KDE's UI To Bend Toward Simplicity

sfcrazy (1542989) writes "KDE Software is often criticized for being too complicated for an average user to use. Try setting up Kmail and you would know what I mean. The KDE developers are aware of it and now they are working on making KDE UI simpler. KDE usability team lead Thomas Pfeiffer Thomas prefers a layered feature exposure so that users can enjoy certain advanced features at a later stage after they get accustomed to the basic functionality of the application. He quotes the earlier (pre-Plasma era) vision of KDE 4 – "Anything that makes Linux interesting for technical users (shells, compilation, drivers, minute user settings) will be available; not as the default way of doing things, but at the user's discretion."

Comments

Gnomeification?

[Anonymous Coward]

Something something, GNOME and KDE meet behind a Motel 6 and 9 months later...

Re:Gnomeification?

[Windwraith]

The difference being that the options won't be removed, so I don't think it's anywhere as bad as GNOME.

Re:Gnomeification?

[Bobakitoo]

Options was never removed from gnome. Stop spreading lies. Everything was conveniently accessible under a single UI; gconf-editor, now dconf-editor. Sharing instruction to modify was better this way then explaining a billion menu clicks. Also change can be automated. Gnomification is good, it is nice to see KDE catching up to modern desktop design.

Re:Gnomeification?

[sensei moreh]

My first thought on reading the summary was "gnomification." I don't use KDE (or GNOME), but I hope the KDE folks aren't trying to follow in GNOME's footsteps.

Re:Gnomeification?

[Tough Love]

Describing gconf as "convenient" is a wild exaggeration.

Re:Gnomeification?

[Bobakitoo]

Having all customisation option in hierarchical structure with description and a list of valid value inside a single interface is very convenient. It is similar about:config in firefox but for the entire desktop. Once you know how that tool work you can easily customise all applications, the alternative is to learn where all the option are located within each application. Although, I prefer the interface of firefox's about:config, typing path/searching is more efficient then opening up a tree.

Re:Gnomeification?

[frisket]

I thought KDE was touted as being more "Windows-like" than Gnome, but maybe that's just my ignorance (I did use KDE once, many years ago, in the early releases of RH/Fedora). If it needs simplification, they have only themselves to blame. The problem with all GUI approaches to configuration is that they present what the designers believe are the options most people want, but I see no evidence that this has ever been tested or quantified. Usually the one key option you need fixed is absent, meaning you have to dig through the ludicrous syntax of dozens of config files. If a GUI is going to be presented as THE way to configure things, it has to be comprehensive (eg Evolution, although half of that seems to be broken still because it's immature, but a good start). Otherwise the designers need to get off their high horses and agree of one single common compulsory syntax and vocabulary for ALL config files, preferably in something obvious like key=value or XML.

Repeat history

[stevens]

Isn't this Gnome, but ten years ago?

Re:Repeat history

[Flammon]

Actually, Windows 9 is starting to look like GNOME a couple years ago. https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Re:Repeat history

[Barsteward]

sort of but Gnome locked all the config away as they deemed users to stupid to confgure thjeir desktop, KDE are doing it differently by planning to keep it but simplify its presentation to the user

Re:Repeat history

[jbolden]

More like 15 but yes. KDE aimed at being the first Linux GUI. Gnome is/was always more aggressive in being a GUI for end user rather than workstation computing.

Re:Repeat history

[Anonymous Coward]

sort of but Gnome locked all the config away as they deemed users to stupid to configure their desktop

No, this was the desire of the GNOME devs at RedHat to make a workstation desktop compatible with their Enterprise sever/easily manageable by an admin in their "fat client" model. Admin: "I don't want users mucking about with the configurations I choose!"

Re:Repeat history

[rubycodez]

as a long time Microsoft hater and detracter I have to admit that looks pretty good, they finally realized they need to refine the "fairly good" of Windows 7 instead of flying off on tangent

Re:Repeat history

[phantomfive]

Isn't this Gnome, but ten years ago?

No! They are leaving the features, but focusing on making a sensible default, whereas the rest is easily discoverable!

That is how he is describing it, and it is how an ideal UI should be. Gnome on the other hand wants to make anything hard impossible, not discoverable (where discoverable means the user can figure out how to do it).

Re:Repeat history

[rhyder128k]

Spot on. I liked the old divide between the two desktops, with Gnome as the "business desktop" and KDE as the "power user" desktop. Absolutely weird for people like me seeing new standard Gnome apps with LESS features. For most tasks, I like having a feature rich environment, even if it means that I have to dig a little; it's what I'm into, like a lot of Linux users. Thankfully apps like Digikam and Kate are sticking to the old KDE ethos.

Re:Repeat history

[Tough Love]

Since when is a workstation user not an end user?

Re:Repeat history

[Tough Love]

I want my resizeable maximized windows back!

Re:Repeat history

[phantomfive]

Really? Did they take that out?

Re:Repeat history

[jbolden]

Since always. Workstation users have always had higher expectations of competence and motivation in their choice of computing tools. Which means their operating systems can assume more background knowledge and a greater willingness for the end user to compensate and learn how to do things they don't know how to do. That changes the tradeoffs in UI design tremendously.

iPhoto and Photoshop aren't designed the same way.
Quicktime edit and Final Cut Pro aren't designed the same way.
A simple spreadsheet program and Quantrix aren't designed the same way.
etc...

Re:Repeat history

[Barsteward]

KDE has that worked as well, they use Kiosk mode to lock down a config rather than remove all config options

Re:Repeat history

[perryizgr8]

That actually looks like an improvement on Win7. Are these guys idiots? Why was this not Win8?

Re:Repeat history

[Flammon]

Big corp. Takes them a while to copy features from competitors. I haven't run Windows in years but after seeing this demo, the UI at least would work well with my workflow. I wouldn't consider switching yet because there's much more to an OS that the UI but it is a significant factor.

Re:Repeat history

[zwarte piet]

Well fudge me, it even has a kde logo!

Re:Repeat history

[hobarrera]

From TFA: Thomas prefers a layered feature exposure so that users can enjoy certain advanced features at a later stage after they get accustomed to the basic functionality of the application.

I assume that they'll keep the options around, just not mixed with the very basic options. A big issue with KDE right now, is that the settings windows of any application has half a dozen tabs, with dozens of options each. The very basic options and most common options should be grouped together, an advanced settings slightly on the side. Otherwise, it's just too intimidating.

Simplification, n.

[marcello_dl]

Simplification: the act of removing features that are deemed unnecessary, redundant, irrelevant.
Simplification (UI design): the act of removing or transforming discoverable, one-step, procedures in opaque, 3-step-after-reconfiguration procedures. See Gnome, Windows, OSX. Hopefully not KDE.

Re:Simplification, n.

[Kjella]

While you do have a point, I'd counter that there's no way to do anything with a computer unless there's an interface for it. For example if you go to Burger King 90%+ order as-is from the menu. But there's all sorts of simple instructions like "no onions" you can tell a clerk that you can't tell a computer. If you go to Whopper Lab you can see all the options of buns, patties, dressings and toppings available in none, light, normal and extra quantities and so on that would totally overwhelm the average customer. If the interface didn't exist, the option wouldn't exist but any given option will be the default something like 99.9% of the time.

I like being able to manage my computer, I don't like having to micromanage my computer unless there's a specific reason to. I consider having obvious buttons to find more advanced controls to be discoverable, not that you need to throw every option in my face to say hey, you could change this behavior if you wanted to. If it's possible to set a sensible default and I haven't seen a reason to go looking for it then I don't need to know. Non-discoverable features I consider things like touching corners that don't have any hint they have actions, buttons with no obvious function/that don't look like buttons, shortcuts you can't find except looking them up, type to search with no hints and so on.

That said, I generally prefer an expanding/alternate dialog over a multi-step dialog. If I know I need to go into the advanced settings every time because I'm the 1% using that function I'd rather have the ability to pin it to expand/use the advanced dialog by default, meaning it should be a superset of the basic dialog not just the extras. Since we're already in an advanced dialog having a checkbox "Use advanced display by default" at a standard location wouldn't hurt. Go into the advanced dialog once, check that box and next time you go straight to where you want to be. It is usually far more user-dependent than situation-dependent, so I think that'd work well for most everybody.

Re:Simplification, n.

[drinkypoo]

They claim they're moving things, not removing them. If done well this will help KDE immensely because current prefs dialogs treat trivial and significant settings as equally important by barfing them all up together into a big dialog.

Re:Simplification, n.

[westlake]

Simplification (UI design): the act of removing or transforming discoverable, one-step, procedures in opaque, 3-step-after-reconfiguration procedures. See Gnome, Windows, OSX.

In other words, a tiny fraction shy of 100% of the desktop market.

The only sensible conclusion to be drawn from this is that almost no one strays more that a half step away from the system defaults.

Re:Simplification, n.

[Anonymous Coward]

GNOME/KDE already made itself far simpler than Windows ever is. But they all forget that PC desktop is the tool for power users, not your grandmas or grandpas (who would have Android now).

One thing you can easily notice is that since GNOME 2 and KDE3 the file dialog is replaced by a /file chooser/, something retarded beyond belief as it only allows you to choose file, nothing more! You can't copy/move files inside, preview them externally or even use it with any file-manager plugin (such as version-control icon overlays)! That's a great inconvenience for all those who do serious work with GUI instead of popping up xterm for everything.

Their obsession with simplicity is killing the entire desktop.

Re: Simplification, n.

[Fwipp]

Agreed. I sometimes get overwhelmed at subway with all the options I don't really care about - I'd much rather pick one thing I like from a list of ten than make ten binary decisions about ingredients.

Re: Simplification, n.

[Anne Thwacks]

I'd much rather pick one thing I like from a list of ten than make ten binary decisions about ingredients.

However, the ten choices we get will never include the ten I want, or the ten you want - they will be what get offered by the Gnome dev team this release, and once we have got used to them, a completely different ten.

Granted being able to choose (unlike in Unity) is good, and if the options exist, someone will want every possible combination. (2^10 is only 1024 combinations, and you gotta hope more than 1 million people will use your GUI).

Best bet is to have both an easy way to pick a "skin" from popular choices (with a high contrast default that works regardless of LCD, CRT, or whatever is next, no matter how ugly - not that ugly should be the design objective) and a more complex "fix the feature that bugs you" - clearly marked "advanced users only" and with a way to save your choices and export them to other machines (by email?).

The worst possible is to pretend your desktop is a 2011 smartphone. Hell, I want Gnome-fallback-shell on my Samsung Note 4. Dropdown menus worked on 320x240 (as well as anything could on a Crap Graphic Array).

I definitely want to have multiple desktops, resizeable windows, and hierarchical menus on my Android phone. Icons are all very well for ten choices, but a complete failure for 1024 choices.

Hierarchically structured words big enough to read no mattter how many there are, are way better than, tiny, meaningless pictures you can't recognise no matter how few.

Re:Simplification, n.

[Tough Love]

The only sensible conclusion to be drawn from this is that almost no one strays more that a half step away from the system defaults.

By what magic did you reach that conclusion?

Re:Simplification, n.

[Anonymous Coward]

svn stat trunk/ourproduct/version-5.{1,5,6}/feature*.xml | grep 'M '

Good luck doing that with a GUI, "power user".

Re: Simplification, n.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Popping up xterm for everything." That made me contemplate, heck I probably do that at least 100 times a day.

Re:Simplification, n.

[CptJeanLuc]

Simplification: the act of removing features that are deemed unnecessary, redundant, irrelevant. Simplification (UI design): the act of removing or transforming discoverable, one-step, procedures in opaque, 3-step-after-reconfiguration procedures. See Gnome, Windows, OSX. Hopefully not KDE.

Or perhaps, an alternative ... Simplification (Software): the act of modifying software so that it offers an efficient, intuitive and "good enough" user experience for a broad range (and possibly various groups of) users, with minimum complexity in UI and design.

Simplification is not so much about removing features, as it is about transforming user experience into something leaner. Simplification does not have to be a bad thing, it is all about how you do it. Simplification is really hard; it has to do with how a piece of software is structured, from the ground up. E.g. stuff that is not encoded into the data model, you will never be able to do in the UI. If you have a data model that does not fit the problem, the UI will never be a good one. You cannot simplify an UI just by rearranging icons. Well, you can rearrange, but it does not necessarily get any simpler - you are only giving it a minimalistic appearance, which "fakes" simplicity.

I organize my kitchen on a Huffman-style principle. The stuff which needs to get accessed more often, is more accessible. Why should a UI be any different. You want the stuff you need more often to be readily available, thus minimizing the total number of user actions. That does not mean you cannot have layers of functionality, or possibly alternative UIs (click to enable/disable wizard menu mode).

"Power tech users" are doing themselves and communities a disservice by inisisting on cumbersome, archaic, complex UIs in order to be able to fully wield their power in the UI they know already. Why? Because it hurts general adoption, which hurts software usage, which makes it less attractive as a software ecosystem, which gives it a competitive disadvantage vis a vis other platforms. You want lots of users, so the platform can live on for years and years.

Don't misunderstand me here; I hate ribbons as much as the next guy, and after I recently had to try out Office365, that interface had me going absolutely bonkers, having to send off an angry user feedback in order to vent.

I consider myself a power user, but tech is not my day job, and I am getting old enough that I no longer wish to spend evenings sitting in a basement learning the ins and outs of every piece of program I come across. I spent years creating complex high tech infrastructure setups at home, only to change it all into something simpler because I cannot be bothered to maintain it anymore when it breaks. Life is too short, and even as a "power user", you may not want to have to be an expert on everything. These days, I will choose the program which just works without having to spend too much time figuring it out.

Re:Simplification, n.

[Waccoon]

Old:
"Can I have that without onions?"
"Sure."

New:
"Can I have that without onions?"
"Why would you want that? Everybody else loves onions! Try them; you'll love them! Here you go!"

Re:Simplification, n.

[Anonymous Coward]

When you dumb down the UI into point that any idiot can use it, eventually only idiots will want to use it. When companies forget their "power users", they lose also the very same people, who would install the application into the less nerdy crowd.

Re:Simplification, n.

[tepples]

But there's all sorts of simple instructions like "no onions" you can tell a clerk that you can't tell a computer. If you go to Whopper Lab you can see all the options

Doesn't the existence of Whopper Lab mean you can tell a computer?

I generally prefer an expanding/alternate dialog

Until you use a 10" screen. They were common in the netbook era but have since returned on laptops like the Transformer Book by ASUS and Aspire Switch by Acer. Some dialogs don't fit and I have to use the window manager's keyboard shortcuts to move the top of the window above the top of the screen to see the OK button. Or by "alternate" do you mean more tabs?

Some criticism

[jones_supa]

This YouTube video offers some pretty good KDE criticism as well. I personally am mostly frustrated with the clunky and cluttered notifications system.

Re:Some criticism

[nine-times]

This is the sort of criticism that software developers really need to get, and it seems good that maybe KDE is listening. I wouldn't be surprised, though, if a lot of people respond to this by saying the criticisms are stupid, that "if you know what you're doing" then you'll understand what's really going on, etc.

Re:Some criticism

[jones_supa]

Yep. Some other classic ones:

- "Your distro is configured wrong for KDE."
- "Everyone knows how broken KDE is. That's why I switched to Linux Mint and haven't looked back."
- "I have never had that kind of problems and I have used Linux on desktop since 1997."
- "How much does Microsoft pay you to write that?"

Re:Some criticism

[juanfgs]

heh in gnome they nuked the desktop files option, and problem solved.

Re:Some criticism

[Aldenissin]

You can also add, "So you don't like it, go back to wherever you came from and live ours alone." This happens with almost anything Linux related.

What an ignorant statement. I mean sure, I get it, no one likes to have to change. But for the greater good, we should make a few sacrifices. I guess they're scared of what would happen if everyone started to use Linux, the same issues would pop-up that do on Windows, like the dumbing down. Here is the thing, you can fork it on Linux, unlike Windows.

Perhaps it is rooted in system admin's job security fears? If everyone used Linux, there would no doubt be less demand for cleaning up PCs, etc. This means they are a part of the vampiric system as well, and maybe the community doesn't need YOU.

"If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animated contest of freedom — go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen!" -- Samuel Adams

Re:Some criticism

[Aldenissin]

Exactly, UI's should be as intuitive as possible. RTFM should be kept to rare occurrences, like those completely inexperienced to a computer, or those that need to work under the hood. But even then, it should be kept as intuitive as possible, that is the key to any good design.

Re:Some criticism

[Coryoth]

... a lot of people respond to this by saying the criticisms are stupid, that "if you know what you're doing" then you'll understand what's really going on, etc.

Yes; "if you're just willing to get your hands a little dirty and muck in and learn then you can bend the hugely complicated interface to your needs" they'll say; they'll complain that your just not willing to learn things, and thus it is your fault. Such people will inevitably state that they are "power users" who need ultimate configurability and are (unlike you) willing to learn what they need to to get that.

They will inevitably deride GNOME3 for it's complete lack of configurability. Of course they'll gloss over the fact that GNOME3 actually exposes pretty much everything via a javascript interface and makes adding/changing/extending functionality via javascript extensions trivial (GNOME3 even has a javascript console to let you do such things interactively). Apparently actually learning an API and coding completely custom interfacdes from myriad building blocks is "too much work". They are "power users" who require a pointy-clicky interface to actually configure anything. Even dconf is "too complicated".

For those of us who learned to "customize our desktop" back in the days of FVWM via scriptable config files calling perl scripts etc. it seems clear that "power users" are really just posers who want to play at being "super-customised". Almost all the modern DEs do have complete customisation available and accessible; some of them just use a richer (scripting) interface to get such things done.

Re:Some criticism

[nine-times]

Perhaps it is rooted in system admin's job security fears?

I see this kind of idea floated in various situations, and it always seems bizarre to me. As someone who has worked in quite a few IT roles in quite a few different companies, I don't think I've ever run into a sysadmin who was making things more difficult for the sake of job security.

I've seen sysadmins do counter-productive things out of pride and stubbornness, unwilling to entertain a new way of doing things. I've seen them continue to use ineffective solutions out of fear, believing that the alternatives are too difficult to learn, too difficult to implement and support. Speaking generally and anecdotally from my own experience, sysadmins will enthusiastically welcome anything that means less work for themselves.

And "If everyone used Linux, there would no doubt be less demand for cleaning up PCs"...? No. People make that mistake all the time. "The IT department is pushing back on our goal of moving all of our servers to the cloud. It must be because they know it will mean there won't be any more IT work to do maintaining the servers, and they'll be out of a job!" Or "The IT department doesn't want to migrate to an all-Mac environment. It must be because Macs 'just work' without any problems, and they'd then be out of a job!" Sorry, no. Unfortunately, there's nothing that will get we IT people out of our jobs.

Speaking for the sysadmins, we'd almost welcome the soul-crushing unemployment if it actually meant things would work properly. But no, really you're just changing the nature of the work we need to do. Instead of maintaining our own servers, we then have to figure out which cloud service will work for the business needs, work out an implementation, and then manage and troubleshoot the cloud service on an ongoing basis. Moving to Macs or Linux machines, it just means we now need to figure out how to replace all of the Windows-only business-critical applications that your business is running, and then come up with a scheme to protect and manage all of those Mac/Linux workstations. Believe it or not, a Windows DC with Group Policies is a pretty effective way of managing a lot of desktops/laptops.

So either way it's work, and it'll require someone with expertise. And no matter what, it's not going to quite work properly. We're usually just looking for the path of least resistance.

Re:Some criticism

[Aldenissin]

Perhaps it is rooted in system admin's job security fears?

I see this kind of idea floated in various situations, and it always seems bizarre to me. As someone who has worked in quite a few IT roles in quite a few different companies, I don't think I've ever run into a sysadmin who was making things more difficult for the sake of job security.

I knew one, he didn't have enough to do obviously. He preferred to be lazy and spend his resources coming up with excuses on why things couldn't be done, instead of learning something new. That is what he was best at, and why after I left he was finally replaced for his ineptness. As the sole IT person on site, he would often change things, only to change them back. But he was needed "a lot" by the "pretty ladies" when those changes were made. There was a lot of things wrong with him.

I once tried to show him that having the favorites toolbar in I.E. with a folder for every client and links to all their important information, such as policy and procedures, memo's etc would limit calls to supervisors and others, making things work more smoothly, including for him. Anytime an agent in the out-sourcing call center would have to reach out, there was that more likely of a technical issue popping up. Sometimes it was just jealousy that he didn't come up with it, I think. He'd try to BS me, but I knew better, and he'd have "an emergency" he'd need to attend to come up.

So either way it's work, and it'll require someone with expertise. And no matter what, it's not going to quite work properly. We're usually just looking for the path of least resistance.

Least resistance to what? THAT is the question.

Re:Some criticism

[infinitelink]

Ouch! Those kind of errors aren't simply superficial, they're indicative of jacked-up plumbing. It's like sewage going into the freshwater pipes at several points. Poor KDE users. :(

Re:Some criticism

[Ash Vince]

This is the sort of criticism that software developers really need to get, and it seems good that maybe KDE is listening. I wouldn't be surprised, though, if a lot of people respond to this by saying the criticisms are stupid, that "if you know what you're doing" then you'll understand what's really going on, etc.

Ifr they were listening they would fix this crap. The problem though is that the stuff he points out all seems like the sort of horrible boring drivel that most devs hate fixing. they want to work on new features that are fun to implement, not digging through tons of other peoples code and all you see at the end is a few dialog boxes not being displayed when they don't make sense to.

This is one of the reasons why commercial software generally does this sort of thing much better, because you can assign this bug to someone then tell them their bonus depends on it getting fixed this sprint.

Doing that with unpaid devs is more tricky :)

Re:Some criticism

[Anne Thwacks]

The crux of the matter is that some people think clicking icons is "as simple as possible" while others think "picking from a hierarchical list structure" is. Only a complete ignoramous would suggest users do not need to be able to choose either of these according to their preferences.

Re:Some criticism

[JackieBrown]

We have an it got like that as well. Always at the pretty ladies desk fixing stuff and refusing to show them how to fix it themselves so they need him.

Re:Some criticism

[joemck]

Javascript modules are fine, and provide a nice way to do arbitrary customization (though I'm not sold on the choice of Javascript as the language for it). It's great if I want to implement something unusual. My problem with it is having to learn an API and write code to do something as simple as, say, change window border widths or set screensaver options. It's not that I can't do it, it's that I shouldn't have to put in the effort to do it when it's something that every other desktop environment for the past 20 years (minus OSX on many customizations) has had as a button or updown control and something I can change in 10 seconds with zero specialized knowledge.

You want to hide all the confusing forests of checkboxes and buttons to make the config dialogs as simple and accessible to newbies as possible? That's fine, but would it really spoil your beautiful simplicity to put ONE box for "show advanced options" that unhides all of what has just been removed? I think VLC is a fine example of this. The preferences dialog contains basic and easy to understand options, but you can still change the render API or mess with codecs if you need to, without writing any code. Just check "all" instead of "simple" and the dialog transforms from a pretty average number of options (though it could be made simpler still), into a tree view with dozens of pages of settings.

Re:Some criticism

[Kremmy]

There's a problem with this idea of intuitive. "using or based on what one feels to be true even without conscious reasoning; instinctive."
I'm curious about how a computer is supposed to be intuitive.
Let's take a journey into the past for a moment and look at historical computing machines, what they were used for, why they were built. I'll take as an example the artillery computer on a warship from the great war that brought the technology upon us. Differential Analyzers were mechanical devices which performed calculators. When it came to the use of these devices in ship-board artillery, the interface was simplified to assorted knobs and gauges where the operator dialed in the appropriate parameters to get the necessary result. However, the action being performed - the calculation of trajectory using mathematics - was in no way simpler or more intuitive, it was buried under an appropriate interface that hid the details necessary for performing the task at hand. This had the result of making it so an artillery man no longer needed to concern himself with the deeper understanding of the task he was performing.
I fear we've run head-long into this case where we expect our tools to do the work for us rather than allowing us to work more efficiently.
I'm seeing 'simplified' interfaces slapped onto complex machines that end up overlooking the details. I'm seeing this idea that the tool needs to to the job, that the user need not understand how the job is done. That is not a good thing.
Computers don't have the potential to change the world, they already have. Unfortunately, as a direct result of how deeply they've changed the world, we no longer feel it necessary to actually learn what we're doing.
We just want the computer to do it for us.

Re:Some criticism

[nine-times]

Like I said, I'm speaking generally, and from my own anecdotal evidence. In my career, including consulting with a variety of companies with their own IT people, I've known maybe one or two that seem to be trying to hide things to create "job security". They were generally incompetent, and were fired before too long, in spite of their "job security". I'll note that I operate within a fairly competitive market.

Least resistance to what? THAT is the question.

That is a good question. The answer is basically "many things". My point is, they may be lazy and worried about losing their jobs, but it often manifests as a reluctance to take on new projects or make big changes, and general neglect for maintenance and upgrades. But you have 'resistance' in various forms. You might be looking at a crappy old 12 year-old server that's bound to fail soon, and you think, on the one hand, I don't want to catch hell when this thing dies. On the other hand, I don't want to argue with management, who will claim that the upgrade isn't really necessary because things are currently working, and they'll say that the price of a new server is unjustified. Plus, it'll take a lot of work for me to perform the upgrade, and if anything goes wrong I'll be blamed. Some of the blame will be justified due to the fact that I'm not actually familiar with the new hardware and software that we'll be using if I upgrade. And does the new version of our business-critical app include all the features that we need? How much training will be required for the staff to adjust to the new system?

So you put all of that together, and sometimes the IT guy picks the path that seems less scary. That's more or less what I mean by "the path of least resistance".

Re:Some criticism

[Zontar The Mindless]

I learnt very quickly to disable or ignore the task bar update notification thingo, that's for sure.

Re:Some criticism

[Aldenissin]

Why not get real smart, and use both, when most appropriate? (Not sure exactly what you are referring to..) Icons can be great, if you have any idea what they represent. Hierarchies are great, if they are organized and labeled well.

I remember the first time I checked out Compiz again. It didn't have too many effects the first time, so the menu wasn't that bad, but the second go round, man was there a lot of stuff to wade through. You had the basic top menu of icons, and then you clicked through and you had a sea of everything. Was really hard to find what you were looking for, even though it was categorized, just due to the size and amount of scrolling to get to something. I always felt that could have been done much better. It wasn't a priority obviously, and I think that was a shame and hampered it.

Re:Some criticism

[Aldenissin]

Of course they can't seem to get anything done, because the IT guy has their computer down.

Re:Some criticism

[Aldenissin]

There's a problem with this idea of intuitive. "using or based on what one feels to be true even without conscious reasoning; instinctive."

I'm curious about how a computer is supposed to be intuitive.

With a certain level of knowledge, one is able to proceed. Why do you think the "Start Menu" was labeled as such?

I fear we've run head-long into this case where we expect our tools to do the work for us rather than allowing us to work more efficiently.

Isn't that what any tech does, the brunt of the "work" for us? You could cut grass by hand or even yank it up, or you could use a sickle. I too am troubled when we try to completely remove the human operator however in many things, from driving to farming. Efficiency is subjective to your measurements. One man may be able to reap and sow an entire farm, but is it making people healthier?

I'm seeing 'simplified' interfaces slapped onto complex machines that end up overlooking the details. I'm seeing this idea that the tool needs to to the job, that the user need not understand how the job is done. That is not a good thing.

Some details should be overlooked and just get in the way, sometimes they need to be hidden from view, but readily accessible. Perhaps the concept is more important than actually knowing how to do the job from scratch, depending on the application. It bothers me that so many people have a driver's license, and yet don't have a clue there are many small explosions that happen rapidly, or any other number of parts. That doesn't mean I think they should be able to rebuild an engine.

Computers don't have the potential to change the world, they already have. Unfortunately, as a direct result of how deeply they've changed the world, we no longer feel it necessary to actually learn what we're doing.

We just want the computer to do it for us.

And computers continue to change the world. I don't blame computers for us (and certainly not a direct result) feeling it necessary to understand what we're doing. That blame lies more with our education system. Don't forget, computer's do what they're told/programmed to do.

As far as education, we don't learn concepts as much as we often are taught to memorize steps to complete an action. A monkey can do that, that doesn't mean he can fully appreciate what he's done, and use creativity when needed to adapt to a different situation utilizing said experience and knowledge.

Re:Some criticism

[Aldenissin]

...

In my career, including consulting with a variety of companies with their own IT people, I've known maybe one or two that seem to be trying to hide things to create "job security".

...

Above you said you never come across one. Maybe you're now being honest, or I helped you think outside of the box. But they undoubtedly make things harder, and almost always unwittingly. No matter if they're a mechanic, executive, secretary, pool boy or whomever; eventually, they lose in the long run. It pays dividends to be ethical.

... sometimes the IT guy picks the path that seems less scary. That's more or less what I mean by "the path of least resistance".

Isn't that everyone? From a Christian who has faith that GOD will support and back them up in righteous causes, to the victim that finally or never stands up to abuse, to the asshole that curses you out so that you complain and post a bad review online because he knows it will drive search engine traffic, all do what is "less scary" and deemed easiest.

And that is why wisdom is more precious than rubies. It outperforms intelligence any day, if only because you can be smart and stupid at the same damned time, often because your wit is known to you and leads to undeserved confidence.

Re:Some criticism

[Grishnakh]

And "If everyone used Linux, there would no doubt be less demand for cleaning up PCs"...? No. People make that mistake all the time

Sorry, but yes. Your post makes the mistake of conflating professional IT Department staffers with Geek Squad. IT people maintaining corporate infrastructure are not the people who make a business out of going to peoples' homes and cleaning up all the adware and crapware that has infested their Windows PCs. The former is not terribly threatened by Linux (except that they might need to learn something new), but the latter certainly is. If home users all switched to Linux, they wouldn't need the constant maintenance that home Windows PCs require. Just take a look at someone running Windows on their personal laptop; it's likely filled with a dozen different "toolbars" that have somehow installed themselves into their browser (even Firefox), even though the user never asked for them, and the computer runs at a crawl. I've seen it over and over.

Re:Some criticism

[nine-times]

Your post makes the mistake of conflating professional IT Department staffers with Geek Squad. IT people maintaining corporate infrastructure

Well first, I would respond by pointing out that my post was in a response to someone talking about "sysadmins". It's quite clear from the context that we're not talking about the Geek Squad.

Second, I would argue that if you think switching to Linux would significantly lower the need for IT support for personal individuals, then you probably haven't had much exposure to that market. It might slightly diminish the number of calls for malware infestation, but an awful lot of malware comes from people running/installing things themselves. If Linux became the dominant OS, the malicious executable would just need to be for Linux instead of Windows, but if your user is running any attachment they receive without regard to whether it might be malicious, then they're still going to get infected.

Aside from all that, a lot of personal IT comes down to really dumb stuff. I never worked for the Geek Squad, but I've done similar work and also worked for businesses that provide similar services. A lot of the calls end up being for things like, "I got a new printer. Can you come set it up for me?" So you unbox it, plug it in, and *maybe* install drivers. It's my understanding that Geek Squad doesn't even attempt to clean malware, but they'll just back up your documents, wipe your system, and have you start fresh. None of this is rocket science. It's just that there are a lot of people out there who need help for even basic computing tasks.

Really, there might be some IT people who love the stupid little problems that people have for the sake of "job security", but it's silly to think that IT people in general are holding back a mass exodus to Linux for the sake of "job security". As though the Linux desktop experience is so trouble- and confusion-free that we'd all just be out of a job, and we're scared that the general population might find out. I'd say it's more common that I meet IT people who would prefer that we all use Linux for ideological reasons, but who are disappointed that they can't figure out a way to make the migration feasible.

Re:Some criticism

[nine-times]

Above you said you never come across one. Maybe you're now being honest

Oh, you got me, I was lying before to serve my personal interests of keeping Linux off of the desktop in order to preserve my job.</sarcasm>

Or maybe that's not quite what I said. I don't think I've ever met one who makes things harder for himself for the sake of job security. I've met one or two who try to obscure what they're actually doing in order to maintain job security. And in those instances, it hasn't worked.

Also, I'll note that if these statements had been contradictory, I said in the earlier post that I didn't *think* I'd met one who made things difficult. It might have simply been that someone telling stories of an inept IT person jogged my memory of a similar person. However, I stand by my statements. I can't recall a single one that would intentionally create work for themselves, or one that would fail to eliminate problems if they could, for the sake of job security. I can think of at least one who was completely full of shit and would hide a lot of things for the sake of job security. I can think of a few outsourced/consulting companies who became uncooperative and unhelpful towards attempts to replace them or render them unnecessary. Those things generally didn't work either.

Isn't that everyone?

Sort of, maybe...? It's not always clear that's a bad thing, either. I think ultimately, we all have to pick our battles.

Re:Some criticism

[beastofburdon]

What bastardized version of KDE did this video come from? I have been using KDE for at least 5 years and have never seen anything in this video.

Layered exposure?

[ArcadeMan]

Thomas Pfeiffer Thomas prefers a layered feature exposure so that users can enjoy certain advanced features at a later stage after they get accustomed to the basic functionality of the application.

Either I misunderstand, or power users will have to wait to be able to access advanced features.

Why not go with the usual basic settings, with a button/tab to access advanced settings? Is that too complex for end-users?

Re:Layered exposure?

[Anonymous Coward]

You misunderstand. Feel free to read the article.
"[...] Therefore a UI to browse through the whole folder hierarchy and the tags (not mocked-up yet) was included in the design, though only visible if users scrolled the view to the left.

The same goes for writing new emails. The default UI for that won’t include things like HTML formatting or adding attachments [...], but they, too are only presented on demand, not by default. This is the “powerful when needed” part."

Re:Layered exposure?

[Anonymous Coward]

ArcadeMan, if you are even really a man (do you even have a beard?), you have immediately jumped to the most negative conclusion. Many, perhaps lesser, men would have interpreted that as the advanced features are available to the unfamiliar user immediately, behind such an advanced settings button, but that those features are not thrown in their simple faces like a bucket of acid, scarring them.

Would you like an octopus?

Re:Layered exposure?

[Anonymous Coward]

Thomas Pfeiffer Thomas prefers a layered feature exposure so that users can enjoy certain advanced features at a later stage after they get accustomed to the basic functionality of the application.

Either I misunderstand, or power users will have to wait to be able to access advanced features.

Why not go with the usual basic settings, with a button/tab to access advanced settings? Is that too complex for end-users?

In other terms :

But Mr Dent, the plans have been available in the local planning office for the last nine months."

"Oh yes, well as soon as I heard I went straight round to see them, yesterday afternoon. You hadn't exactly gone out of your way to call attention to them, had you? I mean, like actually telling anybody or anything."

"But the plans were on display ..."

"On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them."

"That's the display department."

"With a flashlight."

"Ah, well the lights had probably gone."

"So had the stairs."

"But look, you found the notice didn't you?"

"Yes," said Arthur, "yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the Leopard'."

KDE is taking little by little Mozilla's stance on advanced features. The KDE developers are jumping the shark.

Re:Layered exposure?

[ArcadeMan]

Maybe the KDE team is thinking about going into advertising?

Re:Layered exposure?

[marsu_k]

Also, recently I tested Chakra and was impressed by how agile it was on an old machine. I guess it can be attributed to not loading gtk libs in memory at any time, since it just uses KDE/Qt apps (which, btw, makes it unusable to me as I need Firefox due to smartcard needs -- not even Chromium will do).

It's been many years since I used Chakra, so I can't verify how well they work ATM, but while Chakra does thrive to be Qt/KDE-only you can install bundles, which provide Firefox among other things.

Re:Layered exposure?

[Anonymous Coward]

Good. Thank you for the info. Actually I tested it in a live setting, which left an even bigger impression, since CDs are known to be lousy regarding speed.

I'd better install it and give it a go; of course, Firefox itself is a problem, because it's gtk-based. The Save dialog works well, but the Print to file one does not -- but I suppose I can live with that...

Also, when I meant "all apps should do that" I was referring to things like gVim, for instance.

Hmm, wait a min, let me see... why, Free Software really has everything... there is a vim-qt... there's hope!

Better is to get rid of the "Advanced" tab too

[Anonymous Coward]

The nerds, who fancy themselves "power users", that hang around on Slashdot like to hate on the direction that GNOME took, but GNOME began removing features only in the new millennium after it took on more professional involvement and experienced companies like Sun offered formal UI studies that showed that so many features, even if hidden under an "Advanced" tab, only frighten the vast majority of computer users. For hackers who want to configure everything under the hood, why not switch to a setup focused on uber-configurability (Ratpoison, the *box window managers) and let the "Linux on the desktop" projects go after conventional desktop users? It is good that GNOME allowed ordinary people to comfortably use Linux, not just nerds, and I hope KDE goes in the same direction (though they need to remove any "Advanced" dialogues as well).

Re:Better is to get rid of the "Advanced" tab too

[jbolden]

That's not true regarding frightening. The ones who get frightened can't find and don't use the advanced tab. There are two problems though with those tabs:

a) People tend to over estimate their level of knowledge and turn on these features too early. This can be avoided by making the advanced menus more intimidating (for example using technical terms).
b) Different user bases demand opposite goals. The contention can be quite hard to deal with and often the application either disadvantages one of the groups or effectively forks into multiple applications. In which case why not just have multiple applications?

Re:Better is to get rid of the "Advanced" tab too

[Grishnakh]

So if all the hackers switch to alternative WMs, and leave the main ones to the "conventional desktop users", who's going use these main ones?

All the conventional desktop users are using Windows and MacOS, not Linux.

Worse, if some non-hackers do start using Linux with Gnome, then ask their hacker friend for help, the hacker is just going to say "sorry, I don't use Gnome, I can't help you." If you want Linux on the desktop to take off, you have to court both the hackers and the regular users. The only way to do that is by having advanced features available for the hackers.

can we have ONE non-dumbed down GUI please?

[Anonymous Coward]

So far that's been KDE - - since Gnome, Unity, Android, IOS, Windows, and others have all charged off the "dumb it down for the LCD!" cliff.

KDE had been marvelously resistant to that, and directly exposes a whole host of poweruser settings and configuration options, even settable on a per-app basis if you want, all through the GUI. If it's going to head off the cliff... what's left? Nothing. There are your ultralight envs like LXDE and XFCE but they don't compare to a full featured desktop like KDE.

Let's hope this doesn't end badly :-/.

Re:can we have ONE non-dumbed down GUI please?

[CRCulver]

XFCE hasn't been ultralight in a few years now. It is no longer recommended for netbooks and other underpowered systems. I think it might be a decent replacement for GNOME for many disgruntled users.

Personally, I'd recommend at least considering replacing most of your Linux desktop needs with Emacs and the command line. As the years have gone by, I've done less and less of my work outside of Emacs, a terminal and a browser. Even supposedly UI-heavy things like simple image manipulation are done faster from the command line with an imagemagick one-liner than waiting for Gimp to launch, reaching for the mouse, and clicking through dialogues. Sure, that way of working isn't for everyone, but the sort of people who read Slashdot might want to give it a try.

Re:can we have ONE non-dumbed down GUI please?

[jones_supa]

XFCE hasn't been ultralight in a few years now. It is no longer recommended for netbooks and other underpowered systems.

Meanwhile, full Windows 7 and 8 runs smoothly on those same underpowered systems with all animations and compositing enabled, all the way down to Atom N270 systems.

Everyone can try this themselves if they do not believe it.

Re:can we have ONE non-dumbed down GUI please?

[Aldenissin]

The Borg assimilates and adapts to it's enemies ways, to beat the Borg, we must go where it can not survive. We must fight like it does, we will be invisible and camouflaged to it.

But, the Borg has dominance. You can gain the attention of a bull and provoke him into charging you, then step aside at the last second and let the bull "have his prize", going forward, into the wall he did not see.

Re:can we have ONE non-dumbed down GUI please?

[geekmux]

XFCE hasn't been ultralight in a few years now. It is no longer recommended for netbooks and other underpowered systems.

Meanwhile, full Windows 7 and 8 runs smoothly on those same underpowered systems with all animations and compositing enabled, all the way down to Atom N270 systems.

Everyone can try this themselves if they do not believe it.

Well, Microsoft did give us such wonders as Clippy and Bob almost 20 years ago. All else aside, we really should expect them to have animation down pat.

I mean c'mon, I get motion sickness and vertigo when I use the new UI. That takes mad skillz, man./p

Re:can we have ONE non-dumbed down GUI please?

[Anonymous Coward]

Let me guess: XFCE compositor isn't benefiting from hardware acceleration in those underpowered systems.

Re:can we have ONE non-dumbed down GUI please?

[nine-times]

A little offtopic, but since you bring it up: All hate aside, I've come around to think that the Windows 8 GUI, ignoring the Metro/Modern stuff) is very nice. It succeeds in hiding a lot of the complexity and nonsense while still allowing power users to be efficient. It's very clean, and makes good use of the interface conventions that everyone has gotten accustomed to over the past few decades. If they'd kept the start menu and ditched all the Metro stuff, I think Windows 8 would have been a big hit.

And I think there's a possible lesson there for KDE and Gnome and any other UI designer out there: Instead of constantly trying to reinvent the wheel, sometimes it's better to just refine the UI you already have, removing inconsistencies and redesigning anything that's confusing, problematic, or ugly.

Re:can we have ONE non-dumbed down GUI please?

[Nimey]

FSVO "smoothly". I question whether you've ever run full-fat Windows 7 on an Atom, especially in situations where antivirus is mandatory.

Re:can we have ONE non-dumbed down GUI please?

[mister_playboy]

When I recently did a Mint XFCE install, I was actually surprised by how much the current look mirrors KDE. It is less resource intensive, but not by much... perhaps 20% less RAM usage.

LXDE is the clear go-to for minimal requirements, too bad Mint doesn't have an offering with it as the default.

Re:can we have ONE non-dumbed down GUI please?

[goarilla]

Yes, polish your UI and fix those long standing bugs.
Why does the tray area clobbers when I add something to it, why does session restoration
doesn't work properly (different window geometries, applications on different virtual desktops), etc ...

Re:can we have ONE non-dumbed down GUI please?

[Anonymous Coward]

Tried, confirmed your bullshit.

Re:can we have ONE non-dumbed down GUI please?

[dotwhynot]

FSVO "smoothly". I question whether you've ever run full-fat Windows 7 on an Atom, especially in situations where antivirus is mandatory.

I've been running "full-fat" Windows 7 on an Atom D510 in my Shuttle XS35GT media center PC for more than 3 years. Still runs fine, with MSE AV always on. Only thing it struggles with is some of the more demanding 1080P video files, 720P is always fine (but this is likely more due to graphic chip than processor).

Re:can we have ONE non-dumbed down GUI please?

[Anonymous Coward]

I will have to disagree about Windows 7, because I have tried it. Even on Nvidia Nano systems. They run like crap. Windows 8, not so bad.

But KDE runs well on them. (yes. It does.)

Re:can we have ONE non-dumbed down GUI please?

[rubycodez]

nonsense, those microsoft developers still haven't made possible basic functionality anyone with half a brain would realize, such as ability to copy and paste error messages and URL off of popup alerts. Not polished at all.

Re:can we have ONE non-dumbed down GUI please?

[Anonymous Coward]

FYI you can use CTRL+C in any error dialog to copy the whole text.
You'll need to paste it some text editor if you only want part of it.
But yeah, that text should be selectable and the URLs clickable.

Re:can we have ONE non-dumbed down GUI please?

[Anonymous Coward]

XFCE hasn't been ultralight in a few years now. It is no longer recommended for netbooks and other underpowered systems.

Meanwhile, full Windows 7 and 8 runs smoothly on those same underpowered systems with all animations and compositing enabled, all the way down to Atom N270 systems.

Everyone can try this themselves if they do not believe it.

Starts looking around for that old 500mhz/256MB-Ram laptop I have, to load up Win7 and test that theory out. ::)

Re:can we have ONE non-dumbed down GUI please?

[phantomfive]

. It succeeds in hiding a lot of the complexity and nonsense while still allowing power users to be efficient.

Maybe, but it's a complete fail on discoverability.

Re:can we have ONE non-dumbed down GUI please?

[Anonymous Coward]

XFCE hasn't been ultralight in a few years now. It is no longer recommended for netbooks and other underpowered systems.

Meanwhile, full Windows 7 and 8 runs smoothly on those same underpowered systems with all animations and compositing enabled, all the way down to Atom N270 systems.

And XFCE (Xubuntu) runs fine on my 10-year-old laptop, which has a Celeron and 1GB RAM, and a WUXGA display with Radeon 9600. This presents a counterexample to GP's assertion and to your first implied assertion.

It came originally with XP (pre SP1), which ran OK on it. The advice from Microsoft for successfully installing XP SP1 was enough to drive me to another OS: "disable all firewalls in your cable-modem and disable all anti-virus programs on your PC". This laptop has been running Ubuntu in one form or another since Warty and the RC for Breezy, and became Microsoft-free on the release of Breezy. I have never tried installing Windows 7 or 8 on it, so can't comment on your second assertion.

Re:can we have ONE non-dumbed down GUI please?

[nine-times]

At least it's pretty consistent.

Re:can we have ONE non-dumbed down GUI please?

[Anonymous Coward]

I do dev work in Visual Studio all day long. I can't tell you the last time I saw a "popup alert" that confused me.

The last alert dialog box I saw was something unambiguous about how the TFS server was unavailable due to network issues. No error code, just a message saying "your network admin done fucked up, so go get lunch and commit your code when you come back" (well, that's basically what it meant, anyway).

The last alert dialog box with an error message I saw was when I was trying set up a P-to-V'ed BizTalk server from production into a test environment, but change the server name because the network guy decided to change the server name, even though it's on a different domain. Needless to say, BizTalk wasn't having any of that. Good old error 0x80004005. It's so common, Windows devs already know what it is. (Roughly translated, it's: "Access denied, bitch. You don't have permission to access the production domain from the test domain with your puny test domain user account. Now go wipe out this BizTalk instance config and start over from scratch. Or better yet, blow away this VM and give up now. It'll save time.")

A "normal" user isn't ever going to see these issues. Ever.

Re:can we have ONE non-dumbed down GUI please?

[Zontar The Mindless]

There are your ultralight envs...

That's right. We'll always have Window Maker.

Re:can we have ONE non-dumbed down GUI please?

[eriqk]

Meanwhile, full Windows 7 and 8 runs smoothly on those same underpowered systems with all animations and compositing enabled, all the way down to Atom N270 systems.

Everyone can try this themselves if they do not believe it.

Well, so do Gnome3 and Unity, so there's that.

Re:can we have ONE non-dumbed down GUI please?

[Hognoxious]

What's this, then?

Re:can we have ONE non-dumbed down GUI please?

[Anonymous Coward]

People who recommend LXDE have clearly never used LXDE.

Goddamn it's miserable. I used it for years to squeeze the most out of an old Pentium 2.

Xfce has ALWAYS been this bloated, and thank god for that. It would be miserable if it wasn't.

WTF?

[Arker]

"KDE Software is often criticized for being too complicated for an average user to use. "

By whom? Since when?

"Try setting up Kmail and you would know what I mean. "

Havent used it lately but I dont remember it being much different from more common GUI email apps. What are you getting at?

"The KDE developers are aware of it and now they are working on making KDE UI simpler. "

Thinking of GNOME, which was once somewhat useful and useable before the developers started talking like this, a shiver runs down my spine.

"KDE usability team lead Thomas Pfeiffer Thomas prefers a layered feature exposure so that users can enjoy certain advanced features at a later stage after they get accustomed to the basic functionality of the application. He quotes the earlier (pre-Plasma era) vision of KDE 4 &#226;&#8364;" "Anything that makes Linux interesting for technical users (shells, compilation, drivers, minute user settings) will be available; not as the default way of doing things, but at the user's discretion."

Ugh. *Minute user settings* are actually very important to many non-technical users. This does sound like GNOME, unfortunately.

Re:WTF?

[Aldenissin]

"KDE Software is often criticized for being too complicated for an average user to use. "

By whom? Since when?

Me. If I think it is, then no doubt many people think it is. It;s why I stopped with KDE and just stuck with Gnome.

"The KDE developers are aware of it and now they are working on making KDE UI simpler. "

Thinking of GNOME, which was once somewhat useful and useable before the developers started talking like this, a shiver runs down my spine.

I would say that is a fair reaction, if you are thinking about Gnome. The more we compare, the more we sometimes drive things that way. We bash gnome now, defenders come out and defend it, and now we've really got a war on our hands. This happens often life.

"KDE usability team lead Thomas Pfeiffer Thomas prefers a layered feature exposure so that users can enjoy certain advanced features at a later stage after they get accustomed to the basic functionality of the application. He quotes the earlier (pre-Plasma era) vision of KDE 4 â" "Anything that makes Linux interesting for technical users (shells, compilation, drivers, minute user settings) will be available; not as the default way of doing things, but at the user's discretion."

Ugh. *Minute user settings* are actually very important to many non-technical users. This does sound like GNOME, unfortunately.

Sounds more like Windows to me. And that actually, may be a good thing. Seriously, Windows got a lock on the desktop because people liked it, and by people, I mean everyday joe blow secretary or the executive that can't even type his own emails or use a spreadsheet, in short the greater pool or end users.

People use what they like, the like what they can dive into, and later on pull back the curtain. Having tools to get into the guts is a great idea. And you know what, it was cool, at first, that I could pull up a terminal and look under the hood quickly when I used Ubuntu from the very get go years ago. That novelty quickly wore off when I ended up having to do these things. I like the ability, but clutter and a dozen options get in the way of getting basic things done.

I once read a great take on organization. If you have more than ten of something, you probably need another level for ease of use, be it files in a folder, icons in a start menu, etc. I took the time to redesign my start menu in windows, and boy I and anyone else could find right where any program was, quickly.

Linus Torvalds and Richard Stallman should come together, and make a short video clip. And they should be screaming, "Designers! Designers! Designers!"

Re:WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

It;s why I stopped with KDE and just stuck with Gnome.

That's fine, so be happy with Gnome, and tell the KDE folks to leave it alone for those of us who do NOT want a "simplified" desktop.

Re:WTF?

[Bite The Pillow]

Instead of ranting like a 3 year old and ignoring the answers to your unnecessary questions, why not try setting up the example app to see if it has changed, and if it makes sense as a complicated set up example?

Re:WTF?

[Andy_R]

"Windows got a lock on the desktop because people liked it"

Really?

Windows got a lock on the desktop because it was next to f***ing impossible not to buy it every time you bought a PC, and the only alternatives were Dos or throwing out all your computers and software to switch to Macs.

Re:WTF?

[Aldenissin]

Who said I was happy with Gnome? I would rather use KDE, just too complicated. See this video for examples.

Re:WTF?

[Aldenissin]

Windows got a lock on the desktop because it was next to f***ing impossible not to buy it every time you bought a PC, and the only alternatives were Dos or throwing out all your computers and software to switch to Macs.

Thank you for proving my point, people obviously liked it, for whatever reason, over alternatives like Dos and Mac.

Re:WTF?

[flyingfsck]

Wow, then I must be super intelligent, like 200 IQ smart, since I've been using KDE on all my chinines since about 1998 or so and I never thought that it is complicated.

Re:WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

Dope.

Re:WTF?

[nine-times]

Going way off-topic, I don't know if I'd say that people like it, but I also don't know that I'd say that it's just because it comes on computers when you buy them. I think it's more that, over the course of the ownership of the system, you'll probably have fewer problems.

And that happens for a variety of reasons. One of the big ones is that it's more widely supported by hardware and software vendors. I think that is a major point. If you could get Microsoft Office and Adobe CS on Linux, I think you'd see a significant increase in adoption just from that. Yes, I know there are alternatives, but when people decide they want a particular application or a specific peripheral, they aren't going to like finding out that they can't use it because they have "the wrong kind of computer".

But getting slightly closer to the topic at hand, I think part of it is also just that they more or less know what to expect. Until the Windows 8 debacle, they knew which buttons to press and what would happen when they pressed them, more or less. People usually don't want to figure out how to operate their computer. They just want to know which buttons to press in order to get the result they want, and any change that moves or renames those buttons is unwelcome. If you must move or rename things, you'll get a better response from most people if the new way of doing things is so intuitive and obvious that they don't need to actually learn anything.

Re:WTF?

[Aldenissin]

Maybe, or more likely just more familiar with similar patterns. First impressions count for a lot too, and if you were gun-ho about it the first time you tried it, you'll likely have a better overall experience than someone who is merely interested in trying something else, and just not as excited and committed as perhaps you were.

Re:WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or you could be too stupid to realize that not everyone is as experienced as you.

Re:WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

Who said I was happy with Gnome?

I see... so instead of picking from one of the other 800 potential "simplified" desktops you could use, all designed to cater exactly to folks like you, you instead want to destroy one of the only non-dumbed down desktops left.

Selfish git. You are what is wrong with modern computing.

Re:WTF?

[Aldenissin]

"Simplified" doesn't mean user friendly and feature rich, bringing end users successfully with the features that KDE provides, you trolling coward. It's the selfish gits like you that expect others to go out and sift through 800 versions, but not you, is what is wrong with modern computing.

And you don't know what caters to me. But I would like to use and support something that is easy for everyone.

Re:WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

KDE is bloated and not worth waiting and learning...

Re:WTF?

[Aldenissin]

That is what this article is speaking on, to an extent.

Re:WTF?

[HiThere]

There were (and are) people who like MSWind. Agreed.

MSWind became dominant because the people who made the purchasing decisions trusted IBM. Not because people who used the computers liked it. Most of them didn't. Now most of them do, because they've become habituated, and the thought of putting in that much effort again terrifies them.

If you want to pick a company that became dominant because people liked it, pick Apple. I, personally, don't use or want to use Apple, but those who do use it like it. (When I used it, I liked it...but they made a change in the EULA that I found unacceptable. Now I no longer know it, though I don't actively dislike it the way I do MSWind.)

Re:WTF?

[Arker]

"Sounds more like Windows to me. And that actually, may be a good thing. Seriously, Windows got a lock on the desktop because people liked it, and by people, I mean everyday joe blow secretary or the executive that can't even type his own emails or use a spreadsheet, in short the greater pool or end users."

No. Just no. That is flat out incorrect. Windows got a lock on the desktop because you bought it with every computer whether you used it or not, and joe blow secretary or the old-school executive did not *PREFER* it to other options, s/he did not typically understand there was any alternative. And because MS has always been willing to use their position today to acquire or destroy any company that might get in their way tomorrow, of course.

"I once read a great take on organization. If you have more than ten of something, you probably need another level for ease of use, be it files in a folder, icons in a start menu, etc. I took the time to redesign my start menu in windows, and boy I and anyone else could find right where any program was, quickly."

Arent you glad that the system *allows* you to do this manually, instead of insisting on hiding all the details and just giving you an unchangeable 'view' that enables only the most commonly used options rather than confuse you?

Re:WTF?

[Arker]

That's some pretty funny stuff, and I know there is similar insanity in Windows and OSX as well. Stupid error messages was an old topic long before the first IBM or Apple PC was ever sold. The funny thing is I seem to avoid 99% of them these days, on any OS, simply by using a command line or a canonical file manager. So pointing out that KDE's graphical shell sucks gets a big meh out of me. They all suck.

Re:WTF?

[Sri Ramkrishna]

I would say that is a fair reaction, if you are thinking about Gnome. The more we compare, the more we sometimes drive things that way. We bash gnome now, defenders come out and defend it, and now we've really got a war on our hands. This happens often life.

Naw, us GNOME folks are going to stay out of this one. I will say that it's cool that KDE is looking seriously at design. I've been following their design group that posts something almost every week, quite diligently. Good stuff.

I hope none of the other GNOME supporters jump in either. This seems like something y'all need to deal with yourselves.

Re:WTF?

[Zontar The Mindless]

... Windows got a lock on the desktop because people liked it...

Poppycock. Windows got a lock on the desktop because MS spread FUD far and wide, and worked shitty deals with vendors to lock out the competition.

Re:WTF?

[Zontar The Mindless]

And just how long have you been employed by Microsoft's Marketing Deptartment, Mr Aldenissin?

Re:WTF?

[donaldm]

If you could get Microsoft Office and Adobe CS on Linux, I think you'd see a significant increase in adoption just from that

What you have said is very debatable however Microsoft and Adobe would have to port those products to particular Linux distributions although it is possible to run them under "Wine" or even on a virtual machine with a Microsoft OS. For a business were you are told to run the products you mentioned you would normally have no choice but to run them on a Microsoft OS and in most cases all costs are born by the business.

Key "home use" and people either join the "green parrot and peg-leg brigade", purchase the appropriate license or look for alternatives.which run under Microsoft Windows or natively under a Linux distribution. For the amateur through to the professional "LibreOffice" and "The GIMP" are quite viable alternatives. Of course if the business you work at requires those commercial products and is willing to pay for them then fine.

BTW. I am aware that Adobe's Creative Suite is a collection of software of which one is "Photo Shop" which can be reasonably compared to "The GIMP" (Key the flames), however you would have to look around to get pretty close to it's functionality. if you are interested this site can help.

Re:WTF?

[donaldm]

Windows got a lock on the desktop because it was next to f***ing impossible not to buy it every time you bought a PC, and the only alternatives were Dos or throwing out all your computers and software to switch to Macs.

Thank you for proving my point, people obviously liked it, for whatever reason, over alternatives like Dos and Mac.

In what way did the original poster prove your point? I suppose the "Microsoft Tax" is fantasy.

It is not a matter whether people liked or disliked Microsoft Windows it is basically all they get when they purchase a new PC. Basically MS Windows IMHO is "good enough" for people who normally don't know there are alternatives and even if they do, most would not know how to install an alternative OS so they put up with the one that came by default. That does not necessarily mean they like it or hate it for that matter since they normally can't or won't compare against other OS's.

As for DOS you have to be kidding. Ok maybe a MAC, but MAC hardware even though it is now Intel architecture is normally more expensive (although not by much) and has a different GUI to a MS Windows GUI, although from what I can gather MAC users actually do prefer their OS over MS Windows although I will admit they are in minority with regard to PC' sales. Smartphones and tablets are a different matter and these areas are were Apple's OS/GUI and Android's Linux OS/GUI) dominate.

Re:WTF?

[Aldenissin]

MSWind became dominant because the people who made the purchasing decisions trusted IBM. Not because people who used the computers liked it. Most of them didn't. Now most of them do, because they've become habituated, and the thought of putting in that much effort again terrifies them.

Sure they liked it, I remember using Windows on DOS, and thought, this is cool! (I was too young and stupid to realize it was not cool to be that lazy...) People like their habits... if they didn't, they would quit, like you did Apple. We generally don't do anything that we absolutely don't like. I might not "like" my vegetables, but I like eating them if it means I get to go outside and play.

Re:WTF?

[Aldenissin]

No. Just no. That is flat out incorrect. Windows got a lock on the desktop because you bought it with every computer whether you used it or not, and joe blow secretary or the old-school executive did not *PREFER* it to other options, s/he did not typically understand there was any alternative. And because MS has always been willing to use their position today to acquire or destroy any company that might get in their way tomorrow, of course.

Look, I don't like Microsoft's tactics, but people liked Windows for whatever reason, or they wouldn't have used it, whether there was a viable alternative or not. Many end users do not like the flawed details of many *nix alternatives.

Arent you glad that the system *allows* you to do this manually, instead of insisting on hiding all the details and just giving you an unchangeable 'view' that enables only the most commonly used options rather than confuse you?

I haven't used KDE in forever. Taking your word for it, if it is customizable easily, that is a plus. Having a standard ("unchangeable view" you might say) is also a plus. Balance is the key. Unless of course, all you want is geeks and nerds who want to be able to say, "I don't only use the terminal!"

In short, make it easy, while allowing those experienced to dig further in, or you limit your user-base, adoption, and overall contribution to everything (including KDE) in FOSS/Libre land

Re:WTF?

[Aldenissin]

Never have, never will. Having said that, I'd like to add, we have to smart and use our talents, not be stupid and trudge along. Hacker and engineers adapt, which requires study.

Microsoft DOES do some things right. Much of they they do is just cheap decisions, that further their monopolistic goals. If all we do is hate, and don't appreciate our enemies, then we are doomed to be at their mercy. Maybe FOSS/Libre needs a marketing department?

I actually loath much of what MS stands for. I am a hardcore FOSS/Libre advocate, and use Trisquel as my OS. I'm just sick and tired of the stupidity and being limited because of such. Does this answer your question Zontar?

Re:WTF?

[Aldenissin]

As a Gnome user, I wish it was a little more like KDE, and so I reckon I'll add my two cents. In the case that I'm heard, they've then possibly picked up another user(s). Since you're paying attention, I'd hope you'd make an intelligent point where appropriate and help them out. But you're right, it's quite likely you need to sit just where you are at. You'll know.

Re:WTF?

[Aldenissin]

That certainly helped tip the balance, but if no one liked it for whatever reason, they wouldn't use it. Can't we be honest about this? When we do, then we can finally say, "Ok, how do we beat them at their own game?"

Re:WTF?

[Aldenissin]

In what way did the original poster prove your point? I suppose the "Microsoft Tax" is fantasy.

Anytime it is impossible to get an alternative of something, obviously many like their current option. No one said it was a fantasy, and I didn't say it is how they tried to keep their lock, just that is how they go it. Capisce?

It is not a matter whether people liked or disliked Microsoft Windows it is basically all they get when they purchase a new PC. .../snip/ That does not necessarily mean they like it or hate it for that matter since they normally can't or won't compare against other OS's.

It certainly matters! If they hate it, they won't use it. They will find another way, another job, install Linux and KDE, something. You don't have to like everything about something to like it enough to use it. When you say, "Well it is dominant! I have no choice!", and then you use it, you also say that you like the dominance and what it brings to the table, or you would refuse to use it. Remember, we always have a choice once our parents stop literally holding our hands, and we vote with every public action we take.

As for DOS you have to be kidding.

Do you know where Windows came from? It originally ran on ... wait for it... DOS!

And get this, people didn't delete it! They ran this newfangled program called Windows because they actually ... wait again for it... liked it!

Re:WTF?

[Aldenissin]

Oh and as for your signature, MS Office is a standard - found in the majority of offices with computers. MS Office is proprietary. Hence at one time, it was a proprietary standard. As far as I know, the latest versions of it's file formats still are closely regarded secrets lest Libre/FOSS software be "openly" competitive as standards should facilitate. But they aren't as competitive, as they have a proprietary "format standard" to deal with.

Re:WTF?

[Sri Ramkrishna]

Well, I'm not a designer, but they should know who to contact. I have some of the KDE devs on G+, although not the designers. It will be an interesting direction, but the road will be paved with obstacles since lot of the people who use KDE like to be able to tweak it as much as possible. It's hard to do a design that incorporates all the tweaks and still remain simplistic. But if they manage it, that is going to be a great coup for design in general and something everyone can learn from.

Re:WTF?

[nine-times]

BTW. I am aware that Adobe's Creative Suite is a collection of software of which one is "Photo Shop" which can be reasonably compared to "The GIMP" (Key the flames),

I specifically don't want to get into this conversation.

Re:WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

Loath is an adjective. Loathe is a verb. Cretin.

Maybe they could rollback a few major releases?

[Anonymous Coward]

Then it might actually become usable again.

Simplicity itself

[wonkey_monkey]

KDE's UI To Bend Toward Simplicity

"Bend toward simplicity"? Couldn't you have just said "to be simplified"? That seems... simpler.

Re:Simplicity itself

[__aaltlg1547]

It implies the designers had previously refused to bend, stubbornly adhering to a more complex UI.

Re:Simplicity itself

[Anonymous Coward]

Nah. If you bend something enough, it breaks. This is important.

Re:Simplicity itself

[Anonymous Coward]

But then he wouldn't be different and, ahem, "interesting".

Simplicity itself

[DexterIsADog]

KDE's UI To Bend Toward Simplicity

"Bend toward simplicity"? Couldn't you have just said "to be simplified"? That seems... simpler.

I believe the submitter was either consciously or unconsciously thinking of this quote by MLK: "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice."

The grandiosity of conflating a hobbyist OS with one of the great struggles for social justice in the past two centuries is par for the course.

This again?

[Njovich]

Do you really have to rip all of the features out of KMail for this?

How about you make your own mail client, hell, even use the KMail source. Then you will see how much the KDE userbase will love your 'retarded-people-interface' that is only an improvement for people who don't need advanced features like deleting an email. I'm not kidding, look at the mockup in the article.

I really don't get how you can see Metro and Gnome fail completely trying to force a more 'simple' user interface on people, and then want to make the same mistake.

Re:This again?

[jones_supa]

The article precisely says this:

UPDATE: As I’ve seen in some discussions of my post on the Internet (not the comments here) that people apparently thought the screenshot represented the next KMail desktop UI, I’ve updated the screenshot and the caption to make clear what it is.

Re:This again?

[dcollins117]

Conceptually, an email client is simple affair but the KMail devs have managed to take this seemingly straight-forward task and create a huge pile of shit. I switched to Thunderbird after the fourth time I had to manually recover my emails after a KMail crash or "upgrade" and from what I gather I'm not alone in abandoning that time wasting, file corrupting POS.

Re:This again?

[Anonymous Coward]

Which is pathetic, when you think about it. KMail was a model of simplicity and ease of use when it first came into existence.

The one of the main problems with KDE is that the devs didn't have a handle on sane and sound design (as in code *AND* usability) principles- including tying things like a timing loop in the UI to the modem handler for the dialout app. After getting into a pissing match with the Kppp dev over the ill-advised design decision, I swore off of KDE because I saw this coming because it permeated throughout the codebase. You don't need to "handle desktop ontologies" and crap like that. Seriously.

KISS guys. Keep It Simple Stupid. If you can't you're failing at it all, to be bluntly honest.

You can be capable and all without making it stupid clumsy to use. GNOME *used* to have a handle on that. KDE had it before GNOME, honestly. Then, somewhere along the line, creeping featuritis set in on both of those- mainly to "keep relevant" or "compete" with Windows or OSX. We have to QUIT doing that. Think about what is usable. Think about how to accomplish it with the LEAST amount of code involved. It doesn't mean not code for something- just quit friggin' overengineering this stuff.

Re:This again?

[Anonymous Coward]

But... the delete button is right there. In the middle of the mockup.

The mockup that's supposed to be a design for mobile devices, which do not have the screenspace to clutter up your display with a kajillion buttons.
Did you even look at, much less read, the article?

Layered exposure?

[Anonymous Coward]

> Either I misunderstand, or power users will have to wait to be able to access advanced features.

I think this is where Gnome and KDE are different. Or at least I'd like to think, since I'm not "in the know". Now, what you say seems somewhat absurd, but obviously in hindsight it's not -- for that is exactly what Gnome devs have done. I just hope KDE devs can learn from the mistakes of others...

> Why not go with the usual basic settings, with a button/tab to access advanced settings? Is that too complex for end-users?

KDE already works that way (for example, in Application Appearance/Style/Widget Style/Configure there's such a button. Also in Workspace Appearance/Windows Decorations/Configure Decoration. And maybe in a couple other places, too, can't really remember. The point is this is somewhat arbitrary. KDE users love complexity and tweaking, so what's advanced is really not much and one can even wonder why they don't expose everything.

Conversely, a not advanced user is usually very not advanced 8-/ . For some, even asking if they want click-to-focus (the Windows way) or focus-follow-mouse can be stressing. Just as an aside, I'm biased to single-click instead of the usual double-click Windows way (*). That alone creates powerful ripples over the entire desktop. Heck, gtk devs could not understand how to do it (from some posts I've seen about single-click) -- so we have gtk apps which work badly under such option. This, despite the fact Qt-apps do exist and work well with that setting (except for a few which insist on following strange UI guidelines).

Simplification is excellent for the user and bad to the developer, because it's added work and not an easy task, as a matter of fact. Kudos for them to tackle such a hard problem. I'm always reminded of Blaise Pascal introduction when writing to one of his friends: "I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time".

Also, recently I tested Chakra and was impressed by how agile it was on an old machine. I guess it can be attributed to not loading gtk libs in memory at any time, since it just uses KDE/Qt apps (which, btw, makes it unusable to me as I need Firefox due to smartcard needs -- not even Chromium will do). Besides, I'm not sure the Libreoffice I have installed uses Qt and its native toolkit... just Google and found it uses "vcl" (its own) which can "hook up" to gtk etc.

http://ask.libreoffice.org/en/question/81/which-gui-toolkit-is-used-by-lo/ and
http://ask.libreoffice.org/en/question/3078/choose-gui-toolkit-for-lo-session/

Maybe all apps should do that...

PS:
(*) I've read it's an Apple invention (**), probably because of their original 1-button mouse. While useful in certain situations (I use it to maximize windows), I consider it unnecessary, non intuitive and prone to cause RSI. But people are so used to it that an entirely different mindset is needed to return to single-click use. That is one of the reasons I consider Windows not only more difficult, but with lasting (bad) effects on one's brain.

(**) http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Busy_Being_Born.txt
Described as invented by Bill Atkinson at Apple, it's such an obvious movement we probably will be able to find prior-art in some children play involving double-tapping or something.

The following article may provide further information about it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-click

Everyday KDE user; completely agree!

[Anonymous Coward]

II always recommend KDE to new users, but it needs be simplified (Baloo/Nepomuk off, Akonadi off, Kwallet off, Activities off) and its ME who has to do it, because I know how to do it, and they don't. See where the problem is?

If you, KDE UI designers, can make it as simple as possible for the novice users, I will be very pleased that it is *me*, not them, who has to spend some time to fit the environment to his taste (as long as you don't touch *my* KDE!).

The problem is that in order to show off a new fancy feature that may give KDE an edge (cf. Baloo, etc), the authors seem to think that they have to turn them on by default. That is why KDE is unusable for novices. Maybe just let the people decide whether they are so great, and they will gladly opt in if they are, as I do with some of them, not all.

Go ahead and simplify the default settings, and put some layers in. It will be great! (Did I say I will cut you if you dare touch *my* KDE?)

Re:Everyday KDE user; completely agree!

[juanfgs]

After toying with KDE and then going back to gnome I must say that KDE has a lot of potential but needs to take care of some issues. Baloo or "semantic desktop" needs to be hidden, same for Akonadi, they are daemons for fsck sake! only visible when you actually want to get your hands dirty in configuring obscure settings with these services ( managing non IMAP/POP3 services on Akonadi for example), and you don't need really to announce your "semantic desktop" everywhere. Kwallet is great... if it actually worked like Gnome-keyring does, I have been prompted so many times for KWallet password or my user account passwords that I don't even know which password I'm being asked for. Activities, well it's a neat idea that, I don't know I think Aaron Seigo used them and found them useful, for me it means twice the configuration and no benefits whatsoever, it needs to be streamlined. Otherwise KDE is quite good.

Re:Everyday KDE user; completely agree!

[HiThere]

Baloo, at least, needs to be sufficiently visible that you can turn it off. It eats up an incredible amount of CPU time to, for me, no benefit. KWallet has it's points, but it's not THAT great. In my use case sticky-notes would be quite reasonable for passwords. Just don't make them accessible over the net (i.e., to other programs running on the same machine). I'm not worried about shoulder surfers. As for Akonadi...I had no idea what it was until I just now looked at the web page, and I still don't know if it is of *ANY* value to me. But if it doesn't take up CPU time when I'm not using it, I guess it doesn't do much harm.

OTOH, I find Gnome3 unusable. Gnome2 was decent...I preferred it to KDE4, but then I preferred KDE3 to Gnome2. xfce would be a good system, but when I tried it, it got confused about which window was on top of which (more specifically, windows tended to get stuck under the menubar at the top of the screen). It's usable, but with several misfeatures, so currently I'm using KDE4. I'm also wondering about razorQT, but I don't want my window manager to be flakey, and the last I heard razorQT was in very late alpha. I've also heard about LXQT recently. Don't know what it's status is, but it isn't in the system repository, and this makes me dubious.

Re:Everyday KDE user; completely agree!

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh yes, baloo and akonadi are the reasons why I stopped using it.
If I wanted someone else to dictate how to use my computer and waste its resources, I'd be using Windows.

Re:Everyday KDE user; completely agree!

[Zontar The Mindless]

I would like the "semantic desktop" and Akonadi to die in a fire. Along with forcing me to accept a MariaDB installation that I do not want.

KMail's not that bad

[Chryana]

Disclaimer: I haven't used KMail for years, yet I use Thunderbird and Firefox every day. I just want to point out a few things that the KDE team has gotten right, as opposed to the Mozilla team.

Things that I like about KMail and its settings:
- The UI doesn't change every 6 months in an attempt to ape their closest competitor.
- If a settings can be configured, there's a button for it in the settings. I don't have to download a plugin that might get updated at any moment with spyware, or to muck about in the configuration editor. Do you remember that, in order to show http in URLs, you have to change the setting browser.urlbar.trimURLs in about:config? For some reason, I have to look it up in Google every single time I set up a Firefox. If there was a button for it, I would probably remember where it is.
- They are not so utterly reliant on ad money that they set the default tracking setting to "Do not tell sites about my tracking preferences", which is a lame cop-out. Maybe they could cut some of the compensations they are giving to their executives instead.

With all that said, it is true that the settings in KDE and KMail in particular can be confusing to new users. Maybe they could have a "show settings: simple/all" radio button in the corner of their preferences windows, like VLC?

Re:KMail's not that bad

[Anonymous Coward]

Very True. I switched from Thunderbird to Kmail due to such stuff which follows GNOME manner of building UI's. It was bit hard at first, but now it's easy and has lots of functionality and control.

Re:KMail's not that bad

[Anonymous Coward]

Re UI changing: Uhm...Thunderbird's not changed in a year plus on UI. Sorry, calling bullshit on that one.
Re Settings, plugins, etc. : Uhm...again...I don't need that with TB. Calling bullshit on that one as well.
Re Reliant on Ad money: Uhm...that's a damn browser setting, not an email one. You, sir, are FULL OF IT.

Re:KMail's not that bad

[Chryana]

I'm probably wasting my time answering an anonymous coward but, oh well.
- The UI changing complaint is mostly about Firefox constant changes to match Chrome. Thunderbird moves a bit slower, because the UI really only changes on ESR versions (10,17,24,31), but they are there, and I don't think they are an improvement. The 6 months UI change may be an exaggeration for Thunderbird, but not so much on Firefox.
- Well, it appears the Thunderbird developers made their email program just for you, and you never need to configure or change anything, and that you like how they move the UI around. Good for you, but different people use the same program differently.
- In Thunderbird, go to the Tools Menu->Options->Privacy tab. The ad tracking settings are right there. Thus, it's not only a browser setting.

Re:KMail's not that bad

[BellyJelly]

Disclaimer: I haven't used KMail for years

Well I have, and I'm sorry to say that kmail is probably the worst of the core kde applications. And I say that as someone who generally loves kde and have used it for 10+ years (and I didn't even moan during the kde3>4 switch). Strangely, I keep on using kmail in the forlorn hope that it will eventually get fixed and stop being a slow and unresponsive resource hog. The latest glimmer of hope I cling to is that the kde devs are finally getting rid of the nepomuk/strigi mess......

Re:KMail's not that bad

[Jerry]

I've been using KDE since the 1.0 beta was released with the SuSE 5.3 distro in September of 1998.
I've been using KMail since I left Thunderbird about 10 years ago.
I am currently running the latest version on Kubuntu 14.04 fully updated, with filters, encryption, etc...
It has been and is running fine.

Re:KMail's not that bad

[Zontar The Mindless]

I really like how the Firefox devs recently decided that my tabs should move above almost everything else instead of at the top of the browser window where is where I put them so they would be immediately accessible from whatever page I'm viewing, AND did their damnedest to keep anybody from moving it back. What a complete and utter fail.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

TRULY simplifying things is HARD

[sootman]

Simplifying does NOT mean "show what I think are the 4 most important controls and hide the other 47 behind a menu icon."

Re:TRULY simplifying things is HARD

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed not. However, I fear that they've gone beyond fixing things that way- they've been building this train wreck since the 1.x series of releases.

Re:TRULY simplifying things is HARD

[Hognoxious]

If you hide them behind an invislible menu icon that's pretty much gmail and Windows 8.

Oh, you also make the most popular four invisible too. Because the less there is to see, the better the UX is. Because design.

hum

[Anonymous Coward]

Issues with kde start menu
1. Can't resize icons in the kde menu but I do like the scrolling which is missing in Windows 7.
2. You can't combine and hide labels for the taskbar buttons like in Windows 7 which looks clean and not cluttered.
3. Put all the hardware and system settings under a category labeled "Settings Panel" or something similar like windows 7 has "Control Panel", Plus, I see the word "Settings" all over the kde start menu. I guess the whole menu system needs better categorized.
4. Confusion between yast and yast 2
5. WTF is activities
6. Why is the "Desktop" a small square box on the screen and not the actual screens.
7. Changing themes should be as easy as Windows 7, not freaking changing each individual part of the desktop(title bar, taskbar, Frame).
8. The right corner bottom update notifications is horrid to handle just confusing to start the updates.

If you really want to make it simple

[dhuv]

Decouple KDE from the PIM software. What I find ridiculous is that all that stuff is installed at a time when web applications (especially for email, calendar) are so popular. I understand there are plenty of users that may want to continue using it, but why not let them install it separately. Since when did we start needing MySQL server on the desktop?

KDE definitely seems bloated these days. I am looking forward to LXQT. I just need to get off my ass and install it on a computer to start switching.

Re:If you really want to make it simple

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not even a MySQL server--thanks to Monty and crew spreading FUD amongst the distros, it's now more likely to be MariaDB.

Do not simplify.

[ThePhilips]

I think "simplifying" would only cause lots of pain.

KDE is already pretty well structured. What they need to do is to simply develop a new "front-end" for all the back-end goodies.

And why stop there - make a framework so that almost anybody can easily experiment with front-end development.

That would be, IMO, the most KDE-ish way to do it. Everything else would lead to the debacle like the KDE3 vs. KDE4 was.

Re:Do not simplify.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well structured, maybe. Overengineered...definitely. Therein lies the problem. You can have a well-structured ANYTHING and not have it be usable by the average user of a computer system.

Simplification has a disgusting track record.

[Kremmy]

On every platform, this idea has led to horrible design decisions. We have things like Metro and Unity which have decided that a never-ending list of every installed application is better for a new user - when it outright requires that user to know what they're doing to get any work done. We have this issue where people are so afraid of complexity that we're oversimplifying things to the point of breaking them.
But the inescapable truth is that we live in a complex world, and do complex actions. Many of those actions cannot be simplified to the degree that "end user" is going to be able to effectively do them, because the entire idea that "end user without a working knowledge" should be able to do complex tasks is pure fallacy.
Computers aren't getting simpler because we're streamlining the user interfaces, the tasks users must accomplish aren't getting simpler because we're streamlining the user interfaces. We're screwing everyone by trying to simplify a complex world beyond reason.
As it stands, KDE might be the gold standard of desktop environments, and I feel that's because they haven't been afraid of the inherent complexity involved in the system. If they manage to appropriately refactor the user experience while not crippling the environment, they might be on to something.
Chances are, we're about to lose the value of KDE, much like we lost the value of so many other projects over the years.

Re:Simplification has a disgusting track record.

[StormReaver]

Chances are, we're about to lose the value of KDE, much like we lost the value of so many other projects over the years.

I truly hope that KDE isn't falling victim to the, "We're successful, so let's abandon everything that got us here!" syndrome that infects so many formerly-usable systems.

can't wait...

[Anonymous Coward]

...for UI designs to re-invent the good, old-fashioned, File, Edit, View, Options, Help menu bar.

hum

[Anonymous Coward]

IIRC for #7 you could do that in KDE3, but not in 4. Why? I don't know. I would love to see that come back.

KDE: Difficult?

[Anonymous Coward]

While I agree that some of the configuration options could use cleaning up, I am absolutely unable to describe KDE as "too complicated". Simplifying the interface is a dumb idea, the article is a dumb article. Leave KDE alone, there needs to be at least one gui desktop for grownups.

features are tools, more tools needed

[Eravnrekaree]

I am dismayed to hear about this. If people want a dumbed down UI, don't they already have gnome? When you try to dumb things down to appeal to the lowest common denominator, you end up with software that only an idiot can use and that is useless for anyone that wants to accomplish real work. KDE has been one of the few UIs recently that has been useable and where you could find what you need because it actually has a good basket of features exposed through the UI. What makes software useable IS the features and having as many features and capabilities as possible. The fact that Linux software is so weak in capability and features compared to Windows apps is why Linux does not gain as much traction.

The idea of "advanced" screens in the UI where the more advanced features can go, and putting more commonly used features up front, is better than not having the features and is bargain I might accept, as long as this includes the exposure of fullest possible features in the UI without making assumptions about whether users may need that feature, which is project developers forcing their idea about how the software should be used on users, which never works well as they rarely know. the idea of having a UI where someone can get started quickly but offers all of the advanced features and full capabilities for a person to grow into as they learn the software does make sense. There is never an excuse for not having a feature in the GUI but I do think that it can be passable to put more advanced features in some sort of advanced screen or deeper in the UI, or in an advanced mode or something. Many developers are arrogant and assume since they do not like a feature others should not need it. This is arrogant and a good developer never assums that and gives the user full control and capability. Feature rich software with a full feature rich GUI is what really does make good software. Software is a tool and we need to give people the most tools for it to be the most useful. But developers often treat software as being a way to control users.

I would argue that average, non techie users have much more of a capability to learn a GUI interface and to learn how to use its advanced features, than they would say, computer programming and editing config files. The idea that GUIs are too complex is wrong.

Useability issues today have little to do with the core GUI, and have more to do with the lack of drivers for certain kinds of desktop hardware, such as multimedia devices. It has to do with the lack of desktop applications, and, which totally contradicts the mindset of these dumb KDE/gnome people, that Linux apps are underpowered and have far TOO FEW features compared to the WIndows counterparts, making Linux appear to be a weak, low powered OS.

Opening an old can of worms?

[Jerry]

Remember when KDE4 was released?

The developers opened it up to any and all suggestions and because of the power and rapid ease of development using the Qt API they went through a whole series of experiments interfaces and appliations. One volunteer, who was in grad school at the time, offered a web page to explain the new apps and features. He was crucified by those who abhorred change. Their attacks got personal. Some of the attacks were drive-by shootings by people masquerading as KDE users. He quit in disgust and devoted that time he used to his wife and graduate studies.

I suspect that the same thing will happen with this venture. My recommendation is to continue to polish the KDE UI and remove conflicting dialogs, fix the things that don't work properly, or don't work. Like this problems mentioned in this YouTube video: http://youtu.be/N7-fZJaJUv8

Above all DO NOT hide the current power and flexibility of KDE, i.e., "dumb it down", under a plethora of "useful" or "helpful" buttons, menus or dialogs. Windows does that. So does Unity. If I wanted that kind of interface I can use one of them. We saw what happened to GNOME2 when it was dumbed down to make it "easier to use". Is it possible to make a GUI "idiot proof"? Idiots are extremely ingenious, but simple interfaces are, well, simple. As in not powerful.

KDE dev team: IF you insist on shooting yourself in the foot with this scheme would you make it so that the user, during the installation process, could select the type of interface the users wants, say a mutually exclusive check box offering either the "Experienced User GUI" or "Novice Use Interfacer"? Either that, or make it easy for distro developers to select the kind of user GUI that want to default to and make the alternate option a Muon choice.

Simplify the kwallet/akonadi/strigi/etc. mess

[IndieRafael]

I think they could simplify Kmail without dumbing down the user interface, but I don't know if that's what is intended. By simplify, I mean clean up the function of the kwallet/akonadi/strigi/etc. mess to eliminate the constant nagging requests for passwords and notices that various email accounts are disconnected from the server. In March 2014, I installed OpenSuse and loved it -- until I tried to set up Kmail and its associated demons. I chose OpenSuse because of Kmail. I wanted Kmail's fine control and features, and found those manageable. It was the kwallet/akonadi/strigi/etc. complex that drove me back to Linux Mint. I couldn't even figure out how to disable the kwallet/akonadi/strigi/etc. complex, which would have defeated the goal of getting Kmail anyway. I spent many hours researching and found that users with more technical expertise than I were giving up on Kmail. The concept of the semantic desktop is great, and someday it might work. However, I saw complaints that Kmail has been a problem for years and is unlikely to change. I would be delighted if Kmail became usable by people like me.

Uh oh

[Tailhook]

This worries me. The "usability" folks are at the plate again, wanting to "simplify" things.

Just so you know, I regularly and routinely use advanced features in KDE. I have at least a dozen applications with very specifically configured window positions and decoration settings. The panel is carefully configured to behave how I need it; grouping control and changing the order of applications manually is absolutely essential. I routinely change pager options to suit my current needs at any moment. I have customized the crap out of key maps, file associations, Konsole, Dolphin and Kate.

Notice how I make zero mention of "activities," nepomuk, baloo or akonadi.

If you need to hide some of the "advanced" features behind an "advanced" button to satisfy your notion of aesthetics then that's fine. Two things: 1.) Do. Not. Remove. Features. 2.) Once I've enabled "advanced" features somewhere don't make me do it again.

That way the added burden I face is hitting each "advanced" button once, and only once, and never thinking about it again.

Done right I can imagine a gentle reorganization of configuration being a small benefit to KDE. If you indulge configuration hating zealots that remove capabilities and dumb down KDE you will breed an army of haters. You will live in a world of haters hating on your work for the rest of your adult life.

Keep that in mind as you "simplify."

KDE flocked to it like flies to shit.

[pigsycyberbully]

I used to use KDE with SuSE Deutschland distro but as time went on the unwashed mentally unstable flocked to it like flies to shit. They would be on every BBS preaching the word of their God Linux/desktops and shouting down anybody who questioned anything. You just could not get rid of them they were on the Internet 24 hours a day. These days you can find some of them on YouTube. It got to the point where people would pretend that they used Windows just to get away from the Linux God desktops, the friendless preaching weirdos. Does anybody remember KDE, putting the U.S. flags on country/region on every country of the world which become local(e). That one died very fast along with KDE. And then American English? America is a continent not a country. And then the time and date sequence was wrong. And "eye candy" everybody was asking what is eye candy? and somebody said it is to do with people from the U.S. with their joy of feeding their faces. So everything they like is called eye candy. And then eventually we learned it was sugary sweets and not candy as in female or candy floss. And then the arguments over "trash" what is it called in Australia, or Canada New Zealand, Africa India, and the U.K., and others saying does it matter? just call it trash! and people were saying what is trash? It was getting so childish people just switched to Windows 7 and the Apple system. Linux desktops are unprofessional. There is a version from the U.K. and the language translations are perfect Japanese is good and so on it's based on Debian. But I don't like the desktop but it is professionally acceptable. But KDE and the like are for the hobbyists the unwashed not for the workplace.

Trinity

[Lord Kano]

I still prefer KDE 3.5.

It has less of a PlaySkool feel to it than what came later.

I'll give the new stuff a try eventually but I have no compelling reason to change yet.

LK

Wel... huh...

[Anonymous Coward]

I like KDE's configurability, but KDE 4.8 has disappointed me. I still use it, but I do not dare to tweak it anymore. Dragging panels too much would crash the desktop or leave rendering artifacts all over the place. Taskbar readability was not a concern to developers, and many wallpapers would render a transparent taskbar completely unreadable. So... where's the configuration for taskbar transparency? Turns out that's one of the few configurations that's unavailable on its own and you need a full theme (sort of) to provide that. I had the option of an ugly gray non-transparent taskbar or a transparent taskbar with text blending into the wallpaper.

I chose to modify my wallpaper so that it had a solid color behind the taskbar... :-(

Give me options, but options that matter and give me usable themes. No, I don't want my windows to look like Motif.

Oh, by the way, now that Qt and GTK+ 2 theme compatibility is almost good enough, we have GTK+ 3 to worry about. It seems that there will always be that one application that sends me back to 1997 because of some crazy theme problem.

Re:get online jobs

[Anonymous Coward]

( UPDATE: Approximately 20 minutes after this post was made, wikiwages.com ceased responding to HTTP requests and pings. Smoke was smelt... Screams of "OMG!! It's MELTING...!!" were heard...)

E17

[spazus8709]

As an Enlightenment DR17 user, I have a deja vu

activities. single desktop

[Anonymous Coward]

Get rid of activities. No one uses it. Single desktop. SIMPLER. No one wants plasma. It crashes too much. krunner is cool ONLY if it does not crash. Why no rightclick set screen resolution?

Biggest thing EVER missing on default linux deskto

[Anonymous Coward]

Network... map network drive. Its never been default or easy.

KDE

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope they don't mess KDE up like what Gnome have done to their GUI.

You can do it right

[Daniel Hoffmann]

Opera (12 and previous versions) had a ton of customization and advanced options, but at the same time they were hidden in plain sight. That is what all people is crying about the new chromified Opera.