A look at GNOME 2.14, comparison to KDE

[Anders Storsveen]

Anders Storsveen wrote:
> I agree with this, and want to add some stuff too. Look at the stuff
> underneath the content in konqueror. In addition to having lots of boxes
> and borders, those border that's there are inconsistent and not aligned
> at all.
>
> Look at the icons, in gnome they are lightly beveled, slightly rounded,
> and got a subtle shadow. The kde ones are plain square! Also the default
> in kde is one-click opens, and has an horrendouslooking line to imply
> that :/
>
> also the windeco is too square.
>
> I let my girlfriend look at it, and she immediatly commented that the
> kde pictures is to noisy when it comes to colors, the colors are to
> bright and flashy, and there are two many of them. bright blue bar,
> bright yellow star, lots of bright red/orange
>
> and last but not least, the selector around the "Desktop" text is real
> ugly, it's the same one ms windows have had for years, the gnome one
> isn't show here, but it's very very nice, and it's antialiased and rounded.
>
> The font's also seem a little better in gnome, they're a little smaller,
> and they've got a little to much space between the text and the rest of
> the ui, especially in the menu. the title-font that says guest, is just
> butt ugly!
>
> Janne Ojaniemi wrote:
>   
>> You might have seen already (or maybe not):
>>
>> http://www.gnome.org/~davyd/gnome-2-14/
>>
>> Anyway, here are my comments:
>>
>> I'm VERY impressed! Of course I'm not talking about actual functionality (that 
>> would require actually using the software ;)), but they seem to have worked 
>> very hard on this release! 
>>
>> And if we look at the look 'n feel of the UI, I think GNOME handidly beats KDE 
>> here. I don't know how they do it (I do have few ideas, read on), but somehow 
>> they manage to make their UI look so smooth and uncluttered, whereas KDE 
>> looks very busy. And take a look at the Windecs. While Plastik looks OK, the 
>> GNOME-windec looks even better. I don't know how they did it, but it looks 
>> VERY smooth and easy on the eyes!
>>
>> I think the clutterness and unclutterness of the UI is due to small things. 
>> KDE-apps tend to have borders, lines, UI-elements and such that are not 
>> really needed in the end. GNOME does not have those. This is a pet-peeve of 
>> mine, but it's worth repeating. To illustrate my point: Take a look at 
>> Nautilus:
>>
>> http://alblinux.homelinux.org/albums/GNOME212/Nautilus_01.png
>>
>> Then take a look at Konqueror:
>>
>> http://kde.org/screenshots/images/3.4/snapshot06.png
>>
>> If you don't see the difference in UI-clutter, pay attention to following:
>>
>> - Konqueror has 4 borders separating the icons from each other. Nautilus has 
>> one
>>
>> - For some weird reason, the content-area in Konqueror is framed (notice the 
>> two dark-gray lines surrounding the content-area). Nautilus does not have 
>> this framing.
>>
>> - Notice the lines and borders that separate the sidebar from the content-area 
>> in Konqueror. Again, Nautilus does not have these.
>>
>> - Notice the multitude of lines and borders underneath the content-area in 
>> Konqueror. Again, Nautilus does not have these.
>>
>> - Notice the KDE-icon in the top-right corner on Konqueror. Again, it has 
>> lines and borders around it. Similar icon in Nautilus has no such lines.
>>
>> - Does the Location-bar in Konqueror REALLY need that border around it? No it 
>> does not.
>>
>> Seriously, I have no idea why KDE insist that all UI-elements must be framed 
>> inside lines and borders. It makes the UI look very unsmooth and cluttered, 
>> while it serves no real purpose. And you can see these differences everywhere 
>> in GNOME and KDE, so it's not only these two apps.
>>
>> Other things to notice:
>>
>> - Konqueror has nine top-level menu's, Nautilus has six
>>
>> - Konqueror has 12 icons cramped closely together, Nautilus has 7 (9 if you 
>> include the zoom/unzoom-icons) icons with lots of space between them.
>>
>> - Notice the six icons in the sidebar in Konqueror. Nautilus does not have 
>> them, but they seem to be using a drop-menu instead (the "Informacione"). 
>> Konqueror's implementation presents several UI-elements and makes the UI look 
>> busy, whereas Nautilus's implementation has only one UI-element visible, 
>> making the UI less cluttered.
>>
>> KDE has a lot of work ahead of it. A lot. I'm really looking forward to KDE4, 
>> and I really, really hope that it delivers on this front. I would guess that 
>> UI-changes like this are relatively easy to do, but for some reason I feel 
>> that changes like these are the ones that would face the most opposition...
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>>   
>>     
>
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>   
I've found one more thing that I think makes KDE look more cluttered
than Gnome, and it's that line that goes just above the cancel and ok
buttons, that line is just not needed! also all lines in kde are too
thick, and too black! :/