What I would change with Gnome3

[lsatenstein]

With Gnome 2, we had 4 desktops by default. What if, instead of 4 desktops, we could make the little panel rectangular icons represent links to 4 distinct folders. The ones I had in mind are home, Desktop, Documents and Downloads. A single mouse click to reach the desired target folder.

If we have the choices for more than 4, then I could add some links to some of my development folders, including a Music link and some programming folders. And if I could color those little squares to help visually tell them apart, then wow!!

[Penguinclaw]

Personally I like to set different applications to each desktop so this would annoy me

However I can see the merit of being able to enable such a setup. ALso I like to be able to set up things my way with all the bells and whistles... Spinning desktops, wobbly windows etc so I can have a little fun making windows and mac users dribble.... I know I'm sad but I paid for this hardware so why shouldn't I be able to use it my way!

And I never want a touch screen. That seems to be what Gnome 3, Entity, Windows 8 is building for. The last thing I want is sticky fingerprints all over the place. On top of that, has anyone thought of the implications of some government agency or whatever building malware that could read your fingerprint info and then store it on some database to be used against you.... Not too far fetched and surely technally feasible. I want to protect my human rights thank you very much

[Dan]

What I would change with Gnome3(?)

Gee. That'll take some long thought ... not! <....>

Let's start here.

• Advanced Settings (gnome-tweak-tool) installed by default
• User-themes extension(s) installed and activated by default
• Nautilus handling the desktop by default.
• A single initial icon on the desktop that clicks through to a full-boat tutorial (complete with videos and graphics) about how to use, navigate, tweak and customize Gnome Shell.
• Two other lightweight desktops installed by default for backup and contrast. (LXDE and Cinnamon come to mind here.)
• Fallback mode clearly marked as such by either wallpaper or pop-up notification ... along with a link to the tutorial about how to change/fix it.
• Several other themes installed by default along side Adwaita.
• A semi-transparent pop-up sidebar list (that can be easily found, turned on, and turned off) of keyboard shortcuts.
• Gnome Shell needs to be twice as fast, and half as bulky.

There are several more I can think of, but for right now, that's a good start on the easily doable.

[AdamW]

you realize that by posting this here you're just micturating into the vortex, right? there is zero chance of any major design changes to a desktop being prompted by a random thread on a forum which isn't even a part of that desktop's project...

[MALsPa]

DEs/WMs/shells currently installed here: KDE4, Xfce, GNOME 2, GNOME Shell, Unity, Cinnamon, E17, Openbox, Fluxbox, and AwesomeWM. If I wanted to, I could come up with a list of things I'd like to change about each one of them. Yawn.