[another PATCH]: Kicker find as you type

[Andy Fawcett]

On Tuesday 03 May 2005 19:41, Aaron J. Seigo wrote:
> On Tuesday 03 May 2005 06:53, Stephan Kulow wrote:
> > as usability? This is aweful - a menu that needs a search box to
> > find something in it?
>
> so it's agreed: we ditch the kmenu concept altogether and do
> something completely different?

I sincerely hope not, the K menu is (IMO) reasonably usable as it is.

Even if a new system is brought into use, at least keep the K menu for 
those of us who are used to it, and use it extensively. It's not 
perfect, but it's not the unusable monster some people consider it to 
be.

> it's not some sort of secret that people can not find applications in
> the kmenu until they learn where they are in the hierarchy. it's
> similar to the issues we have with kcontrol: large, deeply (e.g. >2
> levels) nested hierarchies. most people simply can't remember where
> things are.
>
> so most people tend to avoid the kmenu
     ^^^^

I don't recall there being a question asked of every KDE user, or that 
statistics were published on this. At least of the people I see using 
KDE (there are quite a few at work), I see a fair number using the K 
menu quite a lot. Sure, not all, but a significant number.

> and use desktop

Hell no, those are the first thing to get disabled for me on a new 
install...

> and panel icons

only for the everyday icons (for me, konqi, kontact, konsole and a 
couple of others)

> as much as possible, with more capable users loving the minicli.

or just firing the apps up from a console prompt...

> this only makes the problem worse, since when they DO 
> need something from the kmenu they use it so rarely that it becomes
> that much harder to remember where anything is =)

Sure, but that's the same for anything at all, if you don't use it then 
it's difficult to recall where things are. For those of us who use the 
K menu extensively, there's little or no problem.

> we can complain about the stupidity of the size of the kmenu and i'd
> agree. but as long as we have a 'list of all available applications'
> and that list of applications is in more than half a dozen categories
> and contains more than a dozen or so entries ..... it's not very
> friendly.

As I said earlier, it's not perfect, but I find it quite suitable for my 
usage pattern.

Of course, opinions on usability are like ass-holes, virtually everyone 
has one. Oh, and a lot of them stink too, I'm sure some people would 
say I am wrong to defend the K menu, but I like it and I hope it will 
always be part of KDE.

A.

-- 
Andy Fawcett                                     | andy at athame.co.uk
                                                 | tap at kde.org
"In an open world without walls and fences,      | tap at lspace.org
  we wouldn't need Windows and Gates."  -- anon  | tap at fruitsalad.org