really intersting point.
Clearly, if they are the most disliked, then they are not "popular". Rather, they are Widely In Use, and that is a different thing than Popular.
The question then turns to: Why are they higher in use if less liked by the users?
The inclusion of the elements like Gnome D.E. or Windows is most often not really made by the users. They are made by those that have their own interests in mind.
What makes Gnome appealing - on the Distro Dev side - is the stuff that makes it unappealing to the user.
Let's look at the tendancy of Gnome to remove features. To the end user, this is unappealing (Unpopular). But to the devs, less features mean less bugs, less coding and less work overall- which is appealing to them and popular.
And this is why it is very important to them to try to convince the users that the medicine tastes good. It is not about showing us a better way to perform computing.
It is about them getting what they want and trying to convince us to go along with it.
Yes, Gnome has been doing so for a long time. And they are open about this. Gnome Devs (read Tobias Bernards blog) openly state their case and their desires for how users should respond to Gnome, rather than Gnome responding to users.
The justification for all of this, per Tobias Bernard, is that if the users dislike Gnomes direction and decisions, that they should instead contribute their own code.
I think that is a faulty assumption. More usage results in more responses, so it's natural that you see a lot of people talking about it. But those who are happy with a product that enables them to carry out their work comfortably are going to do just that, instead of going online to praise it.
This is in contrast to people who are unhappy about it and want to complain. For example, most positive reviews on any platform that uses a rating system tend to be short and concise, whereas negative reviews tend to be longer; people take more time to complain about things than to praise.
I think this is true of just about anything, and "news" sites that depend on ad-revenue love to generate controversial articles that result in more engagement.
I wouldn't. I would suggest that the vast majority of Windows Users use it because they feel they have no other options. They did not choose the "popular" Operating System. It came with the computer that they bought.
Many people out there perceive Linux as something that isn't an Operating System. What they imagine in their head is some Programming Shell that doesn't have icons and buttons and windowed GUI. Many people I talk to are shocked when I say that it has these things.
And there are those that are aware that there is an alternative to Windows: Mac.
But it is too cost prohibitive. So they feel stuck with accepting Windows.
That isn't the definition of Popularity.
I would say it is the definition of popularity. Let's look at popular music. Popular singers and bands. They're mainstream and probably fairly decent. People like them, because they have never heard better. Once people do hear better than the popular stuff, then they hate popular music.
Anyways, a quick look at wikipedia suggest that neither of us is really wrong here:
"In sociology, popularity is how much a person, idea, place, item or other concept is either liked or accorded status by other people. Liking can be due to reciprocal liking, interpersonal attraction, and similar factors. Social status can be due to dominance, superiority, and similar factors."
