KDE-Forum.org

Quoted

Originally posted by skyfire
Many people are switching to gnome instead of KDE.

Since they have sometimes very different concepts, I don't see any problem with that. It might very likely be impossible to provide both kind of concepts within the same desktop environment.

Quoted

1. KDE's Window decorations and visual styles are poor,sometimes they are too flashy while sometimes they are too old like win 3.1 systems.

While I'm pretty sure there are tons of decoration in all variations, unstatisfied users could still use a different window manager instead of KWin.
Any sufficiently advanced window manager should work.

Quoted

3. Icon click-n-execute feature is also too flashy as gnome and others offer it more easy.

Don't understand what this is supposed to mean. Can you try to reword it or give a little bit more details?

Cheers,
_

KDE is sometimes no well-polished on the surface.

This is e.g.: naming

Often packages are poorly described by the package managers.

Bad naming also applies to styles.

Themes and style need a kind of test environment which checks for completeness, for visual appearance and so on.

I am sure it is possible to run a testsuite.

I heard a lot of KDE Q&A but little was delivered.

Checklists could lead to a real improvement.

Quoted

Originally posted by skyfire
hey how many window managers work well with KDE? i.e Metacity works fine with gnome what about KDE.is there any cool window manager is there for kde?

I think all window managers that implement the enhanced windowmanager hints should work without reducing the functionality of KDE apps that do not directly depend on KWin (for example using its DCOP interface)

Cheers,
_

I think that many personnes have choose gnome because ubuntu have choose gnome (like me, I prefer kde but kde was not supported when I insalle ubuntu).
And many distrib have choose gnome because they make a new version every 6 month. Actually, nobody knows when the next version of kde will be out!

It could be thought of whether the title bar and the menu could be merged to save screen size. But this has to be decided for each single application.

What I like about kde is that it has a rather complete package and you can easily feel at home in it even if you are not a really experienced linux user. Gnome offers instead a more simple package with fewer applications but in my opinion works more smoother ... for example I think Konqueror has more features than nautilus but using konqueror is harder ... (I repeat myself ... it is just my opinion). I use kde in my daily use of the computer only because a lot of applications that I use are from KDE's package (kopete, amarok etc.)

What I would like to see in KDE4 is:
- a really configurable workspace that could be something normal (... like the current one with just some icons on the desktop and a panel) or something new ... something "revolutionary" like the mockups on kde-look.
- I do not know how to say this ... konqueror is a good browser but why try making a good browser when the guys from mozilla are making the best browser on earth ... they manage to make that browser because that's what they do all day ! ... I think firefox should be somehow better integrated in the kde desktop ... no matter how much the kde developers would try to make a browser like that I don't think they would manage to make one soo quickly ...
- The default look ... hmm ... the default look is not so appealing ... I know the desktop enviroment is really tweakable but a lot of ppl judge the desktop by the first look and I would have to say that gnome is better at that with its clearlooks theme ... some talented designers would resolve this issue real fast ...
- Sound server definately needs a refresh ... I hope arts gets out of the picture as soon as possible because I can't stand it ...
- a simple dektop use ... You guys should make a test ... put a guy at a computer with kde installed and put him to do tasks ... like log into his yahoo account ... write a text file ... copy some files download something ...etc ... somebody who didnt saw kde or unix in his life ... if that guy manages to do everything smooth or rather easy ... than I would say that you have made the best desktop enviroment there is ... P.S. I know I'm talking trash right now ... but it's my dream ...

That's about all I can say ...

P.S. It's just my opinion !

" a simple desktop"

Yeah; I, too, think that the time has come to hide the configurability a bit behind a sleek and seemingly clear-structured desktop.

The best mock-ups I've seen so far, are GNOME-mockups, to be honest:
http://tinyurl.com/qjerb
But I find it somehow reassuring that KDE-mockups seem to point in the same direction:
http://img460.imageshack.us/my.php?image=tab0az8zc.png

(Notice how similar the mock-ups look? I think we are seeing some 'Zeitgeist' here... )

Also Novell is going the right way with their SLED 10 GNOME desktop IMHO. They had an even more daring vision of how things could look a bit cleaner in the beginning:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/gamehack/sets/1506658/

Quoted

Originally posted by rrr-jr
- a simple dektop use ... You guys should make a test ... put a guy at a computer with kde installed and put him to do tasks ... like log into his yahoo account ... write a text file ... copy some files download something ...etc ... somebody who didnt saw kde or unix in his life ... if that guy manages to do everything smooth or rather easy ... than I would say that you have made the best desktop enviroment there is ... P.S. I know I'm talking trash right now ... but it's my dream ...

Such usability testing has actually been performed and the result is Suse Linux Enterprise Desktop 10. The resulting data (also videos) are free to use for everyone and I hope the KDE team has taken a careful look. See www.betterdesktop.org.

What I liked especially in KDE4-mockups was the idea to have 'layers'of the desktop that are configured to help with certain tasks; like, you klick a 'tab' of such a desktop-layer and your main KDE menu is replaced by one with only office work oriented applications in it and the folders on the desktop are replaced by only those you use for work. Or you klick another tab and you get a MythTV like desktop. This would also be a good solution in order to bring Superkaramba applications to the foreground (what use are they on a desktop that I never, ever see lest I minimize all windows?) in a way similar to what Apple's dashboard or Vista's sidebar does. Why not let them hover constantly over your currently open windows without making those windows inacessible like dashboard does?

Oh, and I do hope they integrate a desktop search.

There must be some more serious use to squeeze out of 3D desktop effects like Xgl, too.

Again I think there's merits to SLED's 'computer'/'application browser' concept (http://reverendted.wordpress.com/2006/06…nome-main-menu/). Start menus only make sense for those users who always use a wide range of applications.

And BTW, perhaps a closer look at what Fujitsu-Siemens has been doing with a KDE-mod for a computer for senior citizens ('Simplico') might be a good idea:
http://tinyurl.com/lpb44

yes gnome is a really simple desktop with a really smooth workflow ... and I use it on most of my computers and the most beautiful mockup from kde-look I think it has something from gnome in it ... http://www.kde-look.org/content/show.php?content=28476
If the kde4 desktop would look something like that I think it would really bring something new ( the mockup that I was reffering too + the other mock-ups from kde-look that used the first one ( the notification one ... the one combining the tasks into a simple menu etc) )
For example as a unix user I would like that my file manager would put more accent in my /home directory besides my / because I do not use the other directories only in rare cases when i have modified some configuration or somethin ... and for a user who hasnt used unix systems before that would be confusing to look at the whole directories and see etc usr sys etc directory names that it would not understand ... Of course it should be made just an option for newbies ... but it's a very useful one because even me as a experienced unix user would like to not make such a big deal over navigating through directories to get to my movies for example ...

any folder have his police & background color/wallpaper
this option will give us the ability to customize folders, but there are a problem , that is gnome & others DE must be compatible with this option ,

The thing that I like the most about kde is the powerful configuration options. I like having tons of shortcuts, resizing windows with alt+rmb, moving windows on other desktops by draging them from the taskbar or by moving them at the extremities of the screen and the like.
What I don't like:
- is eye candy where there is no need (like the animation for the panels being default-the one that shows up progresively when hovering a thing on the panel);
- stuff that exists like a shortcut but I use very rarely, like the intricated menu for a picture that allows me to set it as desktop background
What I don't wan't is to simplify things just for the people who don't have anything to do with computers.

Quoted

Originally posted by alecs1
What I don't wan't is to simplify things just for the people who don't have anything to do with computers.

I got to say that exactly that has been the aim that has driven any development in user interfaces since the Stanford Research Institute in 1963 invented the computer mouse and Xerox used it for their Xerox Alto in 1973.

And I'm positive that KDE 4 is following in that tradition. If only users who know a system and are comfortable with it were the target audience we still wouldn't be using GUIs at all.

Quoted

Originally posted by eet
I got to say that exactly that has been the aim that has driven any development in user interfaces since the Stanford Research Institute in 1963 invented the computer mouse and Xerox used it for their Xerox Alto in 1973.
And I'm positive that KDE 4 is following in that tradition. If only users who know a system and are comfortable with it were the target audience we still wouldn't be using GUIs at all.

Sorry, probably my formulation wasn't the right one. What I wanted to say is that I don't want my options to be limited just because someone thinks it would confuse me. Gnome gives me that impression, when starting gnome I miss all the powerful configuration from Kde. Another example I don't want is http://honeybrown.ca/Pubs/BumpTop.html . As a matter of efects that demonstration leaves behind anything I have seen until today, yet, I think it would be practical only for people that haven't seen a computer in all their life. On a discussion on a forum some people expressed the idea that the desktop is an efficient abstraction, but it doesn't have to copy real world.
For example, the scroll policy in X something extremely useful; katmouse brings it to Windows, yet, most windows people don't understand its usefulness, that doesn't mean that it should be removed because not_very_intelligent users don't understand it, the same for multiple desktops and other things. I have found a guy who agrees with me (only theoretically): http://www.beranger.org/index.php?article=1155.

I agree that bumptop is a ghastly idea. It doesn't help to make finding and accessing files easier in any way. Tagging (perhaps hierarchical auto-sorting based on tags and filetypes) and desktop-search seem the way to go.

What is it we (all users) basically want from a the GUI of our OS? We want to use applications in order to perform certain tasks, create new files and access old files. In order to fullfil the first two tasks you want to find the right application quickly. That's fairly easy; either you know your hierachical start menu by heart or you go for an assortment of only your favourite apps using either quickstart icons, an Apple-style dock or Novell's new SUSE main menu - which in turn requires to still have some kind of application browser or hierarchical menu for the less-used applications. Matter of taste.

The only thing that can be dumbed-down here IMHO is hiding the app-names behind the task-descriptions, and that is being done in one form or the other already (KDE hides the app-names in its start menu when there's only one app for the task available).

Accessing old files is more difficult but I tend to the tagging/autosorting/desktop-search approach here.

Improving the above seems useful to new users as well as to experienced users, as far as I can tell. But in my mind this solution doesn't make it more intuitive for users, yet.

I guess what you are worried about is more the 'little extras', like context-menus and the like. I personally like Apple's approach of having a standard and a 'simplified' GUI between which you can switch anytime. Why not let KDE come with 2 variants of the GUI?

Multiple desktops BTW have just been sucessfully dumbed down by making them a more 'physical' concept: Xgl projects them on the sideds of a virtual cube so that the user is prompted to think of his workspace as a multidimensional instead of a 2-dimensional thing.

So eyecandy can actually help non-computer people to exploit the benefits of features that only computer-initiates enjoyed before because they were beyond the grasp of the 'technically challenged'. This gives me the impression that 'little things' that can be done with eyecandy could help a lot without restricting advanced users in any way. Thus the fantasy I described in this subforum of giving up on the whole desktop-metaphor and instead going for a more real-worldly thing like a little globe or model of your home-town complete with other analogies like a postoffice for e-mail, a museum for your photos/artwork etc.

The next big step would be a GUI that would somehow make it unnecessary for the user to think in abstract terms of 'application' and 'document'. For many, many people, even for people who work in an office on a computer every day it is an absolute puzzler to understand that 'I cannot open documents created by one application from within a different application'! :-|

KDE already aims at something like that by embedding many filetype-viewers into Konqueror.

And the guy you linked to (http://www.kde-forum.org/redir.php?url=h…article%3D1155.) is a clueless jerk. The new SUSE menu lets you work more productively than ever. Of course you always have the choice to use the traditional menu as well. That Beranger-guy is a stupid "lazy vegetable", as he likes to call 'ordinary' people in his rant, himself. This archetype of a jerk apparently has no idea of how the new menu actually works, nor does he care to find out, nor does he care how much usability studies and _actual_, real-life testing (see www.betterdesktop.org) went into its design. All he knows to do is insult 'ordinary' people and to insult those who had a good idea and worked hard to get it done. Bah! That kind of selfish and ignorant individual with a contempt for ordinary people makes me sick.

He should start out by learning what a hierachical and a non-hierarchical menu are and which kind the new SUSE menu is. (BTW, the search window in that menu links to Beagle search,not simply to a menu-item search.) Perhaps he would also realize upon careful study that the new SUSE menu is more like the Apple dock than like the Windows XP menu. The current XP menu is hierachical as is the current KDE menu. Today XP's and KDE's menus are very, very similar. But no, I don't think types like him will ever inspect something new carefully for its merits. No, it does look like stupid Windows, I hate it, boo-hooo. Ungrateful brat.
--
Ohhh; that guy's really a sad, sad loser. I showed him that the principle he thought he followed is not actually what he thought it was -- and now that he's been discussed into a mental corner he's closed the discussion. He thought he advocated the 'Keep It Simple, Stupid/Sweetheart/whatever' principle but actually he didn't know what it meant. In reality that guy only advocates a sad, conservative orthodoxism in software-design (i.e. he just wants things to stay exactly the same).

He's trying to tell Red Hat, Ubuntu and SUSE which way their distributions should be headed ('Don't change anything!') but they won't listen and he doesn't want to use a small distro. And he's already sworn never to use Ubuntu and SUSE again because they've betrayed him. He'll just be left out in the cold, all alone. Poor bloke; wish I could feel sorry for his self-centred, spiteful soul.

i would like to share my thoughts, first i used kde, switch bak to gnome then kde then to gnome permanently.

this is what i dislike about kde

the 'start' or menu ikon, kan it be change? i really dislike it it.
kde is like kandy and is not serious desktop. because it always use K all the time with its apps like klipper korganizer kajuk, kan it be done to be like kde clipper or k-clipper.

the dragon karakter looks like mid 95's 3d design where is the elegance. when i view both, gnome as simple... kde as super graphics, so it will help if also if kde concentrate with the graphics and transparent styles. it should match vista and mac. and more animated icons.

last is the konqueror, i dont like it cause you use it both for file browser and internet browser, i want a simple file browser and a firefox browser pre-installed.

this is not a flame this is just what my mind is thinking. just imagine i was thinking out loud.

There is definitely one thing I have learned from reading the people's opinions on KDE: they are very very superficial, and most of them won't look twice to change something that bother. In fact I can see people that spend a lot of time customizing Gnome say that KDE sux for its default interface. So the idea is to have some very good default settings and placements for things.
I think it would be a difficult decision where the panels to stay, what icons and all the stuff. While I like Keramik the most (shiny and faster than Plastik) many say they don't like it. The panel with all the shorcuts on it is a default I don't like (I change it in 2 seconds, remove the start menu etc) and people bash KDE.

Eet, let's not polute the topic with Beranger, reading more of his blog showed me he doesn't really have an idea on what he supports.

Quoted

Originally posted by alecs1
There is definitely one thing I have learned from reading the people's opinions on KDE: they are very very superficial, and most of them won't look twice to change something that bother.

I agree, because this also applies to me. I use KDE only because of KMail,
but am always strongly tempted to quit when we update Fedora.

What I want from KDE 4 is user documentation. I expect most users would benefit
by deleting all the obsolete Help Center contents so that less time is wasted
being confused searching thru material that is largely unhelpful.
I write code for a living, and here is my rule:
if I cannot be bothered to clearly explain how it ALL works,
then I change the code until I can.

Backward compatibility is important.
KMail upgrades nearly always breaks for our IMAP environment,
and I still have not figured out how to recover contents for KAddressBook 3.5.

Interoperability is important. When I click on an ICS attachment in KMail,
KOrganizer will be invoked, but adding that item to std.ics an ordeal.
Likewise, invoking acroread or firefox from Konqueror.

Usability is important. Emulating Windoze is a good ploy, and you might find
many KDE users have customized XP to behave as nearly possible like 98SE or 2000.
The K Menu has Preferences, System Settings, System Tools and Control Center.
That is far too many places to hide things.
M$'s drag-and-drop Start menu reconfiguration would be worth emulating.

Quoted

Originally posted by skyfire
Many people are switching to gnome instead of KDE.

Perhaps. I am sure a lot of Gnome users are switching to KDE too. ;-)

Choice is king and makes everybody happy.

The main scope is to keep them different and with enough customization to keep everybody happy. :-)