> very difficult to believe an interface with a full-screen app switcher, slide to unlock, and massive title bars and buttons compared to every other desktop UI is intended to be anything other than designed for tablets first.
If you take a note, Gnome development trails hardware development, it does not lead it. There is a lot of hardware features it still cannot use and which have much higher staying potential, ergo are much lower risk to implement than a tablet interface: HDR, fractional hidpi scaling, VRR comes to mind.
At the time when Gnome development was conceived, there were no tablets, no mass market for them, with the exception of tablet pcs, which were clunky and expensive and definitely not popular. What Gnome does with massive title bars and buttons is optimizing for a hardware that did exist then: higher-resolution, but not hidpi yet, displays.
Most software at the time was written for 96 dpi, but these displays were slightly higher (14" full hd is 157 dpi; 14" HD+ [1600x900] is 131 dpi, 14" WSXGA [1440x900] is 121 dpi). The kind of sizing Gnome uses optimizes for this kind of hardware, without having to support "proper" fractional hidpi scaling. So yes; it was cheap, minimal way to support popular hardware (and in a way contributed to a late real hidpi support). If you use Gnome on such a display, the sizing is exactly right; unlike Windows, which was tiny at these displays and was a cause why many mainstream users preferred the low resolution 1376x768 ones.
> All of these are touch-centric concepts and have no reason to exist where keyboard and mouse is the primary input method.
They are not touch-centric at all; did you ever use ipad or android tablet? Floating windows are not optimal for touch use. Tiling WM with a gesture support is much more suited for this use.
As a long time Gnome user, you probably learned keyboard shortcuts. What you consider missing there? Gnome is one of most keyboard oriented UIs available.
That's a fine reason for chunky, toy-like bars and buttons on the sub 1080P displays of yesteryear but a really shitty excuse for continuing to use that sizing when even throwaway computers nowadays have full HD displays.
Are they truly incapable of changing the widget scaling based on resolution and/or input method?
As to the keyboard shortcuts, I am familiar with them, but that's table stakes. Every mainstream DE can be driven more or less comfortably with a keyboard. That doesn't excuse the use of a full-screen, context-destroying application switcher/launcher that even Microsoft realized was a bad idea on the desktop nearly 10 years ago with the launch of 8.1. Said company even realized that touch and mouse are fundamentally different input methods and adjust UI accordingly! If only the Gnome developers were so up to date!
If you take a note, Gnome development trails hardware development, it does not lead it. There is a lot of hardware features it still cannot use and which have much higher staying potential, ergo are much lower risk to implement than a tablet interface: HDR, fractional hidpi scaling, VRR comes to mind.
At the time when Gnome development was conceived, there were no tablets, no mass market for them, with the exception of tablet pcs, which were clunky and expensive and definitely not popular. What Gnome does with massive title bars and buttons is optimizing for a hardware that did exist then: higher-resolution, but not hidpi yet, displays.
Most software at the time was written for 96 dpi, but these displays were slightly higher (14" full hd is 157 dpi; 14" HD+ [1600x900] is 131 dpi, 14" WSXGA [1440x900] is 121 dpi). The kind of sizing Gnome uses optimizes for this kind of hardware, without having to support "proper" fractional hidpi scaling. So yes; it was cheap, minimal way to support popular hardware (and in a way contributed to a late real hidpi support). If you use Gnome on such a display, the sizing is exactly right; unlike Windows, which was tiny at these displays and was a cause why many mainstream users preferred the low resolution 1376x768 ones.
> All of these are touch-centric concepts and have no reason to exist where keyboard and mouse is the primary input method.
They are not touch-centric at all; did you ever use ipad or android tablet? Floating windows are not optimal for touch use. Tiling WM with a gesture support is much more suited for this use.
As a long time Gnome user, you probably learned keyboard shortcuts. What you consider missing there? Gnome is one of most keyboard oriented UIs available.