Jeff Fortin T. (風の庭園のNekohayo)

Free & #OpenSource contributor (#Linux + #GNOME + #GStreamer) since 2004. Now co-maintaining the most magical desktop productivity apps combo (@GettingThingsGNOME & GNOME Calendar) as their benevolent lean engineering manager + occasional User Interaction & UX designer.

Waging war on mediocrity & unsustainability in business.
Founder of @ideemarque + @atypica, and Managing Partner at @regento.

Ex-Collabora, ex-psy, ex-Shinra.
I don't roleplay but I wear a cloak. ❄️
#fedi22

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Last Notes

2026-01-12 15:17:11 GMT

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@nprofile…f4cc With the "GNOME Builder" IDE, you can also launch your app with the GTK Inspector ready from the get go, with this checkmark toggle:
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/115/882/785/185/148/062/original/905b1ef7fd2ff111.png

2026-01-10 14:26:10 GMT

I guess this warrants a screenshot, as I keep seeing #GNOME + #Linux threads where folks freak out about the "middle click paste" gsetting being set to False by default in https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gsettings-desktop-schemas/-/merge_requests/119. Some ask "How dare they hide this into a gsetting to be toggled", or "they should add it to GNOME Tweaks" etc.…
Thing is, it's *already* in GNOME Tweaks, since 2016: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-tweaks/-/commit/2f9b1b3b
We were told multiple times the gsetting is not getting removed. I'll keep using it & move on. :blobcatcoffee:
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/115/871/203/290/497/620/original/d1ba8c484202b239.png

2025-12-19 16:58:11 GMT

#Mozilla choosing to kill embeddable Gecko (make it a #Firefox only engine, essentially) over a decade ago was such a tragic mistake.
Alternative browsers & desktop apps had no choice but to go with WebKit or Blink/Electron.
As a result, Mozilla have nobody to blame but themselves for their minuscule marketshare and nil developer mindshare today.
Further readings:
* https://lwn.net/Articles/436412/ (circa 2011)
* https://www.chrislord.net/2016/02/24/the-case-for-an-embeddable-gecko/ from @nprofile…m4km
* https://dutherenverseauborddelatable.wordpress.com/2016/03/07/the-gecko-monoculture/ from @nprofile…pjsk
#OpenWeb

2025-12-15 20:13:19 GMT

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@nprofile…sdmx Comment dire… je crois que déclarer « Ma chienne vient mouillée dans mon lit » pourrait mener à des malentendus en anglais 😳

2025-11-22 13:48:19 GMT

Wow. Finally, after 21 years, #Firefox 147 will support the #FreeDesktop XDG basedir specification to store the config/data/etc. in the standard locations in your home directory on #Linux, for fresh installations: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=259356#c224
Unfortunately this only applies to clean installs, existing configs are kept in place and not automatically migrated.

2025-11-18 00:35:15 GMT

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@nprofile…4zvx MacOS might have "only" 16% marketshare in Germany, but guess what: it has 26% desktop marketshare in Canada, 30% in the USA, 24% in the UK, 24% in Switzerland, 30% in Australia, etc.
…and 99% of users won't go commenting on forums, they just use it as-is and move on with their lives. Finding people complaining on the Internet is not as salient of a fact as you think it is :blobcatcoffee:

2025-11-17 23:29:40 GMT

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@nprofile…4zvx
The default app-centric Alt+Tab behaviour makes a ton of sense to me, and is the same as MacOS.
Calling that "broken, unintuitive & hostile to users" ignores the fact that one of the two mainstream consumer desktop OSes has behaved exactly like that for the last 2 to 3 decades. It has also been this way in GNOME for over 15 years.
Maybe consider that other people use computers differently from your particular habits, and just change the shortcut mapping in GNOME Settings:
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/115/567/647/988/099/278/original/e58c8158bea05379.png

2025-11-03 18:54:26 GMT

Alright, #FountainPen experts, does anyone recognize this pump-like mechanism on the side of my mom's 40-years old "Lady" Parker fountain pen?
It won't budge at all when attempting to press it, as if had some sort of very dried up cracked sac underneath it. No clearly serviceable hole on the rear end of the metal tube (which I presume to be the reservoir). No reaction to being dunked into warm water. Any way to fix that?
Surely that is not a Parker #Vacumatic ? 🧐
#fountainpens #pens
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/115/487/230/875/013/651/original/02cea708ee7a036f.jpg

2025-10-15 01:06:08 GMT

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@nprofile…vgqe Evince is still using ye olde GTK3, so if you are curious it might be worth trying GNOME Papers (its replacement) which is GTK4 (+libadwaita) and is very actively maintained (unlike Evince). With some luck, maybe it wouldn't exhibit the same bug.

2025-10-15 00:35:42 GMT

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@nprofile…vgqe Personally I don't even know how to run "without a desktop" anymore, I haven't done this "startx" kind of business since 2003.
Is it the only GNOME app behaving this way, or does every such app have that problem? If the latter, sounds like a toolkit or OpenBox issue maybe.
As for the version number being "hidden" in the About menu item: all GNOME apps put it in that dialog, that's the standard design.
In this particular case though, you can also get that info with:
evince --version

2025-08-14 20:46:13 GMT

The "systemctl soft-reboot" #systemd command is so cool :blobaww:
https://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/latest/systemd-soft-reboot.service.html
Finally a clean way to rapidly re-start everything other than the #Linux kernel… for me, it is extremely useful to be able to do that after applying desktop & graphics stack updates, and to be able to log back in within 10 seconds.
Throwing the idea out here: it would be very nice if someone figured out a way to write a #GNOMEShell extension to provide "Soft reboot" as an alternative to cold reboot!

2025-08-10 13:27:40 GMT

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@nprofile…hkdp I've only seen that happen on desktops with automatic login (as the keyring is supposed to get unlocked by the password used at the login screen) but yeah, it isn't great…

2025-07-26 14:26:43 GMT

The @nprofile…srwa XMPP chat application has modernized quite a bit and evolved a lot compared to when I last used it 15 years ago!
Also, I made a simple enhancement UX request there, and it was fixed within a day. Pretty cool: https://dev.gajim.org/gajim/gajim/-/issues/12381
#Gajim #Jabber #XMPP

2025-07-15 20:10:23 GMT

In some very rare instances in #Montreal (ex: in front of the Guy-Favreau building, for Passports Canada), you might encounter these strange but extremely secure #bike racks that I call "JAWS".
They're like a Venus flytrap plant: the bike rack clamps from two sides (with protruding bars) onto your bike and then you lock the clamp.
One lock secures your frame AND your two wheels. This is genius.
This should be the default everywhere where there is some extra space.
#urbanism #biking #cycling
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/114/857/512/362/916/839/original/377911ab5eb6a6ff.jpeg
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/114/857/748/012/970/962/original/029d219b3320e785.jpeg

2025-07-11 12:14:00 GMT

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@nprofile…0arq de toute évidence il faut plutôt appliquer le répulsif directement sur les insectes! :blobcatcoffee:

2025-06-24 15:37:38 GMT

Considering how GNOME Color Manager's support for calibrating scanners (and printers?) has been broken for many years, and how it seems like the remaining code might get ripped out entirely from GNOME Control Center as a result, I have filed a new #GNOME app idea, in the wild hope that someone might find this interesting enough to create a standalone utility app for creating ICC color profiles for your photo scanners and printers: https://gitlab.gnome.org/bertob/app-ideas/-/issues/293
#ColorManagement #Linux #photography

2025-06-14 18:32:53 GMT

I'm leaving Montréal this Sunday to attend the United Nations event in New York. Unclear which days I'm actually registered in, but I'll be in town Mon-Fri, accompanying some of my Open Source industry clients (such as EvoluData, related to #TikiWiki, #Dolibarr, #Cypht & #MeshCentral).
If you want to schedule an encounter, let me know today… otherwise, enter the dungeon on various weekdays until the multi-class character with a @Regento-branded laptop appears.
#UNDP #UnitedNations #UN #NYC

2025-06-11 17:27:45 GMT

Mad props to @nprofile…crhm for successfully implementing the first phase of @nprofile…h40t's proposed solution for GNOME Calendar's general layouts and formfactors design overhaul (see https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-calendar/-/issues/1332), a project that has been in the work for many months to solve https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-calendar/-/issues/1007 !
https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-calendar/-/merge_requests/542 has landed in the main branch, you can now try it out in the nightly flatpak version.
#GNOMECalendar #GNOME #UX #LinuxMobile
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/114/666/460/998/129/598/original/7699cef902ec82fd.mp4

2025-05-25 16:09:53 GMT

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@nprofile…j2fu @nprofile…jqlt They're typically not slouched forward over a laptop debugging deadlocks for hours on end with no armrests though, are they? 😨

2025-05-25 04:27:06 GMT

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@nprofile…j2fu @nprofile…jqlt How do you guys still have backs, and leg tendons‽

2025-05-24 13:34:12 GMT

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@nprofile…j2fu @nprofile…uj9a For individual files, pretty much all we have right now is either:
* https://flathub.org/apps/de.swsnr.turnon + a bookmark in Nautilus pointing to SFTP://theothercomputer
* @nprofile…hpey's magical Warp, but it usually involves two humans: https://apps.gnome.org/Warp/
As for continuous realtime sync of whole folders in the background (à la Dropbox): for decades I lamented the disappearance of Novell's "iFolder" app, until I recently discovered #Syncthing and holy cow it is perfect at what it does.

2025-05-22 16:53:29 GMT

As we are making good progress on #accessibility for GNOME Calendar lately (big thanks to @nprofile…h7z7 there) I have now rewritten and updated the description of this meta ticket to reflect the current status: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-calendar/-/issues/1036
15 of 28 checklist items completed as of May 22nd, 2025, based on what issues I've been able to find so far.
#a11y #GNOMECalendar #GNOME #keyboardnavigation #screenreaders #Linux

2025-05-11 01:12:40 GMT

Soyons fous, je lance à tout hasard l'idée de faire une nouvelle campagne médiatique et d'installfests de desktop #Linux au #Québec (idéalement à l'échelle du Canada aussi) en 2025, en prévision de la fin de vie de #Windows10, c'est pas souvent qu'on a ce genre de fenêtre d'opportunité: https://forumsdulibre.quebec/t/campagne-end-of-10-pour-inciter-le-grand-public-a-migrer-a-linux-en-fin-de-vie-de-windows-10/2098
#EndOf10 #upcycling

2025-05-05 17:02:09 GMT

We are pleased to inform #GNOMECalendar users that the weird "week / agenda views scrolling up by themselves when clicking" heisenbug, which has been puzzling us for the last 2.5 years, has been vanquished by @nprofile…h7z7 through their fabulous #accessibility / #a11y work lately. You can already benefit from this while running the #GNOME nightly flatpak version of the Calendar app.
https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-calendar/-/issues/915

2025-05-05 12:46:44 GMT

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@nprofile…kksy @nprofile…d7yu
Supposing you know Nautilus copies (instead of move) when crossing different filesystems (ex: remote or USB mass storage), and are just bugged about the "fake duplication in the views" heisenbug, then I believe the problem you're experiencing is likely to be this combo:
* https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/nautilus/-/issues/3140
* https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/nautilus/-/issues/3838
* https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/nautilus/-/issues/3433
We need people to debug & contribute a merge request (not more flames in those tickets; the maintainers are all volunteers)…
#GNOME

2025-04-30 01:07:25 GMT

In the past few years of triaging issues for #GNOMECalendar, I noticed it's almost the same three distros from which I keep hearing the weirdest things…
This is the 3rd time someone complains that dark mode is not working, and I don't know how that's even possible (elsewhere, it Just Works): https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-calendar/-/issues/1390
I don't know what y'all do with Endeavor OS and Nix OS, but it sure sounds like playing #Linux on "Ultra Violence" difficulty :blobcatcoffee:
#MaintainerLife #QA #higgsbugson #GNOME
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/114/424/209/826/747/156/original/4a94cb930f55fef0.jpeg

2025-04-26 02:41:14 GMT

Puzzled by what I'm seeing in #powertop on Fedora 42 in the list of things keeping the CPU awake:
- What is this "tick_nohz_handler" thing? I tried looking it up on Google, never found a clear answer.
- Why would gnome-text-editor be the only app waking up the CPU 59-60 times per second at all times?
#Linux #powermanagement #energyefficiency
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/114/401/941/060/907/625/original/b59670b6ad5f192d.png

2025-04-25 13:27:03 GMT

Very excited by the upcoming #GNOMESoftware release, as it fixes the high RAM usage issue that occurred while in the background (it will now shrink back to ~100 MB instead of growing to multiple hundreds of MBs of RAM due to memory heap fragmentation): https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-software/-/issues/941#note_2417546
Coming to you in #GNOME 48.2 near the end of May! 😎
Thanks to Owen Chiaventone (a total newcomer to @nprofile…phhj !) for profiling and providing a patch to solve the issue, & @nprofile…pa9l + @nprofile…qcy2 for reviewing & merging!

2025-04-20 01:27:55 GMT

Attempted to profile #LibreOffice's sluggish/janky window resizing performance under Linux with #Sysprof on Fedora 42 / GNOME 48, and I am not sure my test setup is entirely correct, because I somehow end up with Cairo everywhere instead of Skia, even if I tell the app to use Skia (anyone knows how to ensure it's actually using Skia in practice?): https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=160015#c5

2025-04-08 20:00:56 GMT

Incredible how twist-lock powerbars are absolutely not a thing in North-American #hardware / #electronics stores (or any online store, even Chinese ones), and only found at reasonable prices in their natural habitat: #Japan.
I don't mean "twist to close", I mean twist-lock with the device plugged in. Incredibly useful for under-desk mounting, so that you can lock your "wall warts" in place without gravity (or any slight pull on the cord) unplugging them… this should be standard design.
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/114/304/104/114/305/118/original/ac2c487fb2421602.jpeg

2025-04-05 05:45:15 GMT

Having stopped using Fractal this week, and now having a #Matrix @nprofile…2mmz web tab open at all times in Firefox, appears to be quite problematic for laptop CPU temperatures and power consumption (on Linux, with Wayland).
My global system monitor (and about:performance in Firefox) tells me that the Element web client constantly eats 10-15% of one CPU vCore even when Element's tab is not focused, thus keeps waking the CPU, leading to high temperatures and crappy battery life 🫠

2025-04-01 12:43:31 GMT

Mom made muffins & gave me some.
As I was about to eat them, there was a shimmer from the overhead spotlights.
I looked at the muffins closely and saw what seems to be flakes of metal, as you can see in this photo.
I emailed her the photo and she said, "Oh yeah, the muffin tray must be losing its coating… just scrape this off with a knife." 🤦
I told her to stop buying poisonous aluminium & "non-stick" crap.
Time to go full #castiron because I'm (or will be) sick of this.
#cooking #health
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/114/262/716/867/858/766/original/5a74ab699ce1dedb.jpeg

2025-03-28 13:59:15 GMT

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@nprofile…ln70
I presume:
cat /sys/class/backlight/intel_backlight/brightness
cat /sys/class/backlight/intel_backlight/actual_brightness
?
In true heisenbug fashion, it's infuriatingly hard to reproduce, really random, so I better have the exactly right command to use when it does happen the next time…

2025-03-26 19:05:00 GMT

I've finally filed a bug report about the "0% backlight on resume" heisenbug with laptops and docking stations (or port replicators, or external displays), which has been annoying me for decades on #Linux with any #ThinkPad model I've used (also reportedly affects #Framework laptops too): https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/upower/upower/-/issues/304
I'm not even sure I filed it in the right place. Which #FreeDesktop component might be causing this is completely arcane knowledge.

2025-03-21 02:00:10 GMT

I'd want Nautilus (and thus the #GNOME file picker UI) to stop trying to search multiple times per second while I am not nearly done typing the search query, as I consider that to be extremely wasteful, conceptually. Pounding the CPU+GPU "faster than I can think & type" is counterproductive.
If you don't "feel the jank" like I do, then think about the wasted energy (especially on battery power):
https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/nautilus/-/issues/3452#note_2382115
#performance #EnergyEfficiency #PowerManagement #LinuxMobile #GNOMEFiles

2025-03-19 23:52:47 GMT

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It's a bit unfortunate that the @nprofile…q0cg article about #GNOME 48 summarizes #GNOMECalendar 48's whole release as one line that says, "Calendar offers various Event Editor dialog improvements"
…when the Calendar app landed one of the most fundamental productivity (and format compliance) features of the last 12 years (after many, many months of design & development work): https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-calendar/-/issues/2
At least 40 issues resolved for that release overall: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-calendar/-/issues/?state=closed&milestone_title=GNOME+48

2025-03-15 20:33:58 GMT

RFE I filed in #DNF just now: https://github.com/rpm-software-management/dnf/issues/2222
This lets apps like #Ptyxis to do nice progress indicators.
Someone who is a #Debian contributor, do yourself a favour: please* file an enhancement request on #APT & apt-get to support this progress indication integration feature (like Flatpak can do, and hopefully DNF can do too, eventually). I'm not going to report an issue in Debian, given its bug reporting tooling.
I'd fully expect Arch's #pacman to already have this shipping BTW 😏
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/114/168/306/755/858/053/original/aca19743d67a1db3.png

2025-03-11 17:47:34 GMT

Made some progress in investigating the likely cause of slowness for some #GNOMECalendar users who have a metric shitton of events to display: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-calendar/-/issues/1381#note_2375819
#Sysprof #performance #GNOME
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/114/145/046/190/104/011/original/f7b045656ee484fc.png

2025-03-08 23:41:57 GMT

My dad, who is constantly bored, is a talented home improvement hobbyist craftsman. Can fix up pretty much anything. He has #ADHD, keeps asking me to remind him to do stuff, he keeps not doing it, months pass.
I've now set up a cron job that calls a homemade Python script (that I'd update over SFTP) to put one task in front of him at all times on his #GNOME computer, using this #GNOMEShell extension:
https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/5072/one-thing/
I don't know whether that makes me a chaotic good or lawful evil son.
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/114/129/431/497/112/608/original/09ac6c672a0cd1b0.png

2025-03-02 23:35:44 GMT

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@nprofile…ln70 @nprofile…nkfw
It doesn't seem so, because if you tell the chart to start from 2009, you can see the "Android" line being distinct from "Safari" and "Chrome" , and the "Chrome" line eating away at its marketshare from 2013 to 2016; my understanding is that if you combine the two, the combined marketshare of Android+Chrome on mobile has been roughly the same since 2012, i.e. it went from 41% in 2012 to 44-55% (and back down to 43%) in the past 6 months:
https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share/mobile/united-states-of-america/#monthly-200901-202501

2025-03-02 03:12:18 GMT

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@nprofile…ln70
As far as I know, #WebKit still has 40-50% marketshare on mobile in rich non-EU countries, due to the iOS platform rules. For example:
* https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share/mobile/united-states-of-america
* https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share/mobile/canada
* https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share/mobile/united-kingdom
* https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share/mobile/japan
Closer to 25-30% in Europe, probably because other engines are allowed on iOS there.
I presume that is the reason why Epiphany (WebKitGTK) sometimes works better on financial institutions' websites than Firefox does…

2025-03-01 21:16:51 GMT

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@nprofile…qcga Might we worth mentioning Epiphany (WebKitGTK) in the article for those who may be satisfied with a simpler browser that is still not based on Blink :blobcatcoffee:
Playing DRMed content with it isn't really an option, though.

2025-02-28 15:13:35 GMT

If anyone is able to crash #GNOMEPapers Nightly by editing the opened PDF with an external app (ex: Paper Clip), *and* can somehow make that happen under gdb or coredumpctl, please share your backtrace, because I am unable to catch this heisenbug while running with GDB or on machines where systemd-coredump is installed: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/Incubator/papers/-/issues/353#note_2359761
#GNOME

2025-02-27 18:50:41 GMT

For those worried about what's going on with #Mozilla's new T&C for #Firefox and seeking alternatives to Blink-based browsers (aka Chrome-in-a-trenchcoat), consider helping @nprofile…6tv4 (a port of @nprofile…r79w), used by apps throughout the FreeDesktop.
#WebKit/WebKitGTK/WPE is effectively the only other mature/production-ready web engine you can use *today*, not many know that (see also https://github.com/Fyrd/caniuse/issues/6807).
I hedge my bets by simultaneously helping QA Firefox and Epiphany (WebKitGTK) for parity.

2025-02-19 21:11:51 GMT

Just merged a newcomer's contribution to enhance GNOME Calendar's ability to fit on medium-sized window widths, by rounding the approximate weather forecasts' temperature values to integers: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-calendar/-/issues/982 (fractions of degrees didn't make sense in this context)
Yahoo! :blobmiou:
Now can we get some additional eyeballs to collectively review this related bugfix? https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-calendar/-/merge_requests/523
That way more of you can have working forecasts again.
#GNOMECalendar #weather #UX #GNOME
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/114/032/569/017/360/755/original/21e5556093e60a7d.png

2024-10-21 17:44:40 GMT

With big thanks to @npub1llq…4pht, we are now entering stage 3 of my evil plan to allow #GNOMECalendar (and other related applications like #GNOMEShell, among others) to let the user configure which day is considered the first day of the week, through the GNOME Settings application.
I really want to get this solved for #GNOME 48, because it's been a daily annoyance for me & others for a very, very, very long time: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-calendar/-/issues/160#note_1872970

2024-06-10 18:46:23 GMT

I can't believe I had never "consciously" noticed this #Nautilus performance issue that I've been encountering and subconsciously feeling every day on my #GNOME desktop, but I think there is a great potential optimization possible in #GNOMEFiles by avoiding reloads on new tab creation. I opened a ticket to investigate this observation: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/nautilus/-/issues/3473

2024-05-18 04:19:34 GMT

For the past 10+ years, I was unable to daily-drive the #Wayland version of #GNOME …
…until version 45.2+, where performance improvements landed for my specific usecases.
Since then, for the past 6 months, I've been running 45.x on Wayland.
This week, when I went back to the Xorg/X11 version for 1-2 days, I was surprised to see it now feels unbearable to me *from a performance standpoint*! Even with animations disabled.
I guess I can't go back after having used a no-delays no-jank version 🤷

2024-05-06 02:00:27 GMT

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@npub1d76…897u Could we polish it up to this level eventually? 👇
The 3D graphics and ambient sound track on this version are really realistic 😜 https://youtu.be/qzcmCvOM2KY?t=4

2024-04-16 21:03:26 GMT

Alright people, time to seize the opportunity in #GNOMEPapers to fix one of my long-time performance annoyances with Evince: a potential 2x speedup by… avoiding rendering everything twice (due to the sidebar's thumbnails).
Barring #Poppler backend renderer performance issues, this should help #GNOME have a noticeably faster and power-efficient #PDF reader app 🤞 https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/Incubator/papers/-/issues/119

2024-03-20 21:46:32 GMT

The newly released 0.7.0 version of @npub1s3l…lqg4, your #GNOME-native #Mastodon client, is friggin' awesome. Not only does it ship tons of bugfixes and allows darker images in dark mode, but it also ships the ability to create, edit and apply words filters (as you can see in my screenshot here) so you can simplify your timelines views.
Congratulations to #MastoDev @npub1pzr…vwy6 for this fantastic leap forward!
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/112/130/197/539/023/145/original/62f2af1f74a70e5b.png

2024-03-13 05:17:49 GMT

How interesting would #Fedora's Flock be to attend, for someone who is not a packager or OS builder, but purely an independent volunteer GNOME desktop contributor? I don't care about containers, cloud, embedded, or immutable distros, so I doubt I'd be attracted to presentations (I am rarely interested in listening to presentations in any conference). Friendlies I'd know are likely Red Hat community.
By train: 2x11 hours, 550$ for return trip 🤦️
By car: 2x6h total, 2x cheaper 🤨️

2024-03-03 04:57:58 GMT

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@npub12f7…lkxh
I did not spend 15 'eff'ing months in the whole-stack middleware-and-apps software performance profiling & optimization salt mines, finally attaining top-notch GNOME desktop performance (& stability) for the first time in 13 years, only to go back to the jank-pit six months later 😤️
It would be very hard to resist the temptation to upgrade, but I have a bit of a "How many apps and GPU drivers can break? Six months is a long time to be enduring regressions" apprehension…

2024-03-03 04:30:49 GMT

Let's see how this plays out, but I'm a bit worried that the kind of bugs and performance issues we've seen in #Fedora Rawhide with the GTK NGL backend may still be around by the time Fedora 40 rolls out; I think it might be wise for me to wait some more months for the dust to settle, or maybe skip F40 altogether (which would be unfortunate, because I *really* want to be able to use Nautilus 46 ASAP): https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gtk/-/issues/6411#note_2036209

2024-02-21 01:47:48 GMT

Ahem, #GNOMEMaps Nightly (with its dark vector maps!) says that walking from the airport's nearest lane to the #GUADEC 2024 venue is a terrible idea 🤔️
I'll just leave this link here in case someone in the #GNOME #Colorado community wants to implement public transit routing using the #Denver RTD's open data / APIs and #OpenStreetMap #GraphHopper : https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-maps/-/issues/639
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/111/966/925/127/331/078/original/dad91f29bc5ce103.png

2024-02-20 23:54:27 GMT

Yo, newcomer #GNOME contributors, wanna practice some C programming and make it possible to "jump" to an event 6 months into the past or future with #GNOMECalendar's search engine results, making it 100x more useful for most people?
You might be able to contribute a fairly simple patch that "connects some loose wires" to do that. Have a look at this: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-calendar/-/issues/355#note_2021295

2024-02-11 15:40:51 GMT

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@npub1d76…897u @npub1al9…sq9j @npub1p3c…3qpw @npub1tls…ahpy
I don't think you can clone Notion without deep burnout as FLOSS devs.
You'd be reinventing Airtable + Google Docs + Tiki + GNote/Tomboy + NextCloud + Kanboard + GTG + GitLab, all meshed together, except you don't have the hundreds of millions of dollars and 10+ years it takes to do so.
It took Notion 3 years with 5-10 employees to publish the 1st version. Even with below-market wages, that's minimum 3-6M$ before shipping v1 and v2.

2024-02-11 14:56:26 GMT

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@npub1d76…897u
I've been wanting vertical tabs & tab workspaces in Epiphany for a decade.
* Vertical tabs: https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=753071
* Workspaces etc.: recently re-filed it as https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/epiphany/-/issues/1835
Natural language parsing:
* @npub1nha…a24d had this since day 1 in some areas of the UI.
* In Calendar, that feature idea got stuck in scope hell: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-calendar/-/issues/3 and its related tickets.

2024-02-09 18:37:19 GMT

"Modern" bloated news sites typically load 200 to 900 resources per #web page 🤮️ (I wish I was kidding). They are the bane of #GNOMEWeb (Epiphany), causing unpredictably slow loading and intermittent hangs in its web engine. If you are interested in helping figure out the cause, https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=251336 is the corresponding #WebKitGTK bug report for what you can see below: https://youtu.be/bfX_5xGaC8c?t=40

2024-02-02 22:59:47 GMT

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@npub12f7…lkxh
The excitement on your face
amidst those deserted streets
under that cold grey sky
is palpable 😆️

2024-02-02 18:55:31 GMT

#JPEGXL / #JXL, the most requested and upvoted focus area proposal for #web #Interop, has again been rejected as a discussion topic for 2024's web platform Interop industry event, because "We did not have consensus to include this proposal."
Given the industry's broad support, lack of "consensus" sounds an awful lot like "the Google Chrome team lead who authored the AVIF format arranged for it to be vetoed."
https://github.com/web-platform-tests/interop/issues/430
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/111/863/377/244/090/203/original/59fe4b29140dc444.png

2024-01-30 21:57:09 GMT

Just discovered that the original (German military) "jerrycans" fuel canisters' #design featured three handles at the top, among other things. It allows carrying by two people jointly, or carrying two empty cans in each hand for a single person. That was some really clever #industrialdesign there, and I wish I could easily find these as a civilian, for house chores. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerrycan#Design
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/111/847/111/033/504/214/original/0ef1cb062b6b01bb.jpeg

2024-01-28 16:55:57 GMT

I know Mozilla wants to eventually redesign the #Firefox bookmarks creation/editing dialog's #UX #design & implementation someday, but since it's been over six years… so in the meantime I figured I might as well report one of the most annoying bugs with the existing implementation: that wonky wiggling width! You won't be able to un-see the demonstration video attached there. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1877009

2024-01-21 15:33:58 GMT

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@npub12f7…lkxh Wow, Denver is pretty far from here—Who would've thought this continent is so big diagonally! 👀️
I'm a bit torn: I wanna meet y'all F2F again, but that's a lot of carbon footprint to be able to do hallway discussions for fun… as for preparing a talk, I guess I could talk about various things superficially (er, performance optimization happenings across apps in the past year or so? project turnarounds again?), but dunno if that's "fresh" enough.

2024-01-20 01:59:26 GMT

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@npub1src…fms4 Smart phones? Pfff! All this technology is making us anti-social. In the good old days, people in public spaces lived in the moment and sought spontaneous conversat—
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/111/785/787/594/354/376/original/8bfce04093631d2f.jpeg

2024-01-18 18:19:33 GMT

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@npub1d76…897u #GitLab dark mode, episode IV: A New Hope https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/merge_requests/141459

2024-01-15 17:30:11 GMT

Jussi Pakkanen's lightning talk on software complexity presented with a #math analogy is a wonderfully simple and entertaining summary of why #GNOME puts a heavy focus on #design (which naturally results in a #UX that favors #minimalism): for #sustainability in #opensource #softwaredevelopment.
For posterity, I extracted that talk from the #GUADEC 2023 recordings, so that it can be easily found instead of being forgotten within a random unnamed 7-hours-long video. Enjoy: https://youtu.be/rRvmS0mABC0

2023-12-14 05:36:52 GMT

Tonight I spent the evening reviewing & merging at least 6 pull requests by @npub1mjv…k4w8 & @npub1500…xaxf into #GNOMECalendar. Papercut enhancements/cleanups do polish the #UX quite a bit! You can already benefit from those improvements by daily-driving the Nightly version like I do.
We're already at 25 merged contributions for what would become the 46.x release. There's still a lot of low-hanging fruit available there for new #GNOME #opensource contributors.

2023-12-06 20:17:52 GMT

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@npub1njt…x0uv @npub1xxn…jy9a the /etc/skel folder is empty! But also, why would one need to copy system-wide configs to the user directory, wouldn't those be inherited anyway?

2023-12-06 02:51:49 GMT

OK #Linux, how does one reset terminal / prompt / shell settings to a clean default? Apparently my prompt has been broken for years & I had no idea.
I am told that I have "overridden the system prompt integration", yet I haven't done anything special other than installing Powerline as per https://fedoramagazine.org/add-power-terminal-powerline/ ; I've now undone that.
I deleted ~/.bashrc, ~/.bash_profile, and anything I could find mentioning bash, no dice.
What other config files exist?

2023-11-24 20:02:15 GMT

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@npub15cd…3mv2 @npub18lt…nhjp
You guys did soldering?! And CAD?!!
A decade later, I had such a class called "technology" in the main curriculum, where we made… a folding wooden bench 🫠️
That said, that bench is very sturdy and practical, and I'm still using it daily two decades later. So there you go, bug-free #technology right there, with an Enterprise-Grade™ lifecycle 🎖️ (I suppose @npub1s3y…rrmu would confirm that #woodworking outlasts #electronics and code by a long shot).

2023-11-15 19:20:41 GMT

Restarting your apps while the network is offline makes you realize some things are silly… like needing to click the Reload button in #web #browsers' error pages, when they very well know when the operating system is fully back online anyway.
Therefore, I filed a request for #GNOMEWeb / #Epiphany to do that for me when #GNOME / #NetworkManager signals that online connectivity has been restored: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/epiphany/-/issues/2230

2023-11-07 21:59:19 GMT

The patched version of #Mutter + #GNOME Shell I've been running for the last few days, while profiling with @npub1fq3…33xs, is _crazy_ fast.
This is the first time in *13 years* that my GNOME Shell isn't slowing down after a few hours/days. Even _without_ triple-buffering.
It is so smooth, I can't stop moving windows around just to savor how unreal it feels. Turns out I never experienced 60 fps (with & without #Wayland) in GNOME in my life, until this week.
I ought to blog about this.

2023-11-01 06:12:49 GMT

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@npub1njt…x0uv What I'm rather more curious to know is, would you have a way to do fast and reliable blur? Translucent apps are very slick but only if they can use blur so that text doesn't become hard to read with other elements behind the window, no?

2023-10-17 02:48:28 GMT

Some basic improvements for Progressive #Web Apps (#PWA) support have landed in what will become #GNOME Web (#Epiphany) 46!
The application icon and names will now be fetched from the PWA manifest if available. It's a nice start. https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/epiphany/-/issues/931

2023-10-16 17:10:01 GMT

I think I did a pretty good job at labelling/tagging performance-related issues in #Mutter and #GNOME Shell; did I miss any important ones?
* https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-shell/-/issues/?label_name%5B%5D=1.+Performance&sort=popularity
* https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/mutter/-/issues/?label_name%5B%5D=1.+Performance&sort=popularity
I really wish #GitLab had non-shitty search and could allow using wildcards and "OR" operators for #QA & bug triaging.

2023-10-16 16:36:35 GMT

When I think about the fact that some grocery stores (in some countries) shrinkwrap individual fruits, I remind myself of how much sense single-use #plastic makes conceptually.
Let's use heat to wrap pressure-squashed liquefied #dinosaurs around a plant… then, after eating the plant, the humans will rip the transparent solidified dinosaurs apart, load them onto a truck and have them buried in the ground again in a way that they stick a round longer than their previous form! #sustainability 👌️

2023-10-10 03:48:49 GMT

If you're still seeing slowdowns / performance degradation over time in #GNOME Shell / #Mutter 45 on #Wayland (with #Intel & #AMDgpu graphics) on #Linux : grab #sysprof, debuginfo packages, & see if you can profile & find causes?
Some probably relevant tickets:
* https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/mutter/-/issues/2432
* https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/mutter/-/issues/1301
* https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-shell/-/issues/62
+ others in https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-shell/-/issues/2136

2023-09-24 20:04:21 GMT

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@npub15cd…3mv2 The lack of stated compensation stinks, and the topic choice doesn't pass the smell test 🤔️

2023-09-16 02:47:34 GMT

Remember the 2008 comic that introduced #GoogleChrome?
Check out this educational parody comic published by @npub15k6…s5w6 last year: https://contrachrome.com
A really great informational tool to share (whenever pertinent), in multiple languages and formats, with non-techsavvy people around you who don't quite understand why using #Google #Chrome is a problem for #privacy (vs pervasive tracking & #surveillancecapitalism), the #web's overall health, and democracy.

2023-09-03 18:06:15 GMT

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@npub1fq0…6t28 @npub1ldz…g4q3 Indeed I totally forgot Pinyin IMEs could generate traditional characters! Well that's something.
I don't know if I can convince my mom to think/write in Mandarin though. Last time I tried, it didn't really work; what little Mandarin she knows, she knows just "approximately, by ear" and from what I understand/see, other than typo autocorrection, Pinyin would pretty much require "exact" writing, I think?

2023-09-03 16:39:17 GMT

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@npub1fq0…6t28 Yeah, the problem with that (as far as I know) is that Pinyin is:
- Mandarin phonetics
- simplified writing, instead of traditional characters
Essentially, a whole other "language" that she doesn't want to learn at her age.
Apparently there's Jyutping as a Pinyin-like IM for Cantonese, but doesn't seem available in GNOME keyboard input settings anyway

2023-09-03 15:46:56 GMT

East- #Asian techies, is there a #Linux / #GNOME / #Wayland compatible character recognition input method system that would allow someone to use a #Wacom tablet or touchscreen-capable laptop (or some Linux-compatible device) to write traditional #Chinese "as if writing on paper"?
#Cantonese mom has been stuck on Android for the past 8 years because learning phonetics-based / shape-based keyboard IMs on a computer seems way too complex.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_input_methods_for_computers#Shape-based would give anyone a panic attack.

2023-09-02 22:39:25 GMT

I wanted to hop into a #JitsiMeet room now, but the jit.si UI is now pushing #jitsi users to create accounts (or "Wait for a moderator", which probably is the same as waiting for Godot), and this is their explanation for it: https://jitsi.org/blog/authentication-on-meet-jit-si/
I can imagine the "drug cartel uses this for human trafficking or worse" scenario they are implicitly depicting, but part of me thinks the move is rather an "end of zero-interest phenomenon" #enshittification measure 🤔️

2023-08-27 17:16:58 GMT

Gitg, the #GNOME #git GUI tool, would really benefit from having new contributors to help @npub1alz…66gv ; in particular, it needs help to port to #GTK4 and implement proper dark-mode friendly diff colors using the #FreeDesktop API for dark styles handling.
In case anyone is looking for an #opensource #programming challenge to help a very useful tool for #developers on #Linux: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gitg/-/issues/345 and https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gitg/-/issues/97

2023-08-21 02:13:45 GMT

I need/want to screenwrite & produce a top-notch explanation & demonstration video for #GNOMECalendar 45, as I think the general public needs to know how mindbogglingly awesome and groundbreaking this release is (compared to pretty much all the previous ones, other than the GTK4 port and initial adaptive UI that happened in ver. 43)… but I am stretched thin everywhere in day-to-day business backlog & indie #opensource contributions in #GNOME, and I am physically tired, so tired… all the time 🫠️

2023-08-09 19:14:10 GMT

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@npub1rnj…vtmy Why not @npub1nha…a24d ?

2023-07-28 16:48:43 GMT

Holy crab, @npub1dra…d3p2 slipped a #climatechange #climatecrisis & #wildfires reference into the #Adwaita #wallpaper #art for the upcoming #GNOME 45 release
It could be named thisisfine.jxl 🔥️👌️
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/110/792/160/594/877/717/original/9bc41fe58c2b3987.jpeg