Satisfaction with KDE3 and KDE4

Story: gwenview: user friendly?Total Replies: 34
Author Content
Ridcully

Jan 25, 2010
4:58 AM EDT
Aaron is entitled to his opinion, but equally Carla is entitled to hers and it is also equally valid. All Aaron has done is try to blow holes in one example, Gwenview, but I suspect that the KDE4 problem runs much deeper and I think Carla may have some valid points on Gwenview in any case - I tried Gwenview in KDE4 and got completely mixed up in what I could or could not do. I could find few common points and it was like encountering a new piece of software for the first time......if that sounds familiar, KDE4 did the same.

Moreover, if a prominent editor and Linux devotee/user such as Carla indicates strongly that KDE4 is still unable to satisfy her requirements in a window manager when compared with KDE3, then perhaps Aaron as a developer might like to think again about her message: again someone is stating that there are major problems with the actual day by day usability of KDE4 but the message is not getting through. So far, my impressions of the whole situation are that the KDE4 group reacts to any adverse comments by simply saying: KDE4 is what you are going to get, use it and learn it because we are not going back and we are developing it in the way WE want. The message is torn to pieces and the KDE4 respondent heads back to his work.

Can KDE4.3 survive widely right now as a corporate desktop ? I don't know. I do know KDE3.5 can and does and satisfies those very extensive demands quite well. That may be the test of usability.
setec_astronomy

Jan 25, 2010
7:18 AM EDT
@ridcully

Quoting:All Aaron has done is try to blow holes in one example, Gwenview, but I suspect that the KDE4 problem runs much deeper and I think Carla may have some valid points on Gwenview in any case - I tried Gwenview in KDE4 and got completely mixed up in what I could or could not do.


It was indeed Carla that used Gwenview as an example for her problems with KDE4, and as far as I was able to understand these problems can be summarised in two larger fields:

- There is stuff missing or behaving in an unintuitve way compared to Gwenview in KDE 3.x - While we are at it: Where have all the options gone.

Now correct me please if I'm wrong here, but my impression is that most of the problems in the former group of annoyances are things where Aaron has agreed that there is no reason why the behaviour should not be changed to match Carlas recommodations (and without doubt many other users would concur with her)

- viewing image size and dimensions in the preview panel - defaulting to the CWD instead of $HOME for file dialogs

That seems to cover most of the stuff that is - again, IMHO - truly unintuitive. Of course, it may be interesting to discuss why these particilar decisions for the default behaviour have been choosen, but extrapolating from the lack of an option to view the file size in the preview panel to malicious behaviour of the developers is a bit of a far stretch if you ask me. Since there is precedent for allowing different navigation tools than the breadcrumb already in Gwenview, I would be surprised if the feature request for back - and forward buttons or similar aids would be dismissed.

Note that it would have helped me to understand that these problems are not only "annoyances" (that would be bad enough) but seriously derail her established workflow had she given the example (batch file resizing) in her article that she gave in her comment to Aarons article. It would have never crossed my mind to use gwenview as a tool for resizing batches of images so frequently that hese anoyances become problematic (call me odd and elitist, but that's what imagemagick is for. If a GUI is needed I would probably have tried to use digikam or something similar before turning to gwenview, but that is just my opinion).

The second proint is - again IMHO - the more interesting one. People have accussed the KDE4 devs of pulling a GNOME 2.0 for almost two years now (although in the same frame of time, other and about as vocal parties have criticised the KDE4 devs for re-introducing options that were absent in earlier incarnations of KDE 4, thus polluting the - seemingly? - somewhat "cleaner" implementations of earlier KDE 4 incarnations, talk about "dammend of you do, dammed if you don't") by removing at least a larger share of the options and configurations from the settings dialogs. That the old KDE 3.x approache of "given enough different options, users can cobble together the necessary pieces to improvise a workflow" has its limitations and ultimately leeds to software that is a pain to maintain and was frequently criticised for it's "kitchen sync with a k" approach plus the fact that whatever decisions the devs took for KDE 4.0 they had to live with the consequences over the whole KDE 4 cycle due to their commitment to binary backwards compability (adherents of a stable kernel ABI should make a mental note to study the problems KDE4 got due to this commitment, closely, btw.) are about as good a reason to streamline user interfaces and computer interactions than "dumbing down the interface the to appeal to the sixpacks". But that, again, is just my personal opinion.

What Aaron tried to show, and what I, even though I use KDE 4 exclusively for over 1 1/2 years now,. was not aware of is how many options that are absent from the configuration screen have found a new home in a different place, and what was the motivation behind relocating these options is.Carla and everybody else is of course entitled to his/hers disagreement wrt the specific design desicions, but accusing them to eliminate all options infavour of glitz is not what i would like to describe their approach.

Furthermore, as a former entusiastic GNOME 1.4 user that left around the time GNOME 2.6 was released for XFCE (and later KDE 4), I have to say that this does not resembles the "scrap that option, it confuses the user to have somthing to decide" modus operandi shown there in the remotest. (While I'm at writing mental post-it's:Where were all those "if it's x.0, it's gold" folks when GNOME 2.0, and even more importantly GNOME 1.0 was released? It's a serious question, btw.).

What GNOME did was to more or less axe all the options that were not absolutely needed (some, including me, had a vastly different definition of "absolutely needed") and - during several waves of adding back features and solidifiying / harmonising them (can you nowadays modify the control panels in evolution? is there now a setting for the lifetime of cookies in epiphany? Have they fixed the odd behaviour of nautilus to try to draw the desktop icons if launched without comamnd lline parameters? I guess the answer to all these questions is nowadays "yes", see above ) reintrudicng them painstakely over the years. I don't have any ill feelings towards GNOME, and I truly hope that my emotional attachment to GNOME 1.4 did not show in the same destructive and sometimes downright hostile way that several people (explicitly excluding Carla here) have shown towards KDE, just because the software project has undergone a - admittedly, huge - shift in direction and vision.

I would propose to call for a usability review of applications like gwenview with specific workflows liek the one Carla mentioned in mind. That's the (more, HCI is sometimes a little too fuzzy for my taste, but I'm a physicist) scientific and less emotional approach to bring attentiona nd ultimately solve such problems.

Disclaimer: I'm neither the developer of Gwenview nor a maintainer, just a regular user of said application.

PS: the terms "user friendly" and "usability" are not necessarily and certainly not exclusively derived from the phrase "used too". Given it's colloquial meaning in discussions about KDE4, I would however think that what most people mean when they utter "unsable" has more to do with the latter :-)
bigg

Jan 25, 2010
7:52 AM EDT
It still gets back to the same issue: KDE 3 is a completely different animal, and they have thrown it away. KDE is essentially an abandoned project.

I think Aaron's post is a perfect example of where the KDE 4 team has really been messing up. They've decided that KDE 3 users didn't know what was good for them. They've made no attempt to help KDE 3 users to transition. His post might be correct on some technical issues, but that doesn't make up for the fact that a KDE 3 user shouldn't be in the same position as a Linux newbie.

And this line:

Quoting:I suggest maintaining KDE3 or working on new software that fits that worldview.


Translation: we're doing what we think is fun, if you don't like it, go away. Interesting that those developers weren't the ones that started their own project. They wanted the glory (and perhaps financial benefits) of working on KDE, but they also wanted to do it their way. It must be boring to do things your way if you can't start your project with a user base in the millions.

Happy GNOME/XFCE user here, and absolutely do not plan to try any more KDE 4 releases after reading this.
tracyanne

Jan 25, 2010
8:09 AM EDT
Quoting:G3 lacked rating information : Aaron Seigo


What in the world is this rating information, and why is it so important that I be able to rate my images?

For simplicities sake Aaron's mob have removed two really important pieces of information, and replaced them with 1 trivial one.
DiBosco

Jan 25, 2010
8:16 AM EDT
Quoting:It still gets back to the same issue: KDE 3 is a completely different animal


It's not though. :~) It's slightly different. Most things work in essentially the same way. This strikes me about an issue to do with an app on KDE4, not the desktop itself.

I do a *lot* of photography and use Gwenview and/or gqview for browsing my photos. I used to use Gewnview for doing some batch processing on KDE3, but soon got bored of it as, even on KDE3, it wasn't an efficient way of doing it. When you've 400+ photos of a race that you need to get up on your website that need resizing, sharpening, turning into an HTML gallery etc, Gwenview soon got boring because of all the click, click, click - even on KDE3. To this user, Gwenview is better on KDE4. I'm not saying *I'm* right, I'm just saying that whatever what done with Gwenview, some would be happier and some would be hacked off.

It seems to me that Aaron's post is agreeing with Carla on some points, while giving very valid reasons as to why others have changed. It also seems to me that (and I may have got the wrong end of the stick) that if the file size options was there, Carla would be happy. So, I would say - if you haven't done so already, Carla - write to the Gwenview team and ask nicely whether you can have that option back and explain why it's useful.

If they refuse, ignore you or don't give you good reason why not, then call them. ;~)

I am still not sure exactly what criteria you use, Carla, for resizing, but have a look at Phatch. It's what I use for resizing, sharpening, putting in watermarks etc. I't a fabulous tool. You could copy all photos above a certain size to a folder, run Phatch on that folder and do the resizing like that as well as all sorts of other options. Anyway up, it's the best tool I've found for photo batch processing by a long way.

You could also use digikam or Rawtherapee, I think, but I find both big unwieldly programs compared to Gwenview.



DiBosco

Jan 25, 2010
8:22 AM EDT
Quoting:What in the world is this rating information, and why is it so important that I be able to rate my images?


When you take thousands of photos, it's nice to be able to look at them when you get them on your computer and rate them, so that you can easily rank them or know which ones to keep, to pull off later to show to people etc.

setec_astronomy

Jan 25, 2010
8:32 AM EDT
@DiBosco

As an "interesting" side note: when amarok 2.x initially lost the ability to tag, rate and create playlists from these meta-information (custom labels seem to have returned recently in trunk, IIRC) due to the ongoing refacturing/restructuring, people were screaming "bloody murder". But in the context of pictures and image documents, these features suddenly are superficial glitz that nobody really needs anyway.
bigg

Jan 25, 2010
8:32 AM EDT
> It's not though. :~) It's slightly different.

Not really. Because I'm not very familiar with KDE in any form, I'm going partially on what others have said, and partially on this:

Quoting:KDE has taken a change in direction with the 4.x series.


Quoting:I fully recognize that there are some people who really do like very complex, cluttered interfaces that expose "everything" all at once and hide "everything else" in arcane configuration dialogs. To those people, I can only say that I'm sorry if KDE no longer fits your worldview. I suggest maintaining KDE3 or working on new software that fits that worldview.


In other words, KDE3 users don't know what good software is, and the KDE4 team is here to fix that.
jacog

Jan 25, 2010
8:41 AM EDT
Quoting:write to the Gwenview team and ask nicely


Hmmm, a better plan is to go to http://bugs.kde.org and see if the said feature request is listed there already in the backlog. If no, then add it. If yes, then use the voting system to add some points to it so it might get bumped up the priority list a bit.

In fact: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=210891 ... there you go. There are 21 votes here. I will add a few more...

Done... I have added 20 more votes.

Now, if adding the feature is THAT important, then campaign for it, get others to also vote for it. Anyone has the power to influence the development.
DiBosco

Jan 25, 2010
8:42 AM EDT
Yes, Bigg, but on a day-to-day basis, it's really isn't a completely different animal. It's the looks and some minor differences to how some things work that have changed, but that doesn't make it a completely different animal.

The example you quote just seems like common sense to me. To take all those options and put them in a global options place seems like good thinking. When it comes to specific options on certain programs - like wanting to see file sizes, as I said, I'd be surprised if the program's maintainers didn't listen. It cannot be a big change for them to add that as an option.
jacog

Jan 25, 2010
9:27 AM EDT
Carrying on from my above comment, I have also found the Next/Prev buttons request.

https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=155884

And that one has 50 votes on it already. Both this and the abovementioned feature are in the top 20, votes-wise. See: https://bugs.kde.org/buglist.cgi?bug_file_loc=&bug_file_loc_...

EDIT: And on things I have voted for in the past, I got included in correspondence until the bug/feature was marked as resolved.
bigg

Jan 25, 2010
9:38 AM EDT
@DiBosco

It's hard for me to take part in the debate when, as noted already, I'm not a KDE user. I will simply say that to you it is "common sense" but evidently a lot of KDE 3 users, such as Carla, are then cursed with a lack of common sense.
dinotrac

Jan 25, 2010
9:54 AM EDT
Quoting: In G4 the smoothing is progressive and fast enough to not require such a configuration feature.

Seriously? Setting the absolute number of pixels between images in the view is at all worth it?

"Show scroll bars": This belongs with "Margin between thumbnails"

This is all replaced by desktop wide defaults in G4


So I was talkin' to this Marie Antoinette chick, y'see, and she was one hot momma. Had this real fixation with people screamin' bread. Couldn't for the life of her understand why they didn't just eat cake.
jacog

Jan 25, 2010
10:01 AM EDT
OFF WITH HER HEAD!!!!

Seriously, if one hates something so much one doesn't want to use it, then don't use it. But, if you DO use KDE, but feel there are things you would like changed, there are actually channels available for that. See above.
dinotrac

Jan 25, 2010
10:19 AM EDT
jacog -

Ah yes, nice little voting setups. Probably with rigged Diebold machines and paid-off poll watchers.

As it turns out, "OFF WITH HER HEAD" is a pretty popular option, except that KDE users have been figuratively cutting their own heads off out of frustration and plant their poor bodies in places like GNOME, fluxbox, XFCE, etc.
jacog

Jan 25, 2010
10:30 AM EDT
Let the metaphor-milking commence! :)

( and I know you are joking, but the voting is quote public and you can see who voted on what at any time )

And yeah, lots of lynch-mobs in the FOSS community(ies). A lot of people would rather whine on forums about things than actually jump in and do something about it. I have had two of my feature-requests carried out on KDE in the past. And I have only ever asked for three things. Once was a KDE3 thing, and two KDE4 requests.

The one thing that has not been officially fixed has already got an available patch, so it'll get into the trunk eventually.
DiBosco

Jan 25, 2010
10:57 AM EDT
@Bigg, I'm honestly not sure what you're meaning is a matter of common sense. I was in no way trying to intimate that anyone was showing a lack of common sense. I do think think that most people are showing a great deal of resistance to something slightly different and new. It's taken me next to no time to get used to KDE4 (once they released a stable version), I just find that most things work in the same way and those that don't are easy and intuitive to work out. Why is it that as a normal KDE3 user I can do that?

It's interesting reading Aaron's blog that there are a number of non KDE users coming to KDE with the advent of KDE4. Maybe it's all part of losing some users and gaining others?
bigg

Jan 25, 2010
11:20 AM EDT
> @Bigg, I'm honestly not sure what you're meaning is a matter of common sense.

I was referring to what you called common sense. It's mostly a matter of preference, yet there seems to be an effort on the part of KDE devs to define what is meant by "smart preferences".
tuxchick

Jan 25, 2010
11:21 AM EDT
Oh brother. Usability reviews, hey look it's shiny, no substantive responses, just silly attempts to distract from the core issues and justify a policy of ignoring what they don't want to hear, which bigg summarized beautifully:

Quoting: It still gets back to the same issue: KDE 3 is a completely different animal, and they have thrown it away. KDE is essentially an abandoned project.

I think Aaron's post is a perfect example of where the KDE 4 team has really been messing up. They've decided that KDE 3 users didn't know what was good for them...

And this line:

Quoted: I suggest maintaining KDE3 or working on new software that fits that worldview.

Translation: we're doing what we think is fun, if you don't like it, go away.


None of the KDE persons answered any of my points directly, except for maybe sort of conceding that the two bits of thumbnail data that I mentioned might maybe be something good to consider. They were so busy dismissing everything else, and defending their 'throw it away because we think it looks icky' design philosophy they didn't address any of the issues raised at all. They dodged the key problems of efficiency and workflow, of discarding features for no good reason, and making it harder for users who like to control their own computers. Can you believe all the comments defending removing features because they personally don't need them??

'Let's do usability reviews!' is shorthand for "we don't want to hear what those annoying people who love KDE3 have to say." I must be a genius and the KDE leaders are not geniuses, because apparently it takes genius to understand that radically changing a popular set of software, and discarding the features and customizability that users love, and telling those users that they want doesn't matter, is going to upset them. DUH. When you have miles of bug reports, wish lists, comments on forums, emails, mailing lists, blogs, and articles, you already have a wealth of useful feedback to study. DUH.

All along I have biding my time and not wanting to jump on the KDE4 Flame Train. I reasoned that it would take time, and that a little patience was in order. I was wrong, all the patience in the world is not going to be rewarded because they're heading in a totally different direction.

setec_astronomy

Jan 25, 2010
12:13 PM EDT
Quoting:I must be a genius and the KDE leaders are not geniuses, because apparently it takes genius to understand that radically changing a popular set of software, and discarding the features and customizability that users love, and telling those users that they want doesn't matter, is going to upset them. DUH. When you have miles of bug reports, wish lists, comments on forums, emails, mailing lists, blogs, and articles, you already have a wealth of useful feedback to study. DUH.


Except that it is not that clear cut. There are people out there that like KDE4 quite well, even old time KDE3 users. Heck, where I work, most of them even prefer KDE4 over KDE3. I am currently standing in as the system administrator of our universities mathematics institute with approximately 60 users, most of them using Linux and nearly all of them deeply entrenched to KDE. Due to long time illness of the "regular" sys admin, most people still had KDE3 installed on their machines (timeframe: openSuSE 10.2/10.3), some had early KDE 4.1 or heavily modifed openSuSE installations.

Part of my job was to update the computers, so what I did was to setup a test machine with a reference KDE 4 and KDE 3 installation, let people access the machine via the network and work with them in person directly at the machine, asking them after some time to choose what they would like. If somebody had problems with a specific setting, we (my colleauge and me) would try to recreate the workflow from the KDE 3 days, but sometimes we had to find alternatives or workarounds.

There are five KDE 3 installations left in the department, mostly due to the fact that some people are uncomfortable with the workflow of okular + latex (e.g. they are used to kdvi/kghostview). There are a lot of small problems, but so far I have yet to see people rushing into my office yelling "I want my bloody KDE3" back. So far, people are quite satisfied. Did I mention that most of them are seasoned KDE3 users?

So my question is: What have I done wrong? Somewhere along the line must have succeeded in brainwashing hordes of highly intelligent and organised people, to use something, that is no longer intended to be used by bright beings like them because it is supposedly dumbed down beyond recognition.

Just out of curiosity: What's wrong with usability studies?



tuxchick

Jan 25, 2010
12:25 PM EDT
Just out of curiosity: what's wrong with listening to what users are already saying, and not just the ones saying what you want to hear?

It's quite simple and obvious: removing features and creating inefficient workflow affects the users who rely on such things. OTOH, leaving everything in bothers no one, except for users who are upset by the sight of features they don't use. If the huge volume of upset and feedback, much of it specific and detailed, hasn't made an impression already, it's a lost cause.
DiBosco

Jan 25, 2010
12:38 PM EDT
Carla, I can see both sides of this.

On the one hand I do think it was poor that Aaron didn't address your particular point about how it's affected your workflow, but it's not fair to say he just dissed your other points. He gave sensible reasons about why some things had changed and agreed with you about some missing functionality. I think you're overstating the case when you say they're radically changing a popular set of software; they are making some changes and most things work the same or in similar ways. In exactly the same way you claim they're ignoring all your points, they could say you're ignoring some of theirs.

It *is* good, however, that someone has finally given a concrete example of something that has changed for the worse for you - compared with older versions - with your points about file size and navigation. No-one else has managed to come up with anything similar since the latest release.

Personally, I *can* believe other people's points defending removed features because they don't use them. For them, it's made the program easier to use and so from their point of view it's better, which is as valid as an opinion as yours. Also, there were a number of substantive responses all down the blog, it's just that they didn't coincide with your view.

Unless and until you file a feature request and that request is ignored then I respectfully disagree with a large part of your argument. If you have, and the devs have flatly refused your particular requests, then I think, in terms of Gwenview, you have a perfectly good reason to complain. So many things have been fixed since KDE4.0 and moved it closer to the functionality of 3.5 I think it *is* right to believe required functionality will come with patience.

To (potentially) fix your current plight, have a look at Phatch as described above.

@Bigg, sorry, I was being a bit numb by not seeing what you meant about common sense.
jacog

Jan 25, 2010
1:09 PM EDT
tc... I tried illustrating above that getting involved with the project is the easiest way to get heard. If you want to keep using KDE, then get involved and get your 60% satisfaction up a few notches. Miffing on blogs/forums/etc. does not accomplish anything. This is what free software is supposed to be - community driven, not community drivel.

The example I used above, your request to see file size info and dimensions, you are not the only one to ask for that, hence there is a ticket for it. And if any one thing has enough demand, it is likely to get included.
dinotrac

Jan 25, 2010
1:24 PM EDT
jacog --

Ummmmmmm.....

Maybe the real answer is for all of us to accept that proprietary software is the best answer for mainstream desktop users, that FOSS projects really have no interest in reaching the largest segment of computer users.
jacog

Jan 25, 2010
1:31 PM EDT
That's an awfully broad statement.
Bob_Robertson

Jan 25, 2010
1:36 PM EDT
> that FOSS projects really have no interest in reaching the largest segment of computer users.

I wouldn't say that about all projects. Heck, I would not have said that about KDE3, or 2, or 1.
dinotrac

Jan 25, 2010
1:57 PM EDT
Ah, Bob --

You understand!!

'Tis a little scary, though.

With FOSS being, well, free as in "I'd like to work on this project", you can never be sure the infection won't spread.

The ease and arrogance with which FOSS developers embrace an ethic of "Screw the user! We'll do it MY way" is disconcerting.

Exists in proprietary stuff, too, btw, but proprietary software at least has management that says -- "Whoa! That's how we make our money"

Not perfect, but at least remembers users are out there.

Kind of funny, though. Once upon a time, I would talk about the absence of change for the sake of change as being a strength of free software as opposed to proprietary warez from companies that want to sell you the latest edition.



tuxchick

Jan 25, 2010
2:16 PM EDT
"File a bug report, get directly involved, let's have studies!" are all code for "go away." There is nothing new in any of this, it's all been buglisted and wishlisted and oh pretty pleased to death. Users who want a dumbed-down desktop already have Gnome.

Jacog, it was 40% satisfaction. And declining.
jacog

Jan 30, 2010
3:30 AM EDT
https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=210891

There, they added the one feature that was requested.

And tc, I think your KDE is borked if you can't do batch processing. Works really well here.
tuxchick

Jan 30, 2010
1:41 PM EDT
Jacog, I didn't say I couldn't do batch processing.
DiBosco

Jan 30, 2010
3:23 PM EDT
I must say, I had a quick play with G4 and batch resizing, and if you choose detailed view in the picker, the file size is there. The size in the terms of x by y in pixels isn't though although that's been fixed for next release apparently. Why is the file size important for you in deciding which file to resize? (That is not sarcasm, a genuine question.)
tuxchick

Jan 30, 2010
5:00 PM EDT
DiBosco, did you read ANYTHING? This pecking at irrelevancies and asking questions that have been answered several times, instead of addressing the actual issues, is why these discussions almost always derail into useless circular rehashes.

I despair of KDE4 ever becoming as useful and efficient as KDE3 because of this kind of nonsense, especially when it comes from the lead devs. Aaron Seigo's response, for those who actually bothered to read it, is entirely emotional:

Quoting: It seems that Carla was "tricked" by a UI that doesn't scream in your face "I HAVE LOTS OF POWER!!!!! LOOK AT EVERYTHING I CAN DO BECAUSE IT'S ALL PLASTERED ON YOUR SCREEN IN SUCH AN INELEGANT WAY THAT YOU CAN'T IGNORE HOW POWERFUL I AM!!!! HOPE YOU WANT TO DO LOT OF POWERFUL THINGS, RATHER THAN VIEW YOUR IMAGES!" Yes, Gwenview in KDE 3 screams just like that.


Say what?? What on earth does that have to do with anything? How was I tricked? Is the same functionality that I liked before still there, but implemented differently? No, it's not, and he never even tries to answer that. A task that I could perform quickly with a very few clicks in the old Gwenview now takes about four times as long, and requires many more clicks. That is not my idea of elegant, anymore than lipstick on a farm animal makes it elegant.

My original article was about functional and workflow problems in Linux, and how I think they're being ignored in favor of eye candy and a misguided attempt to appeal to a fictional, non-existent userbase. This Gwenview issue was simply one example to illustrate that, and even though it was a small and limited example, I would say that Mr. Seigo's response, and many of the other responses, support my assertion better than I could ever support it myself.

Again, those who read before commenting know that I went on to highlight the problem of increasing inaccessibility under the hood of Linux. I think smart userspace design in Linux is taking a beating, perhaps because of new generations of devs and contributors who don't have a Unix background, but perhaps Windows or Mac, and who don't understand or care about the original Unix and Linux design principles, and why they came about in the first place. The result is an increasingly user-opaque Linux, harder for users to understand and control. That is the opposite of how it is supposed to be.
DiBosco

Jan 30, 2010
7:20 PM EDT
Quoting:DiBosco, did you read ANYTHING


Yes.

I could ask the same of you really.

Giving direct answers to problems you claim are there is not pecking at an irrelevancy.

Aaron's reply is absolutely not entirely emotional; you have chosen a little bit from it above and missed out large swathes where he either agrees with you or gives very good, sensible, well thought out reasons why things have changed. Also, if you read to the end of that blog you will see he fully addresses your issues and has already fixed issues you wanted.

I get and accept your point about your file sizes/image sizes (which have been addressed) and the daft bug where the file picker goes back to root , but I don't agree with your other points, I just don't see how they make any difference at all to efficiency. All the other issues were calmly and sensibly dealt with by Aaron. Do you honestly not agree with how he dealt with any of those other configuration issues? If not and the only thing that will satisfy you is things returning to exactly how they were then the discussion is pointless because nothing will get resolved.

Yes, your original article was about general inefficiencies, but to be fair, you did raise Gwenview and it's only fair that Gwenview was addressed because it's the only concrete example of where the inefficiencies are. Did Aaron agree with some of your points? Did he fix them? The answer clearly is yes and he deserves some credit for that. You see, you say Aaron's answers support your assertion, but I see an almost completely different picture. Also, my own experience with KDE4 (and may others) tells a very different story.

dinotrac

Jan 31, 2010
4:56 AM EDT
Hmmmmm.

DiBosco, you've just about convinced me ---

There is no going home.

Sigh.

I used to love KDE, thorugh all its iterations.

I have never loved "Screw the user".
DiBosco

Feb 02, 2010
3:06 PM EDT
Dino, I am aware that trying to defend what KDE have done with KDE4 is possibly putting people's backs up even more, so I'm sorry if I am antagonising.

Anyway, at least you reply to points raised, so thanks for that. I will respect your dislike for the new desktop and disagree with it. :~)

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