Probably the most often misunderstood element of KDE4 is Plasma, the extensive widget engine that replaces the normal desktop and the Kicker panel from KDE 3.x. The entire KDE4 desktop is built up out of Plasmoids (yet another term for desk accessory), including the panel and the desktop itself - and it is the latter that has been causing quite some confusion. Where are my desktop icons? Update: Aaron Seigo has published a screencast showing how the FolderView Plasmoid behaves as a normal desktop, and how to make it so.
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Member since:2006-01-04
If you want to avoid criticism from users then heading a large FOSS project is probably one of the worst tasks you can take on. I personally wish Aaron and friends had handled the criticism with a bit more grace and professionalism.
Problem is Aaron & friends are very nice people and they often respond to thick trolls or spoiled KDE3 users.
I think they should handle it more like Mark S. et al. and just ignore "I want KDE3 tweak/feature X exactly the way it was and I want it NOW!" posts and let happy KDE4 users deal with the poisonous people.
That would give them more time to deal with constructive criticism ..
Edited 2008-06-16 11:14 UTC
Member since:2005-07-06
Writing off potential "customers" whom are interested in your project and have questions, concerns and/or suggestions as "poisonous people" is not a good strategy in my book. On the whole 5 vocal critics will give you far more useful (if perhaps a bit loud) feedback than 50 fawning fanboys
Member since:2007-02-17
I think it is probably likely that quite a lot of the "criticism" of KDE that is posted on public forums actually comes from Windows astroturfers.
KDE 4.1 went through a lengthy pre-design process of soliciting user input. When people show up ages after the consensus design has been established, often without a real point (eg. "you can't resize the panel" ... sorry, but you can ... or "its ugly" ... without any reason to say so) ... especially when a lot of these "critics" have never actually run the code ... perhaps you can see the reason for sensitivity on the part of developers.
Personally, I think Microsoft is very afraid that in KDE 4.1 the FOSS crowd have come up with an innovative, useful, functional, cross-platform and aesthetic new desktop that Windows cannot hope to match ... and hence you are seeing a lot of vitriolic and quite artificial criticism.
If anyone who did not have any comment or suggestion during the original design stages and who has an actual valid criticism to make now ... perhaps to the KDE developers this is indistinguishable from the astroturfing, and that is why it is getting short shrift.
Member since:2008-03-17
Whilst criticism is good, too much of it has been uninformed, whiny, or simply useless.
too many people said thing along the lines "this sucks" , "I don't like it", "kde devs are being stupid, screw this I'm going to gnome".
Very few of these people actually said something about the specific features they didn't like or even tried learn more after being corrected of their FUD.
Also it would be kind of nice if everyone didn't expect kde4.1 to be designed PERSONALLY for them.
Member since:
2005-07-06
If you want to avoid criticism from users then heading a large FOSS project is probably one of the worst tasks you can take on. I personally wish Aaron and friends had handled the criticism with a bit more grace and professionalism.
I did, and try updates regularly.
Well I wouldn't say amazed, but certainly impressed and cautiously optimistic that KDE4 could turn into something really cool and genuinely useful.
I'm trying. And the is where the user 'criticism' comes in. I, like many others, had concerns and questions about certain aspects of KDE4. I, like many others, also had suggestions on how improvements could be made. Upon voicing my suggestions and concerns, I like many others, got told to stop criticizing, simply trust that the KDE team knows best and stop bothering them with our silly concerns. That attitude, more than anything technical, is what's worrying me most about KDE4 at the moment.