Nine things KDE should learn from Mac OS X

[Benjamin Meyer]

[snip]
> > 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.
>
> Were you in Malaga? I didn't get that beer. ;-)

:(  Sorry, yah I was at Malaga, but it was the first time I went so I didn't 
know what you or anyone else looked like :)  I ran the ice cream server and 
lead the kdelibs reorg meeting (the two things that you might remember my 
face from).

> > 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.  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 don't disagree. However some of the tools we need to make that happen are
> only now becoming available. I can't realistically take the position of a
> new user approaching Quanta now because of all the years of involvement,
> but at least in years past I have had a lot of new users give me positive
> feedback. As there is tremendous depth to the application much of what has
> been added is not really obvious just opening it up. It's a paradox that
> having a great deal of functionality requires orders of magnitude more
> genius to to make it look really simple and still have the power easily
> accessible. That is one of the things we're addressing now.
>
> > > Not to diminish the point of it being busy, because I want to make it
> > > as simple as possible too, I'd like to express the counterpoint. First
> > > of all usability is not just your first few minutes, but also how well
> > > a program serves you as your needs grow. As such it's worth noting that
> > > our subject matter and diverse targets are not simple by nature. Yes, a
> > > little HTML page is simple, but no a maintainable web site is not, and
> > > there are infinite ways to approach this. Diverse tasks breed
> > > complexity, which is why I believe task and role managed interface
> > > personalities would be useful. The important point I want to make
> > > though is that the leading professional HTML web development tool on
> > > Windows is Dreamweaver. With the exception of graphics and some
> > > limitations in visual mode, which we're addressing now, many people are
> > > telling us that Quanta Plus exceeds the performance of Dreamweaver for
> > > professionals. This is significant and the only other desktop
> > > application I know on *nix realizing this degree of success is Scribus.
> > > I regularly have web developers tell me there is no alternative on
> > > *nix.
> >
> > 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.
>
> I don't know how to respond to something like this. I have no reason to
> doubt you, but yet I still see new users sending me emails and we have
> around 500 users on our mailing list. This is crucial for us because we use
> many of these users as a sounding board for our development version and we
> use the discussions and questions from new users for input. After all that
> it seems we could benefit from even more input because there is a lot to
> look at.
>
> My challenge is in whether I can get specific data from you. Currently I
> don't get too many complaints about figuring things out and I see feedback
> indicating people do. As far as I can tell the representative data
> indicates some people don't acclimate, but in most cases people coming from
> other editors find in a matter of days that Quanta exceeds what they had.

Yah that is what I figured.  But after 1/2 hour of playing around when I was 
still lost I decided to give up.  I am pretty sure if I had used if longer I 
would have started to figure out the cause and effect relationships better in 
my head.

> However you said you do your web development from the console. I'm trying
> to imagine what tools I'd be using in console, like scp and Vi... I'm going
> to have to say that I would guess 95% or more of our new users would be far
> more lost there and possibly this is key to the discussion. My personal
> philosophy is that the command line is better for some things which is why
> we have user definable Actions, but Quanta remains still quite visual.

Yup, bash, vi, ispell, bash scripts, screen, scp, and ... more bash scripts.  
I saw the features in Quanta and would like to use them.  They look like they 
might help me save some time.

> > > 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"?  And shouldn't Documentation really be
> > called "Reference" and be on the left?
>
> I think Andras answered that and they are good questions.
>
> > > If we remove these do we
> > > dispose of them or make the menus longer? What is there demonstrates
> > > it's usefulness in real world use and is praised by users who do web
> > > development day in and day out. Aaron Siego did some review of Quanta
> > > and after my explanation
> >
> > I am sorry, but your interface shouldn't need to be explained.
>
> Then my answer should. ;-) Aaron was not actually developing web sites. In
> order to effectively review a tool you must first know certain specifics
> about the use of it. I was not explaining the interface to Aaron. I was
> explaining why the interface decisions had been made relevent to the tasks
> that were being done. There's a big difference.

Ah, my mistake.

> > > of our decision process concluded that our interface was
> > > applicable to our users. After all, if you don't care about markup and
> > > want something quick any word processor can export HTML. If you want
> > > W3C valid markup and PHP management we're an asset as the best of
> > > breed.
> > >
> > > Let me explain the personality concept I have to address the issues of
> > > complexity you brought up. Ideally I'd like to be able to hand a Live
> > > CD to a content person and have them be able to edit and upload content
> > > without touching and breaking anything else and without even knowing
> > > what the site password is. I think the personality concept would be
> > > useful for more than just our application. I'm not against learning
> > > from OS X, but I think learning from analysis of usage and our
> > > objectives is the challenge of innovation. The following is an
> > > interface personality scenario with Quanta Plus. In a project there
> > > will be different people with different roles doing different tasks. A
> > > project manager could set a default interface for someone editing
> > > content. This is the person who will freak out with a complex
> > > interface. They can set up that role to:
> > > * remove menus and menu items not relevent to the role
> > > * remove docks or dock items that are not relevent
> > > * set files that are visible for edit in the project
> > > * set files that can be linked for preview and test configuration
> > > Individually files or document types could have interface elements
> > > added or removed. An individual who just wants to do simple HTML could
> > > set a default configuration up, or choose from a list of example
> > > configurations.
> >
> > Shouldn't this be the default?
>
> Yes and no. Yes, a relatively simple and functional interface should be the
> default when possible. However there are other factors, not the least of
> which is that what I described above is how we will address this in Quanta
> 4 in KDE 4. Beyond that there is the classic question of "what don't you
> need?" which of course is different for pretty much everyone. The purpose 
> of what I described was to enable either a user or a project leader to
> customize the interface for their roles and tasks. An attempt at this in a
> generalization would be as broken as showing everything but for different
> reasons. A better solution would be on initial start up to ask the user to
> answer a few questions and then from that select, or offer for their
> selection from a short list, an initial default or set of task defaults to
> be available.
>
> I definitely agree with Aaron here that simplification and a stratified
> interface is too difficult to get right, but I would say that is largely
> because it has traditionally been an authoritarian A or B choice.
>
> > > While this appears to add complexity for the user it actually only adds
> > > it for developers. By strategically designing this into the UI with the
> > > intention of reuse several things could be accomplished.
> > > 1) Interface elements could be marked for configuration during
> > > development. 2) An interface configuration wizard could be made to walk
> > > through menus, panels, toolbars and such and create a configuration.
> > > These could load configurations to be edited and saved as new
> > > configurations.
> > > 3) Instant recall of personality configurations could be accessed from
> > > a settings menu or managed by mimetype or hidden data in a file index.
> > > 4) Users who like to tinker with these types of things could share
> > > personality configurations with other users or developers could make
> > > enhancements available for download.
> > >
> > > The inherent problem of complexity is inevitable. Small applications
> > > lead to innumerable choices and leave you looking for what you need for
> > > a task. Components offer best of breed but create issues merging
> > > because they often fail to merge organically. Large monolithic
> > > applications do everything and doing many simple things creates a
> > > cluttered interface. I believe the solution is an intelligent
> > > management of components through task and role interface personalities.
> > > Best of all this allows maximal user modification and kills no sacred
> > > cows.
> >
> > 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....
>
> I still remember saying it... You may think you know what I said but I
> don't think you know what I said. ;-) Inherently the incorrect word is
> "only" and a logical evaluation will demonstrate it's incompatibility. If a
> team of 20 people can each have custom interfaces why would you conclude an
> individual could not have the same? As far as the days of training... It
> would be great to pick up some consulting to subsidize development. We
> could use it. However once this is in place users will be able to share
> their configurations via KStuff which will mean that we should (hopefully)
> have an emberassment of riches in configurations for roles and tasks to
> evaluate. It will be right click and upload or right click and download.
>
> The fundamental aspect to consider here is that it is not possible with our
> resources as developers to compete on this level and it's not possible to
> recruit enough developers... It is possible to enable the user to be able
> to contribute by making an extremely extensible platform and making the
> process as easy as pointing and clicking. So even if we hit a release with
> less than what we want we can still have an initialization routine that
> looks for a connection and offers a selection of recommended configuration
> to
> automatically be installed. Even if the customization is easy for our
> experienced users, our new users should be able to simply select options
> from community driven resources.
>
> > Application customization is great, but you want a default that can apply
> > to the most number of people, which for an application like Quanta would
> > be new users.
>
> See above. In fact the last thing I want to do is be responsible for the
> bad habits of others which is why I want to have as little control over
> this as possible. ;-)
>
> > 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.
> >
> > -Benjamin Meyer
>
> We will be working on design for KDE 4 and we will be working within the
> KDevelop framework. It provides a lot of advantages and helps us eliminate
> a lot of duplicated effort. You're welcome to get involved in helping us
> with ideas. I think you've given us a few good ones already. We also have
> to keep in mind that we have a huge user base, probably hundreds of
> thousands if not over a million. These people have specific expectations.
> Much of what we have done started with my wanting a tool based on my
> experience in high pressure contract web development. Our objective is to
> win over the serious web developers in the world to run Quanta on KDE. I
> want to remain as friendly as possible to new users, but I'm also glad
> there is a new web development tool, Redwolf, on KDE. While I want to
> succeed at being everything to everyone, doing it for a more focused target
> is a less monumental task that I could learn to live with. ;-)

You don't have to be everything to everyone.  If someone came along and made 
Quanta-mini that only let you edit a webpage with the wysiwyg they would be 
targetting a completely different set of users then what you are targetting.  
Most applications that let you create things can really be two different 
applications, the casual user and the pro (or even three if you are 
apple). :)  They have different goals.  By targeting one set of users you can 
gain much more marketshare then both.  Sounds like you have good plans for 
KDE4.  I wont be able to help because I have more then enough to do already.  
I can try it out when you are closer to the 4.0 release from a newbies 
perspective and write down what I found confusing.
 
-Benjamin Meyer

-- 
aka icefox
Public Key: http://www.icefox.net/public_key.asc
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