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A couple of remarks about future versions of Cinnamon

Posted: Fri Aug 24, 2012 3:44 pm
by Rehdon
Hi guys,
just posted this on the Linux Mint blog (Nadia announcement), reposting here for the benefit of all Cinnamoners ;) let me know what you think:

I’ve finally moved all of my computing to Maya, the Cinnamon release, and I must say I’m pretty happy with it: fast, stable (after Cinnamon probs were solved), flexible enough for my needs.

I know that Cinnamon 1.5.2 (and after that 1.6) is almost ready, but I would like to remind the Cinnamon devs about a few issues:

- it would be nice to have a fast, simple dock as part of the Cinnamon desktop: I know I can install many (have actually played with Cairo dock for a while, sort of overkill: I’m thinking of an alternative to the panel launchers), but I’d rather that it’d be chosen and possibly integrated by the devs themselves into Cinnamon;

- while I dislike several Unity features (global menus, HUD, dash etc.) there are several interesting innovations coming from Ubuntu devs (much more than from the Gnome camp, I have to say) like lenses, drawers etc., would be nice to have a Cinnamon version of those;

- desktop configuration is much better than with Gnome Shell, but the UX is horribly fragmented in Cinnamon 1.4, having to chase stuff in different menus/tools, hope things will improve in the next version(s);

- applets are cool, but suffer from lack of localization: if you’re going to add a standard way to download and install them you’d better urge devs to open up for localization (better yet, offer a shared space where users can contribute to that purpose);

- speaking of devs, I’m not a programmer, but if I were one I wouldn’t know where to start from: there’s an *unofficial* wiki, making it “official” and adding more docs, links to mailing lists and such would surely help;

- the Cinnamon home page still doesn’t what *is* Cinnamon and why it was born: a couple of paragraphs about that would surely help newbies :)

Keep up the good work, looking forward to Nadia!

Rehdon

Re: A couple of remarks about future versions of Cinnamon

Posted: Fri Aug 24, 2012 4:41 pm
by squeezy
Unify the menu editing too, please!

Re: A couple of remarks about future versions of Cinnamon

Posted: Sat Aug 25, 2012 10:39 am
by mishu91
Is there any chance to have global menu implemented as an applet or extension? I think it would be a great feature for Cinnamon.

Re: A couple of remarks about future versions of Cinnamon

Posted: Sun Aug 26, 2012 5:44 am
by abnvolk
CinnaDock is here: http://cinnamon-spices.linuxmint.com/extensions/view/6 :D. But it lacks some features, so I think you should use some other docks, at least for now. I think that dock doesn't need to be integrated to Cinnamon, because the goal of the devs is to create a traditional desktop environment - the one with window list and normal menu. And there would be extra work for them, right? I think docks work very well in Cinnamon, so, why do we need to integrate it? :D
Apart from that, I totally agree with your opinions :D Cinnamon is simple, but beautiful and stylish!

Re: A couple of remarks about future versions of Cinnamon

Posted: Sun Aug 26, 2012 8:13 am
by Rehdon
Yep I know about Cinnadock, it'd be enough with a little bug-fixing (it has its quirks, and it's an extension: going to see how well it works with Maya) and better configuration options. A Cinnamon-compatible version of Gnome Shell's dock would be even better though.

A dock is an important addition to the traditional desktop paradigm IMHO: a standard dock in Cinnamon would make immediately available the most used applications and would allow to get rid of both the panel icons (small UI targets, less flexible than Gnome 2.x ones, steal space on the panel) and the Mint Menu mini-dock (small UI targets, can be in limited number, as flexible as the panel icons, make the menu itself cluttered and unwieldy).

My 0.02€ as usual :)

Rehdon

Re: A couple of remarks about future versions of Cinnamon

Posted: Sun Aug 26, 2012 9:11 am
by abnvolk
Yup, CinnaDock is limited in functionality, and hasn't been updated for quite some time now. It even doesn't work with 1.5.2 (a small change will fix that). Now I use Docky :D
Anyway, I like the dock. Even Windows 7 have taskbar with big icons!

Re: A couple of remarks about future versions of Cinnamon

Posted: Sun Aug 26, 2012 10:16 am
by Condorman
Rehdon wrote:Yep I know about Cinnadock, it'd be enough with a little bug-fixing (it has its quirks, and it's an extension: going to see how well it works with Maya) and better configuration options. A Cinnamon-compatible version of Gnome Shell's dock would be even better though.
I've not tried Cinna-Dock, but from looking at the screen shots it looks to me exactly that; Gnome Shell's dock for Cinnamon, but placed on the bottom.

I'm using Cairo-Dock with Cinnamon, and cannot recommend it highly enough. It feels tailor made for Mint and Cinnamon.

Personally, I can't wait to see what's coming next for Cinnamon. I'd love to see the Cinnamon front page updated more often too, with news and developments. I'm just greedy for more!

Re: A couple of remarks about future versions of Cinnamon

Posted: Mon Aug 27, 2012 2:42 am
by Rehdon
abnvolk wrote:Yup, CinnaDock is limited in functionality, and hasn't been updated for quite some time now. It even doesn't work with 1.5.2 (a small change will fix that). Now I use Docky
On the plus side, Cinnadock seems to be more stable on LM 13 than on 12, but yes, it's limited and it seems to not be developed anymore, which is a shame.

Docky wants to install an awful amount of stuff, which strikes me as overkill for the purpose of a simple dock. Sticking with Cinnadock for now, will see what's available once Cinnamon 1.5.2/1.6 is out.

Rehdon

Re: A couple of remarks about future versions of Cinnamon

Posted: Sun Sep 02, 2012 1:49 pm
by Condorman
Nice to see a new update to the Cinnamon front page. Here > http://cinnamon.linuxmint.com/?p=195. Some very bullish stats listed there, and I absolutely cannot wait for Mint 14 to try it out. It seems to be getting a great deal of attention, probably more so than the Gnome team are giving Gnome Shell at the moment! :D

Thanks for keeping us up to date, and congratulations on such a successful new desktop!

Re: A couple of remarks about future versions of Cinnamon

Posted: Sun Sep 02, 2012 3:32 pm
by Rehdon
Looks good enough (nothing earth-shattering, mind you, at least for someone like me who's happy enough with the current window navigation stuff), also nice that they're costantly improving the code quality. Hope 1.6 is out soon :)

BTW, still missing a short "Cinnamon is a modern desktop environment based on the Gnome 3 framework etc." paragraph on top of that page. Just copy from the README file ;)

BTW2, no one's planning to pick up Cinnadock development?

Re: A couple of remarks about future versions of Cinnamon

Posted: Mon Sep 03, 2012 6:05 am
by abnvolk
I'm afraid yes... It hasn't been updated for a long time :(
Anyway, I'm using 1.5.3 and it runs really well, with new features of course :D

Re: A couple of remarks about future versions of Cinnamon

Posted: Mon Sep 03, 2012 2:11 pm
by Rehdon
dalcde wrote:
Rehdon wrote: - it would be nice to have a fast, simple dock as part of the Cinnamon desktop: I know I can install many (have actually played with Cairo dock for a while, sort of overkill: I’m thinking of an alternative to the panel launchers), but I’d rather that it’d be chosen and possibly integrated by the devs themselves into Cinnamon;
I'm not really sure if that should really be part of Cinnamon itself.
Why not? A dock is the natural evolution of the panel launchers, and you already have a sort of mini-dock in the Mint menu. I'm not saying you should get rid of the panel launchers, but a Cinnamon dock would surely make the Mint menu less cluttered, and offer more options to the user. Also, it's the land of interesting innovations, see the Unity lenses feature.
dalcde wrote:
Rehdon wrote: - desktop configuration is much better than with Gnome Shell, but the UX is horribly fragmented in Cinnamon 1.4, having to chase stuff in different menus/tools, hope things will improve in the next version(s);
You can configure GNOME Shell?
I seem to remember a horrid "Advanced options" pref util ;)
dalcde wrote:Anyway, Cinnamon Settings in 1.6 is going into include a panel that changes the desktop background. This is probably going to help much.
Hmm, care to elaborate how that is relevant to the topic of a Cinnamon dock? O.o

Rehdon

Re: A couple of remarks about future versions of Cinnamon

Posted: Tue Sep 18, 2012 8:06 am
by Rehdon
dalcde wrote:Remeber that Cinnamon's vision is to be a traditional desktop. As far as I know, no desktop environements come with a native dock except for enlightenment. But enlightenment has all sorts of crazy stuff such as penguins drilling holes in your windows, so I don't think that should count.
You mean no desktop environment except for Enlightenment, XFCE, Gnome 3, Unity, MacOS etc.? ;) Note that the distinction between panel and dock has become quite blurry recently, and rightly so. You could see Windows 7 panel as a dock.

In any case, Cinnamon's vision of a traditional desktop is a) related to the circumstances of its birth (that 'traditional' has to be interpreted as opposed to the 'new, shiny and unusuable' stuff both Gnome and Canonical spit out to their users), and b) right from birth coupled to the quest for innovative features to be added (you only have to read the README file: "a Linux desktop which provides advanced innovative features", or the latest blog entries describing new features). And that's fine by me, because we already have a Gnome 2 clone, and it's called MATE. If Cinnamon were to simply become a Gnome 2 clone with Gnome 3 technologies that'd be an awful waste of time, and surely reason enough (for me at least) to look elsewhere.

Re: A couple of remarks about future versions of Cinnamon

Posted: Thu Sep 20, 2012 3:32 am
by Rehdon
dalcde wrote:I guess it is our different perceptions of a dock. Personally, I've always considered a dock to be designed for application launching only. Thus Xfce doesn't count, and GNOME 3's dock was rather hidden, so I didn't really consider it. Unity, it also had lenses and dash so I didn't count it. MacOS, I admit that I'm wrong. I didn't remeber that at the time of typing. I guess its the definition of a "dock" that lead to a misconception.
That is both a restrictive (if you see the evolution of CDE and also MacOS dock you'll see more than app launching right from the start) and very vague definition (would a panel with launchers count as a dock then?). Fact is, there's a fair degree of overlapping between panels and docks, see f.i. XFCE where you can have the panel behave like a dock, and viceversa.
dalcde wrote:With that said, whether or not we have a native dock would probably be clem's decision. Personally I'm not supporting it, though. (not that I'm against it. It doesn't hurt to have one more option)
It wouldn't necessarily have to be 'native': why re-invent the wheel? choose one of the existing ones, configure it to work well with Cinnamon, and that's it. As I wrote in a previous post, I'd be happy to have a Cinnadock applet with just a little more functionality.

Re: A couple of remarks about future versions of Cinnamon

Posted: Fri Mar 08, 2013 11:22 am
by foolish_kid
I'd like to ask, what do you think about this one?
It just an idea, so the apps not made yet, and i'm not a programmer.
Is there anyone who make this into an apps or extensions?

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0Bw4Zt8E ... sp=sharing