1. I don't like the so-called minimalist approach. OK, the philosophy that you should be able to concentrate on what you were doing is great.
But I just don't like this feeling of having to go to the top-left corner "activities" and have to see application screenshots, and have to press these screenshots to do something. Plus, in some distros, the default setting is that it gets activated just when your mouse pointer in on the top-left corner, which doesn't fare well for people with particular habits (but isn't this a quite common habit?).
2. I sometimes want to concentrate on several tasks done together and wish to minimize and maximize windows very flexibly. And this point partly applies for Unity as well, though Unity is going to be phased out anyway.
Of course we can add back the minimize and maximize buttons via some setting tweaks, the question is why this is not default. After all, graphic interface is all about maximizing and minimizing windows and using them as you like, so these buttons are not really worth sacrificing in the name of some minimalist approach.
3. As in Point 2, I really dislike how the top panel/bar is used for GNOME 3. GNOME 2 and its spiritual continuation MATE use the top bar to have the "menu" interface. And in a way, the traditional GNOME 2 approach still works very well. You want to get through application lists quickly but wish to organize them via folders/directories/groups. The default GNOME 3 actually takes much more space to do this simple task, because it is so icon-based via "activities". Modernity is supposed to make our lives simpler, not just more "fashionable". I really think that Windows and Mac overall do a better job in this part.
Furthermore, why waste the space of the top panel? After all, all there is for the default GNOME 3 top panel is "activities", followed by time and some background panel applications (usually very few). And time takes some chunks of space in the default setting, which is totally unnecessary. At least for this part, I do think the Unity approach was right, even if history will record Unity as failure. Unity has maximize/minimize icons embedded to the top panel, along with individual application menus also embedded to the top panel, just as in Mac. If you are not going to have "menus" in the top panel, this should be the best approach. Of course the default Unity approach takes the space of the left panel, but for this you can change the Unity panel to be at the bottom, and you are not wasting much space in this approach.
4. "Desktop". Yes I know that files in the desktop folder can be made to be shown visually in the "desktop." Yet, why is this not the default setting? Minimalist approach? One advantage of course does appear: you are less prone to making mistakes. But I just don't think the advantage is that great compared to sacrifices that must be made. Though I must confess that I myself do not make much use of the visual desktop anyway. (By "desktop" I mean the first thing you see when you enter GNOME environment, just like how you enter a graphical Windows or Mac environment.)
5. And please no, don't say use keyboard shortcuts. There are people that do not prefer keyboard shortcuts because it can mess things up when typing. (activating shortcuts when you are typing that weren't intended) Of course you may say that the same applies for mouse movements, but the former is much likely.
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