KDE 4: the good, the bad and the broken

[James Tyrer]

On 04/27/10 02:07, Dotan Cohen wrote:
> I am performing a lecture for my LUG on KDE 4: the good, the bad and
> the broken. These are my current topics, I would like to solicit ideas
> for further good, bad, and broken aspects of KDE 4:
>
> The Good
> Okular, Konqueror, Dolphin, Kate
> I need ideas about what is exceptionally good about Plasma. I like
> Krunner and Lancelot. Anything else?
>
>
> The Bad
> Currently the Plasma menus are very confusing to my users, I plan on
> discussing this. Special attention will be given to menu depth and the
> Cashew. Also, some key features of KDE 3 are not yet available in KDE
> 4, and as applications get ported to KDE 4 and Akonadi they lose
> features as well. Accessibility is also a mess in KDE 4. What else is
> just bad about KDE 4?
>
>
> The Broken
> I suffer many Kontact bugs, and some design ideas seem broken in their
> current implementation (activities, which will be addressed for KDE
> 4.5). What else is broken for you in KDE 4?
>
I found a lot of little things that don't quite work correctly.  I find 
this to be unacceptable as it shouldn't take much work to fix them.

A specific case is that service (right click) menu actions for Ark.

1.  There is no service for simply compressing a file -- single file, 
not an archive.  That is, the current "Compress" subdirectory should be 
named: "Archive" and there should be a "Compress" subdirectory with 
options to just compress a file.  Contrast this with: "Extract archive" 
which is not the opposite of "Compress".  Also note the absence of any 
option to simply uncompress a file.

2.  There are redundant and confusing options:

	"Here" is redundant as it creates a TAR.GZ archive
	"ZIP/TAR" is simply wrong.  It should be TAR/GZIP.  This is especially 
confusing since: "ZIP" is also listed and it is _not_ gzip.

3.  There are options missing from the (poorly named) "Compress" 
subdirectory:

	"TAR/BZIP2" is common enough that it should be on the list.
	"TAR" should probably be there as well.

Since these are configurable, I would suggest that all of the options 
exist, although they might not all be enabled by default:

	TAR/Z
	TAR/XZ
	TAR/LZMA

4.  "Extract Archive Here, Autodetect Subfolder" seems like a poorly 
worded string.  I think that what is meant is: "Extract Archive to 
Subfolder".  Actually what it does is to force a subfolder.

5.  Going to: "Compress to", I find listed:

	Tar archive (compressed)

after some research, I find that this should be:

	Tar archive (Z-compressed)

I also notice:

	Tar archive (gzip-compressed)
	Tar archive (bzip-compressed)

Perhaps these should be:

	Tar archive (GZIP-compressed)
	Tar archive (BZIP2-compressed)

for correctness and consistency.

I have been accused (falsely) of implying derogatory things about 
developers.  So, I would like to make clear what I do think about this:

It shows a lack of design work.  Good software engineering requires that 
you design before you code -- design twice and code once.

I think that this is simply sloppy work -- perhaps the result of more 
than one person doing it without sufficient discussion.  The developers 
can do better, but if they can't, then the usability department should 
redesign this and the coders should implement it.

And, yes, I will volunteer to fix this.

-- 
James Tyrer

Linux (mostly) From Scratch
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