Nine things KDE should learn from Mac OS X

[Andras Mantia]

On Tuesday 09 August 2005 13:22, Benjamin Meyer wrote:
> Before I respond... Wow, a well though out reply!  Let me buy you a
> beer for that alone rather then a quick emotional reaction.  koodos.
>
> Yes I understand that the application can do a lot.  In fact that is
> why I launched it to try it out.  I do all my web development at the
> console so I wanted to see if Quanta could help out.  But as someone
> who had never used Quanta I was very confused.  Maybe Quanta just is
> too powerfull and a new user has to read the manual before it can be
> used. 

Well, what I read from your blog is that you found the UI cluttered, but 
it wasn't clear that it is not understandable and you cannot use it 
unless you read the manual.

> I personally think that by _default_ applications should be 
> simple for new users to learn (and to grow my/your userbase). As they
> explore the application it is forgiving.

I agree with you, but first we need to know what is not easy to 
understand and learn for the user.

> Yup, heard the same thing here, lots of praise all around.  That is
> why I was so disappointed that I couldn't figure out how to do
> anything.
Can you be more exact (it's ok if you post your remarks on 
quanta at kde.org or quanta-devel at kde.org, so we don't pollute 
core-devel).

> > As for the rest, the sidebars can be collapsed and take little
> > space. The sidebar on the left handles projects, something
> > essential for managing uploads of a web site as well as
> > supplemental features like templates, a structural document view
> > and a script repository.
>
> Why is "Document Structure" on the left then?  Shouldn't it be on the
> right with "Attribute Editor"? 
Well, good question, they most probably have something in common. ;-)

> And shouldn't Documentation really be 
> called "Reference" and be on the left?
Before you nobody suggested this and nobody thought about it. Might be a 
good idea to rename it since it does not contain Quanta's 
documentation.
The position of the tree is on right because...KDevelop has there as 
well. And to not have 2 columns of toolviews on the left.

> Sorry, but I just don't buy it.  What you are saying is that Quanta
> is only good for those who are building huge sites with twenty people
> working on them and everyone gets several days of training and the
> manager customizes everyones application....

No, it's good for others as well. At least from the feedback we 
received.

> Or for a completely new idea how about rather then having one large
> window that tries to do everything what about breaking it up into two
> windows.  The main window is the project management, and you have a
> separate editor window for the currently opened files.  The editor
> window could even look like Qt's designer with all the tags on the
> left (rather then 6 tabs of toolbars) and the Document Structure and
> Attribute Editor on the right.

I don't like this approach. But the future KMDI should allow you to 
undock the toolviews (the Project toolview as well)  and that will 
become a separate window. Right now this is not possible (or not good) 
in IDEAl mode, but it work in tab paged mode.

Andras


-- 
Quanta Plus developer - http://quanta.kdewebdev.org
K Desktop Environment - http://www.kde.org
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