I have not been using Lite for very long, so I may be confusing it with something else. However, I remember that my experience with Lite was not good.
Although I am concerned about the future of Gnome, I am beginning to believe that Zorin 17 Beta is satisfactory and that Gnome should not be forcibly removed from Zorin OS. I hope that the end result is a good user experience, and that the process is most efficient for the developer.
For me, XFCE is the only D.E. I'll ever use.
I went Desktop environment - ArchWiki here and tried them ALL. And XFCE is the only one I liked.
Possibly. A screenshot may be helpful to try to narrow it down.
What I enjoy, as a theme creator, about XFCE is how very easy it is to create consistent themes on it. Whereas creating consistency while theming Gnome is exceptionally difficult.
All applications on XFCE follow the same standards, which eases theming.
But on Gnome, CSD variations create situations where widgets blend into each other or overlap - or change sizes. Additionally, Gnome utilizes non-standard designs including intruding panes and separated panes that are specific to Gnome and found only on Gnome. These become a series of "special case" theme elements that need to be found, coded in and accounted for.
Often, it can mean altering the appearance of either that element in way that does not match the rest of the theme - or altering the entirety of the theme in order to make it possible to keep the theme consistent with that wayward Gnome Pane element that is doing its own thing.
Gnome Boxes is one excellent example of this. It uses two headerbars instead of one, stacked next to each other and for reasons I probably will never know - the right headerbar separator is 10 times larger in spacing than any other application has in existence, requiring a custom field for that one small element.
This is largely why I only theme for XFCE, Mate, LXDE-gtk3 and Cinnamon. Gnome is just too much jumping through hoops.
read that again, @Aravisian
Thanks for the quick catch - corrected that to Cinnamon.
Yes! Every application in XFCE is consistent. On Gnome it is not.
Even KDE-Plasma has consistency!
It is like windows!
On windows, you find the Windows95's Modem Managing Utility.
On Gnome, you find GTK2 apps alongside with the *4 ones.
For Windows, you do not believe me? @Aravisian, or everybody else, who wants to know more: https://youtu.be/dePr2PPT898
I actually pointed this out above in post #20. Just launch Windows and then open the Device Manager and tell me what you see.
yes! but this is only a thing. Only one.
Telling from my experience. When I switched to Zorin back in 2022, I had to choose Z-Lite due to my low device specs. At that time I didn't got any issue using Zorin as a beginner to the Linux. It was like I'm still using Windows but the performance of my device has been improved.
The default Z-Lite themes are good but much later after using it for several months I felt in some places they lack a little contrast for which I switched to a different theme as per my needs. Overall there is no big issues using Z-Lite with the default themes.
I think that one of the fundamental drawbacks of xfce is the Panel editing. What I like about MX-Linux version is that you can configure your desktop and panel in live mode and you get the option to use those choices for the install, so the Vertical Panel on the left can be dragged to the bottom. Where the Panel editing goes wrong is a Window and any applications that you add to the panel does not use the Application name, it just says 'Launcher' and unlike the Dash in 17 Beta where you can drag icons on the panel to a different position after unlocking it is a much better way of doing things. I also like LXQt better than xfce and it uses Qt libraries like Plasma. What we are overlooking however is that xfce is present for older kit. Antix uses somethinig differently altogether, Ice-wm by default. We need to remember the old adage, that "GNU/Linux breathes life into old machines" instead of creating more e-waste. Whilst a lot of (young) users are clamouring for a Lamborghini bleeding edge styling and gaming ootb, your average user just wants functionality, like a Model 'T' Ford that can climb steep steps. (Side note: My paternal grandfather had a Model 'T' Ford [the car you could have in any colour ... so long as it was black] and was challenged to take his car up some very steep steps in Stockport, Cheshire (now part of Greater Manchester) - he did it and won £5 in the process!]
honestly I don't think it's a PITA to do - at least if you know your way around - but rather that XFCE developers have different goals from making it look good
I believe their primary goal is more about making it work good, with looks coming later.
When I switched from Core to Lite, I found the panel easy enough to figure out how to configure.
I see your points about how it could be easier to do or a better way of doing it.
This perspective may be that Point and Click or Drag and Drop are similarly easy; but if a user is primarily accustomed to Drag and Drop, using Point and Click may take a moment to figure out and cause some frustration.
My first experience with Linux was with XFCE and I learned how to work with it for many years. Then, I tried ZorinOS Core and really loved how it looked and felt. However, it's comparatively much harder to work with, at least for the kind of workflow I had gotten used to. Now I'm more used to Gnome itself and I prefer it overall, but somethings are just harder to do.
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