A usable plasma desktop

[Chani]

>
> If I'm way off, that I ask that you suggest something else, as, at the
> moment, there are unresolved useability bugs that need attention, as
> evidenced by the number of people looking forward to the folder view
> desktop as an alternative to the plasma desktop.

yes, you are way off... because you're still only thinking about files and 
folders, and plasma is about more than that. "the folderview desktop" is a 
concession to the people who still want the old way of working and who do 
not want any change. 99% of those people will hate your suggestions just 
as much as they hate plasma. 

we've given them the ability to stay there, so now we're going to move on 
and do more useful things, and viewing folders is just a small part of that 
(if any at all - personally I use dolphin for that). we have all kinds of 
widgets... clocks, rss feeds, twitter, etc...

your intentions may be good, but you're going in the wrong direction here 
and it's very frustrating to have people come up and wave the "usability" 
buzzword around when they aren't up to speed on what plasma is actually 
trying to accomplish. the fact that it takes longer than you'd like for you to 
set up your desktop exactly the way *you* want it is NOT a usability bug.

I'm not 100% up to speed on it myself these days, but anyways...
as for your ideas... they're overly complicated, I don't see how you could 
do that in a way that would somehow be "compatible" with a traditional 
desktop folder without being a horrid painful hack, and they break plasma 
concepts in several ways. 
you seem to keep assuming that people will only ever use the folderview 
and icon widgets - nary a mention of the picture frame, let alone anything 
else.
this fancy hierarchy thing you suggest would probably just end up being 
confusing. and if you want related files to be in the same folderview, then  
just put them in the same folder. besides, I bet we'll have nepomuk 
queries available eventually and then you'll be able to do a lot of the fancy 
things you want. I don't see how your suggestion would be any less time-
consuming than creating a few folders and dragging files into them.

also, plasma is not going to enforce some file hierarchy on people. what 
you're suggesting sounds like it would require every folderview to 
represent a folder beneath Desktop - what if people want to view 
something somewhere else? what if they want the same folder visible on 
two activities, would it be copied? would all the files be copied?

as for converting .desktop files in the desktop-folder to Icons... oh god no. 
we had that in 4.0 and it was pain.

and what's the point in making a Downloads folder when firefox defaults 
to putting everything in Desktop and konq defaults to asking the user? if 
the user wants a separate downloads folder they'll have to go configure it 
themselves in the browser anyways. if you think the browser should 
default to a "downloads" folder instead of the desktop folder, go talk to 
your distro (heck, they could provide a default plasma config that had a 
corresponding folderview too).

of course, if you want to go create your own plasmoid that will show the 
files you want even when they're not in the same folder, or spawn a bunch 
of folderviews, or a containment that'll spawn folderviews based on a 
folder based on its activity name, go right ahead...  you're free to write 
whatever plasmoids you wish on your own time.

I'm not going to read your even-more-longwinded forum post because I'm 
avoiding studying again... >.< I really should have ignored you entirely.

>
> My reply was originally going to be dripping with sarcasm as a retort to
> your rudeness. However, as that would have done little to futher
> constructive discussion, I chose not to. 

appreciated.

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