Assuming you want to discuss the pro's and cons of this further and you're not simply intentionally trolling the usual KDE is feature creeped bloatware argument, and you are interested in a discussion on usability here goes.... Although I'm sorry to say from your arguments you seem to have little grounding in interface design or usability. Feel free to prove me wrong.
On Monday 15 May 2006 17:19, Leo Hauptmann wrote: > > 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. > What are you "dragging" around? I don't follow your argument here. > > 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? > As many places as its usable. Generally if you need to drill in to find something the place you start drilling needs to be in context with your current action. > 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? > Yes. > 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. > The smashed brick is the cvs plugin showing that you've got an everything and the kitchen sink developer install. If you want a simple stripped down install try a nice clean distro. If you're a developer with every single package and option installed then you should be capable enough to configure your own system to your liking. > 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? > Indeed, more than one way to do a task is "a good thing" often people work in multiple modes based on what task they're currently undertaking. > 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.. > Because you're using a computer which is a general purpose tool that can be used by many different people to perform many different tasks. > That rolling wheel at the end can tell me a lot about the status. It > could do much more actually. > and overloading a single interface item with multiple functions is also bad. > On the next line.. I understand already > what the text field is for, I'm not complete retard thank you. > and that sort of language is hardly informative or progressing your argument in any way. > What is > that enter button at the end of the line? I have never figured any use > for it. > Hover your mouse over and it will tell you. If you don't have a use for it ever. Turn it off. > Those two lines can be combined very easy. Doesn't the system in fact > already allow it... > Sure reduce the number of icons you've got and put the address bar to the right of your icons. Done. > What do I need personally the status bar for? Seeing the size of > files? 1 byte or 1 yottabyte, I don't honestly care. > Well perhaps some people do. Great. So turn it off. Or do you want it off by default so everyone else has to turn it on. Having said that.... sure many of the interfaces in KDE aren't perfect. Konqueror is one of them, however I don't see a clearly explained argument from you about what is wrong or what needs fixing. Just general I don't like it, it's bloated and cluttered and why have I got all these icons everywhere. If you want to just generally rant, perhaps you should blog about it. > > 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. > Everyone loves icons. Personally I don't like either the Tango or Oxygen set, but that's just me. > I can generally remember what > applications usually are able to do - and if it is doable I will find > it with a quick glance. > and that's just you. many users use menus to find out what an application is capable of doing. > 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. > and its generally a horrible idea. > > > 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. > Sigh. and again, that's just you. Most users want a visual cue as to where they are and what's happening. If _you_ don't like it, turn it off. > > 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. > Right that's a decent suggestion of yours, "a consistent way to configure user interface complexity". Now all you need to do is work out how it should work, decide what sort of interfaces/API's it needs and perhaps make a mockup. That would be constructive and useful. > > 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.) > Vague, non-specific anecdote. Unhelpful. > > 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. > Same here, and funilly enough I'm pretty happy with my clean elegantly configured KDE interface. It's not perfect and some of the apps could do with tweaking to get there, but unless I come up with better ideas I'm not just going to bitch about it. > > > 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. > It's a fact. Aaron said so. -- Ivor Hewitt. _______________________________________________ Appeal mailing list [email protected] https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/appeal
