Does anyone actually like the default GNOME workflow?

Every time I've tried using modern GNOME it's like pulling teeth. I hate it. I think it has actual usability issues. Not disparaging anyone who likes it, it just really doesn't suit me.
GNOME classic shell was ok, but when I installed KDE Plasma it was like coming home. Everything made sense and everything was where it needed to be. More or less.
In the end I'm just glad Linux has a variety of DEs to choose from. Even if you choose GNOME, you weirdo.
- I think it's some kind of modern UX design philosophy; Remove everything except the most basic features to make it less confusing for computer illiterate users. Then label the rest of the features as "advanced" and either hide them behind some menus or in a separate program. Obviously that doesn't mean that everybody who likes Gnome and similarly designed software is computer illiterate, but it's difficult to make one glove that fits all. Kind of like those failed experiments to make a unified OS for desktops, tablets and phones..
  When Gnome 3 was announced I thought it was cool that they tried something new, and I really wanted to like it. I've given it a couple of more chances over the years, to see if it has changed more to my liking, but after a few weeks of use I always replace it with something else.. The way the UX is designed just reminds me too much of what I dislike about Windows. Having to use dconf editor to change settings feels just like being forced to use regedit.
  Firefox also tried to go down this road IMO, but have reverted some of the worst changes and can be made almost to my liking with the help of extensions. Personally I like Vivaldi better but I think it's important to keep Firefox alive so that Chromium/Blink doesn't get complete monopoly.

I think GNOME being minimalist with extensions is a good thing, but I disagree with what GNOME considers basic functionality or not. Two things that stick out:
an app launcher. Literally every other desktop on the planet has one, how this isn't considered basic functionality is beyond me. Give your grandparents a vanilla GNOME computer and tell them to get to Facebook and you will see how necessary this is in real time. Default should be dash-to-dock with intelligent autohide so you only see it when you need it. This would fulfill GNOME's hangups about it while also improving usability, so I fail to see a downside.
tray icons. GNOME treats background processes like bugs to be squashed. Let's just get real here for a second: sometimes you want programs to run in the background and sometimes you want to be able to see what they are doing in real time. I want my email clients to tell me when I get emails, I wan't my Nextcloud to tell me when there are sync issues, and I want Discord to tell me if I get DMs. This should be considered basic functionality.
- an app launcher. Literally every other desktop on the planet has one, how this isn’t considered basic functionality is beyond me. Give your grandparents a vanilla GNOME computer and tell them to get to Facebook and you will see how necessary this is. Default should be dash-to-dock with intelligent autohide so you only see it when you need it. This would fulfill GNOME’s hangups about it while also improving usability, so I fail to see a downside.
  GNOME does have a launcher, which works just like the launcher on Mac and Android. You can even select whether to see all your apps or only the most-used ones. I do agree that a taskbar/dock with intelligent auto-hide is a must, though (at least for my usability). That's also not to say that some folks would rather have a Windows style launcher, and there are several DEs that provide that.
  
  It's not really the same design philosophy as iOS and Android since those actually have the equivalent of desktop icons, which function like a taskbar app launcher. So even they have a way of launching apps without a secondary menu.
- an app launcher. Literally every other desktop on the planet has one, how this isn't considered basic functionality is beyond me. Give your grandparents a vanilla GNOME computer and tell them to get to Facebook and you will see how necessary this is. Default should be dash-to-dock with intelligent autohide so you only see it when you need it. This would fulfill GNOME's hangups about it while also improving usability, so I fail to see a downside.
  Gnome has one. You tap the super key for the dock, then again for the full app list. I see thiscoomplaint all the time, and it confuses me every time.
  "I don't like the default app launcher" or "I'd prefer an always visible dock" fine, but Gnome doesn't have one? What?
  tray icons. GNOME treats background processes like bugs to be squashed. Let's just get real here for a second: sometimes you want programs to run in the background and sometimes you want to be able to see what they are doing in real time. I want my email clients to tell me when I get emails, I wan't my Nextcloud to tell me when there are sync issues, and I want Discord to tell me if I get DMs. This should be considered basic functionality.
  I both agree and disagree with this. Gnome is trying to make a unified system for this sort of thing, and that's admirable, but until it works, we kinda need a notification tray.
- @Nefyedardu@kbin.social @shapis@lemmy.ml
  tray icons. GNOME treats background processes like bugs to be squashed. Let's just get real here for a second: sometimes you want programs to run in the background and sometimes you want to be able to see what they are doing in real time. I want my email clients to tell me when I get emails, I wan't my Nextcloud to tell me when there are sync issues, and I want Discord to tell me if I get DMs. This should be considered basic functionality.
  Ideally the graphical app shouldn't be running in the background UNLESS the user explicitly allows it. VLC is an example of an application that doesn't run in the background unless the user allows it.

Yes, I thrive in it.
- I’ve always compared it to a window manager, but with a mouse focus instead of the keyboard. It feels very natural to me.
  
  And with lots of polish and convenient features.
  
  You think GNOME is mouse-focused? Perhaps more compared to a window manager but I usually touch my mouse less than I would in most other DE's.

- Surely you dont have 10 workspace for 10 windows.
  Am I not supposed to?
  This is kind of the problem, if you add multiple apps in a random workspace, the only way I can think of to know which apps are in the background of that workspace is to memorize it. Which feels bad having to use my brain for that instead of focusing on whatever I'm doing.
  If vanilla GNOME doesnt work for you, just install extension or move to another DE.
  I'm trying dash to panel now, it seems to fix quite a few of my gripes.
  
  If you do super+tab you can see all the windows in a workspace.

I tried it twice and hated it. Maybe it's because I'm in love with KDE but that's not the only reason.
- I loved the KDE layout, everything about it, except it was very very buggy on my system to the point.
- I feel the same way lol. However I never figured out what "activities" was supposed to be used for in KDE so I just ignored it.

Yes, I prefer Gnome to KDE by a long way, it's much nicer looking and easier to use, the trick is to use it the way it's intended, instead of trying to control it to work how you think it should

Absolutely love it! I've donated hundreds of dollars to the Gnome foundation.
I like that practically all of the OS functionality is behind either super+seach or the quick settings menu. I love how powerful the overview is, and all hidden behind a single key press. I like that asking "Is X possible?" is immediately answerable, and 95% of the time it's right in the first place I think to look. I like the trackpad gestures and workspaces on my laptop where I don't have multiple large screens. I like that it has very little need for system tray icons which are clunky, inconsistent, and ugly. (Ex: Discord can only be quit from it's tray icon... -_-)
I'm not a DE power user apparently, but I'm certainly not the mythical "lowest common denominator" that Gnome supposedly caters to either. I do a lot of programming in C/asm/, and write plenty of code involving lots of esoteric math. I don't have much use for Python for instance, but I don't think it's "dumbed down" either. :p
KDE (and Windows to a similar extent) always has way too much "stuff" it wants to show you, 90% of it I'll never use. Every window toolbar is chock full of icons, and so many actions trigger popups, notifications, or dialogs that have little purpose. It's all terribly distracting and annoying. Still, I've donated hundreds of dollars to KDE foundation as well since it's an important part of the Linux ecosystem. I don't use it, but that doesn't mean I hate it, and I see no reason why it shouldn't flourish too. Open Source is not a competition.
- What I don't understand about Gnome is how are you supposed to handle some task. I'm thinking about moving stuff around between directories. I sometimes need to have 3 or more separate folders open at the same time and quarter tiling and split view in Dolphin is a godsend. Gnome has neither split view in Nautilus nor quarter tiling.
  Yes, I know there are ways around that like Pop-shell and other extensions, but I am specifically curious about the default Gnome workflow. In my opinion Gnome tends to skew too much towards form over function.
  
  I do use snapping for some things like my IDE, and use the side by side once in a while, but generally don't use snapping. I have used the Pop Shell on my work computer where I tend to have a lot of terminals and little windows open on my big 4k monitor, though 90% of the time I leave it off. Generally speaking I just use small free floating windows and use alt-tab or Gnome's overview to find a hidden window. I dunno when snapping entered the scene, but the first time I used it was maybe a decade ago. It's nice, but decades of computers before that have trained me to mostly not care I guess. You can do tabs in Nautilus and drag files to the destination tab. I do that a lot I guess.
  
  Its pretty simple you can open 3 different nautilus windows or open 3 tabs in nautilus. Not really very different then dolphin's function but I found myself never using that function in dolphin anyway. I have a good example for a many window workflow that I do sometimes which is when I tag my music. Usually I have a web browser on one workspace or the music tagger split in half with the web browser and then I have separate work spaces with nautilus open in 2 windows with some tabs. I do all that alongside a game playing in the background casually and maybe a picture-in-picture window alongside that also open watching a video. I only have one monitor.
- Good on you for donating to kde and gnome! In case you don't know, there is an option in discord settings to quit whenever the window is closed.
  
  I did not know that... Thanks! I looked through all the settings at some point, but mussed have missed it.

You can just switch to kde or xfce if you dont like gnome, thats what linux is all about. For one I cant really use anything not-gnome anymore, its workflow feels just so efficient and is equally good with a touchpad, keyboard and mouse. I usually get distracted really easily on kde and the likes but gnome just gets out of the way and lets me focus more on my work.
- The other options I tried were a bit too buggy for my tastes. I'll stick with it a bit longer. Idk.
  
  Fair lol.
  I'd suggest trying to always use the apps in the same workspaces. I always open discord spotify steam in the leftmost workspace, firefox in the rightmost and the 3-4 ides i have open in the middle each on its own. Makes navigating through them a second nature in no time.
- The problem is with GTK4, most software are moving, and it cause different UI and since GTK4, we as user can't have option to enable noCSD anymore like GTk3 :')
  I'm saying about XFCE, because I'm fond of XFCE workflow
  
  The problem is with GTK4
  I agree with this, and with no option to enable no csd... it sucks sooooooo much

GNOME is the reason I use KDE.
I really really tried it, but it feels like the whole default GNOME suite has never been used by powerusers at all.
Nemo (is it Nemo?) is especially bad. Once you have to deal with several thousand files in a folder (e.g. drive recovery) it totally breaks apart.
- @Lemmchen @shapis Neno is file manager for cinnamon. Nautilus for gnome....
  
  Ah, thanks. I knew something was off.
- Yeah Plasma is like the only decent DE IMO
  
  @XPost3000 @Lemmchen personally I think that XFCE, mate & pantheon are equally just as good as KDE....

I've been testing KDE for several weeks now, XFCE before that but I'm back to Gnome. It just feels right. Everything is where I expect it to be. No searching in thousands of menus. What scares me about KDE is that there are tons of options and stuff that no one will ever need. Especially KMail I find just awful. So many options and you only find what you are looking for, after an extensive search via a search engine of your choice. This is totally frustrating. XFCE does a lot better here, but I miss the one or other pleasant animation when opening windows and the like. Gnome, on the other hand, isn't great either, but I feel most comfortable here.
- I don’t get this complaint. If KMail sucks, don’t use it. I’ve never used it, and I’ve been on KDE for a long time. XFCE doesn’t even have a mail app afaik, and if you like the Gnome project’s mail app, you can use it on KDE Plasma. The desktop doesn’t restrict which apps you can use.
  The large amount of settings are usually set to sane defaults, so you don’t have to change them. There are a lot of settings, but they’re all usually accessible via a GUI, so it’s not hard to change them. The customizability of KDE is it’s biggest strength.
  If you like the way Gnome does everything, then you’ll be happy with it. Otherwise, you have no real option but to switch to another DE.

I have ADD and GNOME is a life saver. I usually put one and only one window by workspace. It allows me to be focused to the max on the task I'm doing.
Also Libadwaita is so sexy.

I try Gnome every year or so, and the first time I encounter the Save As dialog defaulting my text input to the goddamn Search box instead of the filename box, I shut it down and uninstall it. That just drives me around the bend.

I switch between apps from overview or by typing in search, or by sliding between workspaces. It is more convenient to me than classic desktops with a taskbar and minimized windows.
- Indeed this is what I was doing, it turned out ok for me, but the issue is that I ended up having to memorize everything I had open, and worse: where I had it open, so slide properly. Sliding 6 times to get to where I wanted just felt silly.
  
  Maybe it's just a general habit of mine that I keep minimum things open at time and close everything after use: desktop windows, android apps, browser tabs. So I use up to 3-5 dynamic workspaces most of the time.

I can’t get used to vanilla GNOME. First things I always install are Dash to Panel, ArcMenu, Caffeine, AppIndicator support, and Pop Shell. It’s basically Cinnamon with a tiling/stacking toggle and without the need for a “restart if it crashes” setting.

I use GNOME (under Fedora) on a laptop that sits at my right hand side, so I use it with only one hand. Using three-finger swipe to change workspaces is awesome - I usually use a workspace for each app, or sometimes two apps share a workspace, but I don't worry about which one they are on, it's so easy I just swipe until I find the one I want.
I use an extension to auto-reveal the dock when I go to the bottom of the screen. The default behavior of going to the top left of the screen, only to traverse all the way down to the dock at the bottom (or the right for workspaces), just seems really inefficient, especially on a touchpad.
I had it all tricked out with other extensions but they keep breaking with new GNOME releases, so I've mostly given up on that.
- I usually bring up the dock by tapping the super key or using a three finger swipe up. I barely use the hot corner at all since Ifigursed that trick out.

You are not alone. Many love its 'restrained' workflow, and DEs are subjective. It sounds like you are ready to move to KDE. KDE has a 'Overview' that mimics Gnome's, so best of both worlds and the taskbar in KDE is actually functional. Don't waste anymore time, make the switch to day. Operators are standing by. 🤣

I love Gnome. But I have a pretty simple workflow where I don't use many applications. Generally I have a browser and terminal open and that's it.
I do all my window management inside of Tmux, which is effectively my actual window manager.
I've tried KDE in the past but I've never liked how it feels like a stepping stone for the Windows interface -- not a huge fan of pullout menus. I've been using Linux exclusively for almost twenty years so I don't have any love for that UX.
I used to use a lot of simple/tiling window managers when I was younger and more patient, Gnome feels similar to those in how it has very few bells and whistles to get in your way.
If only maintaining extensions was easier, it feels like every major release breaks every extension for something stupid like renaming a constant. The Gnome team seems to put very little consideration into making the JS extension API stable.

I prefer GNOME to KDE and I understand that there's research and philosophy behind some of the decisions, but I just can't get around some of the quirks. "Workflow" itself is fine, with tiling on top, you can get by. But those window decorations. So much space is taken by a completely useless, fat bar at the top of each window even though it's not really aimed at being touchscreen native.
- This I really agree with. I don't think it has ever stopped them to use smaller title bars, even with the CSD.

I find it a lot better on a laptop for focused workflows, but I don't like it on desktop.
- Huh, funny, I wonder why that is. I just realized that happens to me too, I still have it vanilla on the pc and it doesnt bother me as much.
  Maybe cause the bar at the top causes you to slightly tilt your neck down a bit more on the laptop and that's a non issue on monitors?
  Maybe cause with multiple monitors there isn't as much fiddling finding the right workspace?
  That's a very interesting point.
  edit: I just realized I completely misunderstood what you said, you said the opposite of how I interpreted it, my bad.

Vanilla GNOME without extensions is very challenging to use IMHO. It lacks serious Quality of Life features (well, it doesn't lack them, they've been purposefully removed).
It's so frustratingly close to being excellent, clean desktop - but then it takes some really strange decisions with basic usability (like panel, taskbar, windows without controls etc).
Luckily those are easy to fix with couple of extensions.
- Indeed, I'm trying dash to panel and it doesn't feel like it fixes quite a few of the issues I was having. I'm just afraid this is going to break every GNOME update and it's going to be annoying.
  
  Updating is not too bad, as long as you don't update as soon as new major Gnome version is available. I usually wait a few months, and by then all extensions are either updated, replaced by a fork, or obsolete.
- I used Pop_OS for a while and I think they've added a lot of great UX improvements to GNOME. When I tried vanilla GNOME I was about to pull my hair out and didn't really want to spend all the time downloading extensions/tweaks just to make it usable

Fricken hate it!

I fell in love with Gnome 3 when it first came out and havent looked back. I dont miss a taskbar because I just use the keyboard shortcuts to move between workspaces and alt+tab to switch programs. Gnome seems to be more efficient the less you use the mouse which is my preferred M.O. anyways.

It feels great on my laptop with gestures. On desktop, not so much. Feels like it's designed to have one full screen application up at a time. Removal of tray icons is just stupid, and they should just give up on their push against them. Which their quest against tray icons is actually worse then just unstandardized tray icons themselves. Still, it's definitely the most polished DE out there, so that's why I tend to stick with it and run dash-to-panel. The overview mode is actually better then I realize now that I got used to it. Even pressing the mouse against the top left corner starts to feel nice.

I love the gnome workflow. Coming from MacOS it's more familiar to me than a windows layout, but still so much better than macOSs defaults. I usually have 3-4 workspaces open, with a specific "environment" in a single or a few workspaces. E.g a browser window with email, todos, calendar etc and other "personal things" in one, maybe one for a certain project I'm working on, another for a work project, etc. This way I'm always focusing on one thing at a time but can quickly context switch and have my laptop "switch with me". I also make heavy use of alt-tab and Ctrl-tab for window switching. Together with fewer windows per workspace, this makes it super fast to navigate without ever taking my hands off the keyboard. If I forget where things are, a glance at the overview is enough.
It should be noted that I don't use a mouse and if I love touchpad gestures, so gnome is perfect for me. Even using a keyboard only and the very occasional touchpad is very comfortable on gnome. At least compared to macOS and windows.

I use Gnome and I love it, but I have never used workspaces. Okay that's not entirely true, I tried about 10 years ago and I found that it actually slowed me down instead of speeding me up. I'm content with a single desktop and multiple monitors.

I love it. I have used it for very long time with and without extensions. I love the overview in particular, pressing meta and having everything presented to you is fantastic. I used it by mostly running maximized windows, then each time I wanted to switch to another program I pressed meta and clicked on the app I wanted. I used workspaces to keep separate groups of programs for each workflow separate too.
If I used extensions it was small things like Appindicators and small cosmetics like blur my shell.
Now, I don't think GNOME scales very well if you use tens of windows at once, you would need to use too many workspaces, which are slow to navigate, and/or have tiny windows in the overview, which are hard to click because their position is unpredictable unlike traditional taskbars, where the programs are always visible and never move on their own.
My workflow never involved too many windows, so I never had problems with it.
Something else I wish would change is that the top bar should go away or actually do something other than show the time. I would say either just take it away entirely and only show it in the overview. Or turn the clock into a notch. Or just make it a half-traditional taskbar, with the clock and options moved to the right and the left side showing as many programs as they fit in thin bars.

Yes, I do

I can live in GNOME and only use the defaults. It just takes time to adjust my workflow. What helps me with whatever I'm using or whatever I'm doing (in life), is to not focus on the things "missing" and just make the best of what I have (to work with).
Since two years I'm on KDE but not because I was fed up with GNOME. I just wanted to try something else. Pretty much using stock KDE only that I moved the taskbar to the top of the monitor.

Nope, not even a little bit. That's why I use Cinnamon. On the workspace front, though, I do use those heavily. It helps to have dedicated workspaces. On my home setup I have a sidedesk for Obsidian and PDF reading; a hobby bench for tinkering with linux, my network, and coding; a main for webrowsing and general info gathering; one for gaming (steam and lutris live there); and one for communications like discord, signal, matrix, etc.
- Cinnamon here too. I haven’t tried them all, but it’s support for fractional scaling is the best I can find.
- If only Cinnamon would add wayland support
  
  Yeah, I'm definitely waiting on that

- As much as I love XFCE, it isn't ready for Wayland.
  I just started KDE today for Wayland. It's not as bad as I remembered it.

I do, except I always enable minimize and maximize because it seems foolish to me to have those disabled by default. It's really smooth and whenever I have too many windows open, the overview makes it easy to find what I'm looking for. Initially I was against hiding the dock in the overview but I decided to give it a try one day and I actually ended up enjoying it not being visible.
What's funny is that I actually end up using the overview instead of alt-tab most of the time because it's faster for my workflow, and the default window switcher for apps with different windows open is BAD.
I've gotten so used to the workflow that I find myself dragging my mouse to the top left corner of the screen on Windows lol and painfully wait the extra second it takes to open the Windows overview when swiping up with three fingers on a trackpad.

GNOME - Dash to Dock = 🗑️

I'm not really using "vanilla" GNOME since I have a number of extensions, but the only one that really modifies the workflow is Tray Icons: Reloaded.
That said, while it's definitely not for everyone, I'm very comfortable with it. I like that everything feels "out of my way" unless I need it, and I find the Activities view to be easier for finding a minimized program at a glance than a taskbar.
- Same. I love it and I don’t know how I spent so much time not-using it :)

Kinda a tangent, but I've been using KDE plasma for a while and have really been enjoying it as a kinda in between of windows style desktop with some more gnome-like features (like workspaces, which tbh I've barely used). Of course both are super customizable, but it seems to me to maybe be a bit easier to customize Plasma? I'm not sure, I haven't used stock gnome as much.

Default workflow with no extensions is never good for me, there are a handful that provide must have QoL improvements. Once you install those it is very nice. Love it and always miss it when I use Windows or OSX.

I really like it, the constraints works for me to enforce more efficient habits. I would say I'm not a naturally efficient person, I recognise that and, essentially, benefit from having a workflow created for me. With KDE, it has the customisability out of the box to create your own workflow, but I couldn't personally design a good workflow.
But I'm not everyone, of course, and I would say GNOME is not necessarily for everybody.
Good that you gave it a fair shot. I feel like a lot of people just throw a lot of extinctions at it first without trying to understand the vanilla workflow - I used to be one of them until I tried vanilla for about 3 months.
- I feel like vanilla GNOME is intentionally a barbones common workflow, and that extensions are how you customize to fit your needs.
  For example, I often switch between desktop speakers and headphones (where the dongle is always connected), and sometimes other audio devices. I installed the sound input/output chooser so I don't have to go into Settings every time I need to switch inputs. It saves me multiple clicks. But I get that not everyone needs immediate access to change audio devices, so why clutter the UI?
  I've used both vanilla GNOME and the post-Unity Ubuntu spin on it. In either case I've grown accustomed to the Activities screen, quickly accessing it pressing the Super key, and using it to switch windows and manage full screen apps on different monitors.
  
  What, is there no system tray? What was wrong with the system tray??
  
  I feel that way about the default GNOME apps as well, they all provide the basic functionality that most users need, since specialist users would install specialist apps anyway.
  One extension I won't install is dash-to-dock or similar (I know some people like it and that's fine), because being made to switch to the Activities view once you have too many windows to alt+tab between provides a useful psychological prompt to close unused windows or move stuff to other workspaces. That's one of the things I most like about the GNOME workflow.

why not try a different desktop-environment/window-manager; there's many to chose from and most will let you customize them as far as you want.

Yes. With many windows open but I don't use workspaces. Alt-Tab, and Alt-"above tab" is enough to me. And you can always super, first chars of the app name, enter.

Yes I love Gnome workflow. Actually so much that if I am forced to use KDE for example, it feels really archaic and slow to use.

Gnome does make it feel like I should have like 3 apps open and anything more is a mental burden. I personally really like the overview though! If I could get gnomes overview as my meta key in KDE it would be killer!
- KDE Plasma has an overview. By default it's a topleft hotcorner thing. It's just awful cause it mashes all desktops into one. Absolutely useless

I just started to like GNOME. It used to be terrible and I'm getting to that phase where I just want things to work. Vanilla GNOME is good enough. Only thing I really change is Dock from Dash, where dock shows up on hover and hides otherwise. My opinion is that should be default.

I like it, even though I'm not sure if I would call it the GNOME official workflow (is that even a thing?). I usually don't get close to having 10 applications open. I tend to work with about 1 to 3 workspaces with various applications based on my needs. Furthermore, I keep the windows non-maximized which helps me condense more information yone screen
- Mhmm. It feels great while I'm up to 3 workspaces. It just gets sketch when you have, an IDE + browser + pdf reader for documentation + one or two communication apps + a drawing board + .. you get the idea.

The only change I make is rebinding mod+num keys to switch to a specific workspace instead of a specific application. It makes a lot more sense.

I like it quite a lot on my projector / media pc, but I wouldn't daily it over sway with custom hotkeys. Cosmic is definitely turning my head tho..

Yes, I love it! Really it's the MacOS-like "Expose" feature that I find to be essential.
I would advise against using workspaces though, I find those actually sort of go against the core idea of it IMO. There are a few things I'd really like added to it, but for the most-part when you get into it it's great.
My main desktop I have 4 monitors (I know, but once you start a monitor habit it's really hard to not push it to the limit - this is only the beginning!) It roughly breaks down into:
Primary work (usually a full-screen editor)
Terminals (different windows, some for the project, some monitoring)
Browsers - documentation, various services, my own code output
Communication - signal, discord, what's app (ugh), etc.
The key, literally, is you just press the Super key and boom, you can see everything and if you want to interact with something it's all available in just one click or a few of key presses away.
On my laptop with just one screen, I find it equally invaluable, and is actually where I started to use it the most - once again, just one press of Super and I can see all the applications I have open and quickly select one or launch something.
It's replaced Alt + Tab for me - and I know they've made that better, and added Super + Tab, but none of them are as good as just pressing Super.
The things I'd really love added to it are:
Better tiling (including quarter tiling). It's a sad state of affairs when Windows has far better tiling than Gnome.
Super then Search, I'd like it to filter the windows it's showing and shrink/hide the others, along with a simple way to choose one using the keyboard.
Rather than having an icon for each window, I also want the tooltip information to always be shown (e.g. vs code project) and for standard apps to expose better information for that (e.g. Gnome Terminal to expose its prompt/pwd) and/or have a specific mechanism by which apps could communicate.
Adding Quicksilver-like functionality to the launcher/search would be amazing. e.g.
Super
Sp... (auto-populates Spotify)
Tab
P... (auto-populates Play/Pause)
Return
Session restoration - it just doesn't work at the moment for some reason. Some apps do, some don't. Some go to their correct position/size, some don't.
- I would advise against using workspaces [...] My main desktop I have 4 monitors
  Hahaha, figures. I mostly only use my laptop monitor, and absolutely depend on workspaces in everything I do. I rarely have more than four open, but I really like that it's flexible.
  For me the default Gnome workflow is fantastic. I feel like there are always two quick ways of doing anything I want, either with touch pad gestures or with the keyboard depending on situation. I get frustrated trying to use anything else.
  
  I did start with it and use it on a laptop, honestly I think that's where it shines the most - but I guess the more windows you open the less useful it becomes. I think if there was a way to do the expose-like "view all things at once" (Super key) that worked across all workspaces, I'd be all over them. But as there's no easy way to live view everything on all workspaces, I just don't use them.

I personally find Gnome works best on Laptops using the Touch pad with its Gesture controlls. But yeah there are things like the missing application tray that can be annoying which can only be added with extensions. Which is annoying again. So pure Gnome is the bare minimum and can work, but with extensions it can bekomm extremely good. In my opinion.

Using vanilla gnome and comparing about empty task bar is a bit strange.

I use Dash to Panel to show taskbar icons for running applications, with the topbar moved to a sidebar to save valuable vertical real estate: https://imgur.com/tc0IbuM.png
I use the Workspaces Indicator extension to keep track of which one I'm in, but I use workspaces to focus on specific tasks using groups of applications... not an individual workspace for each application. I normally only have one or two workspaces in use.
I disable the Activities button and Overview completely, with the Super key opening the Applications View directly.
I previously used Arc Menu to replace the Applications View, but dropped that when they added folders to the Application View. It's still a bit clunky, but it's usable now that is supports some minimal organization.

I prefer GNOME to KDE and I understand that there's research and philosophy behind some of the decisions, but I just can't get around some of the quirks. "Workflow" itself is fine, with tiling on top, you can get by. But those window decorations. So much space is taken by a completely useless, fat bar at the top of each window even though it's not really aimed at being touchscreen native.

I love Gnome. But I have a pretty simple workflow where I don't use many applications. Generally I have a browser and terminal open and that's it.
I do all my window management inside of Tmux, which is effectively my actual window manager.
I've tried KDE in the past but I've never liked how it feels like a stepping stone for the Windows interface -- not a huge fan of pullout menus. I've been using Linux exclusively for almost twenty years so I don't have any love for that UX.
I used to use a lot of simple/tiling window managers when I was younger and more patient, Gnome feels similar to those in how it has very few bells and whistles to get in your way.
If only maintaining extensions was easier, it feels like every major release breaks every extension for something stupid like renaming a constant. The Gnome team seems to put very little consideration into making the JS extension API stable.

I grew up using Macs and so coming to Linux from that perspective, I like it. It has a similar feel to the Mac desktop environment.
I may take the plunge to a window manager at some point, but for now it works for me.

I recently disabled Dash to Panel, and installed Pop Shell. I'm loving it so far, using my Trackpad gestures from switching between workspaces. Granted, I don't really need more than 3 or 4 desktops (Browser, Terminal, Messaging...) and it's not quite vanilla as I have Pop Shell managing tiling for me (but still pretty close!). I also need to try it with my "docked" workflow, using an external monitor and keyboard shortcuts (as opposed to trackpad gestures).

I don't like it, I use plasma. Workspaces are great through, I just have my system. Terminal is space 2, browser space 3, communication space 4 and so on
- Workspaces are great through
  Indeed. I think the best thing I got out of trying to fully commit to vanilla GNOME was getting used to workspaces, went from never touching them to actually using them now, even with dash to panel, they're alright.
  
  I usually map them to super $number and move windows with shift+super+$number
  It's a pretty effective system.
  Pro tip, if you're using multiple screens it can be helpful to disable the workspace features on the secondaries or to pin the windows on them