So this is a last, desperate attempt to find a solution to a relatively recent GNOME annoyance before I just give up on the whole thing.
When GNOME 3.8 thinks you've been idle for a while, it blanks the screen, which is all fine and good and desirable. But then, once you come back, after you've gotten its attention somehow, it presents you with a sliding curtain thing that must be swiped out of the way before you can start working. As far as I can tell, this curtain serves no useful purpose whatsoever, it just adds another ritual that I have to go through many times each day in order to get my work done.
A search on the net suggests that I'm far from the only one looking for a way to turn this thing off. But the only solution appears to be to disable screen blanking altogether, which is not what I want to do.
Surely the GNOME developers aren't so hostile to their users that they would make it impossible to get rid of this extra hassle...right...? So what's the secret?
When GNOME 3.8 thinks you've been idle for a while, it blanks the screen, which is all fine and good and desirable. But then, once you come back, after you've gotten its attention somehow, it presents you with a sliding curtain thing that must be swiped out of the way before you can start working. As far as I can tell, this curtain serves no useful purpose whatsoever, it just adds another ritual that I have to go through many times each day in order to get my work done.
A search on the net suggests that I'm far from the only one looking for a way to turn this thing off. But the only solution appears to be to disable screen blanking altogether, which is not what I want to do.
Surely the GNOME developers aren't so hostile to their users that they would make it impossible to get rid of this extra hassle...right...? So what's the secret?
View 30 previous comments
+Gerd Hoffmann shift vs enter is a huge deal - especially if the lock doesn't kick in straight away when the screen blanks. I used to tap the shift key because it was a safe key to hit without the risk of anything being executed hitting an irc window, but that had to be disabled for no sensible reason whatsoever :(Dec 13, 2013
Mmmm... having to install an extra extension to remove a useless "feature"... getting closer and closer to the slow and bloated Windows universe.Dec 15, 2013
+Jonathan Corbet I completely understand. It is a little non-intuitive that you could hit any keys and then be able to remove the shield and type your password. Because every visual indicator is telling you that the shield is a barrier of sorts. So I sympathsize with you. I've had similar issues, even though I know that I can just type my password in, I always feel like I have to remove the barrier in front of me. It's a natural tendency.
I have created bug number 720656 asking to re-visit the design with some personal observation on the design of the lock screen. You can access it here:
https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=720656
Please feel free to add yourself to the bug. I have asked +Jasper St. Pierre and +Giovanni Campagna to see if they can update the shield extension to work with 3.10 as I have not heard back from the author and I don't think it works with 3.10. If the fix is simple we'll do our best to make it work.
+Marc Herbert it's your opinion that a feature is useless or not. Once the extension is installed does it matter? The "feature" or bug is no longer the problem. It's the end result that matters not how you get there. You're never going to please everyone.
+Allan Day can probably help explain the reasoning behind the design, but I think it is fairly straightforward. You have a lot of spare screen space that could be used to alert you with information prior to logging in. The question is, is the assumptions about your state of mind is correct when you sit in front of the computer correct or not?
In general, design is hard. I've taken a UI class and trying to anticipate the number of vectors a person may go from any point of an interface is difficult and sometimes very surprising in how non-logical people can be. It's all about your feelings and mental state and hoping you've properly acommodated them. Doing it out in the open, with very minimal resources is not easy. It is still an engineering process but a lot of right brain thinking involved as well.
It's already hard to write a general purpose desktop, but even harder when your earlier adopters and those who are willing to take the plunge are technical people. :-)Dec 18, 2013
Us developers have our own opinions too. I, personally, like that it unblanks the screen when I get a new notification, on top of a pretty picture, but I don't look at the shield. I just start typing my password while the monitor is blanked out and go.
The landing strip arrows come from a time when you couldn't just type your password and go, and I remember discussing updating it in the design IRC channel at one time, but it seems it was forgotten.
Let's get back to that.Dec 18, 2013
Sorry this isn't working out so well for you, +Jonathan Corbet. I'll do my best to give some background.
I wrote about the rationale for the lock screen back when it was first introduced in GNOME 3.6 [1]. The tl;dr version is that it's intended as a more useful screen saver - it's something you can personalise and which sits on top of your session, but it also displays notifications and media controls (plus the time and date).
Since the lock screen was introduced, we've made a number of updates that make it more useful and attractive (these were planned from the start but we weren't able to implement them all at once). Specifically:
* The screen will now wake up when a new notification comes in, and show it on the lock screen (3.10).
* Controls have been added to the control center to allow you to decide which notifications are displayed on the lock screen (3.8).
* We've added the ability to customise the image that is used for the lock screen "shield" (3.10).
So, depending on which version you are on, your lock screen might be missing some useful functionality.
That said, I personally find it really useful. It means that I can easily pause my music when the phone rings, or I can see when someone pings me on IRC when I'm sitting on the other side of the room.
I'd also add that we've tried to balance the useful features provided by the lock screen with the need to get into your session quickly and without impediment. As +Alexander Larsson pointed out, you can simply start typing your password (I think this was an update, possibly in 3.8) and it will be entered directly - so the lock screen shouldn't get in your way if all you want to do is unlock.
[1] http://afaikblog.wordpress.com/2012/08/31/taking-gnome-3-to-the-next-level/Dec 18, 2013
And with an option to disable it, it will be feature complete.Dec 18, 2013
Add a comment...