KDE (vs GNOME)

[Robert Knight]

> First, the Outlook interface
> has got to be one of the most complicated UI I have ever seen,
> rivalling even xfig. I counted 64 operable controls on the main window,
> and that was with the message pain hidden!

I don't think that Outlook is a typical example.  Even Microsoft
evangelist Paul Thurott ( Webmaster of winsupersite.com and
wininformant.com) commented that the Outlook UI is terrible.
Personally I don't think that Outlook is popular on its own merit, but
rather because it comes with Word, Excel and PowerPoint, which are
very good applications for the most part.

Usability is important because the software, whatever its technical
merit, is worthless if very few people can actually use it to perform
the task it was written to solve.

Back to the main topic, I like the idea of simplifying Konqueror to
make it easier for everyone to use, but before we do that, I think
some proper research needs to be conducted into how people actually
use the program at the moment - in other words, some sort of
functionality within Konqueror to record how people use it (menu
selections made etc.)  In fact, I think this would be useful within
KDE as a whole.  (Optional of course, with easy access to see the data
that the program has recorded)

On 11/9/05, Jonas Christian Drewsen <kde at xspect.dk> wrote:
> On Wednesday 09 November 2005 02:02, you wrote:
> > On Tuesday 08 November 2005 06:04, Jonas Christian Drewsen wrote:
> > > I think KDE could get rid of lot of bloat by:
> > >
> > > 1) Strip Control Center and other setting dialogs to the most common
> > > stuff.
> > >
> > > 2) Create a new app called e.g. KTweakGui or something that can be used
> > > for all the special things like text shadows, cursor settings etc.
> > >
> > > This way KDE will be easy for new users and for common operations. At
> the
> > > same time, many things that can only be tweaked by altering settings
> > > files in .kde/ today, would have a nice GUI too.
> >
> > I like this idea as well.  Scott and I struggle with JuK in trying to add
> > features without having to add a "Configure JuK" dialog.  So far we're
> > still winning but it would be nice in general I think to have the
> configure
> > dialogs of the major KDE applications have the necessary options and then
> > have a KTweakUI for advanced uses.
> >
> > *but*... how would this actually work in practice?  Seems like it would
> > just be a split between KControl (useful for everyone) and the
> theoretical
> > KTweakUI (useful for advanced).  What I'm mainly talking about is how do
> we
> > ensure that although less-needed features are still discoverable if
> they're
> > buried in a separate program?
>
> I see your point. If a program really has some small features that could be
>
> important to someone in order to get the job done, I think they should be
> put
> in an "advance" section.
>
> What I'm looking for is to remove all pure bloat from the config dialogs.
> e.g.
> in kmail you can  set custom fonts and colors. I think it is very nice to be
>
> able to do so, but it is not necessary to get your job done. These kind of
> things should be moved into KTweakUI.
>
> There are offcourse many corner cases, and we should probably let the
> usability group decide on what should go to KTweakUI and what is an
> "advance"
> option.
>
> > Also, I like Thiago's idea for scriptability, especially if there was a
> > kdelibs way of managing the scripts.  I mean, if we're going to push this
> > into many different programs then it would probably be a good idea to get
> a
> > feel for how we manage the interface to the scripts so that programs can
> > share that kind of code, just as we do for keyboard shortcuts and the
> rest.
>
> I really like Thiago's idea as well :)
>
> > But perhaps there's a better option out there?
> >
> > Regards,
> >  - Michael Pyne
>