@tbernard@FineFindus That's awesome news, I've actually been writing a lot of LaTeX since I started univerity, but I've always relied on an online tool because the old app was so outdated.
@tbernard Thanks for the great design! I think it needs a new name (and possibly a new icon) to not confuse it with the original app, and it should be good for a first release. Happy to take suggestions :)
@tbernard Personally I prefer a non-GTK application that follows the dark style system preference, than a GTK application that does not follow the dark style system preference, and there are some.
Let's build native apps that work offline but can sync when you have a network connection! The GNOME Berlin crew is teaming up with @p2panda for a workshop to explore the technology together and work on prototypes.
Let's build native apps that work offline but can sync when you have a network connection! The GNOME Berlin crew is teaming up with @p2panda for a workshop to explore the technology together and work on prototypes.
The new GTK4 version of Foliate by John Factotum is finally out, and it's gorgeous ✨
This is one of the most polished, most useful third party apps out there, so it's really cool to see it updated to the latest version of the platform. It now also works on mobile, has a better library and navigation, and uses the standard Libadwaita preferences patterns, among other things.
@tbernard that's what I always wonder. KDE Plasma is such a nice desktop and provides lots and lots of features. There is literally no need for GNOME to go that route too.
@tbernard Love Gnome because it's a very solid base to build from. The opinionated, but consistent design is so nice in comparison to the random jumble everywhere else.
While we didn't quite manage to get all core apps ported to the new Adwaita 1.4 widgets in time for 45 (Looking at you, Software), the adoption among third party apps has been phenomenal!
Once the new Flatpak runtime is out (next week?) and people can start making releases everything's going to look sooo slick ✨
A bit of history, as a curiosity: We've long wanted to replace the Activities button with something nicer, but finding a good replacement proved difficult given the constraints (e.g. needs wide enough to be clickable and generic enough to stand for searching, switching, launching, etc).
Look, I like memory safety as much as the next guy but a 2 minute build every time I change one line in the UI file is not the future we were promised 🙄
@tbernard I am missing workspace names, similar to what space-bar gnome extension does. The problem if you don't have workspace names is that it's hard to remember which workspace you put something on. It's a minor thing that would make workspaces much more useful 🙏 https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/5090/space-bar/
@tbernard I like that you are replacing "Activities", but I don’t like the design. I find it to abstract. On the right you have small icons which are really easy to read (battery, volume, wifi), this pile however is not very descriptive and if you have only two virtual desktops it looks a bit strange.
If you are in the middle of a greater number of workspaces it is more understandable.
This pile should be replaced by an icon showing a desktop IMO.
@tbernard I like that you are replacing "Activities", but I don’t like the design. I find it to abstract. On the right you have small icons which are really easy to read (battery, volume, wifi), this pile however is not very descriptive and if you have only two virtual desktops it looks a bit strange.
It's weird how bad the dark style on many major websites/apps still is. No real differences in background colors, no depth/shadows, white borders everywhere. Feels like looking at a spreadsheet.
Kudos to @alice for doing a much better job with this in libadwaita!
@tbernard well, it was kinda similar in 1.0, since gtk4 default had very low contrast in dark, so we changed all borders to light, then started toning them down - and only finished by 1.2.
In particular, test your app with a11y options such as large text and high contrast, and try using it with just the keyboard by tabbing through controls.
Some friends and I were discussing why we do free software even though it often means doing tons of work for little or no money.
I think for me some major factors are the personal agency you have over the work (independent from employers/investors) and the potential for longevity that comes with having your work be part of the commons (projects can't be acquired and killed).
That kind of unalienated relationship to your creative output is very rare outside of maybe fine arts or entertainment.
I was reminded of someone I saw talking about their work on a super nice native Slack-style chat app called Quill. It got shut down after Twitter acquired them and had them work on Twitter DMs 🤦♂️
I tried looking up this app, but it's basically vanished from the internet even though it got acquired like a year ago. All that's left of the work they put into this is a few articles on tech sites and their website on the Wayback machine.
I was reminded of someone I saw talking about their work on a super nice native Slack-style chat app called Quill. It got shut down after Twitter acquired them and had them work on Twitter DMs 🤦♂️
I tried looking up this app, but it's basically vanished from the internet even though it got acquired like a year ago. All that's left of the work they put into this is a few articles on tech sites and their website on the Wayback machine.
Software should be local-first, i.e. the network is fully optional. Everything works without any connection, but when you have a connection collaboration and other fancy features are possible.
It is weird, to me the conclusions on how software should be designed in face of climate crisis, environmental crisis, pandemic, and war, sound like ways to make generally reasonable software that doesn't suck.
I can imagine that your position is not very established, but it presents an interesting "softening" of more radical perma computing or collapse computing ideas.
Wanting to limit excess in all areas, including computing, is great. Yet in a way, a typical 738 MB Electron to do list app is as much overspecced as a project creating an operating system that can run on a Furby dug out from the rubble in a postapocalyptic world is "negatively overspecced."
The stylish cyberpunk doomsday scenarios are kind of easy to co-opt and fraudulently addressed by big tech products, while an established practice of making reasonable software is much harder to compromise. Continuity is the biggest enemy of disruption :) So I much welcome this investigation of photo apps and syncing data over unstable connections.
It is weird, to me the conclusions on how software should be designed in face of climate crisis, environmental crisis, pandemic, and war, sound like ways to make generally reasonable software that doesn't suck.
I can imagine that your position is not very established, but it presents an interesting "softening" of more radical perma computing or collapse computing ideas.
Thanks for great article! These principles are not only for doomsday, I see it reasonably practical in many off-grid scenarios, which are here now. For example field research in distant areas, in nature labs where there is no other option than local energy and no stable connection, or you want to deal with research carbon footprint, so you design livinglab infrastructure including data processing not dependent on any external "cloud" to reach carbon balance.
The field research is a key to ecosystem sustainability and more than human naturecultures research which is in fact fun and breathtaking, quite an opposite to dystopia. With some well balanced computing thrown into forest/garden it just explodes with food and biodiversity. Sorry for disappointment, maybe it will still come when the extractive urban drones steal the harvest.
Thanks for great article! These principles are not only for doomsday, I see it reasonably practical in many off-grid scenarios, which are here now. For example field research in distant areas, in nature labs where there is no other option than local energy and no stable connection, or you want to deal with research carbon footprint, so you design livinglab infrastructure...
Playing with Jonas' latest WIP mobile shell branch. It's honestly more fluid than my Android phone with Lineage, super impressive given the much weaker hardware ✨️
@tbernard @FineFindus That's awesome news, I've actually been writing a lot of LaTeX since I started univerity, but I've always relied on an online tool because the old app was so outdated.
@tbernard Thanks for the great design!
I think it needs a new name (and possibly a new icon) to not confuse it with the original app, and it should be good for a first release.
Happy to take suggestions :)
@tbernard @FineFindus “what’s upsigma?”