eWeek: Sometimes, More Is More
Wednesday, 9 April 2003 | Rmoore
eWeek's Jason Brooks gives us his take on the discussion about the complexity of KDE and GNOME in his article "Sometimes, More Is More". "I didn't switch from Windows to Linux on my home and work systems because Windows wasn't easy. I switched because as I came into contact with OS alternatives, I became frustrated with lack of flexibility I found in Windows." Do you agree? Are we (roughly) on the right course, or should we be trimming away options?
Comments:
Less is more - will - 2003-04-09
What works best depend on what kind of user you are. That may be obvious, but people fail to see the equally obvious conclusion that this means that less is more, and this is not a matter of aesthetic preferences. The reason for this is that probably *more* than 90 % of the users only need a certain level of functionality. Having more options than needed is counterproductive because largely irrelevant information competes with the relevant one. So, KDE goes deliberately goes for too much compexity the also aim for irrelevancy, either by targeting a fraction of the user base by choice, or by objectively making a less usable product for the larger fraction of users.
Don't forget your userbase - Roland - 2003-04-09
> The reason for this is that probably *more* than 90 % of the users only need a certain > level of functionality. Having more options than needed is counterproductive because > largely irrelevant information competes with the relevant one. This is just plain wrong. When we talk about choosing defaults wisely, I agree wholheartly. Choose what the majority of users like best. But when we talk about features that can be turned on by configuration, the more the better. I have yet to see a real user complaining that there is too much configuration for himself. Also, always look at actual users, not some hypothetical "average" user that is invented by self-proclaimed usability experts. GNOME2 made exactly that mistake and lost a lot of real, existing users by trying to attract some hypothetical non-existant "average" user. Please, KDE-team, don't make the same mistake. KDE is the best environment because it is the most complex and the most configurable of them all. KDE is clearly more successful because of that. And the ***ONLY*** reason KDE/Linux is less popular than Windows is because KDE/Linux can't run Win32 programs. Usability has absolutely nothing to do with it.
Re: Don't forget your userbase - will - 2003-04-09
>But when we talk about features that can be turned on by configuration, the >more the better. I have yet to see a real user complaining that there is too >much configuration for himself. A user is rarly aware of why an interface is difficult to use, but that doesn't mean there isn't a reason why. Relevance and information economy are very plausible explanations. >Also, always look at actual users, not some hypothetical "average" user that is >invented by self-proclaimed usability experts. >GNOME2 made exactly that mistake and lost a lot of real, existing users by >trying to attract some hypothetical non-existant "average" user. The average users are not hypothetical. Just look out the window and you will see that they are real: office workers, students, state employees, clerks, business people. I believe the "real" users you are talking about here belong to less than 0.1% of the popuplation. >Please, KDE-team, don't make the same mistake. KDE is the best environment >because it is the most complex and the most configurable of them all. KDE is >clearly more successful because of that. And the ***ONLY*** reason KDE/Linux is >less popular than Windows is because KDE/Linux can't run Win32 programs. >Usability has absolutely nothing to do with it. But do you think that KDE/linux has a chance at the larger user group if it is less usable than Windows? Windows was once small too - how do you think they got to be big?
Re: Don't forget your userbase - Richard Moore - 2003-04-09
It got big long before it got usable, ask the Mac guys if usability is enough to breed success! Rich.
Re: Don't forget your userbase - will - 2003-04-09
I believe the point is that usability is a necessary condition for success, not a sufficient condition. In any case, it certainly did make Mac a success, just not as big as Microsoft, which had the advantage of the more open PC platform.
Re: Don't forget your userbase - Roland - 2003-04-09
"A user is rarly aware of why an interface is difficult to use, but that doesn't mean there isn't a reason why. Relevance and information economy are very plausible explanations." So you don't have proof - you don't even have a hint that your hypothesis is correct. So the KDE-team should fuck their userbase just because you say so? Without the slightest proof? Just because of a hypothesis? "The average users are not hypothetical. Just look out the window and you will see that they are real: office workers, students, state employees, clerks, business people. I believe the "real" users you are talking about here belong to less than 0.1% of the popuplation." Complete nonsense. There is no such thing as an "average user". I'm a programmer and I'm probably classified as "advanced", yet I think many office workers will need a lot more features in wordprocessing than me. Now you come along and say: Drop all features only a minority uses. So you piss me off because I can no longer have multiple desktops, etc. and you piss the office workers off because they don't have advanced wordprocessing features anymore. You want to piss EVERYONE off. Students, state employees, clerks, business people - all will have different needs and preferences, everyone will be pissed when forced to use your dumbed down "dream come true" desktop. There is no average user. >>>>EVERY USER IS DIFFERENT.<<<< Get it in your head already. The "average user", the self-proclaimed usability experts talk about is as real as unicorns, elfs and orcs. "But do you think that KDE/linux has a chance at the larger user group if it is less usable than Windows?" First it isn't less usable and second it wouldn't matter because people will use whatever comes preinstalled on their computer. Sure, KDE/Linux has rough edges - for example drive mounting is awkard - but it's comparable to Windows' rough edges (See a real newbie wondering why he has to double click some icons and single-click other icons to see one of the biggest usability problems of Windows. Another example is drive letters.). SuSE has already put out a distribution with all configuration stuff integrated into kcontrol which solves most of the inconsistency problems some people complain about. The only major problem in KDE I see is the lack of documentation. " Windows was once small too - how do you think they got to be big?" 1. They were backwards compatible to DOS. 2. Windows was preinstalled on pretty much all computers. If KDE/Linux would run Win32 apps reliably and hassle-free, we would see millions of users along with computer makers switching. Without that backwards compatibility, the transition will take much, much longer. (But it is happening anyway.) Actually, Windows was very, very late in offering a GUI. Apple, Amiga and Unix had GUIs much longer - But neither Apple, Amigo nor Unix could run DOS programs on cheap x86-hardware, which was ten times as important as anything Apple, Amiga or Unix offered on the desktop.
Re: Don't forget your userbase - will - 2003-04-09
Much of what you say can only be settled by empirical investingation, of which I am sure there is exist a good deal, but which I cannot give without doing further research. I am certainly sure that such findings would support my claims, and if they didn't I would certainly retract them. Problem is: you don't quote any empirical evidence for the contrary claims, so it doesn't matter in the present discussion - and we are back where we are right now: what can reasonably explain good usability. I claim that increasing relative visibilty of the most relevant options (statistically frequent usage) will explain good usability, and you offer no competing explanation. Clearly the burden of evidence is on your side. You would be ill advised to make a choice made on the basis of ignorance. Concerning the "there is no average user" claim: This is a possible construal - no user has an average use of program functions which in this regard places him in a majority group. I certainly believe you are wrong about that - but only an empirical investigation can settle the question. You are right about the other factors you mention concerning the success of the Windows platform and the barriers KDE is facing beside usability, but it doesn't concern my point: Good usability is normally a necessary condition of success.
Re: Don't forget your userbase - Roland - 2003-04-09
"Much of what you say can only be settled by empirical investingation, of which I am sure there is exist a good deal, but which I cannot give without doing further research. I am certainly sure that such findings would support my claims, and if they didn't I would certainly retract them." Being scientific is only possible when you are precise first. You haven't made any precise claims here (just the usual "omg, KDE is sooo complicated"), so there are no claims which can be supported, so far. "Problem is: you don't quote any empirical evidence for the contrary claims, so it doesn't matter in the present discussion - and we are back where we are right now" Wrong. The fact that KDE is more successful than GNOME is proven by loads of polls, studies and articles. Of course this isn't scientifical unbeatable evidence (it could be another reason that KDE is more successful), but it still is a *very strong* hint that configurability and flexibility is rewarded by users. A comparison with Windows is meaningless because the fact that Windows is preinstalled and runs a much larger software library makes any other factors unmeasurable. KDE and GNOME, however, are comparable because they run the same programs and are distributed among the same channels. Actually, GNOME is quite in favor: Gimp is GTK-based and pretty much the only serious image manipulation program on Linux, also a lot of users like Galeon and Evolution. It seems that KDE is so much better than GNOME that a lot of users prefer running a slightly inconsistent KDE with GNOME apps to running pure GNOME. Sorry, but I don't see a single reason why KDE should parrot GNOME, can you? "Concerning the "there is no average user" claim: This is a possible construal - no user has an average use of program functions which in this regard places him in a majority group. I certainly believe you are wrong about that - but only an empirical investigation can settle the question." Such an "average" can only be chosen, not measured - which is by definition unscientific, so NO, there cannot be a scientific investigation about this topic. Actually it's pretty easy to grasp that such an "empirical investigation" is doomed to fail. If you have 4 users, one needs full wordprocessing features including headers and footers, another wants all the desktop features (multiple desktops, etc.), a third wants good command line and scripting support and the last wants advanced browser features like tabbed browsing. - Where is the average? Are all features that are not used by the majority non-average (This is the impression I get from your talk, although it's all very vague and confused)? In that case everything would have to be dropped: 3 out of 4 users don't need headers and footers in wordprocessing = bloat, dump it. 3 out of 4 users don't want multiple desktops = too confusing, get rid of it. 3 out of 4 users don't use scripting = not needed. 3 out of 4 users don't need tabbed browsing = Away with it. Great, now you have 4 unhappy users out of 4. Is that really your goal? So what empirical studies do you want? When is a given feature worth it? What percentage has to use it? "You are right about the other factors you mention concerning the success of the Windows platform and the barriers KDE is facing beside usability, but it doesn't concern my point: Good usability is normally a necessary condition of success." Wrong, again. Amiga had great usability and failed, MacOS had great usability in the past and lost marketshare all the time - and DOS with all IRQ conflicts and DMA problems got stronger and stronger. I sure agree that usability is important. But a prerequesite for success? Far from it. Usability is a "nice to have" feature, no killerfeature. If my needed program doesn't run on KDE, I will not run KDE, no matter how usable it is. Only on a leveled playing field (for example KDE versus GNOME, where all users can run all programs and the choice between KDE and GNOME is truely by preference and not forced by compatibility) usability plays a major role. And KDE is much more successful than GNOME. Again, I provided several examples while all you did was put out wild unproven claims without a single link to reality.
Re: Don't forget your userbase - Richard - 2003-04-11
>> "A user is rarly aware of why an interface is difficult to use, but that >> doesn't mean there isn't a reason why. Relevance and information economy are >> very plausible explanations." > > So you don't have proof - you don't even have a hint that your hypothesis is > correct. simple example 1: (Information economy) A certain item can be more easily found if the number of 'standard' *available* items from which you can pick is *decreased* and the wanted item is among the items that is standard shown. Problem: which items should standard be shown? simple example 2: (Relevance) A certain item can be more easily found if is shown *higher up* in the list of 'standard' available items from which you can pick and the wanted item is among the items that is standard shown. Problem: which standard item is the most important? simple example 3: Exposing a user to an interface that is known to the user eases the transition from that system. problem: How far should you go in adapting your interface to the system known to be the one that is most used worldwide, but which is flawed -- according to your opinion. These are challenges that KDE currently faces and where there has to be made a choice, since it is easy to grasp that the interface usability will degrade if you shown zillions of options. I could go on for ages with examples like these, but there is nothing new here. Go read in any book about usability and discover them yourself. Go play with Gnome themes and see what's great about the HIG of Gnome. BTW I use both Gnome and KDE (Mandrake 9.1 right now) and see that they both have advantages: - Gnome 2.2 is notably faster than KDE 3.1 when starting applications specific to that desktop. (p.e. Nautilus is faster than Konqueror, but it has less features at the moment). - Both desktops are very easy to use once you have spend a certain amount of time on each desktop. - KDE has the better experience for users transitioning from Windows (any version).
Re: Don't forget your userbase - Andy Parkins - 2003-04-10
"average" is a very dangerous concept in this sort of context. For example, let's say there are two people in the world; Alice and Bob. We want to design the shoes that are the best fit. Alice has size 5 feet, and Bob has size 12 feet. The average shoe will fit neither. Despite there being a large number of desktop users the "average" does not necessarilly get any more accurate. Especially as the possible number of configurations is fairly enormous as well. Again to illustrate - let's say there are two types of desktop user - those who like 20 options per widget and those who like 2 options per widget. You end up pleasing nobody if you put 10 options per widget. I also don't agree that options confuse new users. I've put KDE + Linux on my girlfriends computer. She isn't interested in the thousand options available to her in KDE, so much so that she hasn't even gone looking. They aren't confusing her, but the day she wants something different she can have it. As long as options aren't "in your face" there is no problem for newbies.
Re: Don't forget your userbase - cbcbcb - 2003-04-09
I don't think you're entirely right. I am a technical user (software engineer, use Linux + KDE 7 days a week 365 days a year) but I can never find anything in the KDE control center. ALmost every time I need to change an option I have to hunt through most of the options trying to find the setting I'm after. Having done informal tech support for friends who are learning Linux, KDE usability does need improving - some things just don't work the way new users expect and some things take more effort than they should. Just because (you think that) Gnome have screwed up, don't assume that there usability experts have nothing to offer, or that something you can use because you're familiar with it cannot be improved.
Re: Don't forget your userbase - Roland - 2003-04-09
Well, OK you didn't find something in kcontrol right away. So what time did it cost you to find that option? 30 seconds? Maybe 2 minutes? If we listen to people like "will" there will be only one default and you wouldn't lose any time searching for configuration option because there would be none. Actually this was all my point. There is no default perfect for everyone. So we have essentially 2 choices: Force a default down user's throat or offer a default and let users change the behaviour in kcontrol. I don't know about you, but a hard to find configuration option is far better than no such option. "Just because (you think that) Gnome have screwed up, don't assume that there usability experts have nothing to offer, or that something you can use because you're familiar with it cannot be improved." Wait, I never said that. The only thing I said was that removing configuration options on purpose is making things worse, not better. I don't see how you can see that KDE is already perfect or that nothing can be improved in that statement. There are many things in which KDE can improve, for example tabbed browsing still leaves a lot to be desired in KDE3.1 or KDE still doesn't support 4 mouse buttons ( http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=48062 ) bookmarklets would be great ( http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=30302 ) and other things - But destroying configuration options will accomplish nothing.
Re: Don't forget your userbase - SadEagle - 2003-04-09
Bookmarklets are largely there, thanks Alex Kellett. See: http://lists.kde.org/?l=kde-cvs&m=104881296429430&w=2
Re: Don't forget your userbase - guest - 2003-04-10
"Well, OK you didn't find something in kcontrol right away. So what time did it cost you to find that option? 30 seconds? Maybe 2 minutes?" This is a perfect example of why people like you are full of it. You told will that you'd never heard a user complain about there being too many options, and then as soon as some user complains you tell him he's wrong to complain. Simplicity is beautiful. If you went and grabbed a thousand computer users off the street and asked them what they want from a computer, not a single one of them would say, "I want my interface to be more complicated. What's really missing from computers these days is complexity! Expose more of the complexity to me!" What alternate universe are you living in where complexity is justified by user demand?
Re: Don't forget your userbase - Morty - 2003-04-10
Personaly I think 99% of al users will fawor spending 2 minutes shearching for a way to do what they want, commpared to spending the same amount of time before beeing told they can't do it.
Re: Don't forget your userbase - Roland - 2003-04-10
Most stuff are only configured once. So 2 minutes lost to gain better usability because you can make the system behave the way you like *every day* is a tradeoff I think most sane people will take. Now there might be better ways to arrange the configuration settings in kcontrol. - But removing opions for the sake of "simplicity" is just not worth it.
Re: Don't forget your userbase - SadEagle - 2003-04-09
Did you not notice the second tab? It's not like there are more than 3 ;-)
Re: Don't forget your userbase - KDE Fanatic - 2003-04-10
This is crucial. Glad to see I'm not alone. There are so many entries and things are so randonly strewn around that there is VAST ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT. Make it a usability engineering study. Do some research post the findings in a group and hash it out ... then decide and make the perfect default (offering several config options to cange it of course ....). This is the next step in OSS. Getting HID and UI students and pros to contribute. They have been trimmed but they need more trimming and organization. Just as XP seems to have improved the config interface heirarchy and simplie]fied the start menu (but then they wrecked the whole menu by making it way too huge ... when the normal menu size is set it's OK - the only other problem is that it is called "start" ... hehe).
Re: Don't forget your userbase - crichards - 2003-04-12
I have trouble finding things in the Windows control panel. I used to use GNOME, but GNOME 2 just changed everything I liked about GNOME. I no longer had a good customizable UI, but one that was fairly concrete and not too my liking. I thought usability had gone down quite a bit. I understand the GNOME Project's stance on customizability, but they are alienating their users. KDE is good, and I really like it. It has its flaws, but I consider it superior to every other desktop or window manager I've ever used (with the exception of that hacked thing I put together, but thats just personal pride). Now, finding some options in KDE is difficult, but we aren't talking about a small program here. We are discussing a massive project with millions of lines of code and thousands of features. And about KDE not working the way new users expect: Its different. Deal with it.
Re: Don't forget your userbase - Dancing with the devil - 2003-04-09
I think that it would be MUCH better to actually discuss what could be done to improve the average usability in both KDE and Gnome. I want to have full controll over my desktop, but not all... So what could we do here? Make basic options available and then add all maybe more advanced options under some advanced button? I don't think that's a good solution...
Re: Don't forget your userbase - guest - 2003-04-10
"I have yet to see a real user complaining that there is too much configuration for himself." Well, congratulations, today you'll meet your first one: I am a real user of KDE nearly every day for the past 4+ years and I am annoyed that there are too many options most of the time. Open up Konqueror and right-click on a file. Too many options. Open up "Settings" -> "Configure Konqueror". Too many options. Furthermore, your formulation makes the simplistic assumption that the costs of having many options are readily apparent to users. Every option exacts a cost in terms of speed, memory usage, usability, and developer effort. If a user were presented with an accurate description of the cost/benefit ratio of options vs. improvements in app startup time, stability, and progress on important features, more users might very well choose fewer features. The fact is that most users---including, it seems, you---are ignorant of this cost/benefit tradeoff, which is why they never complain about having too many options: the costs are hidden. Would I rather have the authors of KOffice getting WYSIWYG printing right, or dithering around with yet another checkbox in the configuration dialogs? Would I rather have yet another window deco or a desktop that actually works? Duh. But nobody thinks about it that way.
Re: Don't forget your userbase - C. Evans - 2003-04-11
I agree with what you are saying, as a user of GNOME2 since it started being usable in CVS. So many options were taken out that it became much harder to configure it to what I wanted. There were a large amount of complaints about this, yet most developers merely stated that "average" users would just be confused by more options. In my opinion, we do not need two similar desktop environments. GNOME is working very hard to have a lack of configurability, and should work well for the seemingly non-existant "average user." Thus, I think KDE should work toward a very customizable system. In this way, there would be no question as to whether you should use KDE or GNOME - if you want to configure things, you would use KDE, and if you are confused by too many configuration options (i.e. if you are an "average user"), then you can use GNOME. Please don't go the same route as GNOME. GNOME 1.4 was my favorite system, far better than KDE at the time, in my opinion. But the lack of configurability in GNOME has meant that I have been forced to switch from GNOME2 to the far more configurable KDE. Still, KDE 3.1 doesn't seem to be quite as configurable as GNOME 1.4, but it is significantly better than GNOME 2. C. Evans
Re: Don't forget your userbase - KDE User - 2003-04-20
> Usability has absolutely nothing to do with it Good comment. We must understand that optimum usability/productivity can only be achieved for a specifically targeted user-group. It is not possible to target all office-workers exisiting on earth and also achieve optimum usability. Though, this may be wise economically though... :-( So the bottom line is always that KDE will have to be taylored for the user-group in question.
Less of what? - Paul Seamons - 2003-04-09
I've heard the argument many times before - and I'm afraid I can't quite see the point. I think at this time in the desktop user interface history, the "less is more" argument is similar to the idea of premature optimizations in code. By doing less or having fewer features we are trying to optimize a system that isn't fully defined or completed. Who knows which feature will be the most important -- that in the long run will be invaluable. Until Linux, Gnu, and Gnome or KDE are on 25% of the worlds desktops and there is substantial feedback from the non-tech population - we can only speculate which of the "extra" features make the system less elegant or useful.
Re: Less of what? - will - 2003-04-09
>I've heard the argument many times before - and I'm afraid I can't quite see the >point. I think at this time in the desktop user interface history, the "less is >more" argument is similar to the idea of premature optimizations in code. By >doing less or having fewer features we are trying to optimize a system that isn't >fully defined or completed. Who knows which feature will be the most important -- >that in the long run will be invaluable. >Until Linux, Gnu, and Gnome or KDE are on 25% of the worlds desktops and there is >substantial feedback from the non-tech population - we can only speculate which >of the "extra" features make the system less elegant or useful. This an important insight - the right way for OS-developed software to develop user-friendliness is by concrete user feed-back. However, you would be wrong if you attempt to conclude that KDE can ignore information economy now, because it makes for a less usable product, which in turn would make it less likely KDE to reach 25% of the users. The only thing anyone can do is to make as good decisions as can be, and which those are, is presently under discussion - which consequently do have a point.
Re: Less of what? - Luguber - 2003-04-09
I wonder why this argument allways comes up -- Why should the majority of those who have already realized the potential of a non MS desktop wait for those who needs a office binder to tell them what to think, to judge what is an elegant and useful desktop? The less is more idea is more of an individual preference, I think. You are still quite likely to find emacs and vi users having this discussion. My view on this subject is that you can have lots of stuff if it's arranged in a way that you will allways know where to look for what. A nightmare, in my oppinion, is when you have a lot of programs installed in Windows and they are organized by who made the program, not by the function of the program as in the K-Menu. ie. who is interesting in knowing that Ahead made Nero, and how obvious is it that Nero is a program for burning CD-ROMS compared to a program which is named arson :) There is absolutely nothing I miss from Windows after I've logged into my wonderful KDE. The ability to run Windows programs is not something I will wait for, OS/2 had this feature and I guess that was what made it just a half. I prefer a desktop that is made by and for intelligent people :)
Re: Less of what? - will - 2003-04-09
>I wonder why this argument allways comes up -- Why should the majority of those >who have already realized the potential of a non MS desktop wait for those who >needs a office binder to tell them what to think, to judge what is an elegant and >useful desktop? The reason is that many people want a free alternative to Microsoft which is equally usable. You are certainly entitled to your opinion that KDE should be for a small minority of users, but IMO you should stop to wonder why people disagree with you about that.
Re: Less of what? - Luguber - 2003-04-09
I don't think that KDE should be only for the rich, intelligent, famous or attractive minority or any other minority for that matter. What I'm simply implying is that if so many users already think KDE is superior in usability and flexibility etc. Why should we wait until Bill Gates comes to tell this? I've reinstalled the computers of most of my family members and quite a few friends with Linux/KDE. So far not a single one of those have complained that they wanted their Windows back. I even gave a computer to my wife with Linux/KDE on it, she has virtually never used a computer before and the first time she had problems and called me was when she visited a friend with this strange Windows installed, that she had no idea how to use :) If you think that the majority stays with Windows because it's easy to use I think that you are really wrong. Most of these users stays with Windows because Linux-people keep telling them that Linux is more difficult, which I think during these two/three last years have been proven quite wrong.
Re: Less of what? - Brendan Orr - 2003-04-09
Right on! I personally love to customize each individual part of my workspace. With Windows, I had to edit the registry to use/change some of the "hidden" features. Pain in the arse if you ask me. With kde, the only options that seem to be kept hidden are some of the developmental features where it hasn't been implemented for kcm. In fact, I was rather peeved when kde removed a feature from the background select when they changed the background kcm module (using custom monochrome patterns other than TigerT's Nightrock and Stonewall 2).
Re: Less is more - David Johnson - 2003-04-09
I'm going to take the middle view, guaranteeing that I will be equally despised by both sides. Oh well. Less is not always more. Oftentimes less is just less. A desktop, not even considering the underlying OS, is a very complicated system. Removing configuration options does not make the complex simple, but merely removes elements control over the system. For users that do not want this control that is not a big deal, and may even be lauded. But for users that want that control, a less-is-more interface becomes a pain to use. The opposite is just as bad. When you can choose (as a hypothetical situation) ten different "mouseover" looks in a theme's settings page, then you have gone too far. When 80% of the options are used by only 20% of the users, then it's overkill to include all 100% of them in a dialog. In my opinion, GNOME hasn't gone so far in their "less-is-more" campaign to make an unusable "usable desktop". And KDE hasn't gone so far in their "give-me-options" philosophy to make the desktop confusing. In comparison to a microwave oven GNOME is complex. In comparison to a nuclear reactor control panel, KDE is simplicity. We have a competent usability team at my work, and I've learned some few things from them, though I am hardly a usability expert myself. One thing I learned is that lab analysis of usability is generally useless. You need to see real users in real situations using the system in real life. Bringing in people to sit in a lab and follow scripts is next to useless. Another thing I learned is that logic and gut instinct are irrelevant in this area. Sometimes the system with the more "complex" interface is easier to use, while that with the simpler interface pleases only the marketroid. The third thing I learned is the most important: every user is different. Our customer base is probably the most homogenous you can get, yet every time we've tried to cater to the "average" user we've been bitten in the butt. Make the desktop easy for the new user, but only to the point that you do not take anything away from the experienced user.
Re: Less is more - will - 2003-04-09
I despise you! :-) Seriously, the problem of walking the middle way is that the message becomes less relevant as an means to rectify shortcomings... I think you are absolutely right that usability choices should be made on the basis of actual user observation and not speculation, I don't intend to advocate that (much as I hope the pro-choice people wouldn't either). I would be happy to let abstract principles go and leave it all in the hands of competent usability research for the specific program. All that matters is that program becomes as productive as it can for as many as possible. (Clearly a part of the problem targeting a user group). I am curious: As a sidenote, I have heard that in usability studies, usability *shortcomings* in software is often quickly recognized because they the users generally experience the same problems. What does your usability team say about that?
Re: Less is more - not me - 2003-04-10
I think that what KDE needs is not a reduction of options, but a reduction in the visibility of options. KDE can have its feature cake and eat its usability too, if it adopts a configuration-editor sort of program. Something like about:config in Mozilla or the GConf editor. All the options in the world make no difference in usability in an interface like this, because when you use the configuration editor you are most often looking for a specific option that you heard about and got instructions on how to change (like a website that said "here's how to get focus-strictly-follows-mouse in KDE" or a guy who told you "oh yeah, you can set the font used in the KMail message display with foo-bar-font-option in KConf"). Then uncommon options could be removed from dialogs and still be accessible to a user motivated enough to find them.
Re: Less is more - David Johnson - 2003-04-10
A more "usable" solution is to do what has already been started: place "advanced" options under an advanced button in the dialog. This is simple and elegant. The newbie need never see confusing options like "show tooltips" or "font size", but the intermediate and advanced users can still access them.
Re: Less is more - Datschge - 2003-04-10
> What works best depend on what kind of user you are. Exactly. > That may be obvious, but people fail to see the equally obvious conclusion that this means that less is more, and this is not a matter of aesthetic preferences. People fail to see this "equally obvious conclusion" because it's the obvious wrong conclusion. On the one hand you proclaim that it depends on the kind of user what works best, on the other hand you say reducing flexibility is the solution and you yourself know already which reduction will hurt the fewest users. That's contradiction at its best. > The reason for this is that probably *more* than 90 % of the users only need a certain level of functionality. You forget to note that while indeed more than 90 % of the users only need a certain level of functionality they all need a completely different set of functionalities. Implying that your "more than 90 % of the users" all use the same set of functionalities and reducing functionality based on that set is simply hogwash. > Having more options than needed is counterproductive because largely irrelevant information competes with the relevant one. Indeed, so we'll need a GUI with brain-reading capability so only the relevant information is shown at a time. Reducing functionality for everyone on the other hand is definitively the wrong way.
The debate about Linux UI flexibility - The debate about Linux UI flexibility - 2003-04-09
A big debate these days seems to be focused on how configurable the Linux desktop should be. KDE has always taken the approach that users will have different preferences on how they like to work so the UI should be as flexible and configurable as possible. Gnome 2 has taken the direction that "less-is-more" and that the configurability in Linux desktops, including Gnome 1.x, was clutter and confusing to the end-user. This has resulted in some pundits calling for KDE to remove some of it's configurability. The thing all people who argue for less configurability in Linux desktops have in common, whether they are Sun usability teams or Linux editorial pundits, is that they all presume to know how you should work and what a GUI should look like. If you believe your way of doing things is the "one true way" then making things configurable is a waste of time and space. Some pundits in particular have insisted that KDE developers should listen to them, do things their way, then remove configuration options to "clean up clutter in the UI". KDE does not make such presumptions. Some people prefer single-click, others can't work without double-clicking. Some Mac users prefer window close buttons on the left, Windows users expect it to be on the right. Some people like icons on their desktop for devices, others don't. Some old school Unix people hate to work without window focus following the mouse, but this would confuse the hell out of non-Unix people. Don't even get me started on button order. Some KDE people have already started talking about making it configurable in dialogs - probably much to the dismay of those who believe they know "the one true way" despite that different users have expressed opposite opinions. While there are those who have argued that having the extensive configurability of KDE is "clutter" and "tries to include everything but the kitchen sink", I view it as flexibility and trying to satisfy the user no matter what his or her tastes are. It is not up to a Sun usability expert or some Linux columnist what the best user interface is. It is up to the user. KDE tries to make the desktop as enjoyable and usable to as many people as possible. Doing that requires being configurable and flexible. The only people who like less configuration options are those who believe their way of doing thing is "the right way". Everyone else is, well, screwed. Another argument is that configurability equals bloat. This is simply not the case with KDE. On the performance front due to constant optimization of code KDE has managed to actually improve performance while increasing the amount of things users can configure to make KDE match how they work. That's a good deal. On a more aesthetic front some people would argue configuration options make user interface bloat and are confusing to end-users. This argument doesn't really hold up. You can productively use KDE without ever knowing about how you can configure, for example, menu drop shadows or window decorations. Many people who probably will never know what a "Desktop Border Snap Zone" option is have been enjoying KDE just fine. But I can guarantee the people that do know what it means and use it are sure glad it's there! KDE doesn't *force* you to configure anything. It's just there if you need it. You don't see all the window decoration or panel options unless if you explicitly go looking for them. If that is the case you should get as many options as possible in order to make them most closely match how you want your desktop. Otherwise you can use KDE and be blissfully ignorant of their existence. As a matter of fact, many people are now setting up KDE for things like their families and rarely do they complain about things like too many configuration options. This is a complaint that you rarely see from end-users. I haven't seen many emails saying, "I want less options and features!". It is something "usability experts" and pundits say. People who believe they know the "one true way" user interfaces should behave... Again, if this is how you feel then configurability is a waste. There are some things KDE has done to make things simpler. KPersonalizer - the wizard that runs when a user first starts KDE - allows users to configure things in a general manner, (such as do I want things to generally operate like a Mac or like Windows), without mucking around with a lot of configuration values. Many KDE Control Center modules have also started moving less frequently used options to an "Advanced Settings" window. But all the settings are still there for you to muck around with to your heart's content, and should remain there. KDE is about making the Linux desktop operate how *you* want it to work, not how anyone else feels you should work :)
Re: The debate about Linux UI flexibility - Roland - 2003-04-09
>>> The thing all people who argue for less configurability in Linux desktops have in common, whether they are Sun usability teams or Linux editorial pundits, is that they all presume to know how you should work and what a GUI should look like. If you believe your way of doing things is the "one true way" then making things configurable is a waste of time and space. Some pundits in particular have insisted that KDE developers should listen to them, do things their way, then remove configuration options to "clean up clutter in the UI". <<< I couldn't agree more. I just want to add that these pundits are actually contradicting themselves. If you have found "the one true way" and have set the default accordingly (so far I agree - let's find the best default which is so good that a minimum of users want to change it), there can't be any configuration "clutter" because if everybody was happy with the default, nobody would try to configure it differently and nobody would ever see the "clutter" in the configuration panels - so it would be irrelevant. The pundits want to eliminate configurability, because they KNOW that not everybody will be satisfied with the "one true" default and they want to FORCE those to use them anyway. >>>As a matter of fact, many people are now setting up KDE for things like their families and rarely do they complain about things like too many configuration options. This is a complaint that you rarely see from end-users. I haven't seen many emails saying, "I want less options and features!". It is something "usability experts" and pundits say.<<< This sums it up perfectly.
Re: The debate about Linux UI flexibility - guest - 2003-04-10
"I just want to add that these pundits are actually contradicting themselves. If you have found "the one true way" and have set the default accordingly (so far I agree - let's find the best default which is so good that a minimum of users want to change it), there can't be any configuration "clutter" because if everybody was happy with the default, nobody would try to configure it differently and nobody would ever see the "clutter" in the configuration panels - so it would be irrelevant." This is a ridiculous straw man. Nobody's saying that one configuration is best for everyone. They are suggesting some degree of moderation. Do you think KDE would be easier to use if it had a thousand options in the control center? How about a million? A trillion? The idea that "more configurability == better" in all cases is patently absurd. Clearly there's some limit. The "less is more" people simply disagree with the "more is more" people about where that line should be drawn. Furthermore, your description of the "less is more" line of argument is wrong. The people who say the number of configuration options should be decreased are saying that there are some configuration options that are often changed (e.g., desktop wallpaper---everyone I know changes their desktop wallpaper) and others that are almost never changed (e.g., Autostart path), and it's a sound usability engineering decision to get rid of the latter in order to make the former easier to find and change for most users. If you did a usability study---in the lab, or in the real world---you would find that Mac OS classic is far more usable for far more people than KDE. KDE is objectively harder to use, and one reason is that there's too many toggles and switches.
Re: The debate about Linux UI flexibility - Roland - 2003-04-10
"Furthermore, your description of the "less is more" line of argument is wrong. The people who say the number of configuration options should be decreased are saying that there are some configuration options that are often changed (e.g., desktop wallpaper---everyone I know changes their desktop wallpaper) and others that are almost never changed (e.g., Autostart path), and it's a sound usability engineering decision to get rid of the latter in order to make the former easier to find and change for most users." What ridiculous nonsense. Did it ever occour to you that it's possible to make the often used configuration options available easily without "getting rid of" the other options? For example you can configure the wallpaper by right-clicking on the desktop. So you say that removing the autostart path configuration will make that more accessable? If you *still* think that destroying the autostart path configuration will make configuring the desktop wallpaper easier, well, I guess you were either doing a satire or trolling. "If you did a usability study---in the lab, or in the real world---you would find that Mac OS classic is far more usable for far more people than KDE. KDE is objectively harder to use, and one reason is that there's too many toggles and switches." I own a Powerbook and have tested both MacOS9 and MacOSX. If you define usability by the first impression after let's say 1 hour, you are right. MacOS *looks* easy, looks great and the animations are cute when you first use it. But in day-to-day work, it's useless compared to KDE/Linux. I want to get work done, not look at animations. KDE let's me do that, I can have many programs open simultaneously, because I have multiple desktops. - On MacOS or Windows I would no longer be able to keep track of more than say 20 windows. In KDE I can do a lot with the mouse, Unix-style copy-paste even let's me edit text fast and efficient. Also, MacOS suffers from single/double click inconsistency like Windows (actually the only reason Windows has such a moronic behaviour is because they copied it from MacOS). But OK, maybe some people prefer such things. If you choose "Windows-style" or "MacOS-style" in the personalizer, you have a pretty similar environment.
Re: The debate about Linux UI flexibility - Derek Kite - 2003-04-10
>If you did a usability study---in the lab, or in the real world---you would find that Mac OS classic is far more usable... Each time I've used the mac it has been an exercise in frustration. The top menu changes all the time. You are forced to move the mouse too far, wearing out mouse pads. It crashes, although with a cute bomb (os classic). The Mac enforces a way, which some like and some don't. They do some things very well, that put others to shame, ie. application installation, hardware detection, etc. Personally, having used os/2, windows, mac, *nix with kde is like coming home. So is some usability expert to tell me I'm wrong? Derek
Re: The debate about Linux UI flexibility - Phantom - 2003-04-09
>>While there are those who have argued that having the extensive configurability of KDE is "clutter" and "tries to include everything but the kitchen sink", I view it as flexibility and trying to satisfy the user no matter what his or her tastes are.<< As a matter of fact let me just point out that KDE is in the process of integrating the kitchen sink, or actually the KitchenSync. You will find it mentioned at: http://pim.kde.org/development/meetings/20030103/summary_report.php Sorry... I just could not resist the temptation of pointing this out... ;) I wish people would just stop trying to make KDE just like Gnome or just like Win or Mac or whatever else. It's KDE... (that does not mean we should strive to improve things, but let's improve things our way, not the Gnome, Win, Mac, Next, OS/2, QNX, BeOS... way)
Re: The debate about Linux UI flexibility - Louis-Philippe Brochu - 2003-04-09
> As a matter of fact, many people are now setting up KDE for things like their families and rarely do they complain about things like too many configuration options. This is a complaint that you rarely see from end-users. I haven't seen many emails saying, "I want less options and features!". It is something "usability experts" and pundits say. ---------------------- I'm sorry to say that but that would be the *weakest* argument in this whole configurability debate! If a newbie is confused by the tons of options in KDE you can be sure that he won't send the KDE team messages about the fact that there is too many options! Chances are that he didn't even realized he was using KDE in the first place! He'll probably just tell everyone that Linux is too complicated and that it sucks and reboot into Windows. The fact that nobody complains about something doesn't means that everyone like it. I don't think that the problem is with the number of configurability options, maybe more the way they are presented to the user. Reducing interface clutter doesn't systematically means removing features. A good example of this is with the trash contextual menu. You had options to browse images, burn files, etc... appearing in this menu... a user had to look hard to see the most important option, empty trash. Is the browsing images a good feature, yes, is putting it also on the trash context-menu a good idea? No. I'm aware that this problem was fixed recently (i think). To play devil's advocate, why has been this fixed at all? End-users never complained about the fact that the context-menu of the trash contained too many options! ;) The goal of "less-is-more": ergonomy, not stupidity
Re: The debate about Linux UI flexibility - Brendan Orr - 2003-04-09
Trash too complicated? There are 3 options in the context menu of my trash bin: Open Empty Trash Can Properties I never edited and services menus, its just the kde default (deleted the .kde directory in my home directory, compiled from sources) I personally don't see how the options can be confusing, then again I've been compiling programs since 3rd grade. Everything for me is layed out in a neat fashion: everything dealing directly with the ui goes in "Appearance & Themes" File and Network operations go in Internet & Network (though I can see where someone wouldn't register that would include local filesystems). etc.
Re: The debate about Linux UI flexibility - Brendan Orr - 2003-04-09
oops, didn't read the "fixed recently till now" sorry, just omit the first 5 lines :)
Re: The debate about Linux UI flexibility - Louis-Philippe Brochu - 2003-04-09
Mine shows 11 options including "open with", "open terminal here", "create data cd with k3b", etc... Your example and mine shows exactly what can be done to remove UI clutter without removing functionnality and flexibility. Are there many peoples that create data cd from their trash contents? The KDE developpers are certainly agreeing with me because this has been fixed. Now fix the other similar issues, if the options are simply stupid, remove them, if some peoples want them, make them configurable and *remove* them from the default behavior! Many people here raves about KDE configurability... well it seems that KDE is not configurable enough because i can add new features but cannot remove many of them. (like the "up" context-menu item in Konqueror).
Re: The debate about Linux UI flexibility - Brendan Orr - 2003-04-09
did you compile from source or use binaries?
Re: The debate about Linux UI flexibility - Louis-Philippe Brochu - 2003-04-09
From sources but not by hand. I use Gentoo so everything is compiled from sources. Why?
Re: The debate about Linux UI flexibility - Roberto Alsina - 2003-04-10
Uh.... everything is compiled from sources in some way. Since you are using the gentoo scripts, and not your own options, it is pretty much the same as taking binaries, really, unless you customized them.
Re: The debate about Linux UI flexibility - Louis-Philippe Brochu - 2003-04-10
"Uh.... everything is compiled from sources in some way." lol tell me about it, being a programmer it's my day job! ;) Of course you know what i meant. "Since you are using the gentoo scripts, and not your own options, it is pretty much the same as taking binaries, really, unless you customized them." That's why i pointed out that i wasn't compiling "by hand". However i'm still not following you. What does it have to do with what i was saying?
Re: The debate about Linux UI flexibility - Brendan Orr - 2003-04-10
I'm talking more about red hat's packages, They took varies liberties with respects to some of the menus
Re: The debate about Linux UI flexibility - fault - 2003-04-10
> Mine shows 11 options including "open with", "open terminal here", "create data cd with k3b", etc... KDE-cvs has exactly 3. > Now fix the other similar issues, if the options are simply stupid, remove them, if some peoples want them, make them configurable and *remove* them from the default behavior! The problem is... this has already been done for a lot of things.. the result is the large amount of config options that exists today. The solution is of course to add a second way of configuring that is tasked based. Somewhat how WindowsXP has both task and traditional methods of configuring.
Re: The debate about Linux UI flexibility - Aaron J. Seigo - 2003-04-09
you assume we rely on new users sending us email. some of us know and are around many new KDE users on a daily basis. secondly, new users do indeed send us emails. i've even seen a handful on kde-devel from Lindows users asking about how to use the Click-n-Run program after they can't figure it out. if users of Lindows, which targets the most average users, can figure that out, others surely can as well. i'd also point to the number of this sort of email that appears on kde-usability as well.
Re: The debate about Linux UI flexibility - Louis-Philippe Brochu - 2003-04-09
You are right, i should have found a better example. However you are aware that for each user that reports their problem there are probably many others that won't... What i meant to say is that the whole "users never complained about that" argument is flawed. It's not because users never complained about something that this thing is correct. Maybe it is, maybe not. Users could be complaining at another thing when in fact the problem is elsewhere. For example, users could be complaining and wanting a menu item to be in bold to make it more easy to distinguish... however the problem could be that the menu has too many unrelated options that makes it hard to navigate in the first place. In this case one could say, we should not touch the menu because users never complained about that...
Re: The debate about Linux UI flexibility - Aaron J. Seigo - 2003-04-09
yes, for every one that says something there are many more who don't. this applies equally to problemetic as well as useful features. but statistically we probably hear about most of the problems, and for those that fall between the cracks we can rely on usability testing. as for users identifying solutions to problems and not always coming up with the best solution, this is quite true. sometimes a user will suggest something absolutely brilliant, sometimes not. so yes, we need to be careful to think things through and not just wildly implement everything a user requests, while at the same time not ignoring everything users say either.
hmm - jay say say - 2003-04-09
a big part of todays discussions come from the gnome world where despite numerous hackers, commercial entities, huge fundings and huge egos, the environment is lagging behind kde. So dont break what's already working. Keep on finding simple elegant solutions to the real problems and dont go into theorical NO-problems.
Question - foobee - 2003-04-09
Aloha. Can I change the size of image thumbnails displayed in Konq? I would sift through all the options under all the menu items, but there's too many and it's not obvious enough.
Re: Question - AC - 2003-04-09
I think it's supposed to (roughly) follow the size of your icons. Try making your icons larger or smaller and see what happens. Also, under the "Previews" tab of the file manager control panel is a checkbox called "Increase size of previews relative to icons".
Re: Question - ac - 2003-04-09
"I would sift through all the options under all the menu items, but there's too many and it's not obvious enough." Thinly veiled troll, I think. And someone snagged the bait. Well done, sir. Go back to your GNOME boards and troll elsewhere.
Re: Question - tarelax - 2003-04-09
Are you joking? There are two large buttons in the toolbar with large plus and minus signs on them, which change the size of icons (and hence thumbnails). Or go to view->icon size in the menu. This is in KDE 3.1 (MDK 9.1). Which version of KDE are you using? Have you removed the toolbar? Or do you have difficulty associating VIEW menu with changing the size of something that you view in Konq? Thumbnails are nothing but icons as in Konq you can preview not only pictures but lots of other things...
KDE - Ryan - 2003-04-09
The problem I have with KDE is stupid defaults(IMO, not a big deal), but mostly, options are thrown around EVERYWHERE. Take konqueror for example. First of all, it defies convention and has a "Location" menu instead of "File", but then it's got several separate locations for options. If the defaults were better(I know, that's subjective) it would be less of a problem, but by default the konq toolbars and completely cluttered with junk that is useless to 99% of people. Then there's annoying things like the mouse wheel changing focus, but not raising, then you click in a window you just scrolled, but it doesn't raise because it's already focused. So then you have to click on the (possibly hidden) titlebar. Also, there's no way to set Alt+Click(default move window combo) to focus/raise the window. Granted, many settings are not even available in Gnome, but the defaults + the things that ARE configurable create the perfect desktop for me where I am most efficient. Personally, I *really like* things to be configurable, but as it stands now, the less configurable Gnome provides me with a more usable desktop. Now that said, both KDE and Gnome are far, far more productive desktops for me than Windows or Mac OS X.
Re: KDE - Rithvik - 2003-04-09
Near exactly what I would have said. I love options to tweak. OK but the options shouldn't clutter the default screen. By default KDE has too many buttons and menu options. Menu options should be catagorised and some thought should be given for their arrangements, such as the one I had pointed out here ( http://dot.kde.org/1047362149/1047397444/ ), in addition to the problems pointed out by Ryan above. There are two types of first-time joe users, as far as I have noticed with some experiments on friends and family. The first is the user who wants everything readymade. "Where is the mailer. Where's the browser. Where's the ___. I want to see its icon. Oh Wow! there it is! This is cool!" He wants it readymade, immediately on his desktop. If there are menus to search, he gets frustrated. But in the end he somehow asks/finds out himself how to get a nice icon or launcher for his app on the desktop. Most powerusers and tweakers start out like this. He benefits immediately from a lot of icons by default on the desktop, and such a thing makes a ui his favourite. The other type is the intimidated type. If the desktop is having too many icons visible, confusion breaks out in the newbie and he won't touch the interface, finding some reason or another to stay away. On the other hand, a clean interface without too many options visible by default is friendly and will encourage him to search for more options and tweak if necessary. I thought my dad was in the second category, since he had never used a comp before. But I found he is in the first. No wonder he prefers KDE to WinXP and uses it entirely. He just went by the default settings from kpersonalizer and he is very happy with the desktop it presents. Everything he would use is right on kicker with nice icons to help. On the other hand I would assume many users of the older generation particularly, with an ingrained phobia for technology, are in the second catagory (some over-excited elderly gentlemen are strictly in the first tho :-). They wouldn't mind digging through the menu for options if needed, but first impression sticks with them, determining whether they would use or not use the system properly. I would assume there are many more people in the second category than the first. So I would say, keep the options out of the way. Keep too many buttons out of the way. No Preferences button sitting prominently on kicker by default. This doesn't mean taking off the options. We shouldn't assume newbies are all dumb. Everyone starts out the first time, ace developers included. If the newbie wants to tweak something, he will ask or find out himself. For this the help system should be more verbose than the current one. I started out as a newbie in the first category. I consider WinXP "productive" only if it has XSetup installed and I have tweaked it to my heart's content. People in the first category can help themselves. One thing though: the help system takes a lot longer to fire up than even konqueror rendering slashdot (it says 'parsing stylesheet' for quite some time). I think this is detrimental to newbies. I wouldn't complain about how sketchy and unhelpful the matter in the help itself is, since I know what answer I would get :). Make the help system more verbose and fast. As Far as KDE and GNOME are concerned. the current GNOME (2.2) has too few apps for it (many of the good apps are still gnome 1.4). On the other hand KDE apps are moving to keep pace rapidly with the current desktop. With all the integration available KDE is far more powerful, has many more apps and is more usable for me. Many more apps integrate on it. gnome and gtk apps with geramik, and favourite qt apps like lyx and scribus all seem to integrate in look with kde apps. Gnome apps seem to make less fuss running on kde than kde apps on gnome (with the very notable exception of nautilus. Who needs it anyway on kde? Konqueror makes less fuss on gnome than nautilus on kde).
Re: KDE - David Johnson - 2003-04-09
"Take konqueror for example. First of all, it defies convention and has a "Location" menu instead of "File", but then it's got several separate locations for options." Konqueror uses a location menu instead of a file menu because it deals with locations (URLs) instead of files. Perhaps the menu should be named "URL" instead. And I see only one place for settings, in the settings menu. There are other options of course, but they are for the current document, and are not persistant settings. Admittedly, Konqueror does not have a typical interface. But then again, Konqueror is not a typical application.
Re: KDE - Ryan - 2003-04-09
Ok, so they're all under the "Settings" menu, but the settings aren't organized in a reasonable manner. And there's other annoyances, such as how to set a particular bookmark folder as the bookmark toolbar folder. I figured it out, but I can't remember how to do it right now. As for the "Location" menu, that's just stupid. Why be different than every other web browser in such a little mundane manner. It's just annoying, and confusing to someone not familiar with KDE, the Internet, or computers. Email programs deal with email, not files, but is the File menu called "Email"? Those things aside, my other points regarding KDE configurability are more important, to me at least. I am much more efficient with Gnome due to those problems I mentioned. KDE forces me to move between mouse and keyboard, and do more alt-tabbing much more than Gnome. Like I said, I DO appreciate KDE's configurability, but I find Gnome's defaults better than I can configure KDE to be, unfortunately. Cheers
Re: KDE - GldnBlls - 2003-04-10
>Why be different than every other web browser in such a little mundane manner. >It's just annoying, and confusing to someone not familiar with KDE, the Internet, >or computers You mean like GNOME reversing the OK and cancel buttons, thereby making the entire desktop annoying and confusing? Funny, when they did that it was because they claimed usability experts said it was better, and that was more important that acting like most other desktops.
Re: KDE - Ryan - 2003-04-10
What the hell does GNOME have to do with anything? I think that decision was stupid and annoying too, but admittedly not near as stupid and annoying as Konq's "Location" menu. Don't get me wrong, I like KDE, and Konq. They're absolutely incredible examples of Free Software. I just prefer the GNOME desktop, because I can't configure KDE to use the behavior I require in order to be at my maximum efficiency. Also, please understand that I'm not complaining; I am simply giving my opinion, nothing more nothing less. For the record... I like KDE's configurability, but am not comfortable with some of KDE's behavior and disorganized options*. I dislike GNOME's lack of configurability, but the defaults + what configurability there is offer me the most efficiency. * I'll take disorganization if that's the price for configurability...
GNOME dialog buttons: stupid & annoying - ac - 2003-04-10
I just shutdown my computer by mistake because GDM decided to switch the order of the dialog of the buttons. This is not a joke. This really happened. That's more than just stupid and annoying. That's completed *retarded* and: *go to hell GDM, I'll use KDM thank you*. Yes, I removed GDM from my computer.
"Less" Is Why I Left GNOME - Sigsegv - 2003-04-09
I used to love and use GNOME. I still really like the look and feel -- especially of GNOME2. I just got fed up with the lack of configurability. I know how I like my GUI to act and with KDE I could get closer to that ideal than I could with GNOME2. I still prefer the look and feel of GNOME2, but I'd rather have a GUI that conforms to how I work than having to conform to the way developers think I should work. -sig
Re: "Less" Is Why I Left GNOME - Roland - 2003-04-09
Everytime the less-more debate comes up, there are at least one, but often several *real*, existing and breathing users who say that they left GNOME for KDE because it lost so much configurability. On the other hand we have zero "KDE is too complicated for me" to GNOME converts but millions of hypothetical users which the self proclaimed usability experts think they can attract. Flame me for pointing it out, but for me the needs of one single real user is more important than the needs of one million hypothetical, non-existant users living in fairyland.
Re: "Less" Is Why I Left GNOME - Mike Hearn - 2003-04-09
I would point out that just because they don't come and make a lot of noise on dot.kde.org, does not mean those people do not exist. I am one of them, for instance. Don't get me wrong, I like KDE too, but the clean feel of gnome2 appeals to me. And in fact I haven't found that I lost any configurability, or none that I recall caring about anyway. I think maybe KWin has more features, but it's an older program. Ironically, I find the gnome2 panel more flexible than the KDE one, I'm sure somebody will say you can do everything with kicker that you can with gnome-panel and maybe they are right, but it never felt that way to me. So, now there is at least 1, does that cancel out the original post? Well, no. You can't judge your userbase by who makes the most noise, in open source that equates to rule by minority, as people who are happy tend not to say anything unless they think of their desktop as a religion or something. You have to go by a mix of usability studies and best guesses.
Re: "Less" Is Why I Left GNOME - Louis-Philippe Brochu - 2003-04-09
Make that 2! I left KDE for Gnome a couple months ago. I still log into KDE once in a while cause i want to like it... but i always log back into Gnome cause it feels cleaner *to me*. I also find the Gnome panel more configurable than the KDE one. I want a small toolbar and the icons in KDE are too small IMO. Why do i have an up button at the top of Konqueror's context-menu when i'm browsing? Is this configurable? What are in these "more programs" menu entries in Kmenu? Another big thing for me it's the apps, i want consistency but the KDE apps are lagging IMHO to their Gnome counterparts. I much prefer Pan to Knode, Evolution to Kmail, Phoenix/Galeon/Epiphany to Konqueror, Gthumb to PixiePlus/GwenView/whatever. I also doesn't like the direction of KDE for the moment. I would like more original design as opposed to copying Windows features. I don't think Windows have better ergonomics (sp?) than MacOSX, BeOS or other... so i don't like to see a big K menu at the bottom left that almost have the same look, feel and options as the Windows start menu. The file manager being also the web browser, the open/save dialogs, etc.. I'm happy to see projects like Slicker which use new ideas... I find that very sad because i find KDE much more powerfull than Gnome, KIO-slaves vs gnome-vfs, KParts vs Bonobo, developping with Kdevelop vs Anjuta, C++ vs C, Qt vs GTK, Konqueror vs Nautilus, Klipper and Kget vs nothing!, etc...
Re: "Less" Is Why I Left GNOME - oGALAXYo - 2003-04-09
I tend to say that you haven't used KDE at all because of the way you write and what you write. > but i always log back into Gnome cause it feels cleaner *to me*. Clean ? http://www.gnome.org/~chrisime/random/ui/ > I also find the Gnome panel more configurable than the KDE one. That may be but do you configure your panels all the time ? If so then I call this a serious usability issue for GNOME because people usually configure the panel once - stuff all their apps and applets inside it. > I want a small toolbar and the icons in KDE are too small IMO. Why do i have an up button at the > top of Konqueror's context-menu when i'm browsing? Is this configurable? Yes, ever pressed right mousebutton on the Toolbar or the Settings menu entry. The 'Configure Toolbars' entry can't be written any bigger there. > Another big thing for me it's the apps, i want consistency but the KDE apps are lagging IMHO to > their Gnome counterparts. This is why I said that you never used KDE. When was the last time you ever used KDE ? Because your sentence is quite cut out of nowhere. KDE is probably the most consistent Desktop Environment existing on this Planet. > I much prefer Pan to Knode, Evolution to Kmail, Phoenix/Galeon/Epiphany to Konqueror, Gthumb > to PixiePlus/GwenView/whatever. This is personal taste. No doubt. But KDE offers applications that won't show up on GNOME for the next 1-2 years while KDE offers usable tools for these gaps already and developing new applications that also suits business and coporations needs better are already there on KDE or can easily be developed in a faster time because of OOP. > I also doesn't like the direction of KDE for the moment. At least it has a direction. What direction does GNOME have ? > I would like more original design as opposed to copying Windows features. I don't think Windows > have better ergonomics (sp?) than MacOSX, BeOS or other... so i don't like to see a big K menu > at the bottom left that almost have the same look, feel and options as the Windows start menu. > The file manager being also the web browser, the open/save dialogs, etc.. I'm happy to see > projects like Slicker which use new ideas... You should seriously install KDE 3.1 again and stop talking so much crap. > I find that very sad because i find KDE much more powerfull than Gnome, KIO-slaves vs > gnome-vfs, KParts vs Bonobo, developping with Kdevelop vs Anjuta, C++ vs C, Qt vs GTK, > Konqueror vs Nautilus, Klipper and Kget vs nothing!, etc... And one paragraph earlier you wrote how much you hate Konqueror because of it's Filemanager and Webbrowser capabilities.
Re: "Less" Is Why I Left GNOME - Louis-Philippe Brochu - 2003-04-09
>I tend to say that you haven't used KDE at all because of the way you write and >what you write. Yes i used KDE 1.x, 2.x, 3.0x and now 3.1.x. > Clean ? > > http://www.gnome.org/~chrisime/random/ui/ This article is right... but what point does it proves? Is KDE cleaner because of this? I want to use the best DE for Linux... be it KDE, Gnome, Rox, Afterstep, some new thing, etc... Please don't start the KDE vs Gnome war. I use both and i love and hate things in both environment. I could point several things i don't like about Gnome also (this article being one of them). However i feel more comfortable in Gnome for the moment but not by much. I would switch to anything better *for me*... > That may be but do you configure your panels all the time ? If so then I call > this a serious usability issue for GNOME because people usually configure the > panel once - stuff all their apps and applets inside it. Good point... but if i cannot make the panels do what i want it's a serious issue for me. The fact that i don't reconfigure my panels all the time isn't really important because the panels never worked for me. > Yes, ever pressed right mousebutton on the Toolbar or the Settings menu entry. > The 'Configure Toolbars' entry can't be written any bigger there. I'm sorry, i meant taskbar... i want a small taskbar (like Windows or Gnome 2) but i find the icons too small... "This is why I said that you never used KDE. When was the last time you ever used KDE ? Because your sentence is quite cut out of nowhere. KDE is probably the most consistent Desktop Environment existing on this Planet." You took my sentence out of context... and i should have been clearer. I want consistency so i want my apps to look and *behave* the same (no Geramik or Bluecurve won't cut it) as much as possible. I want to use native application, KDE apps in KDE and Gnome apps in Gnome. "This is personal taste. No doubt. But KDE offers applications that won't show up on GNOME for the next 1-2 years while KDE offers usable tools for these gaps already and developing new applications that also suits business and coporations needs better are already there on KDE or can easily be developed in a faster time because of OOP." I don't doubt any of this. Yes it's personnal taste, i'm just saying why i don't use KDE. Gnome is better than KDE for the type of applications *i* use IMHO. > At least it has a direction. What direction does GNOME have ? Again... what do i care??? You seem to have a personnal issue with Gnome... > You should seriously install KDE 3.1 again and stop talking so much crap. I think *you* should stop talking crap and feeling personnaly attacked. I have KDE 3.1.1 in front of me at this very moment. The big K is still there at the bottom left (by default) of the screen. The open/save dialog still look almost exactly like Windows. Konqueror still does both file manager and web browsers. So what is the crap i'm talking so much about??? I think you should definitively go out more and have a look at other OS and DE. There is not just KDE and Gnome you know! "And one paragraph earlier you wrote how much you hate Konqueror because of it's Filemanager and Webbrowser capabilities." Yeah and i don't see how i contradict myself at all. I said i don't like KDE imitating Windows by integrating the file manager and the web browser. I don't see anything to do with KDE's cool technology.
Re: "Less" Is Why I Left GNOME - oGALAXYo - 2003-04-09
> Please don't start the KDE vs Gnome war. I use both and i love and hate > things in both environment. I could point several things i don't like about > Gnome also (this article being one of them). However i feel more comfortable > in Gnome for the moment but not by much. I would switch to anything > better *for me*... Sure It wasn't meant to start a KDE vs GNOME war. > You took my sentence out of context... and i should have been clearer. I want > consistency so i want my apps to look and *behave* the same (no Geramik or > Bluecurve won't cut it) as much as possible. I want to use native application, > KDE apps in KDE and Gnome apps in Gnome. No problem. I sometimes trap myself with explainations where I have been not clear and it sometimes tend to be mistunderstood or give other people reason to start some flames. But back to the consistency issue. I think that GNOME is highly inconsistent. All the apps don't behave the same as you say. I brought up some reasons in above UI-Review and there are no serious signs to have these issues (more or less esthetical ones) fixed really soon. Some patches appeared on bugzilla.gnome.org but they usually end in discussions rather than in the CVS module. The argument with native applications I share as well. Have you ever tried sharing Bookmarks amongst GThumb, Nautilus, Galeon, Epiphany and other apps ? GNOME doesn't even offer a standards bookmark object. Or have you tried to share your Addressbook with other apps ? > I don't doubt any of this. Yes it's personnal taste, i'm just saying why i don't > use KDE. Gnome is better than KDE for the type of applications *i* use IMHO. ... > > At least it has a direction. What direction does GNOME have ? ... > Again... what do i care??? You seem to have a personnal issue with Gnome... ... > I think *you* should stop talking crap and feeling personnaly attacked. Look I don't feel offended at all, but you came up *first* with arguments that are simply not true. I only replied to your previous mail because I found them highly *wrong*. I only replied to the statements that you gave and haven't constructed new ones. And If you don't care at all, then you shouldn't comment.
Re: "Less" Is Why I Left GNOME - Louis-Philippe Brochu - 2003-04-09
> Sure It wasn't meant to start a KDE vs GNOME war. Cool cause i don't want it neither... "No problem. I sometimes trap myself with explainations where I have been not clear and it sometimes tend to be mistunderstood or give other people reason to start some flames. But back to the consistency issue. I think that GNOME is highly inconsistent. All the apps don't behave the same as you say. I brought up some reasons in above UI-Review and there are no serious signs to have these issues (more or less esthetical ones) fixed really soon. Some patches appeared on bugzilla.gnome.org but they usually end in discussions rather than in the CVS module. The argument with native applications I share as well." Gnome has other problem that bothers me much more than this however...why the copy-paste never works correctly... no equivalent to Krdc, etc... but that is another discussion. ;) I personnaly think the real "enemy" is Microsoft Windows... KDE and Gnome should both do everything they can to get better. Wouldn't be great to have not one but two great desktop environments on Linux (or should i say, Unix). Each one could have it's own focus, interface, way of doing things, etc... and share between them as much as it's possible without removing their individuality. "Have you ever tried sharing Bookmarks amongst GThumb, Nautilus, Galeon, Epiphany and other apps ? GNOME doesn't even offer a standards bookmark object. Or have you tried to share your Addressbook with other apps ?" No but i never wanted to. What i want is fast thumbnailing (Gthumb), better HTML engine for the site i visit (gecko instead of Khtml(Konqueror)). But your examples are clearly the reason i would like to switch to KDE. :) Printing is another neat thing in Konqueror that Galeon and Epiphany are clearly behind. "Look I don't feel offended at all, but you came up *first* with arguments that are simply not true. I only replied to your previous mail because I found them highly *wrong*. I only replied to the statements that you gave and haven't constructed new ones." Well i only expressed my opinions on KDE and why i don't use it as much as Gnome. I didn't want to generalize and saying that Gnome is better than KDE. (sorry if i made this impression) "And If you don't care at all, then you shouldn't comment." What i didn't care at all is that, IYO Gnome has no direction. As i said i'm not comparing KDE to Gnome. I'm just expressing my opinions about what could be done to KDE to make it even more usable... that i care very much because if i didn't i wouldn't have posted anything.
Re: "Less" Is Why I Left GNOME - Eliud - 2003-07-28
Yes, KDE looks great, but the latest stable version its soooo Slow, for my k6-2 450Mhz with 64MB RAM, Gnome its usable, XFCE its great. The Konqueror fail to login myway email account.. so, i prefer to login my email account to look "nice" Konqueror fail..and fail and fail.. Maybe I miss configure Konqueror, but I dont think so.(I try to use Knoppix for the end user and fail again).Mozilla/Galeon/Epiphany works after install in my favorite Linux Distros. I try to use Kmail, but its buggy, kword its nice, very nice but toooo far standars.. Congratulations to KDE for windowing, its great, also Quanta is the best free Web development tool, but all other apps, not so good :S ..
Re: "Less" Is Why I Left GNOME - cris - 2003-11-12
GNOME is better crafted than KDE. Thats true. KDE look good than GNOME, but looking good is not the important point in choosing a desktop. I've been a KDE fan before, but the moment i tried GNOME, i realize that its much better. The FIND utility of KDE sucks! Too slow compared to GNOME's. I tell you, i can develop a better FIND utility than that of KDE.
Re: "Less" Is Why I Left GNOME - Anonymous - 2003-11-12
> I tell you, i can develop a better FIND utility than that of KDE. I'm looking forward to your patches.
Re: "Less" Is Why I Left GNOME - ac - 2003-11-12
GNOME's find utility is only fast because they run this annoying medusa daemon that does file caching at boot time. Great another system daemon we needed to run.
Re: "Less" Is Why I Left GNOME - oGALAXYo - 2003-04-09
I absolutely agree with you here. Success is what people use and people decide and not a little community of people who aim to know it better. Let's wait and see what happens. We know more in 1-2 years.
Nice try - Michele - 2003-04-09
"""Are we (roughly) on the right course, or should we be trimming away options?""" I think this can just be called "trying to get some nice flames".
Re: Nice try - Richard Moore - 2003-04-09
Not really, but I am interested in stimulating discussion. Besides IIRC it's heading towards winter in the southern hemisphere, and we need to keep the LDE fans there warm. ;-) Rich.
Re: Nice try - Michele - 2003-04-10
OK. Discussion. Here is my opinion (Disclaimer: I have not read any comment in this forum other than yours): I am a GNOME user myself, and I love the road to simplicity they have chosen. Should KDE do the same? Absolutely not. KDE and GNOME are and should remain different things with different objectives. If the only difference between them becomes the brand and the toolkit used, there would be no point in having two. That said, I think that KDE needs to improve a lot in usability. I think that the control center and the default toolbars of most apps are too crowded and not really nicely organized, for example (GNOME has surely other things to improve, I'm not saying it's perfect!).
Not again - Martin - 2003-04-09
We had this discussion a few weeks ago. This time I'll cut it short. Don't make it too abstract like "Too many options are confusing" or something like that. Everybody in favour of less options just answer a simple question. Which exact option in KDE do you think is superflous, confuses the novice user and should be removed completely?
Re: Not again - anonymous - 2003-04-10
None. Here is my suggestion. If the authors of the program think that it would be beneficial to remove options, or even if they just want to give into the pressure, because that is easier for users, they should do something else rather than just remove them... Insted, they should distribute a seperate "control pannel" interface for newbies, and one for advanced users. People that want a dumbed down version, following the accepted standards of importance for each option, and the other give you everything. Then you could disable or enable the advanced control pannels. This isn't really as hard as it sounds, as only the windows that configure things would need to be replicated. It could be as simple as just using the same pannel they use now, but with widgets for removed options removed from it (and maybe slight re-formatting of the widgets, but depending on the complexity of the application, this could be different). I'm not saying have an advanced tab in each pannel, or an advanced menu in each application. I'm just saying that there could be 2 different control pannel interfaces. One that has all the bells and whistles, and one that can compete with GNOME's simplified (and sometimes nicer) interface. I don't even want to call it "Advanced' options. They should just be called extra options. Hell, you could even create a hierarchy that managed different levels of options, basic options, medium options, extended options... Newer applications in beta testing wouldn't have to offer the basic options. Just make it an enhancement to offer basic options. But as the application matures, people could decide to write a simple replacement for the config pannels with the standard basic features that 99% of the people need, and none of the options that .01% of the people use. In my opinion, I want all the features. But some features are less relevant than others to most users. This is why GNOME has taken the direction they have. They want to make the most relevant options available to the most relevant group of people. KDE may have all the options, but there may be some options that only .01% of the users ever thought to look at, and hardly ever use. Why should they be cluttering Joe User's interface and confuse him and make him do extra work (by reading all the options) each time he wants to configure his desktop. I'm not saying this is a solution for everyone. But there is no reason to REMOVE a configureation feature. Likewise, there is no reason to clutter an interface that could be much simpler for 99% of the people that don't need, or want that extra stuff to sort through.
More is better ... - star-flight - 2003-04-09
Many people use Photoshop because it is big and feature-rich. Maybe they don't need all features, maybe they don't understand Photoshop, but they use it: "Maybe I need this in the near future...". From this point of view less is more! I think, most people haven't the professional know-how to use all functionality in Photoshop - but they could learn it. This is the way of Linux freedom - individuality, flexibility, functionality.
Allways, More Is More... - antialias - 2003-04-09
... my girlfriend use to say ;-) Trimming away options? Trimming away freedom of choice? 1. Don't underestimate either you existing or your future users 2. KDE has nothing to fear, extra features don't make it unstable or slow. 3. Usability = enjoying working on your computer.
Thoughts - Mike Hearn - 2003-04-09
This is a fascinating debate for the community to have. IMHO, options/preferences fall into three categories: 1) Personal preference - there is no right or wrong here, it's purely a matter of taste. Single click vs double click, mouse pointer acceleration, theme selection, what sounds to make on events etc. These should be configurable of course. 2) What have charmingly been referred to by GNOME as "crack prefs". These are prefs that aren't really to do with personal preference for the majority, they work around bugs, or are configurable because making code to automatically adjust things was too hard/boring. Things like "Merge clipboards together" in Klipper or "Old style tab completion" in Gaim - ie a toggle to duplicate older, often broken behaviour. These prefs should probably not even exist, I don't really buy the argument that "some people are used to the old behaviour, we don't want to break their habits". Well, you know, if the old behaviour was changed that presumably means the new behaviour is thought to be better - asking people to adjust is not a high price IMO. See how many people bitching about the old broken clipboard? Now it's fixed, a few people were used to the old behaviour, most were simply thankful it's more sane now. Having a pref to please people who can't be bothered learning the proper behaviour seems silly. 3) Prefs that are somewhere in between. Things like "Make nautilus draw the desktop", should menus have tearoffs or timings for panel autohiding - there are legitimate reasons why some people would want to change these, but the vast majority probably don't care. In that case, the answer is not to remove these prefs but to put them somewhere out of the way so they don't clutter the UI and confuse newbies who might accidentally toggle an option and now wonder what they did. Both KDE and GNOME have underlying configuration mechanisms - best to put those kind of features into KConfig, GConf. That way the power users who want to tweak the timings of panel autohides (like i do) can, and yet the UI remains clean and efficient to use. There seems to be a lot of fuss about removing options and configurability - I'm pretty sure that's not what people are asking for. They want a cleaner GUI rather than to deny people choice, because giving every possible option its own GUI element leads to an explosion of tabs, trees, groupboxes and the whole thing becomes hard to navigate and find your way around. So, trimming options really means (imho) trimming GUIs for options - a subtle but important difference.
Re: Thoughts - will - 2003-04-09
Much of this seems reasonable if I understand it right. I would just like to say that I like this passage: >There seems to be a lot of fuss about removing options and configurability - I'm >pretty sure that's not what people are asking for. They want a cleaner GUI rather >than to deny people choice, because giving every possible option its own GUI >element leads to an explosion of tabs, trees, groupboxes and the whole thing >becomes hard to navigate and find your way around. Yes - a cleaner GUI indeed. If it can be combined with configurability (and as long as that isn't an excuse for being slack with the defaults) - then configurability is just great.
[OT] Glib? - AC - 2003-04-09
This is totally offtopic, but what's the story of KDE from CVS's glib dependency? As I understand it, KDE depends on aRts, which now depends on glib. But maybe other parts of KDE were thinking of adding glib too? I did a lot of searching and reading on lists.kde.org, and I found some discussion/flames about it from a few weeks ago, but I didn't find anything that resembled any sort of consensus being reached.
Some info for those not following the lists - Rayiner Hashem - 2003-04-09
aRts began to depend on glibc because somebody contributed a scheduler that used some glib utility routines. aRts itself isn't really a KDE application at all, and doesn't depend on any KDE libraries. glib is a small (500K) C library, and isn't much different from the STL in C++. From the mailing list: "And this phobia spreads to glib, which is NOT a GNOME technology per se, but just a convenience library with lotsa easy functions and an object system." It's just like the KDE folks using libxml2 for the back-end of the XML engine. Now, I don't think other parts of KDE will start using glib, because from what I gathered from the mailing lists, they don't want to add another dependency to KDE, especially one that the KDE developers are unfamilier with. In fact, aRts itself is moving towards becoming an optional componenet, so people who only have basic needs (notification messages, etc) can use something else. This goes back to a whole debate earlier in the mailing lists about replacing aRts with something else like Jack (the sound server, most pro audio people are moving too). It's all really interesting stuff -- if you want to learn more, check out the kde-devel list.
Re: Some info for those not following the lists - AC - 2003-04-09
So the short version is basically "KDE depends on glib indirectly, just get used to it. Maybe you'll have the option of using a lighter-weight sound server in the future"? Oh well. Maybe I'll go install glib now...
Re: Some info for those not following the lists - ac - 2003-04-09
You can use ARTS_1_1_BRANCH without glib!
Re: Some info for those not following the lists - nac - 2003-04-09
Don't whine, be happy that your desktop works..
Complexity shouldn't impact ease of use - Rayiner Hashem - 2003-04-09
I'm a big fan of KDE. It's my only desktop, and has been for almost a year. What I see as the major problem is not that KDE has too many options (Windows has lot's of options too) but that the interface is cluttered. Take the right-click menus in Konqueror. It has 18 items in it, and doesn't even have cut/copy/paste! That makes it completely useless. It should have, at most, 5 or 6. A right-click menu is supposed to be a quick, context-sensitive access feature. It's not supposed to be a replacement for the standard menubar. Then take all the icons and toolbars in the default view. Konqueror comes with something like 3 toolbars by default. That's far too many, and each toolbar is far too cluttered. I've got mine narrowed down to one toolbar with 6 buttons and an address bar. I've got the menu set to auto-hide, and I almost never have to bring anything else in. The default desktop and default taskbar is so cluttered with icons that it's almost useless. I hate seeing screenshots of KDE in action, because the inevitably use something like the default look, and present a very different view of what it can look like if you do some customizations to it. If the KDE usability group would just take a weed-trimmer to some of the icons-bars and context menus, without removing a single feature, then the interface situation would be greatly improved. Until then a debate about "features vs ease-of-use" is really non-sensical.
Re: Complexity shouldn't impact ease of use - Michael Dean - 2003-04-09
This is where I disagree. I like the way the context menus and toolbars are set up in KDE. In fact, I LOVE KDE the way it is. However, everyone has different tastes. If anyone doesn't think there is "clutter" and "complexity" in Windows, go boot it up and take a good look at MS Office and MS Visual Studio.NET (which, by the way, has an interface I think KDevelop should borrow from). Visual Studio.NET has so many options, they've started putting them in pop-up windows that appear when you hover the mouse over their category buttons. I've heard this debate too many times lately, complexity or simplicity. Why don't we just give the users what THEY want. Imagine this: /************************************************************************/ typedef enum { basic = 0, intermediate, advanced, developer // :) the most advanced type of user :D } options_level; typedef enum { boolean, numeric, percent, text } option_type; // just off the top of my head... // Function for adding a configuration option template<typename T> bool AddOption(options_level level, option_type type, T option_default_value, QString option_name, QPicture option_icon, QString option_category); /****************************************************************************/ Should be pretty self explanatory. The option_category would be for the name of the tab the option falls under in an application with many configuration options. The template is there because of the different data types needed for option_default_value. It could be done with or without a template. The resulting code after compilation should be about equally good either way. In a nutshell, what I'm trying to say is, make a simple interface for adding configuration options to an application, each of which has a complexity level attached to it. Create a standard dialog to read off the options and display only the options which fall under the system wide complexity level set by the user or lower. In other words, if the user's system is set to basic (which would be the default, beginner setting), only display the options tagged as basic. If the system is set to intermediate, show intermediate and basic options. If set to advanced, show advanced, intermediate, and basic. If set to developer, show everything the advanced level shows, plus show the settings put in for development, debugging and testing of the software. Toolbars, context menus, and desktop icons can (and should) all be set to conform to the complexity level setting. The API would include all the functionality necessary for adding these items with a complexity level attached. This way, everyone gets the complexity level they want, plus it has the added bonus of letting people who know how to program contribute more easily to the software, because they have the test harness right there if and when they want it. If people (programers) have access to the pieces which are normally removed before the end user sees them, it can inspire them to work on the project. How? Simple. When you get to play with what's already there, it makes you realize how much fun you could have contributing to the project. I would be willing to write all the code for this if people would be willing to use it. To me it seems like a good idea. What I fear the most is KDE getting "simplified" to the point it becomes another Windows XP. A lot of people seem to like XP, but I hate it because they replaced practically everything with those stupid, so-called-user-friendly, ****ing wizards. I HATE those. They make setting up my computers on my home network, etc etc, so much harder for me to do, instead of easier. Sure, the 80+ options for networking you had before would usually be too difficult to figure out for someone who's never done it before. However, for someone like me who's done it the old way a million times, I WANT THOSE OPTIONS. I don't trust some "wizard" to set it up the way I want. I want to tweak the settings to make it work exactly the way I want it to work, not the way Microsoft wants it to work. I don't want that to happen to KDE. I don't want to lose the flexibility I have with KDE. That flexibility is a LARGE contributer to why I like KDE so much, just as lack of flexibility has a lot to do with why I do NOT like GNOME.
Re: Complexity shouldn't impact ease of use - Louis-Philippe Brochu - 2003-04-09
"This is where I disagree. I like the way the context menus and toolbars are set up in KDE. In fact, I LOVE KDE the way it is. However, everyone has different tastes. If anyone doesn't think there is "clutter" and "complexity" in Windows, go boot it up and take a good look at MS Office and MS Visual Studio.NET (which, by the way, has an interface I think KDevelop should borrow from). Visual Studio.NET has so many options, they've started putting them in pop-up windows that appear when you hover the mouse over their category buttons." Don't you think that 18 options in a context menu is acceptable? (come on, i mean 18 options!). Why do we need so many options "by default"? I'm not saying that we should remove them forever. Make a default option with a reasonable amount of options and make the other options configurable. The newbie will have a clean interface and the power user just have to go in Kconfig and add the options they want.
Re: Complexity shouldn't impact ease of use - Roland - 2003-04-09
What's wrong with 18 options? When you open a context menu, you usually only want to choose from that menu - this means that you don't need anything else - which means that in theory the menu could use the full screen. Actually, the icons right beside the options make the options easy to find too.
Re: Complexity shouldn't impact ease of use - Louis-Philippe Brochu - 2003-04-09
"What's wrong with 18 options?" If you mean, what's wrong with being able to configure the menu with 18 options... well nothing. If you want to make your context menu to fill the entire screen it's good to me. If you mean, what's wrong with 18 *default* options in the context menu, well IMHO it's very wrong. It looks cluttered, it takes time to find the option you want, it's confusing and slower to display, etc.. By this logic, why stop to 18 options... why not 30, 40... no, just include them all! It's like saying, instead of cleaning up your desk, putting most used things in easily accessible places and putting stuff you almost never use in drawers... why not just dropping it all on your desk... just in case you need something. If you include 18 options in your context menu, at least, allow me to do my own cleanup to remove some of them. "When you open a context menu, you usually only want to choose from that menu - this means that you don't need anything else - which means that in theory the menu could use the full screen." Well when i open a context menu i want to see options that apply in the context of the object i clicked. If i need other frequently used options i go to the toolbar, if i want rarely used options i go into the menus. Everything is clean and efficient. "Actually, the icons right beside the options make the options easy to find too." It helps but this shouldn't be a workaround for a poorly designed menu.
Re: Complexity shouldn't impact ease of use - Roland - 2003-04-09
"It's like saying, instead of cleaning up your desk, putting most used things in easily accessible places and putting stuff you almost never use in drawers... why not just dropping it all on your desk... just in case you need something." Well I disagree, you don't need anything other than the context menu, so I don't see why some extra options would hurt you. Imagine a small menu with 6 options, how would a menu with 12 appended options make this menu less usable?
Re: Complexity shouldn't impact ease of use - Louis-Philippe Brochu - 2003-04-10
It's exactly like my previous example, a crowded desk. You have so many options you can't really find the ones you're looking for. Why don't include 50 options in the menu? Why not 200? You just ignore the one you don't want. Is that it? IMHO, 200 options is too many, as is 50 options and 18 options. In fact you're telling me why i want to remove options but you didn't tell me, why not? If we give the choice both type of users will be satisfied, the newbies won't have too many options to choose from and the power users will add the options they want. It's even better than the current situation, power users are currently stuck with the predefined choices.
Re: Complexity shouldn't impact ease of use - Roland - 2003-04-10
"In fact you're telling me why i want to remove options but you didn't tell me, why not?" Because these options are fast accessible - but maybe you should first explain why before we handle why-not? Anyway. Let me explain a little: A context menu pops up with the mouse pointer being at the top-left corner. That means the first option will be right at the mouse pointer, the second a little more farther away, etc. etc. Also a new user will scan the options from the top, so no matter if there are 5, 10 or 300 options, if his feature is the third, he will find it in an equal time (* exception - see below) More options don't disturb the first options. OK, now there is a problem when your menu is too long that it no longer fits between mouse and lower screen edge, KDE draws the menu so that the mouse pointer is at bottom-left. This is bad because your motor-memory fails. Currently, on my installation, the menu works fine on 3/4 of the screen, which is OK, IMO. With resolutions getting higher and screens bigger, I don't see a reason not to put more options into context menus.
Re: Complexity shouldn't impact ease of use - Louis-Philippe Brochu - 2003-04-10
"Because these options are fast accessible - but maybe you should first explain why before we handle why-not?" yes you are right, that what i'm trying to do "Anyway. Let me explain a little: A context menu pops up with the mouse pointer being at the top-left corner. That means the first option will be right at the mouse pointer, the second a little more farther away, etc. etc. Also a new user will scan the options from the top, so no matter if there are 5, 10 or 300 options, if his feature is the third, he will find it in an equal time (* exception - see below) More options don't disturb the first options." Well i disagree on this, i think this issue is more complicated than that. There are various elements that will affect legibility, spaces between elements, icons , separators, etc. Also if we put so many options in the menus we cannot really put the most options frequently used in the top. For example, in a browser you want the first context menu to be back but you don't want forward because it's more rarely used. If you put the back option first and the forward at position 10 for example, you have a really bad and confusing behavior. If you put it with the back option you've just did the opposite of what you said. There is no easy ways to do it without removing completely options from the default. "OK, now there is a problem when your menu is too long that it no longer fits between mouse and lower screen edge, KDE draws the menu so that the mouse pointer is at bottom-left. This is bad because your motor-memory fails." That another problem, what resolution do you use? If a user runs in 640x480 and his menu fill the screen were back to the same point. "Currently, on my installation, the menu works fine on 3/4 of the screen, which is OK, IMO. With resolutions getting higher and screens bigger, I don't see a reason not to put more options into context menus." Well we obviously disagree on this issue. A context-menu for me is just that, a menu that shows the context for the item i just clicked. I don't understand why you don't click on the main menu bar if you want so many options instead of right-clicking. The problem is that right now we don't have choice. We have toolbar editing where we have sensible default and each has the ability to customize them. We don't have this for the context-menu and i'm not really sure about the sensible default. For example, why do we have the first context-menu item to be "up" in Konqueror (in web browser mode)?
Re: Complexity shouldn't impact ease of use - Rayiner Hashem - 2003-04-10
The human brain isn't very good at memorizing complex structures without points of reference. In a 6 option menu, it's rather easy. You've got two options anchored to the top. Two in the middle. Two at the bottom. You're brain can easily hold 6 things in memory at the same time. As you use the interface, you'll start to memorize the contents of these menus, and can just select the one you want without actually reading any options or looking at any icons. This makes things very fast. Once you hit 18 entries, you overflow your mental caches, so to speak, and efficiency plummets. Windows is the absolute worst interface to emulate with respect to interface complexity. The menus in most Office apps suck (at least they all have properties at the very bottom, though). Use something better like MacOS or BeOS for comparison. Heck, even the 3D CAD software I use for engineering classes only has 6 or 7 entries in it's context menus!
Re: Complexity shouldn't impact ease of use - Funk - 2003-04-24
Maybe you guys can tell us which options should be removed from the context menus? Since I cannot find a single unneccessary option, also I tend to add some extra scripts myself. Make the 18 options into 6? how? bzip2 does not work on gui objects I did not even notice them being more than 18, since the drop down menu doesn't even take up ½ of my screen. Maybe you oughta be decreasing your font size and/or getting a higher resolution display. I'm not gonna start looking through manuals for keyb. shortcuts to these options.
Re: Complexity shouldn't impact ease of use - Rayiner Hashem - 2003-04-10
Dude. There are these little things called "keyboard shortcuts." Context menus (right-click menus) are supposed to be short and easy to scan. You should be able to digest the whole thing in once glance. If you have to scan through the damn thing to find what you want, it would be quicker to move your mouse over to the real menubar, which is better organized and easier to search. (ALT is your friend!) I have no problem with leaving "bloated menus" as an option for people who want to use the right-click menu as a replacement for shortcuts and the menubar, but useful context menus should be the default. As it stands, you can't even change the right-click menus. At least the toolbars you can customize. Besides, it's not like you're losing anything by simplifying the context menus. You're supposed to use the actual menubar for less often-used features. Everything is still available from there. It's not like you have to open the registry (yes, this is a jab at GConf, which even a long time Linux user like me finds hard to use) to change things!
Re: Complexity shouldn't impact ease of use - David Johnson - 2003-04-10
"It has 18 items in it, and doesn't even have cut/copy/paste!" It does if the context warrants it, like when you right click over something that is copyable, such as a file icon or selected text. "Konqueror comes with something like 3 toolbars by default. That's far too many" To each his own. My personal preference is 3 toolbars. One for the navigation/view buttons, one for the location bar, and one for the bookmark toolbar. Remove any one of them and my personal usability goes out the window. "The default desktop and default taskbar is so cluttered with icons that it's almost useless." For the panel, you may be correct. After every KDE install I end up removing the help and control panel icons. But as for the default desktop, talk to your distro! The default KDE desktop has *TWO* icons on it! "If the KDE usability group would just take a weed-trimmer to some of the icons-bars and context menus" Considering the plethora of icons on your desktop, perhaps you should take a weed-trimmer to your distro's packaging department instead...
Re: Complexity shouldn't impact ease of use - Rayiner Hashem - 2003-04-10
It does if the context warrants it, like when you right click over something that is copyable, such as a file icon or selected text. >>>>>>>>>>>>>> I'm running KDE 3.1.1, and I just tried to copy and post the above quote from the page. There is no copy or paste. There is a "Show Menubar" and "Copy to Root Directory" though... Copy/Paste only appears in a text box like the one I'm typing in now. To each his own. My personal preference is 3 toolbars. One for the navigation/view buttons, one for the location bar, and one for the bookmark toolbar. Remove any one of them and my personal usability goes out the window. >>>>>>>>>>> Take a look at a Safari screenshoot. This is how the default setup should look. Me setup is even more streamlined. I find I have no use for the bookmarks bar (that's what ALT-B is for :) so I've got only one toolbar. Now, nobody is trying to take away your ability to customize your menu bars. You can have half a dozen toolbars if you want to. But the default should be what makes sense for most users. Considering the plethora of icons on your desktop, perhaps you should take a weed-trimmer to your distro's packaging department instead... >>>>>>>>>> Actually, I don't have any icons on my desktop. I hate desktop icons. I either use the menu, or keyboard shortcuts for common apps.
Flexbility rules! - SHiFT - 2003-04-09
for example: i run mldonkey on my remote server, and in order to get ed2k: urls qued in it for download when i click on them in konq, i utilized a special perl script privided with mldonkey, can you do such thing with Explorer ? (i mean, without compiler!)
Re: Flexbility rules! - Mike Hearn - 2003-04-09
Actually yes, as far as I know. You need a scripting language that supports COM on Windows (almost all big ones do), and you need to implement some of the COM interfaces as defined on MSDN for parsing URLs and then retreiving data from them. It's a very powerful interface. We're thinking of using it at work for some things.
KDE Configuration rules. - norman - 2003-04-09
KDE has a huge load of configuartion modules which makes admining my box a breeze! The adminstration modules have been really useful, allowing me to configure linux without having to go in to the horrors of text files. Gnome 2.2 is awful. You can't change the colour scheme of widgets, the button order of window frames, or be able to have a clock set in another time zone. Nautilus dosen't allow split pane view, the dialogue boxes are backwards ([no, yes], [cancel], [ok]) Gnome dosen't i18nise very well, It is just full of nasty americanisations, which isn't good for non-americans that use linux. Overall, kde is already easy enough to use, it just needs to iron out the bugs and optimise itself a bit more. The kde 3.1.9 cvs alredy is 99% usable, and I really hope it's perfect in kde 3.!
sweeping statements? - Aaron J. Seigo - 2003-04-09
some have already touched on this, but i don't think it can be emphasized enough: there are no blanket statements regarding option complexity that if applied equally everywhere in the desktop will automatically make the desktop "better". there are different users with different needs. there are different types of applications with different goals, aims and audiences. there are different tasks people undertake in different ways. there are different technologies with different limitations and allowances. this means that sometimes simpler is better, but that sometimes it isn't. it means that sometimes all that needs to really happen is to tweak the defaults, or reorganize the UI, or rethink some poorly thought out decisions or ... when i hear people recommend sweeping generalizations, it makes me think that they haven't really drilled into the problem space very deep, are unwilling to, or simply fail to grasp the breadth of the challenge. when i hear people say that a certain approach works wonders for one platform (while excusing its shortcomings due to that same approach in the next breath), it makes me think that i'm glad we have choice so they can be happy too. =) that said, there is a lot of work left to do in KDE. anyone who would like to have fun doing some work improving KDE is always welcome =) and rather off-topic: it just occured to me how long it's been since a major service outage here at theDot. kudos to the people providing hosting and doing hte administration for this site!
Re: sweeping statements? - Derek Kite - 2003-04-10
What makes me very nervous about this whole discussion is that somehow some 'expert' is going to solve the problem. Experts have created the software world that exists. Where only 20-50% of the ERP installations actually work. Apple's contribution to ease of use was to make a crash into a cute 'bomb'. Kde is almost infinitely configurable. If some wise and enterprising person wants to sell a software package based on kde, and make it less configurable, they are welcome to it. It is very easy, since the configuration manager is configurable. Derek
Organized Complexity - MH Dixon - 2003-04-09
Complexity in KDE will not be a problem as long as its desk top is suffficiently organized that those who don't want more complex features are not forced to deal with them and those who do want them know where they can be found. Attaining this level of organization will require (1) the input of folks who we want to use the desk top, including non-geeks, and (2) good manuals. Ease of use and lots of features are not mutually exclusive.
Auto-Reducing Menus - Jim - 2003-04-09
During this discussion something comes to my mind: Anybody knows the M$ Word menus which have only the "most important" entries when you first click and when you need more you have to click on an arrow. IMO this definitively belongs into the UI hall of shame. But it shows where all this discussion about hiding and removing options might lead to. Everyone of my friends and colleagues (novices and pro's alike) turn this off immediately after installing Office. Why? Because even novices need at least one of those hidden functions. They don't understand why it's not in the menu. What has this to do with the discussion? Well, even Microsoft cannot reliably remove functions from the menu without removing at least one function which is needed even by a novice. The problem is: What is an unnecessary function. Not even M$ can tell after I bet hours of usability research. We need a lot of options not because everyone needs all those options but because everyone needs a different one. It would be even worse than searching in a long menu to search in a shorter menu and don't find what you want! Why are big malls successful? Wouldn't a small shop which sells bread, water and butter of one single brand be enough? It wouldn't be so confusing. Hell, no! Nobody needs everything a big shopping mall offers but everyone needs a single item. The key here is not to reduce the number of goods offered but to make it as easy as possible to find them. The dream that a computer will be as simple as a toaster will stay a dream just because people expect from a computer to do a lot more. And they even put the money where the complexity is: Look at Corel Draw, Photoshop and others. They are all successful because of their vast spectrum of functions and nobody cares if they actually need them.
Re: Auto-Reducing Menus - anonymous - 2003-04-10
Those aren't pre-defined. The office menues first popup a cache, and if you click the down arrow at the bottom, gives you the whole menu. Those items are just the most recently used items. They go away after a long time of no use. It is a very good idea, however sometimes things expire before you want them to. In such cases, it might be nice to keep track of when people lose the item, and have to go find it again. If that happens often, the item should stay in the cache longer than it had previously. Since there is no limit to the size of this cache (other than the max size of the menu) there will not be any technical difficulties in this implementation. The problem with office is that its settings for its cache aren't configurable, and so it comes as more of an annoyance, than a helper.
Re: Auto-Reducing Menus - AC - 2003-04-10
I think you missed the two biggest problems with the menu-autohiding: 1. A large share of the time people spent in the menus is spent for searching an item, and this is much more difficult with auto-hide menus. When you know know where the item is, auto-hide won't help you much, and 2. it may be even more difficult to find a known item if it's position can change due to the frequency of its use. So auto-hide hurts both use cases.
Re: Auto-Reducing Menus - Aaron J. Seigo - 2003-04-11
> Anybody knows the M$ Word menus which have only the "most important" > entries when you first click and when you need more you have to click > on an arrow. IMO this definitively belongs into the UI hall of shame. > But it shows where all this discussion about hiding and removing options > might lead to. over my dead body. ;-) we've discussed this exact thing several times on the usability list and it's a dead issue. these won't be coming to KDE anytime soon (probably never)
Re: Auto-Reducing Menus - stunji - 2003-04-11
That is THE most ANNOYING feature that Microsoft has EVER come up with!
Options = ease of use - John Goodman - 2003-04-09
I really like kde precisely because of all the options. I find that anything I want to do is easily possible. When I use gnome I find I have to really hunt for things like just making hidden files visible. (Do like extract files into subfolder though.) I do see the argument that it appears cluttered but it seems to me that you could just make it easier to show or hide tool bars and maybe even menu entries. Then people who want a distribution thats limited can have it. For me I want my computer to be workable for me that means I need to be able to configure it not be stuck without options. John
Some quick fixes - Rayiner Hashem - 2003-04-10
Instead of trying to pull a GNOME, let's think about some quick, easy things that could be done to make things less complex, without actually removing features. 1) Make context-menus configurable. Toolbars are already configurable, so why not context menus? Both are just shortcuts for the "canonical" menubar anyway. Most of the KDE interfaces items are in XML files anyway, so this should be comparatively easy. 2) Make a standard set of "view configurations." The "super-simple" view configuration can leave all but the essentials out of context menus and toolbars. The "kitchen-sink" configuration could just copy the menubar to a context menu... 3) Make it easy to distribute view configurations. I'm thinking that many people will have similar sets of preferences. Once a particular user has their KDE setup up just as they like, they can distribute it on kdelook.org or something. 4) Get rid of "more programs" in the KMenu. Maybe it's just my distro (Gentoo) but it's a totally useless name for a catagory. 5) Take some time to nicely organize the default panel! It's just haphazard as it is, and first impressions matter. I'd suggest my setup (taskbar 75% width at top, icon bar 75% width on left, system tray, clock, and quick-access icons 75% width on bottom) but that's probably too pyschotic. How about (from left to right): KMenu, some space to differentiate it from other icons (this is currently lacking), Konqueror, Home, Help, Taskbar, System Tray, Clock. This is a pretty vanilla, mainstream setup. Most users are going to change things around anyway, but the default should at least be usable. 6) Have Konqueror take some tips from Kate about menu layout. Kate's menus are very nicely laid out, with good use of sperators.
Let the distro decide! - srb - 2003-04-10
Let us have all the options, and let the distro/localsysadm do the work of trimming away options they dont think the user should mangle with. KDE is definitely on the right track by providing lot of options together with a framework for central locking down of these features. This way the responsible (be it the creater of a distro or a sysadm) can decide how the system should look. One distro can provide a very luserfriendly environment, another can cater for the "I want my desktop to be so different nobody else knows how to use it, but I can start vi by pressing <space>" kind of people, suit-and-tie business can adopt a very tight "only one wallpaper allowed" kind of enviroment. Everybody is happy.
Different subsets - Andreas - 2003-04-10
Although it is true that most users only use a small subset of the features of big software systems (there is that number that 80% of the users need only 20% of the functionality) we must realize that this subset is different for different users. One uses mostly list functions in his word processor to manage his club, another one does mostly frames to do character sheets for his role-playing group, another does mostly plain letters, another intergrates a lot of graphics into his documents. Different users use different feature subsets. If this is true (which I believe, because it is my own and my friends and co-workers expierience) taking away functionality is very bad. This shoud be no option. Taking away complexity while not cutting away functionality is good but very very difficult. I fear there is no easy way or standard approach to accomplish that.
Hidden configurations makes desktop less easy - rinse - 2003-04-11
Hi, Mij ¤ 0,02 about the subject: My opinion is that hiding options from the average user makes the desktop harder to use.. Small example which I encountered a few times this year: A KDE user fires up Nautilus. Since Nautilus can draw the Gnome desktop, it does this also when started under KDE. Result: the user has a crippled desktop session since he does not know how to switch of the Nautilus Desktop. However the desktop is optional and can be shut off in Nautilus, so that mr Average User can use Nautilus when running another desktop environment. But guess what: This can't be done in the configuration of Nautilus, the user should use either a commandline string like this: gconftool-2 --type boolean --set /apps/nautilus/preferences/show_desktop false or install gconfig and try to figure out how to tell Nautilus not to draw the desktop. Most Users I know delete their entier KDE and Gnome configuration, or even their Linux account, to get rid of this error, they usualy are not aware how they should configure this. Hiding options from the GUI, and forcing users to go in to simekind of registry is not wat I call 'user friendly'. Most average users will find the desktop inflexible. A better way in my opinion is to make all options available to the user through a consistend lineair GUI. Options that are not a lot used by average desktop users should be placed in tabs like 'advanced' etc, but not hidden somewere under the hood. Rinse
Some CONCRETE thoughts - anonymous - 2003-04-11
I am a new user of GNOME 2.2 and KDE 3.1. I like them both. Here are my thoughts on KDE. * It took me two days before I found out that you can enable single-click navigation in Konqueror. I remember in KDE 2 that this was the default behaviour, and when I started using KDE 3.1 I just figured that this option had been removed. It never occured to me to look under "mouse". I only bothered to look under all the file-manager configuration screens. * Menus. I can see the rationale for having the first menu not be called "File", but from a keyboard navigation standpoint, I always think of "alt-f" as opening that first menu. This threw me off in KDE. * I really like Konqueror. The only thing I didn't like is the sidebar. It has too many buttons in it. It seemed daunting and confusing. * Transparent menus. This is probably a QT or XRENDER issue, but when the image underneath the menu chages, the "transparent" menu doesn't show that change. The result of course is less than impressive. * I really like the search tab in the kde configurator. * The launch feedback where the launched program's icon is put near the mouse pointer is *really* ugly. * Sound System control panel has no way of notifying the user that arts didn't get to use a realtime priority. Do not construe these nitpicks as total criticism of KDE; on the whole I am *very* impressed with it.
Re: Some CONCRETE thoughts - Sad Eagle - 2003-04-11
Re: Single click Single click is still a KDE default (unless you tell KDE to emulate Windows or such in kpersonalizer), but at least two distributions (RH, MDK) decided they'll 'help' their users by choosing double-click for them. All good points, BTW.. And good that you found the search tab - unfortunately too many people miss it, while it can help out a lot for locating the settings one is looking for..
Re: Some CONCRETE thoughts - anonymous - 2003-04-11
Ah, thanks for the info! Debian or the admins here must have set double click as the default then.
Re: Some CONCRETE thoughts - Morty - 2003-04-11
MDK has always used single click, and still does if YOU don't say otherwise ( a option in mdk-firsttime?).
Re: Some CONCRETE thoughts - Henry - 2003-06-24
I upgraded to Mandrake 9.1 and got double click without requesting it. Indeed I came across this post trying to find out how to restore single click. So we clearly have a different experience.
It kills me to go back to windows/gnome - Mike Wolf - 2003-04-11
I feel so connected to my kde desktop....with so many choices on how to do things... that best suits the user / task it kills me to go back to gnome / windows... where im limited.
Let the user itself decide the options - Nils Valentin - 2003-04-12
Hi there, I dont want to go to much into details what is better less or more, but what I want to say is that you should make a matrix for yourself of ... lets say 5 users - general GUI user, - mostly CLI user (admin) - Designer - Gamer (most or even all options ;-) Depending if you want to get your work done or if you want to play with the settings until you get tired. You should make some levels again. f.e. 1-5 and with the choosen usertype the options set in the level will be enabled. I believe that Mandrake has done this in quit a nice way for the security settings. They also used a preset of user profiles. Beste regards Nils Valentin Tokyo/Japan
Most used functions first - Nils Valentin - 2003-04-12
One more idea came into my mind. Generally speaking I think the most used functions should came first in a menu. So the menu should not be static but change dynamically. A software should count how often or in which interval some functions are used (save, open , copy , paste etc.). Once the software counted the frequency with which the function is used in then moves according to a made matrix up or down in a menu. Best regards Nils Valentin Tokyo/Japan
More features, less fluff - Spark - 2003-04-14
See title. This is really all it comes down to... Make software that is flexible and powerful for users (including developers), but that doesn't include ten different options to design how a button should look like or where it should appear. Software doesn't become more powerful by adding more options, it becomes more powerful by adding new features. Preferences and options are a neccessary evil that should be handled with care. Having certain preferences quickly available is important, so they shouldn't be buried inside of a lot of completely useless preferences. If you can solve this problem (via clever UI layout, "advanced" buttons, etc), maintain perfect stability and polish _and_ not fall for the trap to provide a "tradeoff" option instead of fixing a interface problem, then yeah, go on! I think nobody says that this would be a bad thing, KDE just isn't really there yet. Personally I see the "think twice about every preference" mantra of Gnome more as a guideline to avoid such mistakes and to force developers to be disciplined and actually design their interface to work well, instead of basically telling the user to do it himself. Of course you can take it too far and "dumb down" applications or simply forget about really important preferences. However, in general it should be desirerable to solve a problem instead of adding a preference to it. A small example: In Gaim <0.6, you had a preference to show button backgrounds or not. This was disabled by default which looked good in IM windows but horrible in dialogs. When enabled, it looked horrible in IM windows. Now in 0.6, this preference is gone, but instead all buttons in dialogs have backgrounds and those in the IM windows don't. Thus a preference could be removed by fixing the application. Much better! I feel that Gaim has improved a lot in usability but that doesn't mean that it was dumbed down. The opposite seems to be true, there might be more FUNCTIONALITY then ever. There are still many preferences but this time most of them (not all) are really useful and they are nicely sorted and easy to located. I was able to setup Gaim completely to my liking (which is rather special when it comes to IM) in a matter of a few minutes. Perfect! Looking back to the article, it just shows how easily people confuse preferences with actual functionality. The author uses the accessable "show hidden files" preference in Konqueror as a good example for configurability but in fact, it has nothing to do with it. This time it's a real valuable feature to have this preference available from the main application (not buried into a preferences window). So Konqueror's way is superiour, but not because a preference was removed from Nautilus, but because of an open bug: http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=43472 This really needs to get fixed one day. :)