GNOME Client-Side Decorations (CSD) discussion

[Wheelerof4te]

From the GNOME blog:
https://blogs.gnome.org/tbernard/2018/0 ... nitiative/
TL;DR: GNOME suggests that application developers remove title bars in GNOME to save some screen space, integrate better with GNOME and look better. CSD in the form of "header bars" is already used by GNOME programs such as Files. IMHO, and this might sound offensive to some people, these changes are looking good. Now, people are complaing that this is just another hard dependency pushed by GNOME.
Here is a rather heated discussion on /r/linux:
https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments ... nitiative/

Keep in mind that this is, for now, just an initiative by one GNOME developer. And try to keep the discussion civil, igniting flame war like the one seen on /r/linux will get this thread locked.

[Head_on_a_Stick]

I love CSD

They're such a good idea that Microsoft have copied it for Win10

For those who don't like them:

https://packages.debian.org/stretch/gtk3-nocsd

[bw123]

They should spend more time fixing bugs. I didn't find it all that spirited or uncivil, but kind of insterested to see how it turns out.

[debiman]

looking at the first sentence of that blog post:

> title bars are the largely empty bars at the top of some application windows. They contain only the window title and a close button

obviously, this is an internal gnome discussion, since my wm's titlebars contain more than that, and also aren't ridiculously oversized like in the example screenshot.
not speaking of people who use no titlebars at all.

great, let them have an "initiative" about the "revolution" of getting rid of title bars. what do i care.

the crux is, practically everyone depends on some gtk3/gnome applications.
i wish the gnome devs would recognize that and not try to force their "revolution" onto everybody else.
i wish. fat chance.

[Head_on_a_Stick]

@debiman, have you actually tried running any Gtk+ 3 applications with the gtk3-nocsd package installed?

See the package page screenshot for a comparison:

https://screenshots.debian.net/package/gtk3-nocsd

BunsenLabs is a Gtk 2 based distribution that has at least one Gtk+ 3 application in the stock desktop and with gtk3-nocsd the theming is entirely consistent and we consider this problem to be solved.

So stop whinging

[oswaldkelso]

Hoas
Funny your screenshot showed the very reason I usually keep the title bar. It gives back useful info. gtk3-nocsd is yet another example of having to add something to remove something that wasn't really needed in the first place.

In my browser I keep the title bar, because guess what, it shows the full title of the thread, in my file manager it shows the path. Useful is that. In xmessage it's disabled because a title bar that say xmessage when I know it's xmessage isn't much damn use to anyone. The close and maximize buttons aren't really needed nor the menu as they can be called with the keyboard but I keep them because I want the title and path. I'm sure Gnome what's to give users the same functionality..... Maybe not looking at those screen shots "welcome to fac..." is a bit of a fail in my book
alt+b to toggle decoration alt+c for window menu in openbox or set elsewhere e.g. tint2 or a menu. Widowlab has the titlebar switch use to menu bar. two bars in one.

The more I see and read about the Big DE's the less I see any reason to want to run one. They don't seem to offer anything new except less speed and less choice. My TDE install has been running non stop for weeks. It has a shit load of setting that I just don't need as well but at least ps_mem is only showing 350MB and firefox is using half of that and it runs fast on a piece of crap X60T. icewm has more settings than gnome just folks can't be arsed to read the configs and set it up.

Where is the real innovation?

[Wheelerof4te]

They're such a good idea that Microsoft have copied it for Win10

Yes, and Microsoft is in a better position to just say "my way or the highway" to it's consumers. Frankly, I sometimes miss that "benevolent dictator" style in Linux-land.
Say what you want about UWP app's usability, but they look great. Furthermore, MS plans to drop legacy win32 support (at least, move it to virtualization) for their top secret Windows Polaris and Andromeda OSes.

They should spend more time fixing bugs.

There are GNOME point releases for that. But, I agree in general.

obviously, this is an internal gnome discussion, since my wm's titlebars contain more than that, and also aren't ridiculously oversized like in the example screenshot.not speaking of people who use no titlebars at all.

Yes, those title bars are huge, what were they thinking? Internal discussion or not, it will affect a lot of Linux users in the future.

In my browser I keep the title bar, because guess what, it shows the full title of the thread, in my file manager it shows the path. Useful is that.

Using CSD, you don't lose that info. It is in your browser address bars and tabs. It is in your file manager's window. CSD are there to make you focus on an application. Because that is what you are using in the first place.

The more I see and read about the Big DE's the less I see any reason to want to run one. They don't seem to offer anything new except less speed and less choice.

It's your right to use what you want. But to dismiss clear benefits to users of a more complete DE just because it "uses more RAM" (unused RAM is wasted RAM anyway) is shortsighted at best.
There were many improvements to end-user comfort and general polish just in the last two releases of GNOME (3.24, 3.26). These include night light integration (no need for Redshift), better look and feel, redesigned settings, better Wayland support, GTK3+ improvements, more CSD, improvements to native GNOME applications and hundreds of bug fixes.
We should be cheering for big DEs, not dismiss them just because they are "bloated". And they really are not, try installing gnome-core package.

Where is the real innovation?

It is in all of us, both users and developers.

[Head_on_a_Stick]

Where is the real innovation?

It's in the actual workflow of the desktop, much like your fttlwtiddlebits system (or whatever it's called) — stuff that's not immediately visable but vastly increases the workflow of the user

GNOME does this sort of thing better than any one, IMO.

Interesting fact: Gtk+ 3 applications and their CSD work very well indeed in dwm, the titlebar can be grabbed and moved without chording and the windows float automatically

[Wheelerof4te]

It's in the actual workflow of the desktop

Very much so:
Super -activities view
(while in activities view) Tab -switch programs (classic Alt+Tab does the same)
Super+a -applications
Super+PageUp/PageDown -change workspaces up/down
Super+Space -change keyboard layout
Super+Left and Super+Right -move window to the left/right side
Double-click window -maximise/restore

You have one key that in combination with other keys does different things. Can it be easier? And that's what you get OOTB, no key-binding needed, plus additional features can be added via extensions. So, GNOME has innovated the desktop, now it's time to put more polish to the already good looking DE.
EDIT: Might be useful here. This is from another thread:

A Desktop shoud remain desktop, rather than become a touch mobile thing.

This is becoming more and more meaningless since small notebooks, tablets and smartphones already saturate the consumer market. Only hardcore gamers and office workers need desktops now, the rest is (semi)mobile.
The future is all about mini computers and all-in-one devices, such as smartphones. Today's children are tomorrow's adults. Those children are getting used to touch-screens. As such, modern graphical environments (GE) have to adapt.

[oswaldkelso]

Where is the real innovation?

It's in the actual workflow of the desktop, much like your fttlwtiddlebits system (or whatever it's called) — stuff that's not immediately visable but vastly increases the workflow of the user

GNOME does this sort of thing better than any one, IMO.
:

Well as I've said in the past when I tried to install gnome on Debian 9 it failed badly. I have however watched this video which claims to show how your meant to use it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSQxPnKwNc8

Based on that fttlwtiddlebits pisses all over it it term of faster and more intuitive work flow with the only area I could see gnome doing better was the on screen run dialog. I need one action to launch runner rather than it being ever present... Maybe they need to hire me

If I was to be critical of it. The down sides of fttlwtiddlebits is of course lots of separate little text files and scripts that all need edited to make all the separate applications that make it up work well together. Making even a small change needs a lot of editing to keep the actions consistent. It also doesn't have a completely unified look as it uses the best tool for the job and that may mean different tool kits. Others have criticized it as to mouse/touch pad oriented but I just think of it as future proofing, making it ready for the libre phones and tablets that well all be running in a couple years time

Those that believe gnome is the bees knees please carry on using it. Choice is good

[Zjho]

Like the space saving benefits that a choice of header bars would bring, hope more Gnome and non-Gnome apps will offer them in time.

[dust hill resident]

I don't like CSD for a few reasons:
* I like having my own choice of window manager, and I like being able to configure my window manager to behave a certain way, eg. being able to change the action that results from double clicking a window titlebar, being easily able to configure the position of the close maximize etc buttons on the titlebar, etc
* if every program draws its own titlebar, consistency between different programs (gtk vs qt vs fltk, etc) will be even worse than it already is, and it's already pretty bad
* I think it looks bad

And so of course, I don't use the GNOME desktop and I avoid using any GNOME software, and everything has been fine. But now with this initiative, it seems to me like the GNOME developers are saying to everyone else "you really should do things our way, our way is the best way" and that really annoys me, especially since this arrogant attitude was a big part of why I stopped using GNOME many years ago. And now it seems like having control over their own users wasn't enough for them - now they want to extend their "we know best" draconian control outside of their own project.

I have a strong dislike for the GNOME because of their arrogant attitude and disregard for other projects and certain kinds of user. And I have an especially strong personal dislike for GNOME and its developers because I've had to waste a lot of time and energy on maintaining my custom GTK3 theme because they kept breaking the theming API for several years, and will no doubt will break it again fairly soon when GTK4 comes out.

I hope that any non-GNOME software that adopts CSD will have configuration options to disable them. I'm considering donating to KDE and I've already made donations to MATE and XFCE.

[bw123]

I hope that any non-GNOME software that adopts CSD will have configuration options to disable them.

If they don't I will be filing a lot of bug reports.

I think you made some good points, and I don't use gnome for a lot of the reasons you mentioned. I do think it is a little unfair to criticize the effort to design cross-platform software and create standards and get them adopted.

I'm suspicious that this whole "unification" effort is just a way for windows developers to control desktop linux. I don't want a windows clone, if I wanted a windows clone I would just run windows. I don't particularly care for the old windows ui that was adopted by early linux efforts to clone windows. For that reason I think it's great that gnome and others are getting away from that.

At the same time, this effort to make apps run on both windows and linux with common standards is not going to fly with me. I just don't like the bloat and the confusing mess of the underlying libraries. It's one of the main reasons I left windows in the first place.

[Thorny]

Dare I write this down?
I think a lot of the "old guard", principled, GNU/Linux developers are gone (as we will be someday) and with them their objectives, many of the newer crop learned to develop Windows first and naturally come with biases, just as we all are biased to some degree by our training and experiences in life. The old guard pretty much didn't like "Windblows" or "Micro$oft" (inappropriate and no longer politically correct but this is the only place I would use those terms) at all and were more likely to have come from UNIX. And some developers are so arrogant that, for them, it's their way or the highway. This is largely a microcosm of human life, at least in Western society.

And if you live long enough, you'll probably see various things change, many of which, you may not like.

I'd say the chances are good that "youth" (by this I mean generations subsequent to my own) has some right to determine how their future will unfold. And, they will anyway whether or not I like it. Thankfully, many of us have learned enough to find workarounds to what we don't like or have just adapted.

[debiman]

@debiman, have you actually tried running any Gtk+ 3 applications with the gtk3-nocsd package installed?

See the package page screenshot for a comparison:

https://screenshots.debian.net/package/gtk3-nocsd

BunsenLabs is a Gtk 2 based distribution that has at least one Gtk+ 3 application in the stock desktop and with gtk3-nocsd the theming is entirely consistent and we consider this problem to be solved.

So stop whinging

yes i've had that nocsd thingy installed for a long time now.
it changes nothing about my previous post.

btw, putting a smiley after an insult doesn't make it ok.
and i wasn't even whinging, rather ranting about self-centered GNOME devs, telling us how we can revolutionise our workflow because we finally found a way to utilise mutter's gigantic windows decorations... wtf.