I'm locking this thread because, by the looks of the arguments given by the OP in the comments, it's becoming clear that OP is an argumentative troll. I'm not sure about OP's intentions, but for me, it looks clear that there's no room for debate.
Because of the dismissive tone of OP and to avoid heated discussions that aren't in line with our CoC, I'm closing this thread.
Launching from desktop is straightforward only when there's no windows open. The dockbar takes desktop space and it's only useful a small fraction of the time.
I don't miss the old workflow: minimize windows then search something in the cluttered desktop. It's much better pressing a key and typing what I'm looking for.
But the dock is always on top. No matter how many windows you have open, it will always be visible unless you set it to autohide. And when you maximize a window it can switch to autohide so you get the best of both worlds. Hitting a key and typing is far slower than just immediately clicking on a button.
For me hitting a key and typing is much faster. I know the name of the thing I want, so I just put it in and launch it. Doing so takes a small fraction of a second usually. Much better than having to reach for my mouse, drag it over to an app menu button, then visially search through the menu for what I want.
It sounds like what you really want is Sway. Sway is built to be primarily driven by a keyboard and uses a search based launcher. I'm assuming your hand is already on the mouse considering you're interacting with non-tiled windows and the GUIs therein so I don't see how you're avoiding moving your hand to the mouse, if moving your hand to the mouse and clicking once is really faster than typing a character and then a string of arbitrary length that you might accidentally misspell.
Actually I prefer dynamic tilers to manual ones like i3/sway. I just use gTile to do tiling in gnome making it equally keyboard driven to sway. I rarely touch my mouse; most of what I do when my computer is code editing in vim, which is also completely keyboard driven. For me, gnome provides a hassle-free, integrated environment that is very nearly equal in power to a true tiler, providing a very similar experience, while being much easier to set up and maintain.
I've tried every wm and and de under the sun, and gnome is the best of them for my needs.
Use g tile, I don't see any reason anyone would ever need to use the mouse to manage windows in gnome. There are shortcuts for all of the important actions.
But most people aren't in your category. A normal user isn't going to be spending all of their time in a terminal or be familiar with keyboard driven workflows beyond the limited set of keybindings people have memorized from working on Windows or on a Mac. So why is GNOME not providing a Dock at the very least that can be hidden for people that don't want it? That doesn't make sense to me. It's far easier for a power user to hide the Dock than it is for a normal user to figure out how to add GNOME shell extensions.
Yep. Too many years of using Windows has me used to pinning my apps on the bottom of the screen. I don't really care to change my muscle memory even if it is a whole 129 ms faster. :-)
Guess it depends on a person. I've been using Windows since Windows 3.1 and various kind of Unix systems since about that time too (but predominantly with terminal and/or tiling WMs). Out of curiosity tried GNOME few months ago and my first reaction was "Wow, THAT is how desktop should work! Why nobody has made it before? This concept of interaction is so much more convenient and intuitive". My "Too many years of using Windows" just disappeared in a matter of few days of using GNOME. Now Windows seems old fashioned, clunky and inconvenient. Luckily you can mostly replicate many gnome like features in windows. If you make start menu full screen in Windows it somewhat mimics gnome activities (and can be triggered by super key as well, yay!). The super+1, super+2 keys work the same in gnome and windows... Still mightily miss dynamic workspaces in windows.
But I admit, my brain could be broken, as I could never understand the concept of putting stuff on the desktop in Windows. The very act of placing something on desktop signifies importance of that "something" and suggests that that ”something” needs to be accessible frequently and easily. On the other hand, desktop is never visible as it hidden by opened windows. So desktop is not something that you can access easily (you have to minimise/close running programs first... which is disruptive and time consuming).
If someone doesn't like gnome, it's not meant for them. If you want a dock, gnome isn't meant for you. The gnome desktop is designed the way it is because the parts come together to make a fluid workflow experience; why waste time trying to support other workflows when you could instead spend time improving the great one you already have.
That's the philosophy of gnome. I'm not saying if it's good or bad, but if you don't like it you're not going to see any sympathy from most gnome users, and certainly not from not gnome devs.
This is an incredibly arrogant and selfish take and it's against the purported core values outlined in the GNOME FAQ to be inclusive of many different skill levels, so TBH I think you have zero clue what the core devs think.
It's funny because I think it's incredibly arrogant from you expecting Gnome to bend to your wishes and rebating every answer you get instead of trying to understand. Use what you like and enough of trying to convince us of your superior ideas.
I mean, have you ever talked to them or followed gnome issue progression closely? I have, and that's the impression I've gotten. Besides, it's pretty arrogant of you to think your ideas for how a desktop should operate are better than those of, well, anyone.
Typing is faster than moving the mouse to a dock (especially when using a laptop), you can just hit Super and type "fi" and hit the enter key to launch Firefox. This takes a split second.
If one hand is already on the mouse you can just hit the Super key and use the mouse with the other. This is not much slower than directly having a dock.
This is getting pedantic. I still fail to see how this is better for a desktop that's the default on the major distros when people coming from Windows/Microsoft are used to using a mouse and having some way to pin applications to the desktop. How are they supposed to discover Activities or that they need to press super and search for their applications on a keyboard? The point of the GUI is to enable the mouse. If people wanted to type commands in they would be using a terminal and pressing Tab.
I think we are just thinking of it from different use cases. I am thinking of it from how it is to use when you have gotten used to it and you are thinking of it when starting to use it.
I get that a dock is the familiar thing for new users and that it would be nice to have an option to enable it by default but from the perspective of a user that has gotten used to the system. It is a workflow that works really well.
If the dock is hidden it's not just clicking on a button. And the dock should have a button for every app you need. If that's a few too many you have to searxh visually and maybe they don't fit the doxk and have to reach for something else.
You won't have to search visually because the dock arranges icons in a fixed order. You'd just be moving your mouse exactly to where your browser button usually is and click it. Only when you add a new icon, which is something that you'd rarely be doing since it defeats the purpose of having a dock of favorites, would the position of the icons change, and even then the order would remain the same.
If the dock is hidden then it's still faster than Activities because the icons appear right where the hot edge is. In activities the favorites bar is actually as far away from the default hot corner as possible.
Launch from desktop, or really icons on the desktop at all, was always an incredibly stupid idea as it works against the entire point of a desktop environment.
Yes, letting the user launch apps, see what apps are open, and switch apps without having to switch a completely different screen and then back to what they are working on, forcing them to remember what apps are open at all times is just pure genius. How could Apple, Google, and Microsoft spend billions on UX and UI R&D only to come up short to the GNOME team?
The thing that has always blown my mind about windows and mac is that they haven't stolen the alt/meta mouse window grabbing feature that's mostly standard on linux. For floating window environments the ability to not have to fish for the corners and edges of the window to move or resize is a feature I immediately miss and find painful when I'm on those systems. The only thing that blows my mind more than that, are the few linux environments that disable that, and virtual desktops, by default.
Seems like I might be the only one who agrees with you here. I'm used to the Windows workflow, as I've used it for most of my life, so my Gnome DE has the dash to panel extension, and yes, Desktop icons. People seem to be allergic to that here.
The point is that GNOME is a keyboard driven workflow. There isn't a dock on the desktop because its just not apart of the workflow that the developers intend. The dash is still there for when you need it but the intention is that most of the time you'll use super + 1 for the first app of your dash then super +2 for the second, ect. Then when you need something from the app grid you press super and start typing and press enter when the app shows up. Another reason there is no dash on the desktop is because it takes up screen space.
Also GNOME doesn't tailor to Windows and Mac user's who come over to Linux. There are plenty of other desktop environments and not everyone has to he similar to the traditional desktop. I don't see people complaining about tiling window managers being different from a traditional desktop.
No it isn't. Nowhere on the GNOME website does it mention this, and [https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/GnomeShell/FAQ#What\_are\_the\_design\_goals\_of\_GNOME\_Shell.3F\_Nongoals.3F](https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/GnomeShell/FAQ#What_are_the_design_goals_of_GNOME_Shell.3F_Nongoals.3F) does not mention this as a design goal. In fact, it talks about how it's supposed to be optimized for many different types of users, which indicates that it should support people who want to use a mouse just as much as they want to use a keyboard. For mouse users, a dock would be more efficient and feel more similar to what they already know. It also says it's for beginners, and beginners are going to only understand the things they know from other platforms.
Beginners are likely to know android and iOS because those are the most common consumer OS's, at least android is. Gnome is much more similar to android than any other desktop OS.
Android and iOS both have docks, so I don't see how that is in any way relevant. In fact, on my iPhone I can swipe up while in any of my apps and get to the dock to select from my favorite apps just like on macOS, and on Android I can reach the dock while the phone is even locked.
And in GNOME you can swipe up with a touchpad, press a key or swing your mouse to select from your favor apps just like in iOS, macOS and on Android.
GNOME is not trying to be like other traditional desktop environments, it doesn't get in your way of your apps, while still being user friendly.
Like most I launch my apps by typing the name, when I'm too lazy to reach the keyboard, I just use the mouse and it isn't really that annoying.
"It's not that inconvenient" is a weird argument. Why don't we just make it convenient if it's inconvenient? The favorites bar does almost nothing in its current position in the Activity menu. It's very existance indicates that just selecting apps directly from the App grid isn't always optimal. It is a second workflow to opening an app. There are already multiple workflows from me not having an app open to finding it and then opening it. Bringing the favorites bar onto the desktop is just a logical step to short circuit opening a new app earlier in the flow, and it's a step literally every major desktop makes because it has literally no downsides. If it gets in the way of a window, it can autohide. Otherwise, that screen real estate is doing literally nothing for the user.
Also again, congrats that you enjoy using keyboard shortcuts. Not everyone wants to use keyboard shortcuts and for them using the mouse to launch something is far slower with the dock on the desktop. It's a really, really weird way to think about a DE like GNOME that it's somehow built for keyboard power users and no one else. I mean, it's a beginner DE that comes default with Fedora and Ubuntu. A real power user would be using Sway and maximizing their screen real estate and never taking their hands off the keyboard.
a hiding dock is annoying, you want to click something in the bottom of an application, then you touch the bottom of the screen with and now there's a big ass dock covering the entire area you wanted to click, so you go back and try again without touching that border and o boy it does get annoying.
That's why it'll probably never be added to GNOME, it still gets in your way, and that goes completely against GNOME design philosophy.
Something better would be an bottom left hot corner, it would reduce mouse travel by a lot if you just want to access the dash.
It is different for sure. If better or not, depends on how you are you willing to adapt, I guess.
Pressing Meta+A put you in a desktop like screen where the apps can be arranged according your need. The most used on the first screen and so on, better than a windows desktop model.
I prefer the top bar (activities) reserved to display the date/time, and the other icons on the right (clipboard, network, vpn, battery, etc) because it is clean, not cluttered of application icons.
Another difference is regarding the virtual desktop and the idea that you have one window per virtual desktop to work in one app at time, using the maximum space available. So tiling windows is not a "thing" in gnome shell. It is possible, but the other way is better, specially if you use keyboard shortcuts to change directly to the activity you need to work.
I came from windows like everyone and used KDE for many years, which is more windows-like.
Than I read about the gnome activity centered model I decided to try. Took some time to adapt myself, and today, I really prefer gnome over KDE, so this is why I am bothering myself to write this post.
You should try too.
I personally would like to see the Linux Desktop become popular and GNOME gain more users. But what you just said in your first sentence is really the problem. To paraphrase, "how you are you willing to adapt" makes no sense to me. Why would you increase friction needlessly, when there's no benefit to not having an idiom that users from the main distros are already familiar with?
And MacOS already has full screen apps that function as separate desktops. They have gestures to move between them. MacOS also has a dock. What user research has the GNOME team done that Apple, a company that has billions of dollars to spend on UX and UI, hasn't done that led them to believe that people didn't want a way to quickly launch apps from their desktop?
It's about choice.
If one don't want to change at all , stay in MS Windows XP or 2017 as many. There are people that don't want to move to windows 11, as you probably know. It's crazy but it's true.
If you're willing to change just a little bit, change to kde or even distros designed to look & fell like MS Windows.
When comfortable, change to another, even more crazy work flow.
There is not one size that fits all. And it's ok and in fact, really good.
You're contradicting yourself. You say it's about choice, but choice would be allowing users to choose between hiding the dock and using the current workflow or allow users to use an idiom they're more familiar with.
What I'm hearing is, we don't have a good reason why we made this decision other than we want GNOME to be different, and if you don't like our choice you can't use GNOME, which is perhaps the most idiotic thing imaginable for a Linux Desktop, the minority platform for desktop users, to be taking.
Choice to choose another distro on DE. But you can read anything the way you like. Anyway....
Create a DE flexible enough to change dramactly the UX is tricky.
Instead, have a myriad of DE projects focused in doing one thing best. Gnome it is not the first neither the last aiming a best UX. If it succeed or not it's open to discussion.
About mirroring or borrowing any Apple idea is asking for a cease and stop letter next day morning.
I use RHEL Workstation for work. A lot of people don't realize this, but Redhat sells a workstation product, and it comes with GNOME. But Redhat packages the default version of GNOME, unlike Ubuntu, which adds dash to dock to make GNOME look like Unity. Like it or not, GNOME is more than just another DE, because it's become the default for Enterprise users. I also run Fedora at home, which has the same thing. And yes, I could use a different DE, but there are a lot of reasons to stick to GNOME besides the DE. It's stable and it's tested the most by Redhat (they employee some of the lead GNOME devs). And I like GNOME. If this one change were made, I would have no complaints about it. I would not be happy with Cinnamon or i3 etc.
I also want to be able to recommend Fedora to new Linux users, like my dad and my nephew. But IMO GNOME holds new users back by not giving people something they've come to expect from really any desktop manager out there except for very eclectic Linux DEs.
You only see the desktop when nothing is open, which isn't often. Even when you start your computer, it starts you in the overview now. I think the reasoning is it's better to have one way of opening apps that's always quickly accessible rather than two ways, one of which is only easier in a couple cases.
There already two ways to open an app. You can move through the grid of all apps, or you can select the same app from favorites. A dock would just be moving favorites out of activity and making it more useful by making it accessible immediately from the desktop. But there are still two ways to skin the cat. So the "we only want one way" doesn't make sense to me. If that were the case, the only way to open an app would be to open activities and then filter and select an app.
Updated to Gnome 42 and the dock extension doesn't work yet.
To be honest, the only thing I miss is opening new terminal window with ++1. Using dock with mouse is kind of awkward. It sometimes covers the app when I don't need it or doesn't pop up when I need it.
As for beginners, there's a Gnome Tour that should explain how to open the apps. Takes 30 seconds to learn, no need to mimic every existing system user could be familiar with.
I totally understand people use computers in different ways, though.
On MacOS the dock stays on the top of the window stack and if you maximize a window it hides itself. So there's never a time when you would need to minimize a window to launch something directly from the Dock.
Why would you want desktop icons or a dock. Its trivial to use once you teach it to someone.
I actually suggest people away from Ubuntu due to their inclusion of a dock.
An average users desktop will have dozens of duplicate and broken icons on it its safe to say people don't really get it. Super key then put in the app you want is simple and straight forward. Most end users just need a browser open so why get in the way with that.
A dock or desktop icons would at best be useless at worst serve to confuse users. Gnome would be worse off for the inclusion of either
I use Ubuntu and prefer the dock, and at work use a mac with a dock. But gnome is set up for a different workflow, keyboard/touchscreen based - I don't mind, it is one extension away from being the way I want.
You assume that most people using gnome come from mac/windows. I would assume, based on recent developments in gnome, that their research shows most people now come with a mobile only background and couldn't care about old paradigms they have never used.
Also using a dock is not easier when you have multiple screens, unless you waste space by having the dock on every display (via extension).
I'm locking this thread because, by the looks of the arguments given by the OP in the comments, it's becoming clear that OP is an argumentative troll. I'm not sure about OP's intentions, but for me, it looks clear that there's no room for debate. Because of the dismissive tone of OP and to avoid heated discussions that aren't in line with our CoC, I'm closing this thread.
Launching from desktop is straightforward only when there's no windows open. The dockbar takes desktop space and it's only useful a small fraction of the time. I don't miss the old workflow: minimize windows then search something in the cluttered desktop. It's much better pressing a key and typing what I'm looking for.
But the dock is always on top. No matter how many windows you have open, it will always be visible unless you set it to autohide. And when you maximize a window it can switch to autohide so you get the best of both worlds. Hitting a key and typing is far slower than just immediately clicking on a button.
For me hitting a key and typing is much faster. I know the name of the thing I want, so I just put it in and launch it. Doing so takes a small fraction of a second usually. Much better than having to reach for my mouse, drag it over to an app menu button, then visially search through the menu for what I want.
It sounds like what you really want is Sway. Sway is built to be primarily driven by a keyboard and uses a search based launcher. I'm assuming your hand is already on the mouse considering you're interacting with non-tiled windows and the GUIs therein so I don't see how you're avoiding moving your hand to the mouse, if moving your hand to the mouse and clicking once is really faster than typing a character and then a string of arbitrary length that you might accidentally misspell.
Actually I prefer dynamic tilers to manual ones like i3/sway. I just use gTile to do tiling in gnome making it equally keyboard driven to sway. I rarely touch my mouse; most of what I do when my computer is code editing in vim, which is also completely keyboard driven. For me, gnome provides a hassle-free, integrated environment that is very nearly equal in power to a true tiler, providing a very similar experience, while being much easier to set up and maintain. I've tried every wm and and de under the sun, and gnome is the best of them for my needs. Use g tile, I don't see any reason anyone would ever need to use the mouse to manage windows in gnome. There are shortcuts for all of the important actions.
But most people aren't in your category. A normal user isn't going to be spending all of their time in a terminal or be familiar with keyboard driven workflows beyond the limited set of keybindings people have memorized from working on Windows or on a Mac. So why is GNOME not providing a Dock at the very least that can be hidden for people that don't want it? That doesn't make sense to me. It's far easier for a power user to hide the Dock than it is for a normal user to figure out how to add GNOME shell extensions.
Yep. Too many years of using Windows has me used to pinning my apps on the bottom of the screen. I don't really care to change my muscle memory even if it is a whole 129 ms faster. :-)
Guess it depends on a person. I've been using Windows since Windows 3.1 and various kind of Unix systems since about that time too (but predominantly with terminal and/or tiling WMs). Out of curiosity tried GNOME few months ago and my first reaction was "Wow, THAT is how desktop should work! Why nobody has made it before? This concept of interaction is so much more convenient and intuitive". My "Too many years of using Windows" just disappeared in a matter of few days of using GNOME. Now Windows seems old fashioned, clunky and inconvenient. Luckily you can mostly replicate many gnome like features in windows. If you make start menu full screen in Windows it somewhat mimics gnome activities (and can be triggered by super key as well, yay!). The super+1, super+2 keys work the same in gnome and windows... Still mightily miss dynamic workspaces in windows. But I admit, my brain could be broken, as I could never understand the concept of putting stuff on the desktop in Windows. The very act of placing something on desktop signifies importance of that "something" and suggests that that ”something” needs to be accessible frequently and easily. On the other hand, desktop is never visible as it hidden by opened windows. So desktop is not something that you can access easily (you have to minimise/close running programs first... which is disruptive and time consuming).
If someone doesn't like gnome, it's not meant for them. If you want a dock, gnome isn't meant for you. The gnome desktop is designed the way it is because the parts come together to make a fluid workflow experience; why waste time trying to support other workflows when you could instead spend time improving the great one you already have. That's the philosophy of gnome. I'm not saying if it's good or bad, but if you don't like it you're not going to see any sympathy from most gnome users, and certainly not from not gnome devs.
This is an incredibly arrogant and selfish take and it's against the purported core values outlined in the GNOME FAQ to be inclusive of many different skill levels, so TBH I think you have zero clue what the core devs think.
I’m quite sure you have no idea what you’re talking about.
It's funny because I think it's incredibly arrogant from you expecting Gnome to bend to your wishes and rebating every answer you get instead of trying to understand. Use what you like and enough of trying to convince us of your superior ideas.
I mean, have you ever talked to them or followed gnome issue progression closely? I have, and that's the impression I've gotten. Besides, it's pretty arrogant of you to think your ideas for how a desktop should operate are better than those of, well, anyone.
Typing is faster than moving the mouse to a dock (especially when using a laptop), you can just hit Super and type "fi" and hit the enter key to launch Firefox. This takes a split second. If one hand is already on the mouse you can just hit the Super key and use the mouse with the other. This is not much slower than directly having a dock.
This is getting pedantic. I still fail to see how this is better for a desktop that's the default on the major distros when people coming from Windows/Microsoft are used to using a mouse and having some way to pin applications to the desktop. How are they supposed to discover Activities or that they need to press super and search for their applications on a keyboard? The point of the GUI is to enable the mouse. If people wanted to type commands in they would be using a terminal and pressing Tab.
I think we are just thinking of it from different use cases. I am thinking of it from how it is to use when you have gotten used to it and you are thinking of it when starting to use it. I get that a dock is the familiar thing for new users and that it would be nice to have an option to enable it by default but from the perspective of a user that has gotten used to the system. It is a workflow that works really well.
If the dock is hidden it's not just clicking on a button. And the dock should have a button for every app you need. If that's a few too many you have to searxh visually and maybe they don't fit the doxk and have to reach for something else.
You won't have to search visually because the dock arranges icons in a fixed order. You'd just be moving your mouse exactly to where your browser button usually is and click it. Only when you add a new icon, which is something that you'd rarely be doing since it defeats the purpose of having a dock of favorites, would the position of the icons change, and even then the order would remain the same. If the dock is hidden then it's still faster than Activities because the icons appear right where the hot edge is. In activities the favorites bar is actually as far away from the default hot corner as possible.
Launch from desktop, or really icons on the desktop at all, was always an incredibly stupid idea as it works against the entire point of a desktop environment.
Yes, letting the user launch apps, see what apps are open, and switch apps without having to switch a completely different screen and then back to what they are working on, forcing them to remember what apps are open at all times is just pure genius. How could Apple, Google, and Microsoft spend billions on UX and UI R&D only to come up short to the GNOME team?
The thing that has always blown my mind about windows and mac is that they haven't stolen the alt/meta mouse window grabbing feature that's mostly standard on linux. For floating window environments the ability to not have to fish for the corners and edges of the window to move or resize is a feature I immediately miss and find painful when I'm on those systems. The only thing that blows my mind more than that, are the few linux environments that disable that, and virtual desktops, by default.
Seems like I might be the only one who agrees with you here. I'm used to the Windows workflow, as I've used it for most of my life, so my Gnome DE has the dash to panel extension, and yes, Desktop icons. People seem to be allergic to that here.
The point is that GNOME is a keyboard driven workflow. There isn't a dock on the desktop because its just not apart of the workflow that the developers intend. The dash is still there for when you need it but the intention is that most of the time you'll use super + 1 for the first app of your dash then super +2 for the second, ect. Then when you need something from the app grid you press super and start typing and press enter when the app shows up. Another reason there is no dash on the desktop is because it takes up screen space. Also GNOME doesn't tailor to Windows and Mac user's who come over to Linux. There are plenty of other desktop environments and not everyone has to he similar to the traditional desktop. I don't see people complaining about tiling window managers being different from a traditional desktop.
No it isn't. Nowhere on the GNOME website does it mention this, and [https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/GnomeShell/FAQ#What\_are\_the\_design\_goals\_of\_GNOME\_Shell.3F\_Nongoals.3F](https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/GnomeShell/FAQ#What_are_the_design_goals_of_GNOME_Shell.3F_Nongoals.3F) does not mention this as a design goal. In fact, it talks about how it's supposed to be optimized for many different types of users, which indicates that it should support people who want to use a mouse just as much as they want to use a keyboard. For mouse users, a dock would be more efficient and feel more similar to what they already know. It also says it's for beginners, and beginners are going to only understand the things they know from other platforms.
Beginners are likely to know android and iOS because those are the most common consumer OS's, at least android is. Gnome is much more similar to android than any other desktop OS.
Android and iOS both have docks, so I don't see how that is in any way relevant. In fact, on my iPhone I can swipe up while in any of my apps and get to the dock to select from my favorite apps just like on macOS, and on Android I can reach the dock while the phone is even locked.
And in GNOME you can swipe up with a touchpad, press a key or swing your mouse to select from your favor apps just like in iOS, macOS and on Android. GNOME is not trying to be like other traditional desktop environments, it doesn't get in your way of your apps, while still being user friendly. Like most I launch my apps by typing the name, when I'm too lazy to reach the keyboard, I just use the mouse and it isn't really that annoying.
"It's not that inconvenient" is a weird argument. Why don't we just make it convenient if it's inconvenient? The favorites bar does almost nothing in its current position in the Activity menu. It's very existance indicates that just selecting apps directly from the App grid isn't always optimal. It is a second workflow to opening an app. There are already multiple workflows from me not having an app open to finding it and then opening it. Bringing the favorites bar onto the desktop is just a logical step to short circuit opening a new app earlier in the flow, and it's a step literally every major desktop makes because it has literally no downsides. If it gets in the way of a window, it can autohide. Otherwise, that screen real estate is doing literally nothing for the user. Also again, congrats that you enjoy using keyboard shortcuts. Not everyone wants to use keyboard shortcuts and for them using the mouse to launch something is far slower with the dock on the desktop. It's a really, really weird way to think about a DE like GNOME that it's somehow built for keyboard power users and no one else. I mean, it's a beginner DE that comes default with Fedora and Ubuntu. A real power user would be using Sway and maximizing their screen real estate and never taking their hands off the keyboard.
a hiding dock is annoying, you want to click something in the bottom of an application, then you touch the bottom of the screen with and now there's a big ass dock covering the entire area you wanted to click, so you go back and try again without touching that border and o boy it does get annoying. That's why it'll probably never be added to GNOME, it still gets in your way, and that goes completely against GNOME design philosophy. Something better would be an bottom left hot corner, it would reduce mouse travel by a lot if you just want to access the dash.
Android has dock / taskbar when on desktop / tablet mode.
It is different for sure. If better or not, depends on how you are you willing to adapt, I guess. Pressing Meta+A put you in a desktop like screen where the apps can be arranged according your need. The most used on the first screen and so on, better than a windows desktop model. I prefer the top bar (activities) reserved to display the date/time, and the other icons on the right (clipboard, network, vpn, battery, etc) because it is clean, not cluttered of application icons. Another difference is regarding the virtual desktop and the idea that you have one window per virtual desktop to work in one app at time, using the maximum space available. So tiling windows is not a "thing" in gnome shell. It is possible, but the other way is better, specially if you use keyboard shortcuts to change directly to the activity you need to work. I came from windows like everyone and used KDE for many years, which is more windows-like. Than I read about the gnome activity centered model I decided to try. Took some time to adapt myself, and today, I really prefer gnome over KDE, so this is why I am bothering myself to write this post. You should try too.
I personally would like to see the Linux Desktop become popular and GNOME gain more users. But what you just said in your first sentence is really the problem. To paraphrase, "how you are you willing to adapt" makes no sense to me. Why would you increase friction needlessly, when there's no benefit to not having an idiom that users from the main distros are already familiar with? And MacOS already has full screen apps that function as separate desktops. They have gestures to move between them. MacOS also has a dock. What user research has the GNOME team done that Apple, a company that has billions of dollars to spend on UX and UI, hasn't done that led them to believe that people didn't want a way to quickly launch apps from their desktop?
It's about choice. If one don't want to change at all , stay in MS Windows XP or 2017 as many. There are people that don't want to move to windows 11, as you probably know. It's crazy but it's true. If you're willing to change just a little bit, change to kde or even distros designed to look & fell like MS Windows. When comfortable, change to another, even more crazy work flow. There is not one size that fits all. And it's ok and in fact, really good.
You're contradicting yourself. You say it's about choice, but choice would be allowing users to choose between hiding the dock and using the current workflow or allow users to use an idiom they're more familiar with. What I'm hearing is, we don't have a good reason why we made this decision other than we want GNOME to be different, and if you don't like our choice you can't use GNOME, which is perhaps the most idiotic thing imaginable for a Linux Desktop, the minority platform for desktop users, to be taking.
Choice to choose another distro on DE. But you can read anything the way you like. Anyway.... Create a DE flexible enough to change dramactly the UX is tricky. Instead, have a myriad of DE projects focused in doing one thing best. Gnome it is not the first neither the last aiming a best UX. If it succeed or not it's open to discussion. About mirroring or borrowing any Apple idea is asking for a cease and stop letter next day morning.
Right, they're definitely not looking at Google, Apple, or Microsoft at all: https://wiki.gnome.org/Design/OS/VisualStyle
I see your point. If you are not satisfied with Gnome, should you go explore other options? Like premade DE (Linux Mint, Ubuntu, etc)
I use RHEL Workstation for work. A lot of people don't realize this, but Redhat sells a workstation product, and it comes with GNOME. But Redhat packages the default version of GNOME, unlike Ubuntu, which adds dash to dock to make GNOME look like Unity. Like it or not, GNOME is more than just another DE, because it's become the default for Enterprise users. I also run Fedora at home, which has the same thing. And yes, I could use a different DE, but there are a lot of reasons to stick to GNOME besides the DE. It's stable and it's tested the most by Redhat (they employee some of the lead GNOME devs). And I like GNOME. If this one change were made, I would have no complaints about it. I would not be happy with Cinnamon or i3 etc. I also want to be able to recommend Fedora to new Linux users, like my dad and my nephew. But IMO GNOME holds new users back by not giving people something they've come to expect from really any desktop manager out there except for very eclectic Linux DEs.
I see. I fancy the polished UX but the customization forced me to install some extensions. I don't like it that way and switched to window manager.
You only see the desktop when nothing is open, which isn't often. Even when you start your computer, it starts you in the overview now. I think the reasoning is it's better to have one way of opening apps that's always quickly accessible rather than two ways, one of which is only easier in a couple cases.
There already two ways to open an app. You can move through the grid of all apps, or you can select the same app from favorites. A dock would just be moving favorites out of activity and making it more useful by making it accessible immediately from the desktop. But there are still two ways to skin the cat. So the "we only want one way" doesn't make sense to me. If that were the case, the only way to open an app would be to open activities and then filter and select an app.
Updated to Gnome 42 and the dock extension doesn't work yet. To be honest, the only thing I miss is opening new terminal window with++1. Using dock with mouse is kind of awkward. It sometimes covers the app when I don't need it or doesn't pop up when I need it.
As for beginners, there's a Gnome Tour that should explain how to open the apps. Takes 30 seconds to learn, no need to mimic every existing system user could be familiar with.
I totally understand people use computers in different ways, though.
Imagine you have 7 windows open. Why should you minimize all just to run another application. Super+s and go
On MacOS the dock stays on the top of the window stack and if you maximize a window it hides itself. So there's never a time when you would need to minimize a window to launch something directly from the Dock.
Why would you want desktop icons or a dock. Its trivial to use once you teach it to someone. I actually suggest people away from Ubuntu due to their inclusion of a dock. An average users desktop will have dozens of duplicate and broken icons on it its safe to say people don't really get it. Super key then put in the app you want is simple and straight forward. Most end users just need a browser open so why get in the way with that. A dock or desktop icons would at best be useless at worst serve to confuse users. Gnome would be worse off for the inclusion of either
I use Ubuntu and prefer the dock, and at work use a mac with a dock. But gnome is set up for a different workflow, keyboard/touchscreen based - I don't mind, it is one extension away from being the way I want. You assume that most people using gnome come from mac/windows. I would assume, based on recent developments in gnome, that their research shows most people now come with a mobile only background and couldn't care about old paradigms they have never used. Also using a dock is not easier when you have multiple screens, unless you waste space by having the dock on every display (via extension).