OSNews

Try
http://developer.kde.org/development-versions/kde-3.5-features.html

KDE is always user-friendly, and the new is even more.

> just looks like Windows, why not try and come up with something different

1. Don't be confused by the looks. KDE has technology that allows for very different workflows than on windows (e.g. drag-and-drop between remote hosts and protocols thanks to the IO slaves). And to me that's what counts.

2. The looks can be customised.

3. Some metaphors and GUI elements common to KDE and Windows (and GNOME!) just work and are familiar to millions of people. It would be plain stupid to throw that away just to be "different".

4. Why don't you join the KDE team and come up with something that is different? If it's also *better* it may be broadly accepted.

When was the last time you used gnome?

Text files? The worst you have to do is open gconf-editor and graphically change things with a regedit-like UI.

The first comment that mentioned Gnome was from you!

http://osnews.com/permalink.php?news_id=11531&comment_id=16718

Your the troll.

Point taken, and I once again, I applogize for my behavior in some of my previous posts.

I typically do not flame, and I am done flaming now.

I can admit when I am wrong.

Drinks for everybody, it's on me.

The drop shadows really have very little to do with KDE, that as an extension called composite that Xorg uses.

Xorg is the one who needs to improve Composite support.

Composite tends to be fairly stable unless you have EnableGLXWithComposite enabled in your xorg.conf. When you have this enabled it makes composite much faster, but also makes much more unstable.

I've been searching for EnableGLXWithComposite and I haven't found nothing... could you point to some info?

Your info is wrong, it should be:

option "GLXWithComposite" "Enable"

my mistake, it is AllowGLXWithComposite, not Enable

anyway, under the device section where your graphic card details reside in your xorg.conf, type

Option "AllowGLXWithComposite" "true"

I agree that the default settings could modified to make kde a little less confusing for newbs.

Most "newb friendly distros" that come with KDE tend to have a more organized and easier to use kde then the vanilla implimentations of Arch, Gentoo, Debian, and Slackware.

> I have also posted a similar comment on OSDir so that they may come up with more inspiring screenshots.

That's the usual screenshot rush of OSdir only showing desktop and panel menus, and control settings. They very seldom start an application other than the defaults ones oon the panel. And never read announcements/changelog to show off new features.

aMSN CVS already have stable webcam support for quite some time.

Two of the major reasons Linux suffers is because of the lack of webcam support, and the lack of printer support, most other drivers have cought up.

Huh? I don't know a single user using a web cam, so i doubt this is in any way a major reason, sure it might be one of the many minor things.

As for printers, finding linux compatible printers in all price segments is very easy, and even many using strange proprietary interfaces often work. (like my old HP 710C) If you mean you can't just go out and buy a printer without doing any sort of research first, then you have a point, but i would never do that even if i buy a piece of hardware for a windows box.

If you want to find real major points, then try something like it not being preinstalled when you buy a PC, and for intermediate users, that the software they buy in shops wont run on it.

I understand this, but the point I was making is that people want all their little toys to just work with no hassle.

this is where linux needs work.

This article in my mind is pure bullshit. He wants to make KDE take the same goals as GNOME. I do like KDE the way it is. I don't care if KDE is newbee friendly, I do care if it is intermediate-user friendly. The author doesn't get it. Why diversity if choices have the same goals ?

I was very used to the Windows explorer. When I used Linux for the first time, KDE was easier for me than Gnome. Reason: spatial browsing, lack of options. Power users like KDE, and guess what? Power users are the early adaptors. Getting them to use Linux is first priority IMHO.

"Actually, cleaning up KDE would require reworking a large portion of the UI. This article explains it fairly well:
http://www.icefox.net/articles/kdeosx.php "

I remember that article. The KDevelop screenshot is just atrocious.

http://www.icefox.net/articles/kdeosx/kdevelop.png

Tabs on all four sides of the screen? o_o

Tabs on all four sides of the screen is why I like Kdevelop so much.

If you have a high res screen, at least 1400 wide then it really is very convenient. Everything is right there at your disposal.

lol... why, it is. Personally I complained numerous times about the use of "vertical" tabs with (vertical) text. And I'll keep doing it.

Just try to read what tabs are open on the right and you'll see what I mean. Be careful not to hurt your neck!

Just try to read what tabs are open on the right and you'll see what I mean. Be careful not to hurt your neck!<p>
None of them are open I don't have to read the text to see that.

Yes vertical text isn't pretty but it's better than no text at all and better than horizontal text. Also you don't have to read a novel that's cunningly distributed over the myriads of sidebar buttons in KDE, you're just looking at a small number of words, most of them common to all applications.

Well but you have to read it if you actually want to figure out what they ARE again...

And no, vertical text is not better than horizontal text. Maybe NO text is even better than vertical text.

Well but you have to read it if you actually want to figure out what they ARE again...

But because there's only a small selection of words that make sense in such cases you don't have to "read" the words like you read a textbook you just look at the shape.
You may remember the study that it is surprisingly easy to read a word with the letters in the wrong order as long as the first and the last letter remain the same.

And no, vertical text is not better than horizontal text.
Yes it is. Otherwise the application would need to be twice as wide. If the sidebar's been expanded then it can show horizontal text

Maybe NO text is even better than vertical text.
Then you'd be complaining that there are too many non-descript icons. Text helps. You're not forced to read it if you don't want to, you can wait for the tool tips as if there was no text.

Also while the original complaint is valid Kdevelop is perhaps the worst example imaginable. My 80yr old grandmother never needed my help because she tried to hack some kernel headers on her KDE box.

> My 80yr old grandmother never needed my help
> because she tried to hack some kernel headers on
> her KDE box.

So she can do that all on her own? Now that's one helluva granny. ;-)

You misunderstand the way the KDE handles UI level integration. Simply by changing the defaults, all of KDE's UI elements can be affected; meaning that global UI changes are fairly simple things to do if KDE decides to change the direction of interface. For example, say the new KDE HIG decides that open, close, save, and save as... buttons will no longer appear on the toolbar by default. A single setting change for the next version of KDE will allow this change to occur across the entire KDE application suite. A single change to KDE global settups update utility would reconfigure this setting for all legacy applications and/or custom toolbar layouts.

Compare this to the way that the Gnome UI is implemented. Gnome uses three different rendering libraries to actually handle their toolbars (and a couple applications actually don't use global Gnome libraries for toolbar rendering at all but instead choose to render the toolbars themselves.) But that is actually besides the point because EACH gnome application is responsible for rendering its own toolbar layout. As such each application would actually have to manually have their defaults changed to reflect any changes in the HIG.

Functionally Gnome's HIG exists to encourage developers to do what their technology is in-capable of. icefox (a longtime KDE developer, X.org developer, and Trolltech employee) was discussing changes that he thinks should take place to the default user interface to improve user workflow. The changes he is talking about DO NOT require a major rework of ANY of the UI, but are instead part of the on-going discussion about how we want to present the default KDE installation on future versions of KDE.

Functionally speaking the majority of the changes that the article discussed are "wallpaper and icon" changes... not "C++ code and Qt lib" changes.

Bobby

Interesting, if not somewhat useless. Don't underestimate proper UI design; it's not something that takes well to automization. Specifically, cleaning up KDE would require going through each application and moving around, even removing, large chunks of the user interface--sometimes even breaking an application up into multiple, specialized pieces of software.

s/automization/automation/

> Specifically, cleaning up KDE would require going
> through each application and moving around, even
> removing, large chunks of the user interface--sometimes
> even breaking an application up into multiple,
> specialized pieces of software.

This is not really true. KDE apps can easily be inproved since most of its Toolbar elements and other elements are inherited objects, so changing the objects would also change the behavior in apps. But your explaination would be valid if we replace KDE with GNOME here. GNOME is the one that requires going through each application and fixing things to at least look similar - if ever possible.

> I can not confirm the so called "clean look" of GNOME.
> It's a marketing thing from the GNOME crowd [...]

Yeah, sure. Let's start with the menus, shall we?

http://shots.osdir.com/slideshows/slideshow.php?release=234&slide=5
http://shots.osdir.com/slideshows/slideshow.php?release=286&slide=2...

(this is not a flamebait, it's taken from PlanetKDE)

No offence, but the gnome look you're trying to show, looks a bit outdated (to me). When I often look at gnome stuff IIII get the feeling i'm on a computer of ages ago. It's not that I like the standard look and feel that much, I've customized it quite hard, and I'm sure I could customize it as much as kde. But still, some things in ubuntu were nice to see, it's soft and so on, but it still looks old.

So this looks old to you?
http://24.15.37.191/~bytecoder/screenshots/8-11-05.png

Took me about 5 minutes to do, after I accidentally wiped all my settings.

-bytecoder

Also I very much prefer seeing the applications' names and eventually some description than some foobar text saying something like instant messenger or web browser or notepad and I just could go on

Which is an other nice bit about configurability in KDE, you can choose how apps are displayed in the menu, with three choices, "Name only", "Name (Description)", and "Description (Name)".

> I use many apps, some of them having similar goals, and
> yes, I only use apps I know, so seeing their names in
> the menus is not trouble, on the opposite, it's helping.

But for someone new to KDE it's unneeded information,
that causes clutter on the menus. Maybe it sholud be
configurable, but it's wrong to show that much info
by default.

> I confirm, and agree, that gnome's look CAN BE
> cleaner, although a kde dekstop can be made as clean
> and simple looking as you would wish.

I don't discuus with that, because _everything_ can be
made cleaner (is extreme you could write your own patch
or fork KDE). Default KDE menu and configuration
options are cluttered. At the same time Gnome is
simplified, so some power users find it featureless,
but for casual user yes, Gnome has a cleaner look.

> GNOME don't need to fix it anyway because is not cluttered.

They do need to fix a lot there but you don't understand what, because you lack the clue in this area. No offense but I clearly know what I am talking here. I get pretty much disgusted if one Toolbar looks differently than the other one. One that is bigger than the other, One that has a draghandle and others not, the one that I can control through the "Menus&Toolbars" capplet, the other not.

KDE has one Toolbar object, if I change the object I change the behavior in all applications. And the resulting behavior would be always the same in all apps. In GNOME I need to wade through all programs and change whatever code being used into GTK+ GtkUiManager stuff and removing BonoboUI and GnomeUI stuff. And that's just the pit of the whole iceberg.

> I don't care is not my area but as a user an can really
> beat up KDE for the lack of sense they have in the UI.

The users will start to care as soon as people start complaining why GNOME runs a) slow, b) requires so much memory, c) widgets react seconds later, d) why stuff not work correctly, e) lack of real applications, f) the requirements of stuff like python, c, c++, mono, java only to get a handful applications that aren't really the bringer. I don't want to make GNOME look bad or something since I do use GNOME myself but yes as a developer I do know about proper software development and a good framework and a coherent system guarantees that future development will continue easily. Look at the conversation in the GNOME thread here on OSN and you see what real life people like you complain about.