[kde-linux] Unpopulated Control-Center window

[Stan Goodman]

At 04:19:20 on Wednesday Wednesday 02 December 2009, James Loughner 
<jwrl at suddenlink.net> wrote:
> On 12/01/2009 07:00 AM, Dale wrote:
> > Stan Goodman wrote:
> >> At 11:07:03 on Tuesday Tuesday 01 December 2009, Dale
> >>
> >> <rdalek1967 at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>> Stan Goodman wrote:
> >>>> My conclusion from your detailed explanation above is that trying
> >>>> to retain KDE3 on an OS that wants to install only KDE4 is more
> >>>> trouble than it is worth. When I reinstall the oS v11.2, it will
> >>>> almost surely be with GNOME; I do not like KDE4, which is anyway
> >>>> unusable for me because the "new and better" text module has a
> >>>> serious flaw with right-to-left languages (Hebrew and Arabic). No
> >>>> doubt KDE will get around to fixing it, but meantime I wouldn't
> >>>> have a usable system. But I confess that I didn't like KDE4 before
> >>>> I discovered this, and I regard having been pushed into KDE4 as a
> >>>> diktat of a kind which I would have attributed only to Microsoft.
> >>>
> >>> You are not alone.  I'm not ready for KDE 4 either, or it is not
> >>> ready for me yet.  Anyway, finding a distro that still has KDE 3.5
> >>> will be fun.  I downloaded a Madriva DVD but have not had the
> >>> chance to install it yet to see what is included on it.  Would you
> >>> be interested in Mandriva at least until KDE 4 got fixed where it
> >>> was usable?  I could install and at least see if the basics worked
> >>> or not.
> >>>
> >>> Dale
> >>>
> >>> :-)  :-)
> >>
> >> Sure. I'll also try GNOME on openSuSE. What I will avoid doing is
> >> making a second career out of trying to undo KDE's foolishness.
> >>
> >> And no, I don't think it is a matter of either users or KDE4 being
> >> ready. It's more a reflection of losing sight of convenience and
> >> usability, and concentrating on bells-and-whistles -- ala Redmond
> >> (what a good name for a desktop theme).
> >
> > I am also on the Gentoo lists and some of them have went to Fluxbox.
> >  From what they have wrote, it has improved a lot but is still really
> > light.  It may be something you want to look into if Gnome is not
> > what you want either.
> >
> > For me, KDE 4 still has some things that don't work for me.  It gets
> > better each time a new update comes out but is still not there.  I
> > will say this tho, it is different.  You are dead on with that
> > observation. It's not KDE 3 with improvements or a few tweaks.
> >
> > Dale
> >
> > :-)  :-)
> >
> > ___________________________________________________
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>
> Odd I got used to it right away. Running Suse 11.2. Took about a day
> and a half. It does thing you could not  possible do in 3.5. I have
> configured 4 "desktops"  One as the traditional desktop, another as my
> home directory, another into my development directory, the last is
> still a blank canvass. I like it though it is definitely different.
>
> Jim

Congratulations on having a day and a half that you can use to train on a 
radically new desktop. I don't. Does everyone else? If it's "definitely 
different", could not new features have been introduced incrementally, or 
was it really necessary to drop it all on everybody in one swell foop -- 
while, according to others, not everything is working? Sounds like a 
bunch of kids, like the web designers who HAVE to use ever available 
jim-crack whether needed or not, whether or not it adds to the site. And 
without providing an alternative for people who do not have a day and a 
helf to fart around with it. It's dictatorial.

By the way, is there any actual utility to your four nifty desktops? 
Anything you couldn't do quite easily with the abilities of KDE3? Or you 
are enjoying the new bells and whistles -- at the cost of a day and a 
half of your time?

I have two more specific complaints:

1) The text module on which kmail and the text editors rely doesn't handle 
right-to-left languages adequately. It knows how to switch languages and 
character sets, but text in Hebrew or Arabic is still aligned to the left 
margin. Not important? think of writing English with the text aligned to 
the right. This alone makes KDE4 unusable for me. I have no doubt that I 
would discover other problems with writing text, were I to spend a few 
minutes with it. 

2) Someone has decided that the panels (I have two) should not contain 
applications. The icons for the programs I use are arranged on the second 
panel, and are as convenient as they could be. Why is it necessary to 
deny this facility for the use of non-New Age users?

Change for the sake of change and novelty. Even Microsoft tries to 
maintain consistency.

-- 
Stan Goodman
Qiryat Tiv'on
Israel