Hi all,
I see that in Factory, Alternative Status Menu is no longer installed by default. Although GNOME 3.6 finally provides "Power Off" by default, without Alternative Status Menu it is *impossible* to Hibernate (without resorting to command line). You can't press Alt to get Hibernate like you could for Power Off before - you just cannot do it.
Moreover, Alternative Status Menu v3.6 no longer provides Hibernate by default. The extension still supports Hibernate perfectly fine provided it is configured to do so via gsettings, but if you install the extension from extensions.gnome.org, then it will use a private gsettings file that Dconf Editor cannot see, and you're basically out of luck unless you really know what you're doing. So this has to be an openSUSE package, rather than something installed from extensions.gnome.org.
I've done the work of updating the extensions package and our default gschema overrides and filed SRs 146537 and 146538 for this. If those are accepted then anyone installing the extension with zypper or yast will get Hibernate and be fine, but I'm aware that we don't normally package extensions unless they're installed by default, so I sent this email to:
1) Explain why we should package this even if we don't install it by default.
2) Suggest that we should continue to install it by default. :-) This isn't covered by my SRs, and I don't know how to do it anyway.
Happy Friday,
Michael Catanzaro
On Thu, 2012-12-27 at 22:39 -0600, Michael Catanzaro wrote:
Hi all,
I see that in Factory, Alternative Status Menu is no longer installed by default. Although GNOME 3.6 finally provides "Power Off" by default, without Alternative Status Menu it is *impossible* to Hibernate (without resorting to command line). You can't press Alt to get Hibernate like you could for Power Off before - you just cannot do it.
Moreover, Alternative Status Menu v3.6 no longer provides Hibernate by default. The extension still supports Hibernate perfectly fine provided it is configured to do so via gsettings, but if you install the extension from extensions.gnome.org, then it will use a private gsettings file that Dconf Editor cannot see, and you're basically out of luck unless you really know what you're doing. So this has to be an openSUSE package, rather than something installed from extensions.gnome.org.
I've done the work of updating the extensions package and our default gschema overrides and filed SRs 146537 and 146538 for this. If those are accepted then anyone installing the extension with zypper or yast will get Hibernate and be fine, but I'm aware that we don't normally package extensions unless they're installed by default, so I sent this email to:
- Explain why we should package this even if we don't install it by
default.
- Suggest that we should continue to install it by default. :-) This
isn't covered by my SRs, and I don't know how to do it anyway.
Happy Friday,
Michael Catanzaro
Sounds sensible to me. Quite frankly, extensions are in my opinion one of the killer features of GNome 3. I think we should even use extensions more liberally, breaking with mainstream... it is our prerogative as a distribution after all. But, not being able to suspend would be a very large peeve for me. I've gotten behind Gnome 3 from having been a KDE zealot for some time, and this design choice along with removing the High Contrast accessibility theme are rather foolish decisions in my opinion.
On Thu, 2012-12-27 at 21:09 -0800, Roger Luedecke wrote:
Sounds sensible to me. Quite frankly, extensions are in my opinion one of the killer features of GNome 3. I think we should even use extensions more liberally, breaking with mainstream... it is our prerogative as a distribution after all. But, not being able to suspend would be a very large peeve for me. I've gotten behind Gnome 3 from having been a KDE zealot for some time, and this design choice along with removing the High Contrast accessibility theme are rather foolish decisions in my opinion.
You're actually referring to the High Contrast Inverse theme. High Contrast still exists. The general thinking is that using magnifier's inversion feature is an adequate replacement for the Inverse functionality as it was said to be too much work to tweak the Inverse theme. I'm not sure I understand why though, as it was working perfectly fine for me for years. The removal of Inverse has essentially made 3.6 wholly inaccessible for me and I don't use it. I'm sad to see upstream doesn't see the value despite my attempts several times to point out my issues and find out why they felt it was worth dropping.
I'm a little worried to be honest. Either I'll have to look elsewhere at other desktops or stop using Linux altogether if Inverse is to be permanently removed. Obviously 12.3 won't be released with GNOME 3.4, so I have no idea what will happen then for me.
I wish I knew enough that I could jump in and help tweak Inverse. But if the hard-core heavy duty experts are saying its too much work, then I don't stand a chance. :-)
Bryen
On Thu, 2012-12-27 at 23:22 -0600, Bryen M Yunashko wrote:
On Thu, 2012-12-27 at 21:09 -0800, Roger Luedecke wrote:
Sounds sensible to me. Quite frankly, extensions are in my opinion one of the killer features of GNome 3. I think we should even use extensions more liberally, breaking with mainstream... it is our prerogative as a distribution after all. But, not being able to suspend would be a very large peeve for me. I've gotten behind Gnome 3 from having been a KDE zealot for some time, and this design choice along with removing the High Contrast accessibility theme are rather foolish decisions in my opinion.
You're actually referring to the High Contrast Inverse theme. High Contrast still exists. The general thinking is that using magnifier's inversion feature is an adequate replacement for the Inverse functionality as it was said to be too much work to tweak the Inverse theme. I'm not sure I understand why though, as it was working perfectly fine for me for years. The removal of Inverse has essentially made 3.6 wholly inaccessible for me and I don't use it. I'm sad to see upstream doesn't see the value despite my attempts several times to point out my issues and find out why they felt it was worth dropping.
I'm a little worried to be honest. Either I'll have to look elsewhere at other desktops or stop using Linux altogether if Inverse is to be permanently removed. Obviously 12.3 won't be released with GNOME 3.4, so I have no idea what will happen then for me.
I wish I knew enough that I could jump in and help tweak Inverse. But if the hard-core heavy duty experts are saying its too much work, then I don't stand a chance. :-)
Bryen
I've read elsewhere that (the fellow talking about the green highlight Adwaita theme) themes aren't very hard to edit. It seems odd that the one you need is supposedly too much work. Reckon we'll need to look in to this and see what we can do.
On Thu, 2012-12-27 at 21:09 -0800, Roger Luedecke wrote:
Sounds sensible to me. Quite frankly, extensions are in my opinion one of the killer features of GNome 3. I think we should even use extensions more liberally, breaking with mainstream... it is our prerogative as a distribution after all. But, not being able to suspend would be a very large peeve for me. I've gotten behind Gnome 3 from having been a KDE zealot for some time, and this design choice along with removing the High Contrast accessibility theme are rather foolish decisions in my opinion. -- Roger A. Luedecke openSUSE Ambassador http://www.opensuseadventures.blogspot.com
FYI, you can suspend without the extension by pressing Alt - this will change the Power Off button to Suspend. (Though this is not very discoverable.)
On Thu, 2012-12-27 at 21:33 -0800, Roger Luedecke wrote:
I've read elsewhere that (the fellow talking about the green highlight Adwaita theme) themes aren't very hard to edit. It seems odd that the one you need is supposedly too much work. Reckon we'll need to look in to this and see what we can do.
Yeah that's actually me. It's not a lot of work for me because I'm making very small changes to the actively-maintained upstream theme. Maintaining a theme that's lost upstream support would be a much more significant undertaking. GTK+ changes every six months, and the themes have to change significantly as well.
After I finish Adwaita SUSE, I'll try the 3.4 High Contrast Inverse theme on GNOME 3.6 and see how bad it looks and what all needs updated. It might be too much work for me, but it also might be doable. Bryen, could you link me to some discussions on why this was dropped - I'm curious to see them myself. Thanks.
Michael Catanzaro
On Fri, 2012-12-28 at 10:14 -0600, Michael Catanzaro wrote:
On Thu, 2012-12-27 at 21:09 -0800, Roger Luedecke wrote:
Sounds sensible to me. Quite frankly, extensions are in my opinion one of the killer features of GNome 3. I think we should even use extensions more liberally, breaking with mainstream... it is our prerogative as a distribution after all. But, not being able to suspend would be a very large peeve for me. I've gotten behind Gnome 3 from having been a KDE zealot for some time, and this design choice along with removing the High Contrast accessibility theme are rather foolish decisions in my opinion. -- Roger A. Luedecke openSUSE Ambassador http://www.opensuseadventures.blogspot.com
FYI, you can suspend without the extension by pressing Alt - this will change the Power Off button to Suspend. (Though this is not very discoverable.)
From what I understand, they intend to remove that functionality as
well... which is retarded quite frankly. I think though, that obscuring it the way they do is foolish anyway. If we are going to adhere to upstream, we should find a way to bring the Gnome Cheatsheet to the users attention, as a Firefox homepage or some other such thing.
On Fri, 2012-12-28 at 10:27 -0600, Michael Catanzaro wrote:
On Thu, 2012-12-27 at 21:33 -0800, Roger Luedecke wrote:
I've read elsewhere that (the fellow talking about the green highlight Adwaita theme) themes aren't very hard to edit. It seems odd that the one you need is supposedly too much work. Reckon we'll need to look in to this and see what we can do.
Yeah that's actually me. It's not a lot of work for me because I'm making very small changes to the actively-maintained upstream theme. Maintaining a theme that's lost upstream support would be a much more significant undertaking. GTK+ changes every six months, and the themes have to change significantly as well.
After I finish Adwaita SUSE, I'll try the 3.4 High Contrast Inverse theme on GNOME 3.6 and see how bad it looks and what all needs updated. It might be too much work for me, but it also might be doable. Bryen, could you link me to some discussions on why this was dropped - I'm curious to see them myself. Thanks.
Michael Catanzaro
If you are willing to do the initial leg-work, I'm willing to launch a media campaign. My blog gets pretty good circulation, and I have a number of contacts I can leverage to draw more attention to the issue. If you can do the work at first, I'll do my best to drum up more help.
On Fri, Dec 28, 2012 at 4:51 PM, Roger Luedecke roger.luedecke@gmail.com wrote:
If we are going to adhere to upstream, we should find a way to bring the Gnome Cheatsheet to the users attention, as a Firefox homepage or some other such thing.
This is in the works for 3.8:
https://live.gnome.org/GnomeOS/Design/Whiteboards/GettingStarted
Mike
On Fri, 2012-12-28 at 13:54 -0800, Roger Luedecke wrote:
If you are willing to do the initial leg-work, I'm willing to launch a media campaign. My blog gets pretty good circulation, and I have a number of contacts I can leverage to draw more attention to the issue. If you can do the work at first, I'll do my best to drum up more help. -- Roger A. Luedecke openSUSE Ambassador http://www.opensuseadventures.blogspot.com
I haven't tried the theme on 3.6 yet, but even on 3.4 there's a noticeable quality gap between the inverse and the non-inverse themes. =/ Still I'll see what I can do and report back in a couple of weeks.
There's also tons of missing icons in both high-contrast themes; that'd be a significant chore somebody (else) would have to tackle for a quality user experience.
On Fri, 2012-12-28 at 18:17 -0600, Michael Catanzaro wrote:
On Fri, 2012-12-28 at 13:54 -0800, Roger Luedecke wrote:
If you are willing to do the initial leg-work, I'm willing to launch a media campaign. My blog gets pretty good circulation, and I have a number of contacts I can leverage to draw more attention to the issue. If you can do the work at first, I'll do my best to drum up more help. -- Roger A. Luedecke openSUSE Ambassador http://www.opensuseadventures.blogspot.com
I haven't tried the theme on 3.6 yet, but even on 3.4 there's a noticeable quality gap between the inverse and the non-inverse themes. =/ Still I'll see what I can do and report back in a couple of weeks.
Indeed, starting with 3.4, Inverse started to break. Just open up a mail in Evolution and you'll see the problem. This didn't exist in previous GNOME versions.
Inverse was removed from 3.6 altogether. Its why I haven't been able to use 3.6 at all. I tried it, gave it my best shot, and just couldn't do it. So I went back to a clean 3.4 installation, even with its brokenness.
I could go back to 12.1, which is still supported by openSUSE, but at the same time, that one's going to be out of support once the 18 month cycle is ended.
I could file bugs against the brokenness of 3.4 Inverse, but seems pointless if it has already been decided to drop Inverse.
There's also tons of missing icons in both high-contrast themes; that'd be a significant chore somebody (else) would have to tackle for a quality user experience.
Meg Ford did the high contrast icons, and I do commend her for her work. You can always reach out to her to discuss your observations in more detail.
As for your earlier question about pointing to the discussion of the dropping of Inverse, I actually don't know where that specific discussion occured. I was only told when I was discussing my observations of 3.6 accessibility usage both on ML and in IRC, that it was shelved due to the amount of work involved in it.
I wish I had seen the discussion before it was dropped, as I would have jumped in and begged for it not to be dropped. But after the fact, ahh well... too little too late I guess.
I also wonder if this is really the place to be discussing these issues though. I'm mentioning my experience here, but at the same time, openSUSE isn't really at fault here. It's an upstream issue. We could certainly work together to contribute to upstream to bring back Inverse, but any ire directed at this tragic loss in this particular forum is well, pointless.
Bryen
I have one question: what do you do on websites that have forms with white backgrounds? I was trying to type on Github but gave up and switched back to Adwaita, since the white text I was typing was the same color as the form's background. :S
I could go back to 12.1, which is still supported by openSUSE, but at the same time, that one's going to be out of support once the 18 month cycle is ended.
Debian 7 will ship GNOME 3.4, and will give it security and bugfix support until 2016. If you don't mind using older software, that might be a good option for you.
I could file bugs against the brokenness of 3.4 Inverse, but seems pointless if it has already been decided to drop Inverse.
Yeah, but since it is shipped in 12.2, and in a default install no less, it ought to work. It'd be helpful if you would make a bug (you can assign it to me - *no promises*) and attach a couple of screenshots of particular issues in the 3.4 theme; the Evolution issue I had already noted, but I'm sure to miss other stuff that's irking you since I don't use the theme on a regular basis.
I agree that a bug against Factory/3.6 would be inappropriate, since it's dropped by design.
There's also tons of missing icons in both high-contrast themes; that'd be a significant chore somebody (else) would have to tackle for a quality user experience.
Meg Ford did the high contrast icons, and I do commend her for her work. You can always reach out to her to discuss your observations in more detail.
Oh I don't have any issue with the icons that do exist - they look nice - I just notice that a lot of default "Gnome" icons are used because the high contrast [inverse] iconset doesn't provide ones of its own. It looks jarringly inconsistent to me to see the default icons alongside the high contrast ones. But I guess icons are probably a ton of work.
On Sat, 2012-12-29 at 02:36 -0600, Michael Catanzaro wrote:
I have one question: what do you do on websites that have forms with white backgrounds? I was trying to type on Github but gave up and switched back to Adwaita, since the white text I was typing was the same color as the form's background. :S
For browsers, specifically Firefox, I go a different way, and I've filed a bug with Mozilla a ways back on this issue. A workaround was suggested, but its an ugly workaround. Here's the bug report which should give you a decent set of steps for how it is done. Unfortunately, it seems to have fallen through the cracks and isn't being tended to.
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=746205
I could go back to 12.1, which is still supported by openSUSE, but at the same time, that one's going to be out of support once the 18 month cycle is ended.
Debian 7 will ship GNOME 3.4, and will give it security and bugfix support until 2016. If you don't mind using older software, that might be a good option for you.
That solution bothers me on two points. 1) The very concept of "A11y" means I shouldn't have to switch to older versions of other distros. If my choice is to use openSUSE with GNOME, it should work. Having to learn a whole different architecture than one I'm used to for years now just doesn't seem fair. 2) Again, referring to the concept of A11y, having to be relegated to older software instead of being able to stay with current versions o software seems just plain wrong. I should be able to stay current with the masses on the same curve.
I should be able to enjoy the benefits of latest GNOME innovation just like everyone else. Not being able to enjoy innovation simply because of one thing missing/broken just is wrong.
I could file bugs against the brokenness of 3.4 Inverse, but seems pointless if it has already been decided to drop Inverse.
Yeah, but since it is shipped in 12.2, and in a default install no less, it ought to work. It'd be helpful if you would make a bug (you can assign it to me - *no promises*) and attach a couple of screenshots of particular issues in the 3.4 theme; the Evolution issue I had already noted, but I'm sure to miss other stuff that's irking you since I don't use the theme on a regular basis.
I agree that a bug against Factory/3.6 would be inappropriate, since it's dropped by design.
I still don't understand how this would help much, and perhaps you can enlighten me. If subsequent GNOME versions drop Inverse altogether, why would anyone fix Inverse? It seems unfair of me to expect anyone to fix older versions instead of fixing current versions. 3.8 isn't that far around the corner and further distances the work folks have to do between old and current.
There's also tons of missing icons in both high-contrast themes; that'd be a significant chore somebody (else) would have to tackle for a quality user experience.
Meg Ford did the high contrast icons, and I do commend her for her work. You can always reach out to her to discuss your observations in more detail.
Oh I don't have any issue with the icons that do exist - they look nice
- I just notice that a lot of default "Gnome" icons are used because the
high contrast [inverse] iconset doesn't provide ones of its own. It looks jarringly inconsistent to me to see the default icons alongside the high contrast ones. But I guess icons are probably a ton of work.
Meg actually worked on designing High Contrast icons, rather than High Contrast Inverse icons. So, yeah, I would say that High Contrast Inverse icons don't exist either if the theme itself is dropped.
I do feel strongly however, that more investigation should be taken into exactly why upstream decided it was too much work to maintain Inverse. Despite my feeling that dropping it was a tragic decision, I do feel that there are good folks in the A11y team and they must have had a sound reason why not to proceed further with it. I'm just frustrated because this decision doesn't seem published anywhere. I've been on the GNOME A11y mailing list for many years and never saw any discussion of this decision, so when I upgraded to 12.2, I was quite blindsided by this.
Bryen
On Sat, 2012-12-29 at 08:06 -0600, Bryen M Yunashko wrote:
For browsers, specifically Firefox, I go a different way, and I've filed a bug with Mozilla a ways back on this issue. A workaround was suggested, but its an ugly workaround. Here's the bug report which should give you a decent set of steps for how it is done. Unfortunately, it seems to have fallen through the cracks and isn't being tended to.
Try that stylesheet in the Epiphany browser. Preferences -> Fonts and Styles -> Use Custom Stylesheet. Epiphany has tons of disadvantages over Firefox - I find v3.4 particularly buggy - but it looks like it supports that workaround a lot better. You won't ever have to reload the stylesheet; it just applies nicely to every page. I know switching to a different browser is probably not desirable - just throwing out an option.
On Fri, 2012-12-28 at 23:38 -0600, Bryen M Yunashko wrote:
Indeed, starting with 3.4, Inverse started to break. Just open up a mail in Evolution and you'll see the problem. This didn't exist in previous GNOME versions.
Inverse was removed from 3.6 altogether. Its why I haven't been able to use 3.6 at all. I tried it, gave it my best shot, and just couldn't do it. So I went back to a clean 3.4 installation, even with its brokenness.
Disclaimer: I don't know how the Inverse theme is written. If it is an identical copy of the default theme, but with colors changed, it *will* be a lot of work to keep it in sync with the default theme *if that is done by hand*.
I'm on Gnome 3.6 (openSUSE 12.2), and I just turned these on:
* Magnifier / Zoom at 1.0 magnification
* White-on-black on the "Color Effects" for the magnifier.
From my uninformed viewpoint, it looks quite pleasant - dark and not too
contrasty. The shadows under windows are a bit weird, as they turn into highlighted halos. It looks usable, but of course I'm not behind Bryen's eyes :)
Bryen, how is the magnifier with inverted colors different from the old Inverse theme? Or what is it that makes the magnifier unusable for you?
Federico
On Sat, 2012-12-29 at 18:18 -0600, Federico Mena Quintero wrote:
Disclaimer: I don't know how the Inverse theme is written. If it is an identical copy of the default theme, but with colors changed, it *will* be a lot of work to keep it in sync with the default theme *if that is done by hand*.
I'm on Gnome 3.6 (openSUSE 12.2), and I just turned these on:
Magnifier / Zoom at 1.0 magnification
White-on-black on the "Color Effects" for the magnifier.
From my uninformed viewpoint, it looks quite pleasant - dark and not too contrasty. The shadows under windows are a bit weird, as they turn into highlighted halos. It looks usable, but of course I'm not behind Bryen's eyes :)
Bryen, how is the magnifier with inverted colors different from the old Inverse theme? Or what is it that makes the magnifier unusable for you?
Federico
Federico,
In a nutshell, Magnifier inverses EVERYTHING. Including images. Just because I am visually impaired doesn't mean I don't appreciate images nor work with them. I work quite extensively with images as part of my work. With magnifier inverting whole screen instead of just the theming, I'm losing a lot of personal functionality here.
Try watching a video. :-)
And if you say, oh well, just turn off the magnifier and watch the video in normal mode, no that doesn't work either. I'm extremely sensitive to white areas and being in normal mode, the white areas of the screen will overpower my ability to see the video or images in normal mode. Large chunks of white areas on a screen will essentially be like a flashlight in my face and I can't see anything.
Inverse theming is very different conceptually from inverse screening. We shouldn't have to sacrifice aesthetics for functionality. It was working just fine before.
Hope that enlightened you. :-)
Bryen
On Sat, 2012-12-29 at 22:38 -0600, Bryen M Yunashko wrote:
In a nutshell, Magnifier inverses EVERYTHING. Including images.
You are right, of course - I don't know why I didn't try that.
Hope that enlightened you. :-)
Very much so!
Do you know if there are upstream bugs about this already?
Federico
On Mon, 2012-12-31 at 13:32 -0600, Federico Mena Quintero wrote:
On Sat, 2012-12-29 at 22:38 -0600, Bryen M Yunashko wrote:
In a nutshell, Magnifier inverses EVERYTHING. Including images.
You are right, of course - I don't know why I didn't try that.
Hope that enlightened you. :-)
Very much so!
Do you know if there are upstream bugs about this already?
Federico
About the way magnifier inverses? I'm not sure, nor would I agree that it is a bug. It is functioning exactly as expected, as a screen inverter. I have such app on my Android phone too.
I just want my beloved Inverse theme back. :-( But, as I mentioned before, it seems to have been tossed out due to its complexities, and all I can do is whine on the side. :-) I am sure their reasonings were quite legitimate.
Bryen
On Mon, 2012-12-31 at 14:24 -0600, Bryen M Yunashko wrote:
About the way magnifier inverses? I'm not sure, nor would I agree that it is a bug. It is functioning exactly as expected, as a screen inverter. I have such app on my Android phone too.
I just want my beloved Inverse theme back. :-( But, as I mentioned before, it seems to have been tossed out due to its complexities, and all I can do is whine on the side. :-) I am sure their reasonings were quite legitimate.
Bryen
Actually this only took about an hour to do. Some of the colors could be better (e.g. on switches) but I think this will meet your needs: http://paste.opensuse.org/4231823
That is for GNOME 3.6. Paste its contents over the current contents of /usr/share/themes/HighContrast/gtk-3.0/gtk.css and now your High Contrast switch on the a11y menu will turn on inverse instead of normal high contrast. Yay!
As a warning, I broke scrollbars (made them the same color as the background they're on); I'll try to fix that soon-ish.
On Thu, 2013-01-03 at 18:31 -0600, Michael Catanzaro wrote:
On Mon, 2012-12-31 at 14:24 -0600, Bryen M Yunashko wrote:
About the way magnifier inverses? I'm not sure, nor would I agree that it is a bug. It is functioning exactly as expected, as a screen inverter. I have such app on my Android phone too.
I just want my beloved Inverse theme back. :-( But, as I mentioned before, it seems to have been tossed out due to its complexities, and all I can do is whine on the side. :-) I am sure their reasonings were quite legitimate.
Actually this only took about an hour to do. Some of the colors could be better (e.g. on switches) but I think this will meet your needs: http://paste.opensuse.org/4231823
Thank you for your effort. I frequently toggle into High-Contrast mode, this is a really useful feature.
-
Adam Tauno Williams -
Bryen M Yunashko -
Federico Mena Quintero -
Michael Catanzaro -
Michael Hill -
Roger Luedecke