Plasma in kde 4.2: let's make it perfect for my mother and girlfriend. :-)

[Giovanni Masucci]

All right, then I'll concentrate on testing the default "next gen" plasma from 
now on.
Thanks Aaron. =)
Il lunedì 17 novembre 2008 23:16:23 Aaron J. Seigo ha scritto:
> On Monday 17 November 2008, Giovanni Masucci wrote:
> > Il lunedì 17 novembre 2008 20:34:46 Aaron J. Seigo ha scritto:
> > > On Monday 17 November 2008, Giovanni Masucci wrote:
> > > > gone. Kicker used to had these feature and gnome has too. This way
> > > > it's hard for the user to add a program that is not listed in the
> > > > kickoff menu.
> > >
> > > what application that was not in the menu did your two test users try
> > > and add?
> >
> > Vplanner (scuba dive planning program), it's basically a tar.gz that you
> > untar and launch.
>
> so we expect people to be able to untar and launch things they download,
> but not drag an icon from the file manager to the panel?
>
> > > think you did a huge diservice to your test subject by making them use
> > > the menu style launcher when that's really not suited to new users nor
> > > the default configuraiton of plasma. it seems you figured "oh, she
> > > knows other systems, so let's make this exactly like them" and then
> > > tested that, which is really not how plasma ships nor is meant to be
> > > used.
> >
> > mmm...well it was a test. We didn't use the configuration we wanted to
> > use, we compared the default one with the nostalgic one that is for sure
> > not our favorite, but still some people might want to use it.We tried to
> > different use cases. If a user coming from win/kde3/gnome would come to
> > me asking "what plasma config should I use?", i'd say the default one.
> > But here we were testing different use cases.,. That's why we have been
> > testing a pre-beta version of kde: to help to give a polished experience
> > to everybody using kde 4,
>
> and that's appreciated. but yes, please test the defaults. the "traditional
> desktop" is a nice thing to have to offer people, but it's really not
> something i feel is important enough to focus on polishing to be as perfect
> as the defaults.
>
> > regardless if they want a desktop similar to xp or a new
> > generation one. I tought this was one the points of  4.2, since a lot of
> > users that tried 4.1 sayied they wanted their old desktop back.
>
> and when they do so, they can put up with all the annoyances that come with
> it. i'm really not interested in pouring tons of resources into making a
> compatibility mode that works not just exactly like it used to but also
> better. we have much, much better things to do with our time and energy.
>
> and honestly, people have battered us about the head so much about the "oh
> nos! where's my traditional desktop you asshats!" that if you look at the
> default plasma .. well .. it's pretty uninspiring from the perspective of
> being a better, different thing. it's basically the old thing with a few
> tweaks.
>
> and i'm highly dissapointed because of that. with 4.2 we've given people a
> rather traditional experience option, a mostly-traditional one .. and we're
> done with that.
>
> 4.3 and on we need to be looking at significant improvement and new ideas
> to offer. people who don't want that can continue to use the configuration
> we offer now but they must not be allowed to slow us down further.
>
> > > > I don't know if
> > > > these plasmoid icons are still useful at all (from what I understood
> > > > they should now be deprecated in favor of folderview icons).
> > >
> > > you understood incorrectly.
> > >
> > :( ok, sorry. Misunderstood again...i
>
> it's quite simple: how do you put an application launcher in amongst a
> bunch of widgets?
>
> and with an icon applet we can actually allow things like:
>
> * making launchers you use more often bigger
> * auto-deleting launcher when the app they are related to goes away.
>
> --
> Aaron J. Seigo
> humru othro a kohnu se
> GPG Fingerprint: 8B8B 2209 0C6F 7C47 B1EA  EE75 D6B7 2EB1 A7F1 DB43
>
> KDE core developer sponsored by Qt Software