Except we notice The GIMP getting more and more positive comments now with their effort to become friendlier to the user for one thing. Blender is also getting more attractive to many just from the UI and workflow upgrades (this before adding in Eevee and the other features). Then we have Godot which is getting a lot of attention because of designs that make it even more pleasant to use than a traditional game engine (such as eliminating the barrier between prefabs and scenes).
If such a thing as âthe user should become friendly with the toolâ was the original motto of FOSS development, then itâs no wonder why Linux and LMMS are still struggling to gain marketshare among desktop users and why Blender is only gaining a lot of ground in recent years. To me, it sounds like it was an effort to intentionally avoid usability and design topics (and many FOSS apps. fortunately are abandoning that idea, especially in the age where commercial vendors are squeezing their users with more and more restrictive EULAâs and DRM).
Imo this is the right way to go. Not only were the icons fugly but they served no real purpose when the text right next to it tells you what itâs doing anyway. It didnât help that most menu entries donât have icons so its pretty inconsistent throughout the UI.
Like the post says it makes it harder to scan with all those icons in the menu and when some items have icons and others donât. It doesnât look good and makes the interface seem half-done. Remove them altogether imo.
