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1

Thursday, February 1st 2007, 3:22am

Simple things for KDE4

Hi all KDE community,

I'm a KDE home user and I believe the real linux desktop revolution for will not only be the all the new, nice, fashionables features adding ... It is nice to get new tools on our desktop but I would like your opinion on more simple things:

What about the defaults and initial settings of KDE 4 ? Let me give some examples based on my current KDE experience:

- For konqueror, for me, it is a files browser more than something else. All default settings should be re-thing (even on the kubuntu one that I use):

a/ Start as a file manager, remove all amarok, web folders, etc. by default it's confusing (I love amarok, it's best player ever, but not in my files browser by default)
b/ Start with "detail list view" by default and not those "icons view" default setting
c/ Clean the interface with less buttons by default, just a very simple browser


- For the task bar: set multiple desktop to 1 (by default, most of the users get confuse with this)

- For the Start menu, remove duplicate, sort things in function of the most used software, put a really few entries by default (kubuntu already start this work)

- Add a global "come back to default settings of KDE"

- Double click by default ... well this is a "hot topic" maybe ...

etc.

Is there a way except the forum, to organize cleanly the default settings of KDE 4, is there a working group on this topic ? I'm sure the community can make a nice thing (why not a wiki) on this ... well, I mean, I'd love to get involve in this.

From what I see this is the key point for many "non IT" people to get away of the current KDE desktop: It's configurable, nice, should stay like this, but the default configuration is complex to get in.

2

Thursday, February 1st 2007, 9:33am

RE: Simple things for KDE4

Quoted

Originally posted by riviereg

Quoted


a/ Start as a file manager, remove all amarok, web folders, etc. by default it's confusing (I love amarok, it's best player ever, but not in my files browser by default)

the problem is that amarok is not part of KDE, it's a third party application that uses the possibility to integrate with konqueror.
I think this issue could be solved in two ways:
1- declare in the HIG of kde that applications don't integrate with konqueror by default
2 - is if in practice, applications don't comply with 1: make konqueror keep a list of accepted plugins, and whenever a new application gets installed and wants to put its plugin into konqueror, the user will be asked if he/she wants that to happen or not.

Quoted


b/ Start with "detail list view" by default and not those "icons view" default setting

I think most users prefere icons view as default, detail list gives too much information.

Quoted


c/ Clean the interface with less buttons by default, just a very simple browser

Yep, and afaik there is a lot of discussion going on about this. There are plans to make the webbrowser more seperate from the filemanager (they are too thight integrated at the moment), and projects like Dolphin are experimenting with a much more clean and simple filemanager then Konqueror is.
Finding from the Dolphin project most likely will be used in konqueror for kde 4

Quoted


- For the task bar: set multiple desktop to 1 (by default, most of the users get confuse with this)

Yep, it's the first thing I do on new installations!

Quoted


- For the Start menu, remove duplicate, sort things in function of the most used software, put a really few entries by default (kubuntu already start this work)

The new suse menu is ideal for this.
Problem with current kde menu is that it is hard to maintain a menu with just a few entries, because every new application can put itself into the menu. And users get confused if new applications don't appear somewhere in the menu.

Quoted


- Double click by default ... well this is a "hot topic" maybe ...

Double click is very bad for usability.
Try to get new (older) users to use the desktop with double clicking. They will experience a lot of trouble performing that action.
And it is confusing, because you always get a mix between single click activations and double click activations (e.g. single click on icons in toolbars vs double click on icons on desktop)

Quoted


Is there a way except the forum, to organize cleanly the default settings of KDE 4, is there a working group on this topic ? I'm sure the community can make a nice thing (why not a wiki) on this ... well, I mean, I'd love to get involve in this.
[/uote]
KDE HCI is working on stuff like this.
Dunno the link to their website, but perhaps you will find it yourself.
There is also a mailinglist available
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