Unlabeled icons are terrible. I use Gmail more than any other application outside of dev tools like my editor and my terminal, and I use every single one of the message operations (archive, snooze, add as task, report spam, etc.) at least occasionally. After a month with a new work Gmail account I realized I was still waiting for the tooltip to pop up before clicking the buttons, just to make sure of what I was clicking on. Fortunately, Gmail lets you switch to text buttons. Now when I want to snooze a message, I just click snooze, instead of thinking, "This button is a clock, I bet it's snooze, but hold up, what if it's another time-related operation I'm not thinking of... okay, confirmed with the tooltip, now I can click."

And that's for a button I click several times per week!

I still use the html gmail, that's getting harder to access all the time (and which google now just straight up ignores being set as your default view, and gives you the javascript view anyway unless you manipulate the URL)

Me too! I hate this.

it's made worse by the fact that tooltips are unavailable for mobile users

The convention for mobile UIs is that tooltips show up upon long pressing the buttons. Unfortunately, sometimes that does nothing, or something else entirely (e.g. start dragging).

I have the same gmail issues and didn’t realize you could change to text labels!

I disagree with the notion that wanting the interface to stay the same just for the sake of it staying the same is irrational.

Yup... Client side decorations is why I don't use Gnome3.

> I still dislike the gnome3 title bar with the icons.

It's a key part of touch readiness. There's even a Windows-like theme for Gtk3+ that looks really close to the original, you might like it better than the default look.

Why do we have to suffer it on the desktop though? It’s so damn hard moving windows on gnome without setting something off accidentally. Especially with the shitty touchpad input devices.

My mac laptops aren’t touch screens and they get this usable.

The whole gnome desktop makes me want to stick forks in my eyes.

> It’s so damn hard moving windows on gnome without setting something off accidentally.

I'm not sure, I've never run into this? The headerbar itself, with its labeling text, works just fine as a mouse/touch target.

Yeah, clicking and holding on a header bar button will still allow you to grab the window without firing any action. It's quite handy, especially with a touch pad.

You don't have to target a button at all, that's quite silly. Aim at the window label. Labels have always been connoted as "plain text" with no actions associated, so they're quite intuituve for that purpose.

Of course! But when you're using an application with a fairly busy header bar (like Nautilus or Epiphany, which don't have any labels) it can be useful to just point at the first pixel you come across without having to aim for a blank interval between buttons.

Super+drag anywhere on a window. It should be a must on every single OS.

This is completely Inferior to dragging a titlebar as it requires twice as many hands.

On the other hand (ha) it does not require any aiming. I can super+drag windows into "aero snap" targets in milliseconds because I don't have to spend any time on finding the header bar.

Which makes it a great addition to title bar dragging but not a replacement.

Depends on the user to be honest. I quite dislike title bars (Especially if fairly bulky.) and so I remove em. I know they're necessary for people who aren't as apt with computers. But to me their main purpose has always seemed to be...identifying the programs i use every day and are fairly easily identified regardless.

I use it exclusively, don't remember the last time I looked for the title bar.

I think you can drag almost anything on the header bar without activating it

I love Gnome 3. For me it's the best desktop UI because it forces you to run everything full-screen and use search and keyboard shortcuts instead. (And everything is tailored for this workflow.)

Not even joking. I wish the Windows 95 computer interaction model would just die already.

They could at the very least put labels under or next to the icons.

In regards to touch-readiness: TBH I've had a laptop with a touchscreen, and I never once used the touchscreen on it productively in any way. On a tablet it's a different story of course, but no one is forcing them to do a one-size-fits-all approach. But yeah, my main complaint is really just that stuff isn't labelled. Everything else I can begrudgingly understand somewhat

> They could at the very least put labels under or next to the icons.

On a desktop, you should be able to hover with the pointer and get tooltips. Mobile is more of a challenge, but it's not like text would be any better. You can't fit much text in the typical mobile touch target.

I shouldn't have to hover over the icon to figure out what it does. That's terrible UI. Even tiny text would be better than no text