*this is an opinionated piece, and everyone will have their own opinion. this is mine.*
If you didn't know, I use Linux. And I, to say the least, do not like Gnome[1]. Filled with header bars the size of Jupiter, no minimize or maximize buttons without an external program, extensions written **IN JAVASCRIPT** that are nearly mandatory for the best experience, being somewhat unoptimized for mouse pointers (we'll get to this later), and performance lower than the JVM on a good day, it's regarded in some circles as the worst DE available for most users. Even with these problems, I will give it complements for adopting Wayland earlier than the LX*s and XFCE, but that doesn't do much to make up for the complaints I've listed prior, especially when Wayland is still not ready for prime-time quite yet (although I will recommend Pipewire at this point to anyone, even on X11). The HIG does not make this better.
The HIG, similar to Gnome itself, is a restricting mess. Filled with a book's worth of guidelines compressed into ~50-100 pages (a bit like the HIG wants you to do, eh?), it creates a dystopia of computer programs[3] where everything is a meld of responsive design that leaves traditional mouse and keyboard users in the dust.
The HIG, similar to Gnome itself, is a restrictive mess. Filled with a book's worth of guidelines compressed into ~50-100 pages (a bit like the HIG wants you to do, eh?), it creates a dystopia of computer programs where everything is a meld of responsive design that leaves traditional mouse and keyboard users in the dust[2][3]. Due to this, most HIG-respecting GTK apps tend to... not work as well as they should. Even with the more general problems GTK has (menu bars i.e. Notepad just not), some of the specifications specified in here are... :sheesh:.
Drake
3 years ago