[03:49] <lotuspsychje> good morning to all
[03:49] <tomreyn> good morning!
[03:50] <lotuspsychje> hey tomreyn
[05:07] <lotuspsychje> TJ-: never liked this nautilus changes
[05:08] <lotuspsychje> same as file copy is now a circle next to the compact mode for progress
[05:09] <lotuspsychje> https://i.stack.imgur.com/q6bE3.png
[05:09] <TJ-> It's Gnome in general though it seems - see, what annoys me so much is they replace very usuable and discoverable text menu bar with icons that are hard to read and decipher especially on high DPI displays in poor lighting (think reflections, sunlight) and yet under all that is a regular popup text menu so its not like they've made some fundamental design paradigm shift
[05:10] <TJ-> if this was a new UI paradigm through and through I could partially understand it, but it seems to me its more about pandering to the smartphone interface
[05:10] <lotuspsychje> true, another problem with my customers i noticed, older people are used to a classic menu, this compact mode confuses alot
[05:11] <TJ-> I have 2,000 blind and visually impaired service users to consider and this design is just so poor its contemptable. I'd be shot if I told them this was modern and accessible
[05:11] <lotuspsychje> agree
[05:12] <lotuspsychje> you cant explain someone used to file/print to go search yourself sick to get a document printed
[05:13] <TJ-> this is what comes of designer/bored-dev led UI/UX ... they have to change things to satisfy their own itch and to justify their position.
[05:14] <lotuspsychje> yeah i also think the same, why the heck change things that work well basic, to get a shiny new confusing features?
[05:14] <TJ-> Precisely, and for visually impaired operators that need logically arranged, heirachical text for their accessibility devices to help them effeciently, it breaks everything for them.
[05:14] <lotuspsychje> and if they left the user the choice....but no..
[05:15] <lotuspsychje> morning Ipsilon
[05:15] <Ipsilon> good morning (or night for me)
[05:16] <lotuspsychje> Ipsilon: we were just saying designers choose new features over things that basicly work well
[05:16] <TJ-> Many of my 2,000 blind and visually impaired service users and friends use a program called Synapptics on phones and that tries its best but the amount of redundancy (repeating the same description over and over) as they try to navigate a screen to find the options they want...
[05:16] <lotuspsychje> and no freedom of choice for the end-user
[05:16] <TJ-> ... well, it's so painful for me to see I explore with rage at the UI/UX and they laugh at me and just accept it
[05:17] <Ipsilon> My concern is that UX choices don't get communicated well, if at all.
[05:17] <lotuspsychje> Ipsilon: communicated to whom
[05:17] <TJ-> Ipsilon: I'm not sure if this is just due to using Xubuntu, but here, on 18.04, Evince has TWO cog icons top right!
[05:17] <Ipsilon> To an interested party who may want to learn why certain UX decisions are made.
[05:17] <lotuspsychje> to the community?
[05:18] <Ipsilon> I tried looking for this a while ago, could find nothing explaining why certain decisions were made. What is the workflow vision for some of these things.
[05:18] <TJ-> The problem with icons is unless you're familiar with them culturally someone, or something, needs to explain what they mean. A text menu doesn't have that problem AND can be translated to a culturally/locale correct string
[05:19] <lotuspsychje> Ipsilon: is the same as nautilus file progress circle too heh, never liked that either
[05:19] <TJ-> Ipsilon: it's itchy fingers of designers/developers justifying their positions!
[05:20] <TJ-> Ipsilon: I hit this with Font-Manager last week, the user experience was horrendous... like when it runs 'configure' it doesn't open a dialog, it 'slides' a new view into the main window pane
[05:21] <TJ-> Ipsilon: I had posted a bunch of UX-related issues to the font-manager github project with a view to patching and pffering some pull-requests but it got me wondering about if this is common across GTK3/Gnome UI/UX and it seems it is
[05:22] <TJ-> So now I know, instead of getting frustrated and mad trying to fit a square peg into a round hole, I'll write a new application from scratch and use QT
[05:23] <Ipsilon> Most applications I use are not gtk, for this very reason. And I could chalk it up to me being an i3 weirdo. But it worries me when I recommend gnome to people...and some of these issues come up.
[05:23] <Ipsilon> And I have _no_ way of explaining why something is the way it is.
[05:23] <Ipsilon> When there is no evident answer to a trivial UX question.
[05:24] <TJ-> It had really stupid UX logic like: to copy a font-family into a custom Category (you've created with "+" button) you are supposed to 'guess' to pick-up and drag the font-name from the centre pane over to the left pane that lists the font charactistics. If you hover there the left pane 'slides' the Category list into view where you can drop the font onto! I mean, how are you even supposed to suspect
[05:24] <TJ-> that behaviour?
[05:25] <TJ-> Ipsilon: I agree entirely; I Use Xubuntu/XFCE myself but I hack code on both Xubuntu and Lubuntu projects
[05:26] <Ipsilon> Maybe it has changed. but the last time I read through the HIG, it was no help at all.
[05:26] <Ipsilon> It didn't get me any closer to understanding some of the UI decisions
[05:27] <TJ-> Something else I've noticed recently which I'm not sure if its cultural or not, but many of the developers behind 'weird' UI/UX (non-logical to a native Englishman here at least) often seem to be German. I got to wondering if it is a cultural/way of thinking difference since I've noticed something similar in low-level library and CLI tooling over the years.
[05:28] <Ipsilon> Ah, can't speak to that.
[05:29] <TJ-> The sense I get is of a precise, technical, mindset behind them that seems to be missing some appreciation of the human aspects
[05:29] <Ipsilon> Maybe, but I don't see the decisions gnome makes as very pragmatic. I am super pragmatic in my workflow, and gnome3 doesn't fit my workflow.
[05:30] <TJ-> In the same way I get a different sense from Chinese developers - in that case they throw code over the wall without thorough testing and often it results in regressions. I see this frequently in the Linux kernel
[05:30] <lotuspsychje> what DE you use then Ipsilon
[05:30] <Ipsilon> I don't.
[05:30] <lotuspsychje> kk
[05:30] <Ipsilon> I run i3 with my own configuration.
[05:30] <lotuspsychje> cool
[05:30] <TJ-> I tried i3 and couldn't make sense of it
[05:31] <Ipsilon> But again, I recommend gnome to people new to linux. And these aspects are concerning.
[05:31] <Ipsilon> I was hoping with time, their vision would become clearer, not murkier.
[05:32] <TJ-> The trouble is I guess, the money is behind Gnome so other options cannot be developed and supported to the same degree.
[05:32] <TJ-> Witness Canonical and Unity
[05:32] <lotuspsychje> TJ-: im poking around dconf, but seems like its hardcoded no tweaking : (
[05:33] <Ipsilon> I always loved xfce before i3, but I don't recommend it to people, because I worry about certain rough edges. Gnome's UX may be a mess in some regards, but when I test it, it works where it matters to new users (I feel).
[05:33] <Ipsilon> Other DEs have been more flaky and hard to recommend.
[05:33] <TJ-> lotuspsychje: I'm interested to know if Xubuntu/Evince has 2 cogs because some aspect of the Gnome/GTK3 libs is missing and therefore the icons at top-right I see in screenshots are different. E.g. https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Evince
[05:34] <Ipsilon> I don't se two cogs in gnome
[05:34] <Ipsilon> Are you using a custom icon theme?
[05:34] <TJ-> Ipsilon: I've had the opposite reaction, people used to Windows especially, or Smartphones, get on better on XFCE than on Gnome because there's text and hierachy everywhere that helps them reason about where to expect/discover things without needing to already know what to search for.
[05:35] <TJ-> Ipsilon: not that I know of, regular Xubuntu install as far as I know.
[05:35] <TJ-> Ipsilon: I rarely mess with themes because I spend most of my time in terminal shells or in full-screen application usage so the DE frills are useless to me
[05:36] <Ipsilon> xfce is definitely more windows-like. But gnome feels more modern, so it has been easier for me to sell.
[05:36] <TJ-> Ipsilon: haha, you're correct! I had a dark theme selected
[05:36] <lotuspsychje> Ipsilon: what do you sell?
[05:37] <Ipsilon> I meant sell to my friends :P
[05:37] <lotuspsychje> oh :p
[05:37] <TJ-> so there we have another aspect of this Icon-first idea - it breaks UX just by altering a theme!
[05:37] <Ipsilon> Well, themes breaking UI is a historic issue. And a pretty recent point of drama from some gtk developers.
[05:37] <TJ-> Ipsilon: themes never broke text-based menus
[05:38] <Ipsilon> true, but most ui's use icons in different places.
[05:38] <Ipsilon> I've had similar them breaks on xfce and kde
[05:38] <TJ-> right, but usually they are/were supplementary not crucial
[05:38] <TJ-> If an icon is essential to understanding the function it represents it shouldn't be part of a replacable theme
[05:39] <TJ-> The design logic behind many of these key parts of the UI/UX is so broken it makes me want to cry
[05:41] <TJ-> I used to write Java applications and had my own standard library that allowed the look-n-feel to be changed dynamically by the user (Java used to offer 3 as standard - Motif, Chrome and Native I think) but it wouldn't affect the supplemental icons I had for almost every menu item that had an associated toolbar icon
[05:42] <Ipsilon> tbh, the evince UI doesn't seem that bad to me. Icons aside, it's not as inane as others, like nautilus.
[05:42] <TJ-> Ipsilon: right, but it is only (mostly) a viewer (passive interaction for the most part)
[05:42] <TJ-> Ipsilon: it sounds like Nautilus imposes suffering in the same way font-manager does
[05:44] <Ipsilon> TJ-, https://imgur.com/21JtHZj
[05:44] <Ipsilon> ignoring other deficiencies...that title bar passed UI QA
[05:49] <TJ-> I can't capture this, but font-manager has no classic "Window" menu top-left (or anywhere) so when it is enlarged to entire screen (but not maximized) its almost impossible to find a drag-handle at a corner to shrink it, oh and unlike Evince, it's Help/About/Keyboard shortcuts are on a 'hamburger' style icon top-right next to the Minimise icon
[05:50] <TJ-> grabbing the handle being difficult is likely due to the stupid 1-pixel borders
[05:50] <lotuspsychje> yeah the hamburger is everywhere
[05:50] <TJ-> on a hi-DPI display its almost impossible to grab using a touchpad
[05:50] <lotuspsychje> just tested on disk-tools too
[05:51] <TJ-> This display is 2560x1440 on an 11" LCD, so about 234 DPI
[05:52] <TJ-> I have to carry a Bluetooth mouse with me just to guarantee I can be precise enough with the cursor - how the heck you're supposed to manage those types of operations with the touchscreen itself is beyond me... soon as you put your finger over the likely area you've blocked your view of what the cursor is doing!
[05:53] <lotuspsychje> even systemsettings has the hamburger :p
[05:53] <TJ-> urghh
[05:53] <lotuspsychje> oh, on the wifi tab that is
[05:54] <Ipsilon> The cool bit about settings, is that the hamburger menu is on a different spot
[05:54] <lotuspsychje> connect to a hidden wifi, create a hotspot,..
[05:54] <TJ-> Orginally, the three horizontal lines (the hamburger) were *supposed* to represent three lines of text in a menu
[05:55] <TJ-> It's a shame the NeXT or OS/2 object-oriented interfaces never took off, they were genuinely intuitive and that was in the 1990s
[05:56] <TJ-> everything was an object with a well defined and logical behaviour of its own, and the interface was composed from objects
[06:39] <ducasse> good morning
[06:40] <OerHeks> bliep
[06:40] <OerHeks> hi ducasse
[06:45] <ducasse> hi OerHeks - how are you + the doggies?
[06:46] <OerHeks> Pien has her time of the year :-(
[06:46] <OerHeks> annoying bitch :-D
[06:46] <OerHeks> .. but we are good, how are you and Lun-A?
[06:47] <ducasse> we're good, thanks, planning a quiet sunday in
[07:01] <TJ-> testing
[08:44] <lotuspsychje> gonna test a 19.04 live on my flickering issue
[09:03] <lotuspsychje> ok dingo test, wish me luck
[09:07] <lotuspsychje> 19.04 also flickering, updated bug #1838644
[09:09] <lotuspsychje> next a 19.10 test
[09:16] <lotuspsychje> i dont really understand this yet, if 4.18 doesnt flicker and 5.3 neither, why cant they just rip the working drm part and use that for kernel 5?
[09:16] <lotuspsychje> this has nothing to do about a bios update then?
[09:16] <OerHeks> lotuspsychje, i guess not
[09:16] <OerHeks> i wonder, i fixed it myself..
[09:17] <lotuspsychje> ermine burning
[09:28] <lotuspsychje> ok lets test
[09:34] <lotuspsychje> worx on 5.2
[09:35] <OerHeks> :-)
[09:39] <lotuspsychje> next a 19.04 lubuntu
[09:55] <lotuspsychje> works on 19.04 lubuntu oO
[11:05] <BluesKaj> Hi folks
[11:11] <lotuspsychje> TJ-: wanna change this bug to a wish? bug #1838873 plz
[11:24] <TJ-> lotuspsychje: I've not changed it but I've added some advice (do it in Debian)
[11:25] <lotuspsychje> ok tnx