6

Similar to What's the right terminology for Unity's UI elements?, what is the terminology for the various elements in GNOME Desktop? In particular,

GNOME Desktop screenshot

Dan Dascalescu
  • 3,838
  • 2
    You are best getting the info from GNOME themselves, eg. https://developer.gnome.org/hig/stable/patterns.html.en, https://developer.gnome.org/hig/stable/ui-elements.html.en etc. – guiverc Mar 19 '19 at 04:52
  • Related: What is the thing called in Ubuntu GNOME that appears when you press the super key? – pomsky Mar 19 '19 at 05:38
  • @guiverc: I've looked at those two pages, but they pertain to applications, rather than the desktop itself. Still couldn't figure out what the Dash equivalent is called. – Dan Dascalescu Mar 19 '19 at 07:06
  • In the gnome docs there are more pages than just those two. They were listed as examples only, my suggestion was to go exploring on the gnome.org site (eg. https://help.gnome.org/users/gnome-help/stable/shell-introduction.html.en). I've seen what you need, but don't recall it was on the site. – guiverc Mar 19 '19 at 07:18
  • I just saw https://help.ubuntu.com/stable/ubuntu-help/shell-introduction.html.en#yourname and maybe helpful... – guiverc Mar 20 '19 at 06:10
  • 2
    @guiverc that's the same link you posted about a day ago, am I missing something? The anchor points to "You and your computer" but I don't see that referring to the "Activities Overview" (apparently that's the name of the whole thing including the Dash and the Search field+window). – Dan Dascalescu Mar 20 '19 at 06:52
  • @DanDascalescu sorry I hadn't noticed - it's the Ubuntu wiki version of the upstream GNOME page (I didn't look at pages next to each other, only that the url was different) – guiverc Mar 20 '19 at 06:54
  • 1
    I had the same question even though I have been using GNOME for 4+ years. Here is a good link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNOME_Shell – klequis Nov 19 '19 at 18:01

1 Answers1

3

As explained at GNOME Shell - Wikipedia, according to Projects/GnomeShell/Design - GNOME Wiki! the main desktop design components are:

  • Top bar
  • System status area
  • Activities Overview
  • Dash
  • Window picker
  • Application picker
  • Search
  • Notifications and messaging tray
  • Application switcher
  • Indicators tray (deprecated)

Here's an illustration from Wikipedia: GNOME Shell Overview mode

As of Gnome 3.28.2, the bottom left corner of the screen, below the dash, in place of an Indicators tray, have a "Show Applications" grid button which leads to the applications overview.

Good question. It's nice to use the canonical names when searching for or describing desired behaviors, or reporting bugs.

Update thanks to @pomsky: See also the current documentation on the Visual overview of GNOME.

nealmcb
  • 3,647
  • 1
    Good answer, but the the wiki page you linked seems a bit outdated. This is an updated one: https://help.gnome.org/users/gnome-help/stable/shell-introduction.html.en, consider using this as a reference. Here's a titbit, the application list/menu/grid that appears after clicking the "Show Applications" button is officially supposed to be called the "applications overview" as per this link. But I have seldom heard anyone call it by that name. Rather confusingly people often call it the "dash". – pomsky Jul 24 '20 at 14:43
  • @pomsky: this is all so confusing. What was wrong with consecrated terms like "taskbar"? – Dan Dascalescu Jul 25 '20 at 03:52
  • @dan That is highly debatable; "consecrated" by whom? Also I don't think operating systems (should) work like a religious church while naming GUI elements! :D Nitpicking aside, afaik "taskbar" is pretty much an umbrella term. GNOME Dash is far away from a traditional Windows-style taskbar that contains a "Start" menu, list of open windows, system menu, application indicators and so on. GNOME Dash is much more simpler containing mainly applications launcher icons with little indicators to denote the number of open windows. [...] – pomsky Jul 25 '20 at 14:20
  • @DanDascalescu GNOME Dash is more akin to the dock in Mac OS. But it's not exactly a fully-fledged dock either, as in vanilla GNOME, the Dash appears only in 'Activities' or applications overview, not in other places, e.g. not even on the desktop (note that Ubuntu in particular ships a modified version of GNOME with an extension that turns GNOME Dash into a proper dock). [...] – pomsky Jul 25 '20 at 14:22
  • So the decision to avoid both the the terms "taskbar" and "dock" makes perfect sense to me as otherwise it would likely cause an unnecessary confusion, especially for the users who are used to Windows OS or Mac OS. You might think this is so confusing, but on the other hand users coming from Windows would probably be baffled if it were called "taskbar" as it's far away from the traditional Windows-style taskbar (likewise Mac users, if it were called "dock"). [...] – pomsky Jul 25 '20 at 14:24
  • On a more meta or philosophical level, it is how human languages work, innit? Otherwise we would have had a single a language with one-to-one correspondence between words and objects/concepts. It's like saying "French language is so confusing. What was wrong with consecrated terms like "pineapple" (in place of ananas)?" (I know, I know, it should be the other way around, but that's the point). – pomsky Jul 25 '20 at 14:25