Why rotate widgets?

[Diego Moya]

On 7 September 2010 14:33, Asraniel wrote:

> Appart from the wrongly choosen icon (which looks like a refresh button), i
> really can't see any problem with that feature.
> Don't let us go the gnome way and delete every feature that not at least
> 100%
> of the people use.
>

I don't think we're talking removing this feature. Me, I was suggesting
creating a better, more flexible interface for it.


On 7 September 2010 15:07, nuno pinheiro wrote:

> On Tuesday 07 September 2010 13:48:53 Markus Slopianka wrote:
> > On Tuesday 07 September 2010 12:11:52 nuno pinheiro wrote:
> > > does it create visual cluter? no..
> > Sure it does.
> NO IT dosent, puting my designers hat. that tollbar is not clutered,
> minimalist as i like to be but to much empty space is also bad. that
> toolbar
> is clean and as just about the correct amount of butons.
>
>
You must have a really big screen, or never use small widgets at all. The
buttons in the toolbar get in the way when trying to drag the widget; one
must carefully search for an empty place in the bar to drag. Every
additional button reduces the size of the dragging area for my primary
interaction with widgets, which is moving them to a different place.

Good design implies that less-used features are made less pronounced. I for
one find the whole widget toolbar too intrusive. I put my widgets
side-by-side on the desktop, and during normal use the toolbar on one widget
will overlap the one besides it, obscuring its contents. I would be happier
if the toolbar would only show on demand by clicking a toggle button (a
cashew?), not by hovering over the widget.

YMMV anyway, different users have different needs. My point is that giving
prominent place to rarely used features *does* get in the way and is
disturbing for someone. Note that I'm not asking for it to be changed
(dashboards in general are of little use for me), I just want to illustrate
how it can be a real problem for some people, that should not be hand-waved
away.

I suppose the definition of "clutter" and "what gets in the way" is
personal. I can only think of two ways to prioritize placement of features
in the interface, for an open project like KDE:
- what developers feel is right for their personal use, or
- the expected frequency of use for that feature.



> > > on the plus side its a good marketing tool----- see i can rotate the
> > > clock
> > >
> > > :) do that in windows will you...
>
> >Reply:
> >shrug "Why would I want to rotate a clock?"
>
> Why woud i want to play tictack toe? Why woud i want place my windows in
> difrent positions? Why woud i want this or that.
>

So why don't we place a tic tac toe game on the default desktop
configuration? ;-)
That's right, it would not be used most of the time, by most users.



On 7 September 2010 17:12, Aaron J. Seigo wrote:

>  On Tuesday, September 7, 2010, Markus Slopianka wrote:
>
> > Isn't this one of those micro-options we once stated to get rid of?
>
> no. it's a fairly commonly used feature and doesn't get in the way of other
> items nor other code paths.
>
>
> I agree that this feature is not one of those micro-configurations that
plagued previous iterations of KDE. Still, I fail to see the need to have it
always on, always available.

Do people really move and rotate their widgets, with the same frequency that
they interact with their contents? As far as I can see, none of the use
cases presented in this thread would be hurt by a "configuration only mode",
while it does get in the way for some of us in its current form.

What was the original reasoning in having the complete direct-manipulation
interface for plasmoid applets always present? Is it for the kool effect? To
make it discoverable? Or is there a benefit in having the toolbar always
available that I'm missing?
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