> Actually, someone doing the "minimalistic" approach will be doing the 20 > part of the 80-20 thingy... and will always get it wrong. > http://www.joelonsoftware.com/printerFriendly/articles/fog0000000020.html
I'm not against having those features at all. I am against having to drag around the whole toolbox for tightening one screw: having all those panels and buttons all the time in my ui and all despite I do not use 80% of them. > The key 'holy grail' interface is to make a clean simple interface that > is accessible, but can be drilled into or interrogated to access How many places you need to start the drilling from? At each object like clicking a file icon with mouse button? Or toolbars? What is more usable in what situation? Depends on the workflows and customs? Do I really need to have in the same GUI toolbar, pane on left (that has tabs), pane on right, full blown menus at the same time? > advanced features. A user/advanced mode flip is a cop-out and a poor > solution. similarly stripping the interface away to it's bare metal and Showing lots of stuff someone really doesn't want to see or sometimes even be aware of isn't nice either. Hiding some would be accomplished by the flip - although yes, it creates the mentioned problems elsewhere. > forcing users to set configuration settings in some form of separate > "advanced settings" editor is also a poor solution. It is painful enough so that often I have just satisfied to the defaults. > Similarly in file browser mode I have a plain window showing my folder > contents and then a very small space taken up around the edge showing a > status bar and a strip on the left of all the funky features I've > installed that I need to open up and expand out to access. On the whole > even on a small screen very little screen space appears to be wasted. Somewhat like this I take.. http://www.konqueror.org/pics/konq_icon.png It's just me but this is what I think of it. In the toolbar I understand the first buttons. Back, forward and so on. After the first 6, I've always used those functions from elsewhere. (What on earth is that last icon with bricks? Click this if you want to get smashed with a brick?) For instance cut files? Select them first, right click or use keyboard.. Using that panel button feels really unnatural at least to me. Should an UI offer one way to accomplish the same thing? More than one? All of them? But doesn't offering many ways get slightly confusing too? I would never want to force people on my workflows but I'm wondering why I have to have all of that stuff that is obviously for other people.. That rolling wheel at the end can tell me a lot about the status. It could do much more actually. On the next line.. I understand already what the text field is for, I'm not complete retard thank you. What is that enter button at the end of the line? I have never figured any use for it. (The way you can search with the address field is superb btw. It's absolutely magnificent.) Those two lines can be combined very easy. Doesn't the system in fact already allow it... Saving one "line" worth of space for real stuff. What do I need personally the status bar for? Seeing the size of files? 1 byte or 1 yottabyte, I don't honestly care. Often I don't want to know. Just drag and drop and that's it. I disable that. The side bar can work very nicely though. I don't use them myself much but I've used Windows Explorer's sidebar sometimes. It groups and shows some usual actions and preview and basic information in a visually pleasant way. It's nice how it changes the content and options depending on what you had selected - and the actions you possibly might want to take are always clearly visible and roughly at the same place. Then the menu.. Perhaps I should try the menus moved at the top of the screen to the special panel. > Perhaps I don't need quite so many icons, but they're pretty and > everyone loves pretty icons. Do they? I do, on desktop. Couple familiar launchers (~5 of them) that I use mostly. That's nice. On panels? Hard to figure out what they will do from the looks. I know this problem is being addressed by a few projects such as Tango and umm.. Oxygen? I don't expect them to succeed very well. > > no menus at all (!), > ? ok, you may be in a minority here. How do you "find" what options are > available whilst browsing the app... or take actions quickly with a > keyboard? My thought has been to be able to access that menu. Not get rid of it. Click in a certain way and it pops up. I can generally remember what applications usually are able to do - and if it is doable I will find it with a quick glance. First time might be slightly slower but I don't expect going there constantly - depending on many factors though. Making the menu system someone less intrusive is an option however too. I have been playing with the idea of using the fixed menu bar position at the top of the screen ala Apple but never really tried using it so far. That would mean.. There is only one menu bar visible, even if I had dozen Kedits open. > > no panes, no status bar at the bottom (!) > So where do you display current context information or current status? I do not. I got working (spatial etc) memory and like using it. Perhaps, if you really wanted, a side panel. Never a bar at the bottom where I'd never even notice to look. > Ah I see are you saying this is how you would like your apps configured, > as opposed to this is how apps should run in a simple mode for most users. If I could do it - and without having to configure each k* application one by one - I'd be happy already. > If apps are designed/developed in such a way that advanced settings need > to be drilled into, then there's no need for such a mode switch. But with how many drilling points and eating how much space.. In some application I remember seeing a toolbar at top. Tab bar at left. Tab/toolbar at right. More buttons at bottom. I had serious problems finding any starting points. (I recall it being some developer tool but I think at least some programmers are humans and users too.) > Is the problem for you that it's not possible to make KDE look like > Gnome? "good looking" is certainly a pretty subjective opinion. No. I don't care much about Gnome's looks in what comes to themes or such. I just like personally light interfaces with stuff available but not visible unnecessarily all the time. > Sorry, but what is anyone supposed to do to address issues simply > described as "the main bar is really bad", "handles? Argh. ugly". They do not act transparently in any sane way. Although you can set options for certain elements of the kde ui, some do not obey. Sorry about being unclear, I misthought that people have tried that stuff. (That mentioned problem example is known and being addressed afaik) > > What have you Appeal people in your minds actually for KDE4? I'm just > > wondering.. > It's going to be perfect, beautiful, a combined user interface/ work of art. > Or something. I wish. _______________________________________________ Appeal mailing list [email protected] https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/appeal
