In this week's KDE Commit-Digest: Beginnings of a list view, and an applet browser integrated into Plasma. Optimisations in Konqueror. More work, including image practice support in Parley. XMP metadata support in Digikam, with new splashscreens announced. Work on playlists in Amarok 2. The Noatun music player becomes a KPart, with musings on its KDE 4 future. Further work on Phonon, with developments on the GStreamer backend. KNetworkManager is ported to work with NetworkManager 0.7. Deep refactoring in the Eigen 2 library rewrite. Kickoff is ported to KDE 4 as a candidate menu replacement option. A plan is hatched to get Kopete ready for the KDE 4.0 release. Import of the KBreakout game to playground/games in KDE SVN. Final moves in the recent KDE SVN reorganisation effort. The KDE Bug Tracker starts to be upgraded to Bugzilla 3.0.
Comments
I prefer choice. I am happy to see Kickoff ported to KDE4, but I hope in the end users will be able to choose from a standard KMenu, Kickoff and KBFX such as they currently can.
Kickoff is the best looking of the three, but I find it slows me down since it takes to long to navigate. It got to be that I avoided the menu altogether when I had Kickoff installed, and just used Alt+F2 all the time.
Tasty Menu?
thankyou, I did not know this exists :-) - looking at the screenshot, this is what I have in mind: there are the favorites and search (the key features of Kickoff) without destroying the application menu (although I do not like the interface but it is just cosmetics)
Leaving aside discussion of what is better, I was wondering if maybe kickoff was placed in as a option in KDE 4.0, because the Plasma menu won't be enought mature to ship?
You know, there are a lot of development in Plasmoids, so it's probally hard for the few developers to focus very well in a complex part as the menu is, having also to code clock, taskbar, quick-launch, desktop, virtual desktop switcher...
There are a LOT of things for plasma to code, so it probally makes sense to offer alternatives while it reaches a good point of usability. And for what I know, kicker isn't being developed anymore.
I agree with all the critics about Kickoff, it's ugly and bloated beyond any limits. Why KDE need this thing of the past? It remembers me of Windows 3.1 with that software used for organize the menus (sorry but I don't remember the name, maybe Xerox something?).
Why not dump the Start menu concept, using the taskbar for application lunching and as a system tray (like apple does, if I'm not wrong) and creating something like 'media:/' for browsing the installed software inside a Dolphin window (applications:/), per example? Most of people I know (common users) usually don't use the start menu in Windows, or even the K-Menu.
Thanks.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Windows_3.0_workspace.png
It was called the Program Manager, though I don't think it is a far comparison to Kickoff.
No, I'm not talking about the default Windows 3.1 program manager, but to a replacement that I don't remember the name. That software organizes the groups into menus and adds some quick launch icons.
> Most of people I know (common users) usually don't use the start menu in Windows, or even the K-Menu.
And that's the problem with armchair usability anecdotes. Most of the users I know use the start menu heavily, even though it is slow. So who's right? Neither of us has more than personal experience to draw on, so it is hard to tell. Suse has done a usability study on Kickoff with good results. Having conducted usability studies myself, I have a much more cautious view of their utility than many, but it is definitely a very valuable tool, and in this case spoke for the Kickoff design. That's more than can be said for the alternatives like the old KMenu, or KBFX.
A folder of applications is not an alternative. I always hated that most about OS X. The only reason it is not a huge disaster is that Spotlight will let you launch apps quickly by searching for them. Kickoff does that, while being much more sophisticated as well.
In a way he is right. On windows i use launchy (http://www.launchy.net/) and when on linux/KDE i use katapult (http://katapult.kde.org/). So yes. I barely use the menu.
They are both excellent apps and i look forward to krunner doing what katapult now does for me.
Launchy is amazing. I haven't been able to find anything as good on Linux unfortunately. Katapult doesn't cut it because it only shows one match, which is often not enough. Until krunner arrives, I just bound the regular run dialog to ALT-Space and start everything by its proper name. Not as nice as launchy but its the best I can find.
> the Plasma menu
the what?
That plasmoid that is like a toolbar with a k icon on the left side? :)
Kickoff is horrible, I tried using it for a couple of months and it just seems like a solution looking for a problem, specially the "application browser" a royal pain in the ass to navigate.
But I guess it is OK if you only use a couple of applications that can live comfortably in the favorites menu.
The history menu is nice tough.
no need to be rude, now is it ? (i'm referring to your other post).
as for the kickoff, it actually is pretty nice. favorites are cool.
my biggest complaint is that tabs change upon mouseover - this seems unintuitive for me even after using it for extended periods of time. tabs change for me all the time when i don't want that.
applications access is a bit cumbersome (and that scrolling can be ugly slow on slow video adapters - read, with no adequate drivers), but i rarely use that part now - it's either in favorites, or i use quicksearch at the top of the menu.
click to expand is much easier to use for people who don't control mouse perfectly (imagine stray mouse move collapsing subitems now and then...) - but that also is one reason contributing to me not using it that much anymore.
> no need to be rude, now is it ? (i'm referring to your other post).
because I am not Jesus - if somebody throws a stone on me, he won't receive bread in return
thankyou for your comment anyway - you, as the regular Kickoff user (if I get it right?), prove my theories deducted from the presentation, making an evidence that I do not have to try everything myself to make a valid opinion on it
> how does it come that I most of the usability "improvements"
> look to me like obstructions?
this is why people do lab testing on actual people to determine usability and consult design experts rather than rely on the armchair perspective. kickoff actually went through quite a bit of user testing.
so, because there war lab tests, we are not allowed to not like it?
this is feedback. there obviously ARE people who don't like it. are there enough to add at least a few more options to kickoff? i don't know. but just dismissing all negative comments because there where lab tests is not the right way...
there will always be ppl who don't like something. Listening to them only is useful to a certain extend. And we're way past that point, imho. There are several menu projects for 4.0, but I don't think any of them will be very good when 4.0 should be ready. Kickoff might be the most stable one, and I'm all for shipping something stable over something probably better...
Especially when there is no evidence that the competing implementations are better.
but aaron never said he doesn't consider these comments because of the imminent release.
i understand there is no time anymore. i even understand there is a majority who likes the menu (concept) like it is right now.
what i don't understand is aarons position to dismiss feedback because of lab testing.
Please, stop throwing around phrases like "most users" without having *any* means to back up your words. Just be content that you like the other menu implementation better and don't try to give your claim weight by pretending to speak for a majority.
I think Robert Knight still had the best explanation for not changing Kickoff too much: This is a proven concept and changing it might break it. Nobody will stop you to use Raptor or any other menu implementation. If you're right and Kickoff is universally hated it shouldn't take too long until someone decides to develop an "old style" menu.
Why not retain the old style menu? Is it too much of work? Just like Kickoff & Old style menu coexist in PCLOS, not sure about other distros.
Read it:
Why not retain the old style menu 'also'?
I guess it boils down to lack of resources and the need for a KMenu replacement right now. Kickoff has been at least tested by usability experts. You'd think that people would be happy that KDE tries to improve their GUI by listening to experts but after all the moaning here because their pet peeve is not honoured enough by a design decision I'm starting to ask myself how GNOME could come up with a GUI which allegedly applies to a majority of users.
what the hell!? what on earth got me such a response? are you able to read?
> there obviously ARE people who don't like it. are there enough
> to add at least a few more options to kickoff? _i don't know._
> i understand there is no time anymore. _i even understand there
> is a majority who likes the menu (concept) like it is right now_.
i never said "most users" don't like kickoff. i said the contrary. so if you want to flame me, at least get your facts right, please!
all i said was, there ARE people that don't like kickoff. if you look at this threat, all data is here. are they many? again, i don't know. but there are at least a few, so dissmissing all that posts just because there was some lab testing or to not add a few _options_ to not break the concept doesn't sound right to me at all.
sure, there is no time for 4.0 right now, but that wasn't aarons argument, and im quite sure it wasn't roberts either.
thats not what im arguing about, so stop posting things i didn't say!
> this is why people do lab testing on actual people to
> determine usability and consult design experts rather
> than rely on the armchair perspective. kickoff actually
> went through quite a bit of user testing.
In that case, why not just copy it from WinXP or Vista? They perhaps passed far more lab tests than everything else? If that is the reason?
There's enough "lol KDE == teh windoze!1" FUD flying around without giving naysayers actual ammunition. I'm sure XP and Vista have very usable menus, but it's nice to do something both usable and at least a little different.
No. I am not at all doing any KDE vs Vista. Read it carefully please.
Is opinions are to made by usability experts how it should look & feel like, then why not follow the proven one?
Where is the data for the study on the usability of the Windows start menus? You only assume those studies were done, but without access to all the data, we can't be sure.
> then why not follow the proven one?
...like Kick-Off, which is used for a while already in openSUSE? :-p
Microsoft or Apple are not the ultimate answer to all usability problems. We can learn a lot from them, but they make their fair share of mistakes too. If you read the Kick-off study (yes it's public!) you'll find that the start menu of XP and Vista have issues too. Some tasks take too much time, or haven't gone through usability changes because no one could agree (e.g. the shutdown options in Vista).
I agree that the navigation in kickoff could use some improvements. I like the favorites very much, but it takes relatively much time to find a non-favorite. OTOH, the slide-in/out menu requires fewer mouse movements to access the items because the menu stays at the same place (tic-tac-tic-tac-open). That's really cool and increases productivity. :)
We (programmers) have different requirements, since programmers are capable of handling more overview. They miss the big menu (I sometimes do too, so I'd love to see incremental improvements in kickoff). My friends were really excited about kick-off though, calling it brilliant! SUSE did a good job here. :)
There were supposedly tests that led to Gnome changing the button order in dialogs with no option to change it back, and that is one of the reasons I don't use Gnome. The moment some study tries to change years of habit and use with no way to change it back, I'm out. As long as Kickoff remains the only option, I'll not use KDE4. Everyone has different dealbreakers I'm sure, but that's one of mine.
Bye!
But seriously. TRY it before you freak out. Delivering silly ultimatums on message boards is counterproductive.
I had tried it. You must hover for 2 seconds at each menu level, or click and wait for a slow transition. The Windows 95 Start Menu is vastly more efficient for getting to the app you need.
Kickoff looks great, and visually I'm sure it will impress people, but I'm not sure how it can be rated high for usability, when all it does is turn me off from using a menu in the first place.
Mamiya, this is you...mmh fith or sixth rant "I will stop use KDE", so what's up? Why are you still here whining (blatantly) on the dot? If you like KDE, collaborate, criticize it with *usefull suggestions*. If you don't like KDE or its developers/community, then just ignore it.
It's so easy!
> well, how does it come that I most of the usability "improvements"
> look to me like obstructions?
The might be a lack of expertise in the field of usability, at least that's what I think after reading most of your comments.
See, the kickoff menu has been developed in close collaboration with usability experts. So if you want it changed completely, you have to have data from usability research which clearly indicate why the current version is flawed, and why your version is better (not that your comments indicate an alternative, they only criticise). Having actually used kickoff for a while would probably also be helpful for the quality of your opinions.
Speaking of alternatives, you're talking about kickoff and that it should work differently. That whole discussion is totally moot, unless you have working code, in time for the feature freeze, which is close.
Please try to keep your arguments at a factual level, and if you have real input, go to panel-devel or usability mailinglists and tell about it. Don't forget to provide both data, and code. Having this kind of discussion on the Dot almost always indicates that the poster isn't seriously trying to help, but only telling others how they should do their work. Often from a questionable background.
Damn sebas, you have been making all kinds of sense lately. When that start happening ;)
Changing how my DE works and talking down to me when I object isn't going to get me to hold usability studies in any higher regard. Maybe you should try for some consistency and change dialog button orders too. Gnome and Apple will be happy to cite usability studies for you.
So instead KDE should...?
Come up with a better alternative and your opinion would have much more weight. If your alternative is "port the menu from KDE3", then you're going to have to do it yourself, because apparently no-one else has stepped up to do that. Once your implementation is ready, it might be incorporated.
> The might be a lack of expertise in the field of usability
yep, you are right - I do not do studies about it, I just use it ...
> See, the kickoff menu has been developed in close collaboration with
> usability experts.
I've heard that about Gnome too - how many of us would like to use Gnome instead of KDE (3)?
> not that your comments indicate an alternative, they only criticise
maybe I was not explicit enough - the alternative is to keep the old-style menu (along the new favorites/search/whatever you like)
the problem is not that you add features but that you modify feature, making it worse, but saying that the new implementation is a bless for all (once again, it reminds me of Gnome ...)
now, I have to explicitly say, that I am talking about applications menu, not the whole Kickoff (remember that for the next paragraph!)
it is not a bless, and if the usability experts say otherwise then I doubt whether they are sane - you argue with usability studies, I can dispute using psychological literature saying that maze can be solved easier when you have overview of the crossings (i.e. see more menu levels at once) rather than when you see only one crossing at a time (i.e. one menu level replaces the another) (not speaking about the number of clicks - or mouse holds if set to hover)
I have no problem admiting the fact that Kickoff may be a benefit for the majority of users - but there are also users that need the application menu; access to it is harder using Kickoff, and the menu usage is harder ...
look at the study - http://en.opensuse.org/Kickoff/Results_taskcompletion - there is only ONE task involving starting an application! (I do not know the exact task, but if URL should be opened in browser then probably the applications menu was not involved at all ... simply typing URL into appropriate box is enough for KDE to open it using the associated program)
are you serious to use such a study as an argument against classical applications menu?!
> Having this kind of discussion on the Dot almost always indicates that
> the poster isn't seriously trying to help, but only telling others how
> they should do their work. Often from a questionable background.
vs.
> That whole discussion is totally moot, unless you have working code,
> in time for the feature freeze, which is close.
oh great, I have no code, and I realise that it is late (see my original post) so expressing my opinion on Dot means that I am totally lame troll seeking for flamewars ...
I would like to help, but nobody asked my opinion before deciding that Kickoff is going to replace the old menu
and please do not say that this is my problem that I do not know what is going on and if I knew, I could say my opinion earlier and it would be accepted - I do not have the time to read the developer conferences of all the software I use; in fact nobody would be able to do this, there are megabytes of text daily
I would file a bug (enhancement request), but I have learned that when something "is decided" in KDE, no user feedback is going to change it (the third opportunity to remember Gnome), so all that is left is ranting here ...
Hopefully at some point Kickoff can accommodate both approaches. Perhaps the applications tab could be as it currently is, but instead of having one folder replace the top level folder, it would open a popup menu at that point. Then the top level menu remains as is, but you get to see the child menus without obscuring the top level so you can jump around quickly.
Can someone tell me, why, when I'm typing into the search, I can't use the up and down keys to navigate the search results? The default search result is something like "Look for other results of this type" or something, not the application I need. I have to move my hand from my mouse to the keyboard, type, observe that the result I want has appeared, the move my hand back to the mouse, and this is the worst part: as I move my mouse over the tab bar (which stands between the cursor and the search results), it switches from search results to that tab! Until this is fixed, kickoff is useless useless useless. I'll be using raptor, lancelot, or kde 3 kmenu until this is fixed, because there is no reason why I would want kickoff in its current state.
> Can someone tell me, why, when I'm typing into the search
If you're talking about the KDE 4 version, that is a bug. It is a high priority item on my TODO list.
Thanks Robert... sorry if I was a little strong, but it is frustrating, it really makes the search feature useless.
For the record, I'm using a version of kickoff that was ported to kubuntu for kde 3. I'm using gutsy.
Where did you get that?
I'm running Gutsy and I've been looking all over for a Gutsy version.
That is such a minor detail. All of the complaints against Kickoff are hypercritical exaggerations of details. There are some issues, but it can evolve and improve, the details polished, and bugs fixed. At the end of the day, I am sure the old style menu will probably be available, so I don't see what the big deal is.
Without trying to be hyper-critical of Kickoff, though I'm sure it'll come across that way, it's one of the major reasons that I won't entertain OpenSuSE 10.2.
Between hovers that only sometimes work, to bloody awful grouping of applications, to what feels like endless drill down, to menus appearing and disappearing when the mouse is only nudged slightly and not even off the menu window it takes longer to launch an app with Kickoff than the current menus.
The presentation is far from intuitive and heaven help the user if they somehow lose the menu that's presented when they get close to what they want because they have to drill down again. Not to mention the chewing up of screen real estate as you drill down.
At the very least how it works in OpenSuSE 10.2 reveals it as half cooked and not ready for prime time regardless of how much research went into the concept. Like the GNOME desktop developers do have to realize that there comes a point where ease-of-use becomes treat-the-user-like-an-idiot and ceases to be about actual usability. Currently Kickoff lacks both usability and ease of use.
That's the big deal, since you asked.
Like it or not users are conditioned to a start menu working like Win95 or Mac OS 9. That's the expectation. Kickoff breaks that expectation without being close enough to it for users to get used to the power you claim is there.
It has promise though for the moment that's really all it has. From a user perspective it needs tons of work or, simply put, it won't be used.
ttfn
John
Only long-time Linux users are used to the start menu working like Win95 or Mac OS 9, because that is the style we had when we left Windows. We are behind the times. Current windows users are used to the Start Menu working like XP or Vista, which is closer to Kickoff than Win95.
If the Application area is the one that people hate the most (even I dislike it), then it can be changed to work like the "All Programs" menu in Windows XP and Vista. When I see a problem, I look for solutions.
BTW, The grouping of applications has nothing to do with the style of menu.
I'm not sure I'm fond of the Application browser but I'm still interested in testing getting used to Kickoff. Sure you can have an app panel, but having it on the menu saves space, so I could actually prefer this solution.
I don't think it's such a big deal as to get into uproar because of it, though.
Heheh good point at the end of the Digest:
> It seems crazy to me, but I guess it's possible that readers of the Digest could
> not be aware of the existence of PlanetKDE, the aggregation of blogs from KDE
> contributors around the world. For those of you who are interested in KDE
> development and community and are not yet reading PlanetKDE, it really is the
> ideal counterpart to this publication!
(link: www.planetkde.org)
Nice to see some serious work on konqueror :)