"i remember the screenshots and the discussion on kde-usability, and i've still got that site bookmarked. and yes, i do plan on coming back to it for KDE4. i really liked a number of the concepts there, though i'm still of the opinion that there are waaaay too many configuration options in that design =)"
Yeah, I know the configuration options are ridiculous. That was what I was revising when I got swamped with other work. I haven't touched it in a long while, but I still kinda want to get back to it.
"btw, most of the thumbnails there now link to images that have 404'd..."
Yeah, all the configuration pictures are gone because that's my student website and only has so much space. And, seeing as I was in the process of cutting that anyway...
Good point. They've cut down the requirements significantly in the last couple of revisions. (Unless you meant the opposite, that it uses more resources, in which case it was a horrible point, being incorrect and all that.)
"It's been 3 years since 3.0, and we're only at v3.4. Why not another 3 years for another few 3.x versions? What makes you think it will happen so fast?"
KDE major versions happen with Qt major versions. Qt 4 is being released at the end of the year. The rest of the math should be fairly simple.
"The first place I looked (Wikipedia) I found " It is not necessary where there is no ambiguity, so CDs not CD's". The apostrophe is used in a few plurals where there would be ambiguity otherwise, that is all."
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and is very good for quick reference. If you wanted to have actual backing for your claim, you should have picked up "The Elements of Style" by Strunk & White, as that is about the only resource that is going to trump the style guides the grandparent already referenced.
And, while in an argument where you are defending your own grammatical excellence, at least re-read your post. (Check that last sentence, in specific.)
"for instance, i find it interesting that for being such a central piece of UI, the file dialog is rarely considered by usability "enthusiasts". take the KDE file dialog and compare it to other Open Source toolkit file dialogs.... personally, i'd take a file dialog like KDE's even if it meant having to put up with some annoying config dialogs elsewhere. it's items like file dialogs which provide most of the "usability" in a desktop."
The file dialog gets tons of attention. It was one of the main pieces of improvement in OS-X and got tons of their attention. It was a centerpiece of one of the recent GNOME releases. And, if people can get together on a design, it will be one of the most significant changes in KDE 4.0.
For a slight idea of what has been done in this area, take a look at [ http://www.cis.gvsu.edu/~abreschm/designs/file_sel ector/index.html ]. It's a bit out of date (hasn't been touched in six months) and is only mock-ups, not code, but it got a lot of discussion on the Usability lists at the time. Maybe, if the search system is all together for KDE 4.0, that's the sort of system you'll be seeing in the future.
(In the interests of proper disclosure, I should note that I run that website and made those mock-ups and designs. If I had the time, I might even still be pushing for them to be implemented.)
You can make it look like anything you want, what's your beef?
Flexible interfaces like you describe are usually bad things. They create inconsistancy across systems, a high overhead of setting up a new box, and lots of support trouble. That's why Apple's GUI often feels so constrained. They try to choose the one best way to do something, implement it, and spare their users a glut of customization options.
The mistake you are making is thinking that KDE is for you, when it's really for the distros. True, most distros don't fiddle with it much, but KDE is designed to be a nigh-onto all-powerful desktop system that users and distros can make function how they want it to.
A distro can easily use KDE to build whatever clean interface they want, while still leaving in the possibility that a user can transform the system into whatever else they might need it to be.
"Donate X amount or more and win some prize. It was innovative and I may use it in the future myself."
Innovative? That's ancient and over-done, not innovative. But, maybe you can see how the patent examiners miss so much, when you think that is innovative.
"Indeed. $11 billion over the past two years? Distributed among the (rough guess) 13 million households? That's over $400/household/year they've been paying to get there."
But, is that $11 billion a recurring cost, or overhead? Seeing as they were only recently laying the infrastructure, I suspect that it's mostly overhead.
Now, if you say that it will be $1 billion a year in maitenance (I suspect it will be lower) that is $75 per year or $6.25 per month, meaning that the cost for any given line is still fairly frickin' cheap.
I think whoever said that IBM was selling their PC division as a way to combat their vulnerability to Microsoft was correct. Otherwise, this sort of activity would leave them rather vulnerable.
Solar isn't a free lunch because the creation of the collection methods are still horrible for the environment (last I checked, that was over a year ago). Most things have a high creation cost, but solar cells are particularly bad when compared to their lifespan and expected energy return.
Fusion is our best shot for a free lunch, but I still see the current nuclear systems as a damn good option.
So, make a T-shirt and sue them for copyright infringement. When they win the case, take them to court over stopping you from taking photos and cite your last case as precedent.
Yeah, I did know that. I had intended the comment somewhat as a joke about how people try to run away from problems as if going elsewhere will make things different, but it seems that no-one got it.
What if players could build fantastic dungeons that become part of the worlds we create with tools we give them? How would that work exactly?
... In all likelihood, if an MMO allowed this, it would be instanced content with limits. A player could create a dungeon or a section with tools provided and other players could enter and play through that content...
I think they're looking at the problem from the wrong direction. It's not, "What if players made dungeons like those that the game-makers made," it's "What if players could compete directly in a way that made for a dungeon-like experience when having PvP combat." It requires some fundamental redesign to a game system to have PvP combat result in liveable, enjoyable gameplay that resembles standard gameplay, but it is not impossible.
Make characters survive more and make combat more diverse than 'auto-attack'. This way, fighting one person becomes a major and entertaining endeavor. To achieve this without losing out to latency problems, possibly use character combat styles which are just some scripting, then allow players to write their own scripts and swap scripts on the fly.
Reduce the dependence on loot. If you are killing people for their loot, it becomes too painful to lose combat. Instead, add side-benefits in the way of fame, skill increase, and added abilities. Just make fame and so-such much more vital, and make the abilities more complex so that they actually somewhat resemble loot (extra options in scripts, etc...)
Allow players to alter the world. This is usually a problem because the world is static, so make it non-static. Remove all towns (they aren't really needed if yo aren't going for loot) and make the world grow to accomodate players. Then let players make buildings, traps, and so-such, but with limitations.
Make pets better. Make it so a player's combat with another player isn't just one-on-one, let them train creatures as well, but once again within limits. Make the creatures more like complex traps than actual armies (if they don't have the huge life amounts that players have, they are more of inconveniences in combat than major foes).
If I were a game designer today, I would come at the problem from the opposite end: I'd make a system where the gameplay provokes smaller flash-mobs. That is, it would be directed towards groups of 8-12 players fighting 10-20 monsters at a time, but directed away from groups of under six or over fifteen ever even happening.
People usually seek out the large groups in part because the game is designed to encourage them. This wouldn't be so extremely true if the game achieved its highest entertainment level at a more moderate crowd level.
The problem is that, if you can design the spells it will all just end up in a tutorial online.
The better solution is to just make spells which are more complex to use, as many single player games have. Unfortunately, most complex usage spells require low latency because timing and so-such are often vital for them.
I would personally prefer a magical system which incorporates magic into the world, rather than having it bolted onto the side at random. That is, usually they just say, "It's a world like ours, with magic," rather than making it a world which heavily uses magic. Why don't crafters use magic? Wouldn't fire spells help a blacksmith? Why don't warriors incorporate small spells into battle to give that extra little umph to a swing here and there? What about the city planners? How many of them, used magic to make a place that was truly efficient?
And, remember, above all, that it is a game. Thus, making it fun is paramount. I think that a strongly interwoven magic system with many spells which can be used cleverly can be very fun. I don't think a system where you accidentally blow your head off because you're the only person not reading the mage's strategy guide is such a good idea.
You'd be right about them being largely unchanged if you started at EQ, which really isn't reasonable if you consider how successful UO was. It may be dead now (only 21 servers and an average of around 20,000 players on at a time, not including the free servers), but UO was huge in its day and really kicked off the MMOG market.
So, Ultima Online had:
PvP with in-game repurcussions that worked adequately (bounties, murder counts, reputation, etc...)
Skills that were determined during gameplay (you have a percent score for each skill, you can start with three skills with a total of 100 points and none over fifty), raising in skill level just by using the skill, rather than by putting points towards it.
Statistics (Str/Dex/Int) determined the same as skills.
Skill and stat atrophy (it was fine once they let you control locking and so-such) so that you could not get infinitely good by mastering every skill, but rather had to find your own balance and maintain it. However, you could freely switch skill lines with only a little work.
Whether for better or worse, MMOGs have changed a lot since the beginning.
"Should Monsanto bring us designer maples that don't shed leaves?"
I love to wade through the leaves that cover the sidewalks, you insensitive clod. If they remove my town's glorious autumn splendor, I'm moving to Canada.
He has some atrocious ideas. I do not want to be unable to put anything on any wall at any time. That's the flat-out worst house design ever. He's removed 100% of the useable wallspace! It'd be a chore to hang even one picture in there.
From what others have told me, my school is something of an oddity. Here at GVSU, I've seen them put in three sidewalks where there is consistently a footpath, leaving only one beaten path anywhere on campus. (I'm fairly sure that one isn't being put in because it is too steep.)
If you truly meant everything you just said, then you also disagree with all labor laws in this country.
If you're outright against all labor laws, I'm sorry, but you are a horribly misguided individual who needs to study history and see how those labor laws changed life. And, if you aren't against labor laws, you really need to revise your position.
"Think about it... That copy of Doom3 or Half-Life 2 that you just bought, that runs like shit on even top-of-the-line hardware, isn't going to run any better on Dual-Core, because these games are not designed to run multiple threads simultaneously."
Actually, they are. Since Quake III, Id has been doing SMP support. Both HL2 and Doom3 have support for SMP out-of-the-box.
Slashdot Mirror
"i remember the screenshots and the discussion on kde-usability, and i've still got that site bookmarked. and yes, i do plan on coming back to it for KDE4. i really liked a number of the concepts there, though i'm still of the opinion that there are waaaay too many configuration options in that design =)"
Yeah, I know the configuration options are ridiculous. That was what I was revising when I got swamped with other work. I haven't touched it in a long while, but I still kinda want to get back to it.
"btw, most of the thumbnails there now link to images that have 404'd..."
Yeah, all the configuration pictures are gone because that's my student website and only has so much space. And, seeing as I was in the process of cutting that anyway...
Good point. They've cut down the requirements significantly in the last couple of revisions. (Unless you meant the opposite, that it uses more resources, in which case it was a horrible point, being incorrect and all that.)
"It's been 3 years since 3.0, and we're only at v3.4. Why not another 3 years for another few 3.x versions? What makes you think it will happen so fast?"
KDE major versions happen with Qt major versions. Qt 4 is being released at the end of the year. The rest of the math should be fairly simple.
"The first place I looked (Wikipedia) I found " It is not necessary where there is no ambiguity, so CDs not CD's". The apostrophe is used in a few plurals where there would be ambiguity otherwise, that is all."
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and is very good for quick reference. If you wanted to have actual backing for your claim, you should have picked up "The Elements of Style" by Strunk & White, as that is about the only resource that is going to trump the style guides the grandparent already referenced.
And, while in an argument where you are defending your own grammatical excellence, at least re-read your post. (Check that last sentence, in specific.)
"for instance, i find it interesting that for being such a central piece of UI, the file dialog is rarely considered by usability "enthusiasts". take the KDE file dialog and compare it to other Open Source toolkit file dialogs .... personally, i'd take a file dialog like KDE's even if it meant having to put up with some annoying config dialogs elsewhere. it's items like file dialogs which provide most of the "usability" in a desktop."
l ector/index.html ]. It's a bit out of date (hasn't been touched in six months) and is only mock-ups, not code, but it got a lot of discussion on the Usability lists at the time. Maybe, if the search system is all together for KDE 4.0, that's the sort of system you'll be seeing in the future.
The file dialog gets tons of attention. It was one of the main pieces of improvement in OS-X and got tons of their attention. It was a centerpiece of one of the recent GNOME releases. And, if people can get together on a design, it will be one of the most significant changes in KDE 4.0.
For a slight idea of what has been done in this area, take a look at [ http://www.cis.gvsu.edu/~abreschm/designs/file_se
(In the interests of proper disclosure, I should note that I run that website and made those mock-ups and designs. If I had the time, I might even still be pushing for them to be implemented.)
The mistake you are making is thinking that KDE is for you, when it's really for the distros. True, most distros don't fiddle with it much, but KDE is designed to be a nigh-onto all-powerful desktop system that users and distros can make function how they want it to.
A distro can easily use KDE to build whatever clean interface they want, while still leaving in the possibility that a user can transform the system into whatever else they might need it to be.
"That is now beginning to put customers more at ease that they don't need to make a shift (to AMD)."
- or -
We are Intel's customer, and now that they gave us a dumptruck full of money, we are quite at ease.
pick a new bank = yes
pick a better bank = no
Be more picky with your requests.
"Donate X amount or more and win some prize. It was innovative and I may use it in the future myself."
Innovative? That's ancient and over-done, not innovative. But, maybe you can see how the patent examiners miss so much, when you think that is innovative.
"Indeed. $11 billion over the past two years? Distributed among the (rough guess) 13 million households? That's over $400/household/year they've been paying to get there."
But, is that $11 billion a recurring cost, or overhead? Seeing as they were only recently laying the infrastructure, I suspect that it's mostly overhead.
Now, if you say that it will be $1 billion a year in maitenance (I suspect it will be lower) that is $75 per year or $6.25 per month, meaning that the cost for any given line is still fairly frickin' cheap.
I think whoever said that IBM was selling their PC division as a way to combat their vulnerability to Microsoft was correct. Otherwise, this sort of activity would leave them rather vulnerable.
"Yet another "vote for me, I feel your pain" law isn't going to do anyone any good."
It might do the politician who wrote it some good, what with all that voting.
Solar isn't a free lunch because the creation of the collection methods are still horrible for the environment (last I checked, that was over a year ago). Most things have a high creation cost, but solar cells are particularly bad when compared to their lifespan and expected energy return.
Fusion is our best shot for a free lunch, but I still see the current nuclear systems as a damn good option.
So, make a T-shirt and sue them for copyright infringement. When they win the case, take them to court over stopping you from taking photos and cite your last case as precedent.
That's different. That is still using a city concept and is requiring cooperation, rather than being a purely game-based system which can be soloed.
Yeah, I did know that. I had intended the comment somewhat as a joke about how people try to run away from problems as if going elsewhere will make things different, but it seems that no-one got it.
If I were a game designer today, I would come at the problem from the opposite end: I'd make a system where the gameplay provokes smaller flash-mobs. That is, it would be directed towards groups of 8-12 players fighting 10-20 monsters at a time, but directed away from groups of under six or over fifteen ever even happening.
People usually seek out the large groups in part because the game is designed to encourage them. This wouldn't be so extremely true if the game achieved its highest entertainment level at a more moderate crowd level.
The problem is that, if you can design the spells it will all just end up in a tutorial online.
The better solution is to just make spells which are more complex to use, as many single player games have. Unfortunately, most complex usage spells require low latency because timing and so-such are often vital for them.
I would personally prefer a magical system which incorporates magic into the world, rather than having it bolted onto the side at random. That is, usually they just say, "It's a world like ours, with magic," rather than making it a world which heavily uses magic. Why don't crafters use magic? Wouldn't fire spells help a blacksmith? Why don't warriors incorporate small spells into battle to give that extra little umph to a swing here and there? What about the city planners? How many of them, used magic to make a place that was truly efficient?
And, remember, above all, that it is a game. Thus, making it fun is paramount. I think that a strongly interwoven magic system with many spells which can be used cleverly can be very fun. I don't think a system where you accidentally blow your head off because you're the only person not reading the mage's strategy guide is such a good idea.
You'd be right about them being largely unchanged if you started at EQ, which really isn't reasonable if you consider how successful UO was. It may be dead now (only 21 servers and an average of around 20,000 players on at a time, not including the free servers), but UO was huge in its day and really kicked off the MMOG market.
So, Ultima Online had:
PvP with in-game repurcussions that worked adequately (bounties, murder counts, reputation, etc...)
Skills that were determined during gameplay (you have a percent score for each skill, you can start with three skills with a total of 100 points and none over fifty), raising in skill level just by using the skill, rather than by putting points towards it.
Statistics (Str/Dex/Int) determined the same as skills.
Skill and stat atrophy (it was fine once they let you control locking and so-such) so that you could not get infinitely good by mastering every skill, but rather had to find your own balance and maintain it. However, you could freely switch skill lines with only a little work.
Whether for better or worse, MMOGs have changed a lot since the beginning.
"Should Monsanto bring us designer maples that don't shed leaves?"
I love to wade through the leaves that cover the sidewalks, you insensitive clod. If they remove my town's glorious autumn splendor, I'm moving to Canada.
He has some atrocious ideas. I do not want to be unable to put anything on any wall at any time. That's the flat-out worst house design ever. He's removed 100% of the useable wallspace! It'd be a chore to hang even one picture in there.
From what others have told me, my school is something of an oddity. Here at GVSU, I've seen them put in three sidewalks where there is consistently a footpath, leaving only one beaten path anywhere on campus. (I'm fairly sure that one isn't being put in because it is too steep.)
If you truly meant everything you just said, then you also disagree with all labor laws in this country.
If you're outright against all labor laws, I'm sorry, but you are a horribly misguided individual who needs to study history and see how those labor laws changed life. And, if you aren't against labor laws, you really need to revise your position.
It doesn't work both ways.
"Think about it... That copy of Doom3 or Half-Life 2 that you just bought, that runs like shit on even top-of-the-line hardware, isn't going to run any better on Dual-Core, because these games are not designed to run multiple threads simultaneously."
Actually, they are. Since Quake III, Id has been doing SMP support. Both HL2 and Doom3 have support for SMP out-of-the-box.