Inconsistencies confusing me

[Frank Schmitt]

Hello all

I'm still using 3.5.9 for my daily work, but just played around with
kde4daily (which is a very nice way to test stuff BTW). However, even so
I use KDE since some 3.1 beta (IIRC), I just find myself not to be able
to grasp the concepts of KDE 4. Here's a log of my problems.

My first task was "I'd like the panel to be bigger". In 3.5.9 I would
have right-clicked, said "configure panel", set values for size, length
and position and was ready in a moment. Not very beautiful but I
immediately knew what to do.

In KDE 4, I right click, get "Panel Settings" and a black bar above the
panel appears. I see some icons in the middle with no labels and have to
hover the mouse above them to get an idea what they might do. I still
didn't find how to change size. 
I look around some more and find arrows. I click on them, nothing
happens. I hover above them and slowly find out what they are and how to
use them. I'm now able to change the width of the panel by pulling both
right sliders to the very right of the screen and the left one to the
very left. I couldn't understand what the difference between the minimum
and maximum size of the panel is BTW.
Ok. However I mainly wanted the panel to be higher. I used sliders to
make it wider, so I should probably use sliders to make it higher,
too. I try to pull all three up, nothing happens. I click on the panel
to pull it up like I would do in MS Windows, and the "settings panel
thingy" closes. I open "Panel Settings" again and click on the bar
including the arrows in order to pull it up. Nothing happens. I decide
that pulling things is probably the wrong way. I right-click on
everything but get no context menu. I finally more or less by accident
move my mouse over the upper edge of the upper black settings thingy and
finally find the right place to change the height of the panel.
This has cost me around five minutes while I was done in 10 seconds in
KDE 3.5.9. Admitted, I looked at something beautiful while loosing my
mind.

Ok, now I wanted to add an icon which runs "xterm -title kde4daily -e
screen -RDA" and displays my favourite icon with a grinning devil. In
KDE 3.5.9 I right-click on the panel, say "Add application to the
panel", choose system->terminal, right-click on the new icon and say
"configure terminal button", go to Tab application and change "command"
from konsole to my command line, then click on the icon and choose my
favorite one.

In KDE 4, I right-click on the panel and find "add panel" and "add
widgets". I decide that an icon is more a widget than a panel and choose
"add widgets".

Right add the top I find Application Launcher and are pretty sure that
this is what I want. It says "Launcher to start applications" which is
exactly what I want. I am a bit confused as the icon is the same as the
one for the menu, but there is an entry exactly below saying
"Traditional menu based application launcher" so my guess is that the
lower one is the menu and the upper one is for starting one specified
application. Wring guess.

I search around some more in the unstructured, rather long widgets list
and don't find anything. I think about how it's done in other systems
and remember that in MS Windows, I would have dragged and dropped from
the start menu. I try this and hurray, it works. I right-click and get
the same dialog as in 3.5 and immediately know what to to. I click ok
when finished and I dialog updating system settings pops up. WTF? I
start the menu again and the entry "System->Terminal" I dragged and
dropped to the panel is gone! I wanted a copy and I guess I did move
it?

Staying at the menu: I'm constantly irritated by the fact that hovering
over the buttons at the bottom changes between "Favorites",
"Applications", "Computer" etc, while I have to click in order to change
between the hierarchy levels. Why this inconsistency?

However, KDE 4.1 has some very nice sides, too and is a huge improvement
over 4.0 and I'm sure some great release will base on it, however those
points above seriously spoiled my first minutes with it.

Greetings,
Frank

-- 
Frank Schmitt                        Institut für Computervisualistik
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