"Some bad blood between Linus Torvalds and GNOME developers is flaring up again. Previously, Torvalds has said that Linux users should switch to KDE instead of GNOME because of the GNOME team's 'users are idiots' mentality. Now he has 'put his money where his mouth is' by submitting patches to GNOME in order to have it behave as he likes. This week, on the Linux Foundation's (formerly OSDL) Desktop Architects mailing list, the two sides are going mano a mano." Can I interest you in a pair of these and these?
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Member since:2005-10-02
Nooo.. GConf is a disaster. Even many ordinary settings are there, and many advanced settings are not.
GConf is anything but userfriendly. GConf if horrible and unintuitive and very non-Gnome.
The major problem here is that some people think that adding in a few extra options automatically means that all options must be in the same dialogue window.
I just ask: Ever heard of tabbed pages? Ever heard of a button called "More options..."? Ever heard about decentralized and centralized Action Editors? Ever heard of a Menu Editor (took forever to get that one back) ?
Some people think that a simple easy-to-use interface can ONLY be created by removing options.
That is incorrect!
A simple easy-to-use interface is be created by thoughtful placement of widgets, logical placement of options and not too few, nor too many options in one window/tabbed page.
When adding a feature/option or an application there is only ONE valid question: Will this make the system easier to use? If yes, add it! If no, don't add it.
A centralized File Action Editor alongside the existing cumbersome and decentralized File Action Editor would make the system easier - so it should be added.
A Menu Editor would make the system easier - and it was added (officially with Gnome 2.16).
What confuses users are not options nor applications, but cluttered interfaces. Many options != cluttered interfaces. Many applications != cluttered interfaces.
Member since:2006-01-28
Good point. I think I have become so used to playing with the MS registry that I thought it would be a good idea. I forgot how much I have hated the registry, and how bad an idea I used to think gconf would be.
Which reminds me of why hated KDE: clutter & and unthoughtful layout. Gnome does not have that -- at least on the surface.
Member since:2006-09-12
Member since:2005-07-06
Member since:
2006-01-28
Why don't the advanced user people just use gconf to configure the interface?
I think it would be a nightmare to have every configuration dialog have a simple and advanced mode that is displayed on checking a setting in gconf. It would be better to just have the settings in gconf -- most are there anyway.