Is this extension sustainable?

[tio-trom]

This is not a bug report, but I think it is very important to talk about how sustainable this project is. For 7 years now I have searched for a replacement for the Ubuntu Unity features such as global menus and HUD for Gnome. And I tested so many, and all eventually perished because Gnome does not provide an API for their desktop + they change things all the time and break extensions.

We have a custom Manjaro distro called tromjaro (tromjaro.com) and we would love to ship it with these features. I contacted Matti who is in charge of Manjaro Gnome and talked to him a bit about Fildem and he also said that it is difficult to sustain such a project and is not something Manjaro may stand behind because of the above issues.

So, unless there is a dedicated team for such an extension, it will probably not work in the long term. So, how many people work on this extension and what are their thoughts about sustainability? How can others help?

[tio-trom]

If you are looking for something that resembles Unity, you can just install Unity

I want some functionalities such as the HUD and global menus. Also, I want to use Arch mostly and not Ubuntu.

I do not understand HUD's purpose.

For me is one of the best features to have. I do video/photo editing and instead of searching through tens or hundreds of menus and settings on kdenlive or krita, i press one button and type 2-3 letters and I can find what I am looking for. It is immensely useful for such cases.

I don't understand the purpose of tromjaro. You want it to be trade-free. I have used Ubuntu for several years, and I have never bought anything for them

Ubuntu wants something a bit more from you. They want you data, attention and at times money. How? For a while they installed Amazon searches into their Unity. Other times they collect data from snaps. Their store promotes trade-based applications such as Steam, Skype and the like. It also may come pre-installed with such apps. Freemiums, subscription based, or data collection or ads, are trade-based since you have to trade to them something. It does not have to be money necessarily.

If you want OS to be minimalist, you can uninstall the parts of Ubuntu you do not like, and probably also choose the minimalist installation.

That's what I did with Manjaro and then I thought to make it open for others to use. Thus, tromjaro. But the core of it is to be trade-free - to not come pre-installed with freemium, adware and such apps. And we also curate hundreds of trade-free apps on our website that can be directly installed to tromjaro (one click).

[tio-trom]

I would not want to transform this into a discussion about tromjaro since it is about Fildem posted on its github page. I hope you understand. You can find all of our trade-free curated apps here https://www.tromjaro.com/apps/ and if you have any question we have a public chat here https://www.tromjaro.com/support-2/ - I would be very happy to answer all of these questions and such :).

[syrop]

I did what you did. I created a bug:

https://gitlab.com/tromsite/tromjaro/packages/global-menu/-/issues/1

Following your prompt, I move the discussion there. I ask you the same and more questions.

[gonzaarcr]

My plan was never to do anything big, I just had to "upgrade" to Gnome as support for Ubuntu 16 was ending.I wanted to have the most useful of Unity while still being able to use the latest improvements and not being stuck in a frozen distro. So I made this and other applications/extensions.

I always knew that the project is not entirely up to me and that it could die at any time, but I still tried. It depends more on the external apps and frameworks than on the app itself. Wayland is also bringing some problems, the window isolating and the difficulty of having a floating window are affecting the user experience.

I had some ideas of redoing the proyect, but I rather not spend my whole free time in this. I want to leave a functional and finished app at some moment, and that’s it.

I don’t think the global menu and HUD are dying anytime soon, there are a lot of distros that support them, but it’s a really fragmented work.

[rbreaves]

@TROMsite Why not switch or offer your distro with Budgie as the default DE? The distro Ubuntu Budgie proves that implementing a global menu extension reliably is a possibility. I don't expected Budgie will be breaking it in the manner the Gnome team tends to do ever since Unity. I do like the overall idea and style of your distro - but I think the DE of choice, aka Gnome, might not have been the best choice if Global Menus are important to you. XFCE is also another good choice for global menu reasons.

From everything I have seen the Vala-appmenu is the best option out there and if anything I feel like these sort of projects might be best off trying to connect vala-appmenu into Gnome vs writing something from scratch - or just forking vala-appmenu and submitting PRs to bring the latest gnome compatibility into it.

[tio-trom]

@rbreaves I am not very familiar with Budgie. Their global menu also has a HUD like function? I chose Gnome because of several reasons like I was used to it a lot, I could tweak it to my liking, it works well with touch screens, huge resolutions, and so forth.

[rbreaves]

No hud in Budgie unless there’s an extension for that & I missed it. Budgie keeps the gnome shell but does do its own there w/ it’s own top bar & notifications & plugin structure. Ubuntu Budgie is a slightly forked version but I don’t think global menus are going any where & will be supported for a long while.. indefinitely I’d imagine.

[tio-trom]

I see. HUD for me is far more important than the global menu. It is useful beyond belief.

[rbreaves]

I tend to just use the launch menus as my HUD via a cmd-space remap I do via Kinto.sh. I like Albert & huds like it but rarely need them.

[tio-trom]

I do video and photo editing and instead of navigating through lots of menus and submenus, I press one key, type 2-3 letters, and I apply that effect and such.

[rbreaves]

@TROMsite Yea, I navigate similarly at times, but I also use the menus at times. If for no other reasons it helps new users become familiarized with an application faster. What you are describing are for those of us that have established our workflows already. I'd encourage you to reconsider the importance of adding in a global menu as you seem interested to do, perhaps less interested in changing DE's to do it.

[syrop]

Global application menu does not always save space on the screen. Unity has an always-visible top bar, which hosts the global menu. In Gnome, the extension Dash to Panel hides the top bar. The menus in Gnome, which are not global, only occupy the amount of vertical space that would be otherwise taken by the top bar (now invisible).

1. Install Dash to Panel.
2. Set it to vertical orientation, so that it looks like Unity, or Gnome.
3. Compare the size of menus in applications to the size of the top bar, that would be otherwise always visible.

In Android Studio without global menu, the menu only occupies the space normally taken by top bar. Screenshot taken with the extension Dash to Panel:

[rbreaves]

@syrop the savings comes from multitasking, not a single application.

[probonopd]

A BIG "Thank You" @gonzaarcr for making this. It is imho the best thing that has happened to Gnome ever since Gnome 2. :1st_place_medal:

Here I summarized why.

I only hope that one day Gnome comes with this preconfigured by default.

The superiority of the global menu has been proven scientifically:

Walker, N & Smelcer, JB 1990, A comparison of selection times from walking and pull-down menus. in JC Chew & J Whiteside (eds), Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI 1990. Association for Computing Machinery, pp. 221-225, 1990 SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI 1990, Seattle, United States, 4/1/90. https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/97243.97277

Systems that maximize the percentage of menu items with borders will have a decided advantage over other menu systems.

In this experiment the initial movement to the pull-down menus was larger that average distance required to reach the top of a 19 inch diagonal screen, yet the pull-downs still significantly outperformed the walking menus. Therefore, it may be more efficient to place menus at the top of the window