In it, Carla claims to be "90% satisfied" with KDE3 and "60% satisfied" with KDE SC 4.3. Why? "KDE 4 sacrifices customizability and efficiency for glitz. [...] There is a trend to dumb Linux down in a fruitless attempt to appeal to Jane and Joe Sixpack. Which is wasted effort, because in doing so computer-savvy users are being ignored and frustrated, and Jane and Joe Sixpack don't care anyway."
What's interesting about this for me is that Gwenview's redesign wasn't to appeal to Jane and Joe Sixpack. It was to take a powerful app with a rather clumsy UI and turn it into a powerful app with a slick UI. Now, I don't know about you, but I like tools that fit my hand when I use them; creating tools that fit the tentacles of an octopus might be interesting as an academic exercise in design, but I don't live in the ocean and I have arms with hands, not tentacles with suction cups. Similarly, I like slick UIs. I'm not the only one, as fans of MacOS and other nicely designed UIs will be happy to relate.
The example she uses is Gwenview: "In KDE 4.3, the same data have been shuffled around to different locations, it is far less configurable, and the thumbnails only display filename and date. To get any other information requires viewing each image one at a time. It's like being given a little porthole to look through. In KDE 3.5, Gwenview is very configurable [...] In KDE 4.3, where did all the configurations go? Why do they even bother with a configuration menu? "
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. :) If you go from a "screaming" UI to an elegant one, one might assume the elegant one simply doesn't have much power to it because it's so much "quieter". Let's see if this is really the case with Gwenview.
(For simplicity, let's refer to Gwenview's KDE 3 version as G3, and it's current version as G4.)
Where I Agree
Let's start with where I agree with Carla: "The thumbnails display image size, file size, filename, and date, and I can see this information on several images at once." In G4 only filename, date and rating can be shown with the thumbnails. As far as I can see, G3 lacked rating information in the thumbnails, but you could make it display file and image size as well. I think adding back those two bits of information to the thumbnails wouldn't be a horrible idea for G4.
Even here, though, we start to see some real differences. To set the thumbnail preferences in G3 you would:
- Open the Settings menu and select "Configure Gwenview"
- On the "Image List" page there is a section called "Thumbnail View"; under that are the various options
- Click Ok or Apply+close the window
In G4:
- Open the View -> Thumbnails menu
- Select an item to show
This is rather quicker to do and puts the options within reach under a menu that is topically relevant ("View"). There is no reason the two extra size entries from G3 couldn't appear in the G4 menu, as well. Maybe Aurelien (or someone with some time and patch-fu) could do this for KDE SC 4.5.
So here we have an example of a UI that is quicker to use, particularly if you just want to turn on/off some extra details in the thumbnails, but which currently has one new option but missing two old ones. Will this pattern continue?
Where Has All The Configuration Gone?
Carla asks, "In KDE 4.3, where did all the configurations go?" after showing a screenshot of G3's settings dialog. That certainly does look impressive! Look at all the knobs and levers one can push and pull! True, G4 doesn't have nearly as "impressive" a configuration dialog. Where have the features gone? Let's see what G3 offered:
- "Show folders and archives": This is indeed gone in G4 because the browsing has been merged into one view so that you aren't bouncing around the window with your mouse. In the version I have here, there is an (optional) tree view of your file sytem in case you do want to bounce around like that.
- "Margin between thumbnails": Seriously? Setting the absolute number of pixels between images in the view is at all worth it? Bzzt, gone.
- Four thumbnail caching settings! The only one left in G4 is the "empty when exiting" option because that's the only one that matters: everything else simply follows the desktop wide settings for caching. Extra bonus for G4: it uses the freedesktop.org standard for thumbnails, thanks to KDE Dev Platform v4, which means those thumbnails are shared between Konqueror, Dolphin, the file dialogs, Gwenview and many more, including Gtk+ apps.
- "Enlarge small images when auto-zoom is enabled": In G4, this is still there and more sensibly labeled "Enlarge small images". But more importantly, this is only a default setting in G4. You can access several zoom controls directly when viewing the image, which puts it right where you can get to it when you actually want it (namely, the viewer). Again, G4 manages to keep the power but do so far more efficiently for the user.
- "Show scroll bars": This belongs with "Margin between thumbnails" and is probably there in part because G3's window is cluttered with so much irrelevant widgetry all the time that every pixel counts. Not so in G4 where things are well organized and where the fullscreen view seriously rocks. Another G4 win.
- "Background color": still there in G4, and in the settings dialog. Sensible.
- "Smoothing": 5 options for smoothing, all fairly cryptic in what the actual results will end up being. In G4 the smoothing is progressive and fast enough to not require such a configuration feature.
- "Mouse wheel behavior over image": two options, both till there in G4, and in the settings dialog.
- "Show busy mouse pointer when loading image": This belongs in the same rubbish pile as the margin pixel setting. Showing a busy pointer when the application is busy is a sensible default and follows basic user interface guidelines.
- Full screen "on screen display" configuration: this is a complex "format string" with things like "%f %p". In G4 when you are in full screen mode, there is a configuration button which allows you to set the meta data shown. You just point and click at what metadata you want. Much faster, much more intuitive and, most importantly, if you want to change it while in full screen mode (one of the most likely cases, actually) you don't have to exit full screen mode and hunt through a config dialog only to find yourself confronted with cryptic % escape values. Oh, and G4 allows you to show any metadata that is availabe for the file, not just the 10 hard code possibilities G3 offers.
- Moving and copying files: options to show or hide the move/copy dialogs and where the default destination is. This is all replaced by desktop wide defaults in G4, which means there is one system that applies to all your KDE applications. Say goodbye to tweaking dozens of apps individually so they all have that exact same preference.
- Deleting files: G3 lets you configure whether to move to trash or delete, and whether to ask for confirmation. In G4, both options are available in the side bar actions or in the context menu. There is no need for an option because G4 actually shows more features in the default UI!
- Slideshow: 5 options for controlling slideshows. Hey, didn't we have some full screen options previously? Yes we did, and on a completely different page in the dialog. Fail. In G4, all of these options are right there in the full screen view. Again, more efficient, same powerful app.
- KIPI Plugins: still there, and they are rocking in KDE SC 4.
- What to do when leaving a modified image: three options including "ask", "save silently" and "discard", but really this is a per-image choice isn't it? I don't want to set this globally! In G4 there is a bar that appears at the top of the viewing area when an image is (or images are) modified; you can even jump to the modified image if you navigate away. You can save them individually, or all at once. This unintrusive bit of user interface not only tells me more about what is going on and lets me work uninterrupted, but it obsoletes the need for these configuration entries.
- Automatically rotate image on load: G4 just pays attention to EXIF data. That's what it is there for.
- Remember state of filter on exit: G4 does not provide this. Debatable if it's valuable, but it could be a nice (re-)addition.
- Remember last opened URL: G4 implements a whole new system for this and it completely wipes the floor with G3 in this regard: there is a starting page shown which shows the last several locations you viewed along with places and bookmarks. All there in one nice view, adapts to your usage, integrates with other KDE software (thanks to the Places model) and doesn't require entires in the configuration dialog.
So by my count, and including the thumbnail info issue, G4 does 12 configuration topics better, 4 things the same and two things worse. It manages to do this with 12 items in the configuration dialogs instead of 43, with better text and layout in the dialog to boot. G4 isn't less powerful or less configurable: it's just better designed and so it isn't so painfully obvious that all those features are there.
What Does G4 Do Better?
So if G4 can match G3, does it go any further? I'd say miles and miles further.
For one, there is the above described welcome page which is so much more intuitive and easy to use that it isn't even funny. You don't have to manually create bookmarks and it adapts to your behavior and usage. G4 uses a breadcrumb navigation (which with one click becomes a trusty old plain text URL editor) that we know from many other KDE 4 Powered apps. I never have to open a file dialog in G4 as a result. Speaking of which, the file dialog handling in G3 was very difficult to use: try to open a folder to view (nope, it isn't File -> Open, and that file dialog will not give you any hint about that).
In G4 I can easily resize, remove red eye and much more right from the side bar. I can also just hover an image and click the rotate buttons (or select, or save, or..) in the little toolbar that floats right above it. This is so much faster it isn't even funny, and it lets me select multiple images without having to resort to one hand on the keyboard and one hand on the mouse.
G4's full screen view offers instant access to configuration options and it provide a thumbnail bar. It also offer an auto-play slideshow feature that is really handy.
G4 keeps the image I'm viewing in focus. If I want to view and browse at the same time, there is the thumbnail bar right at the bottom. That's right next to zoom options for "Fit", "100%" and a free moving slider. This is not only more featureful and easier to use than what is in G3, it's also consistent with the browsing view where you can resize the thumbnails!
That's just what occurs to me with a quick glance through both applications running side by side.
User Friendly?
G4 provides a cleaner view with less clutter and manages to not only keep almost all the features of G3 but adds a large number of new features as well. As an added bonus, G4's interface works far better on netbook-sized screens (I've used both G4 and G3 on them; G3 is, frankly, unusable on such a device). It looks nicer, but that's just icing on the cake. The two configuration features that I can find missing in G4 have lot of room to be added back.
Complaining about how Gwenview (and all of KDE 4 software as an extension) has been "dumbed down" and is "less featureful" because two small options aren't there (yet?) when the rest of the app is actually more featureful, powerful and elegant is pretty hard to understand.
On A Personal Note
Carla is a KDE user, and she has been really happy (by her own admission) with KDE3. That's awesome, and as someone who contributed a fair amount to KDE3 that makes me really happy.
How should I feel when she posts a really poorly crafted critique on a big web site like Linux Today? Should I start to not feel happy, maybe resent Carla's existence in our community because she writes such things? I mean, if the analysis was accurate and honed, that would be one thing. But it isn't. Human nature is to experience negative feelings attached with such an event.
That's not good at all! Carla is a member of our community and someone who, from what I can gather, not only means well but contributes via communication on Linux Today. I do not want to have wedges driven between people in our community needlessly, but that's what we risk happening when we let loose from the hip and start proclaiming that the sky is falling.
I wonder if Carla sent an email to Gwenview's author, to one of KDE's "front line communicators" such as myself, Sebas or Jos, to kde-promo or one of the press contacts on kde.org? Would that have resulted in a better article, one that would have done less unnecessary, unearned damage?
On A Less Personal Note
KDE has taken a change in direction with the 4.x series. We are more committed to sleek, elegant and organic user interfaces. We aren't always going to get it "right", at least not on the first try. These kinds of apps are far more difficult to write, but we are making great progress and seeing successes. Yes, like Gwenview.
We aren't interested in creating less powerful software, however. We should not confuse the two things, nor should we mistake how others may have approached the "how to make the UI elegant" question with how KDE is doing so.
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. I know that is hard because there aren't that many of you in that category, but that may also explain why KDE itself isn't making that kind of software as much anymore.
For those who are interested in powerful software that exposes that raw power through an elegant interface, I welcome you along for the journey we are on known as "KDE 4". It's exciting and it even feels a little "dangerous" at times because we are trying some new moves out here. I'm really amazed by how far things have come already and the direction is very promising. I was working on a patch to KDE 3 yesterday for a company that is supporting a KDE 3 deployment, and after that experience I was left with the realization of how much we've done.
That said, there's a lot more to do as well, and I should probably get back to that. Cheers ...
77 comments:
I agree with you in most things. But in one point..
"Show folders and archives": This is indeed gone in G4 because ...
That the folderview came back in gwenview at some point in kde4 development was really needed, because: who wants to see these blue folders as big as thumbnails, which might cover the whole screen? (ok, now they even have 4 little preview-pictures each, but that does not matter for me, as I prefer the folderview on the left). I cannot navigate through my folders with such big folderthumbnails. So it would be nice to be able to turn them off and only display pictures.
I fully agree with what you say. I am using KDE4 for quite some time now and discover new great things all the time. By now it looks really great, feels and works wonderfully and is just a pleasure in general. There are so many new ideas coming up from the community and the developers, which makes the project even more exiting. Right on.
You know, as far the example of Gwenview goes I can only say that I HATED the KDE3 version of it.
It was far too complex for my use-case: a simple image-viewer. I know it can do more than that, but when I wanted to do something else with the images besides viewing them I always used Krita, Gimp, or showFoto. So, if Gwenview was installed by default on the distro I used then I would always uninstall it and replace it with Kuickshow.
The KDE4 version though...it's a thing of beauty and I miss it everytime I'm on a computer where it's not available and depending on what I want to do with the inmage(s), I often find myself not needing more than it do what I need. The same applied to the KDE3 version as well in that I could have used it for say cropping but the interface got in my way so it wasn't worth the effort.
I also am a big fan of Gwenview4, although there are many more who use it much more heavily than me (photographers, for example). I'm glad you ripped apart her article. Reviews that analyze genuine points deserve respect. Reviews that display only a complete lack of knowledge or understanding of *what* is being reviewed - in my opinion, do not.
Now that I have a semi-decent taste of what development is like in KDE..and KDE4, I now welcome openly the removal of the motto:
"hey, lets put an option in there too. we don't know a good default for it, or a way to properly create it so that an option is not needed. But what does it hurt?"
That said, MacOSX is too conservative in many ways, for me. Conservative even on settings that should likely be there.
what about the missing use of current directory by most kde applications?
i've muttered about it myself in more than one ooccasion.
while gui-only people life would not change, opening file requesters on the current directory consistently would be a great addition tomixed cli-gui people like me.
@sreich: yes, we are not trying to be MacOS X. they do have a slightly different philosophy/worldview than we do currently. both may be successful, of course. i'm a big believer in finding the philosophy that fits you, however, and going for it. it will always be more genuine that way and the results will usually have a uniqueness to them that usually become selling points. :)
@mikelima: you mean where if you launch kwrite (or whatever) from a konsole and you're in ~/pix/foobar/blah, then file -> open would start a file dialog that defaults to ~/pix/foobar/blah? that might be quite easy to do by checking the current working directory (something Qt even provides these days); i really haven't looked into it with any depth, but may find time to do so.
or someone else could and they could provide a patch :) KFileDialog should be the "one place" to create such a patch against.
@mikelima: If I understand you correctly, why not just `gwenview .`?
Otherwise; KAPOW! is all I can say. :-P
... as a fun sidenote, i just discovered that gwenview from kde3 on my opensuse 11.2 system launches tons of kio_thumbnail processes that sit and chew CPU for, quite literally, as long as i have it open.
i thin we sometimes forget those kinds of infrastructural improvements that have come along for the ride in 4.x
@aseigo
Yeah, it's easy to forget how bad an object or event really was, until you have tried an improved version and had ventured back. Then the realization kicks in ;-)
@Dan: my, you really didn't read what i wrote very closely. :(
"Your argument boils down to "I like it, so it must be that she's wrong.""
my argument boils down to "if we analyze the two versions side by side, we can see the feature count isn't diminishing and the app hasn't lost power". the idea of doing an actual analysis shouldn't be very radical.
"Even breaking down the config page is purely subjective"
breaking down the configuration dialog showed three things:
* most options are still there, but presented in either the same way or in a more logical way that melds with the actual workflow
* several options are obsoleted (as in: not necessary for effective usage of the app) by practicing reasonable design.
* a small number (2) options aren't there
"(your only objective metric was the count of items,"
that object metric was arrived at by the point-by-point analysis. it was a summation. the entire blog entry up to that point was the basis for the "object metric". one can not say the summation is objective and then say the component parts are not.
"rest was "I think it's more clear to remove this option", etc.""
i actually gave reasons for them. if you'd like to disagree with some of them, please, let's have a detailed conversation. if you're only going to wave your hands in front of my face with vague generalities, then i have no time for you.
"If you want to make a better product you can't just imply that the user is wrong or not sophisticated enough to appreciate your genius."
i'm not implying the "User is wrong". i'm stating (not implying) that this particular user tried an analysis and got the analysis completely wrong. maybe you should read the blog entry previous this one about critics and the different between a personal opinion based on personal experiences and critique.
i also stated in this blog entry why i think Carla may have gone astray. you evidently believe i can be mistaken (and i can), but then put implicit faith in Carla's infallibility simply because she has a blog. consider that she could be wrong as well.
now, i don't think her personal opinion is wrong. i have no doubt she was frustrated by not having the ability to see file or image sizes in the thumbnails. i noted this in the entry, in fact, and i agreed with her there. where i dissent is in her subsequent analysis.
finally, mistaking the input of one user (ignoring the fact that this was an attempt at analytical critique by Carla, which is a very specific kind of input) as being at all representative is naive.
i showed a KDE (3 and 4) using friend Carla's article and she said: "Wasn't KDE known for horribly hard to use and arcane configuration dialogs that people couldn't figure out?"
there is more to the world than Carla, or any other one user. we have to deal with our entire user base, and it's not fair to our users to just bias in favour of the people with biggest blog or the loudest lungs to scream with.
you seem to consider my disagreement with Carla's piece as an act of hubris and egocentrism. i would invite you to consider an alternative explanation: that it's the result of experience paired with real analysis.
i'll also add this to the pile: people tend to dislike change. even change that would result in benefit. that's not exactly a mystery. it also means that sometimes we will react instinctively against things that are actual improvements. our "intuition" will say, "BAD!" ... and that's why we have to rely on real analysis. our intuition is tuned against change, regardless of the value of it. in the case of Carla's piece, it is quite evident she relied on intuition rather than analysis, and that's why i took the time to demonstrate what a real analysis would result in.
IMO, gwenview is the most polished app in kde4. It's makes me feel proud and say "It's kde4!" when looking at it.
FWIW I feel the need to chime in here that Gwenview has been an amazing app that has surprised me in many good ways. There are more people than you might imagine that are turned off by KDE3's incredibly complex configuration interfaces (most of them sit in the Gnome camp, as I did before I discovered how much has changed in KDE SC 4). Many of us like it if an application that we view as just a tool just works sensibly without needing tweaking, and the interesting thing that's happening a lot with the new KDE apps is that they not only work sensibly 'out the box' - you discover features you never knew you would value/want 'accidentally' because they are presented to you in such a natural way. I never thought I'd want an image viewing app that also tries to let me resize/rotate/simple-edit it. Before Gwenview (4) I'd tell you that's an app that's trying too hard to do too many things. Now I can't live without that feature in Gwenview (4) :)
When I read carla's article, the first thing which came to my mind was: "Why on earth would I want the size of the picture on the thumbnail?".
Anyway gwenview does a good job of "show me my picture".
Does it need improvements? Probably... If software was perfect, we'd all need to find another career! :-)
Aaron,
I phrased my initial comment totally wrong -- what I wanted to communicate (and failed) is that I've been following your RSS feed for some time and I know that you care a lot about KDE.
You wrote awhile back (I realize you were addressing other planet KDE folks) about "constructive negativity." This post didn't seem constructive to me, but rather defensively jabbing at a critic.
KDE has had some bad press in the last few months ([1], [2], [3]) Many people out there that think that KDE4 is difficult to use, simply telling them they're wrong won't accomplish what you're shooting for.
Incidentally, [3] gives some of the only real data I've seen. 45% of 2,576 voters said KDE should "continue on" with KDE 4.x
Anyway, I think you're a bright fellow and enjoy following your blog. Sorry my first comment was so stupid. Good luck.
[1] http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/osrc/article.php/3858271/
[2] http://www.linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2010-01-23-003-35-OP
[3] http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/opensource/?p=1093
Well Aaron, let's look again at the facts again, since you went off on a bit of a tangent. I have the impression you're not really wanting to hear what I'm saying anyway, and I know from painful experience that having your "children" criticized is no fun, and gosh knows the bile directed at KDE4 has been astonishing and uncalled for. But this is how it is:
You (that's a rhetorical "you" meaning whoever maintains G4) took an app, G3, that I used a lot and was very fast and efficient in, and turned it into a tool that is slow and in my way. That is not emotion or trickery, that is fact. I resize batches of images, and do several other batch processes like convert and rename, every day. In G3 this was awesome-- the thumbnail bar displays the file and image sizes, so I can see this data on batches of them at once.
Then I go into Plugins--Batchprocessing--Resize Images, and the filepicker opens in the current working directory, so adding all the images I want to resize, or convert, or whatever else I want to do is dead-easy. Check my settings, make it go, poof done.
I can't do that it G4, because the thumbnails do not show image and file size; I must view each image individually to see this information. The dratted filepicker defaults to ~/home, so I must navigate through the filesystem to my CWD. So G4 is considerably slower for tasks that I do frequently. It does not offer a faster, better way.
Putting the folder view on a separate tab means extra clicks when I want to go to a different directory. I'm not working on a tiny netbook, I have a 22" screen. Also lost are the Back and Forward buttons. The Up button is only good one-way. So there are two more speed tools gone.
The Browse button has the opposite meaning in G4.
There is a lot more of this sort of behavior throughout KDE4, many lost efficiencies and lost speedy ways to do things; Gwenview was merely an example to illustrate my point without writing a book. I don't have a problem with reducing useless clutter and more sensible organization, those are always difficult, but I wonder if clutter is defined as whatever is not important to you. Your clutter just might be the features I need. Again using Gwenview as the example, fixing redeye and auto-zoom etc. are cool, but they don't help me do what I did in G3.
The great appeal of KDE3 was the ability to configure everything down to minute details, and the ability to build a fast workflow that rivaled the CLI for speed. It has been said more than once that KDE3 users are not your target userbase. I was debating whether to do some more detailed analysis, and I think I will. It's interesting and might be useful to readers.
As for me, I should go back to doing more scripting anyway, since it seems the alternative is to write my own desktop environment, and I don't have the skills to do that. Yet.
I barely used KDE in the last year, but for god sake change the app's name!!!
The "Margin between thumbnails" is very true.
Yesterday I installed KDE SC 4.4rc1 and got pretty shocked about the way the configuration dialog for systemsettings evolved from 4.3: http://tvtel.pt/knuckles/pictures/systemsettings-comparison.png .
But as a long-time KDE user I've noticed that with every release, more things seem to show up exactly at the right place, where you would expect them, and with sensible defaults and configuration options. Rock on!
Until recently I was a KDE 3.5.10 user myself, I hadn't used KDE SC 4 before for a longer period of time (I took sometimes a quick look at it but not more..). For me KDE 3.5.10 was never complicated, cluttered and what else
not those "big problems" people had with KDE in the 3.x series. It just worked for me.
A install of OpenSuse 11.2 over Christmas also brought KDE SC 4.3.4 to my universe. First I just wanted to give it a try and see how much I could already use it, with my old system sitting on the other partition to come to rescue. I started with copying over some config files from my old systems, for instance the config files for akregator, to not to have to search for all the news feeds again.
First big positive result: KDE SC 4.3 flawlessly could use old config files from KDE 3.5 -- no problem here.
The user experience I had with the KDE SC since then has always been a smooth ride, in fact I never wished KDE 3.5.10 back -- which is a great compliment from my side.
As a matter of fact I never went back to my old system, I as a experienced KDE 3 user never missed anything and really, for me KDE SC 4 just feels nice.
I never made a big comparison of the look of the KDE 3 - SC 4 versions of apps I use regularly, but really, some of them changed for me not at all: I don't like to state that in reality they didn't change, but all the changes seems so naturally and don't change substantually the way I use them or they don't force me a totally new behaviour that I don't realize all the changes really. Well, what do I want to say with that? For me KDE SC 4 is obviously, in the POV of a user, and put aside plasme of course, an evolution instead of a revolution, which is a positive thing as I don't have to learn everything new. And the evolution was an positive evolution, I guess if it would have gone in the wrong direction I could really tell all the differences, but if everything is basically the same, but optimized workflow, it is a thing that doesn't stand that much and you don't recognize it properly.
I wonder what would happen if I would return to my old KDE 3.5.10 system, I guess then I could really tell the big difference that KDE SC 4 made...
So thanks KDE folks for a smooth transition from KDE 3.5.10 to current KDE SC 4.
And yeah, right now a difference in one of the apps I use a lot comes into my mind, it's just I got so used to it I have forgotten that it didn't exist in KDE 3.5.10 -- it's that feature that allows you to write little annotations to pdf's and the other files okular supports. kpdf, which was a great pdf viewer as well didn't have that.
Most of the changes you mentioned makes sense, but there are one rather nasty one you unfortunately labeled as good.
The Full screen "on screen display" configuration. The change to remove the complex "format string" stuff is ok and sensible. But the the the ability to only configure it from full screen mode is a huge usability and design error. Having the configuration available directly in full screen mode are correct, but it should also be available in the regular configuration dialog.
Having settings only accessible when the application is in selected modes are pure evil and should never ever be done. You should be able to set all important settings without going trough all the modes of the application. This makes it much smoother for experienced users to set up the applications in one go, rather than doing micro configuration whenever they access new modes.
I believe as well that Gwenview needs the info about image resolution on thumbnails. That is just one important thing when selecting wallpaper or image version to send over email.
But Gwenview is not a photomanagement application like digiKam. So it is not expected to have all bling blings and whisles with millimeter tools. And it should not have those because they do not fit it's purposes to exist.
(and I agree, the Gwenview name should be changed so it would include the K and not the G. Even it is nice name, but it makes it harder to understand it is a KDE app and not Gnome app. But what would be such cool name? This is expressed the developer itself but why change it now?)
And I now can not understand what you people talk about missing folders? I can see them on the left sidepanel on tree hierachary but as well on the mainview among images and archives!
I can just open compressed archives inside the gwenview main view like it would be a filemanager. No problems here.
Or do you want the possibility to hide folders and archives on the mainview? That could be for someone a good feature. But many likes Gwenview as simple image explorer so they can browse folders as well with keyboard only.
In the end, I like much more the G4 because it just is not in my way by same way as did the G3. I liked the Kuickshow on there for fast 1-2 image viewer tasks. I fish there would be a integrated viewer on Dolphin itself for that purposes. That you just click the image from other corner to get a bigger preview, acting like a loop. I believe it would not take away the Gwenview purpose?
An excellent thorough reply to an ignorant article (at the risk of being trollish). Most people wouldn't have bothered, well done.
The analogy of tools fitting in your hand is a great one. While KDE 3.5 had a great set of tools to do lots of things in KDE 4 the big difference is those tools are a real please to use.
> what about the missing use of current directory by most kde applications?
That also bugs me from time to time...
It's not only the file open/save dialogs though!
For me, the use case is typing "dolphin" in a terminal, and of course forgetting to add the " ." before hitting enter because I would naturally expect it to show the current dir rather than the home directory.
Is KDE 4 user-friendly? No, it isn't. People say that it's all glitz and no substance because that is what they see. Yes, it's powerful. Yes, there are many things that, once you find them and use them are much better than the old ways. But how are users going to find them?
There is little or no documentation to show the way. We have to do something about this, and we need to do it now. After around 2 years of struggling to find things without manuals or help pages, users are right to feel disgruntled about this. It's crazy to have all that time and effort invested in creating applications, yet doing nothing to 'sell' their power.
I'm running Suse 11.1, so I may be running an old gwenview.
I like it very much, except for one thing: session management.
When I reboot my system and had 3 pictures up of my family, I really, really want gwenview to come back and show me those pictures again.
Unfortunately, I get some sort of folder view, which exactly not what I want.
Maybe it does it now, or maybe it doesn't do it by design, but that's what I wish it would do.
I'm not sure if this is related to "remember that url" or not. But to be honest, I didn't quite understand the response to that complaint.
Because of this post I got an idea to make a advanced preview for Dolphin. It is between Dolphin thumbnails and Gwenview as picture viewer.
You can find my idea from here (sorry about linking to it!) http://forum.kde.org/brainstorm.php?mode=idea&i=85386#anchor145404
@Uetsah, I do sometimes the same mistake forgetting the . (or ..) but I just love that because then I can control when to start to wanted path and when just start the gwenview. Mostly I do the later one so I want all applications to start by default path = home.
@annew: The only way to do so is to get people to help and write documentation. The developers are already busy enough churning out code.
Or, get more people involved to share collective knowledge on UserBase.
@Einar: AnneW is one of the primary people behind Userbase :)
but yes, to both you and AnneW: documentation would be great. we don't have many people writing it, and trust me, we don't want most software developers writing it either.
i don't think documentation relates to user friendliness directly however: a documented mess is still a mess.
documentation can make the software itself more approachable and reveal various features and esp techniques (or, the application of features) and is extremely valuable. it is a different topic than "is the software usable", however, and one that i think deserves it's own treatment in general.
why don't we have more people writing documentation? this has always been a problem, and more so since we haven't had someone leading the 'write, write, write!' charge as a leader (as Lauri was) for some time.
@cschroder: Gwenview is supposed to be the simple image viewing app for KDE. We have more advanced image managers (Digikam, KPhotoAlbum) but we don't have anything simpler. You're resizing dozens of images everyday... you don't see how your use case is clear out of the ball park for what Gwenview is for?
And actually your main sticking point is that Gwenview doesn't show the image size. You seem to assume some sort of nefarious intent with taking this away. I'm sure that wasn't the case, it probably just didn't happen to be added to the new Gwenview. Seigo mentions that right under "Where I Agree", yet your comment keeps harping on this. "I have the impression you're not really wanting to hear what I'm saying anyway", project much?
A lot of interesting stuff here. I use Gwenview a lot (and a real THANK YOU for a name without the K - I feel like pulling my hair out every time someone come dragging along with one program after the other with a really bad name just to include a K) for viewing and selecting pictures.
One thing I do a lot is to make screenshots, either for posting to a blog, or for sending to someone to describe a bug. Using KSnapshot (sigh.. more hair gone...) is absolutely perfect for making the screenshots.
Then I open them in Gwenview. There are two tools there that I need, but only one work more or less.
The tool I use most in Gwenview is crop. It has everything I need, some of it hidden under the advanced view. Just wish I could press Enter to do the crop instead of having to click on Crop...
BUT - Resize in Gwenview is useless unless I have totally missed something. I can not find any Advanced button in the resize dialog. I need to be able to see both the x and y size of my image. I need to be able to type in a new value in one of them and the other should automatically recalculate based on aspect. That would be useful.
I can do without a lot of things in Gwenview. The things done by most plugins are better done in an image editing program. But a couple of small things would be nice to add.
When you do screenshots, it is nice to draw a rectangle, circle or line on the screenshot along with some text. To use a full picture editing program for this is overkill. I tried Krita today for doing this and it is really cumbersome for the task. Maybe in a few versions, but from what I understand, annotating screenshots is not why it was made :-)
The rest of the functions in Gwenview are more than good enough for me. Maybe a little more choice when it comes to metadata displayed with thumbnails, but that is about it.
So getting the resize dialog fixed and on par with the crop dialog and add annotation would take care of my needs.
For the casual computer user, an annotation tool would also be ok as it could be used to add comment to pictures before uploading to Facebook etc.
Does anyone have a suggestion for a REALLY simple picture editor (on par with Gwenview) that allow me to crop, resize and annotate (rectangles, lines, squares in diferent colors and text) pictures?
@aseigo: I made that reference exactly because that (my nick here perhaps doesn't show it, but I'm one of the KDE Community Forums guys).
The fact that KOffice moved their documentation there is a hint on how UserBase could be exploited in that regard.
Great post Aaron. My only issue is the name "gwenview" - its not self explanatory - what is a view of gwen?
Perhaps there is a requirement for more comparative posts like this of KDE3/KDE4 apps. People are generally lazy and stick to what they know and don't want to go through a "relearning" process. Pointing out the bits that all apps use demonstrating KDE4 is more integrated and standard in UI terms throuhout the system is also very useful. It makes the MS and GTK interfaces look a lot more primitive.
@aseigo: Honestly, I can't find gwenview G4 any more usable than G3. Maybe it's because the way you use it. Yes, G4 looks really pretty, but... Try to use it with mouse only, for example holding a cup of coffee in left hand. Amount of clicks just to browse some photos is doubled comparing to G3. Just simple case: open some folder with about 2000 of big photos, about 10 megapixels each. Try to navigate in thumbnails more using only mouse wheel. It will jump to unpredictable places, working in two different modes at once: 1) "show me next uncached row", 2) PgDn. Then, open something in fullscreen, scroll it using mousewheel, and open back to thumbnails mode. between those actions you'll see one more nag screen, "full window mode" or something. G3 in that case was much more usable. I even had to install most part of KDE3 and Gwenview 1.3 to my wife.
As for me the problem is not that it is more or less usable. The problem is that main idea of application changed. Someone loved old way, someone want something new. It was better to start new application, name it something more KDE-style, Kwenview or something. Than users will not compare it to the older version. Amarok is good example. Version 1.4 was totally awesome, it was advanced collection manager, advanced playlist and pretty small icon with awesome informative tooltip in system tray. And Amarok 2 is some multimedia platform super-hover-raptor browser of internet services and tons of irrelevant information. Target auditory changed, now all those people who liked just to listen music and see that small tray icon and pretty OSD are not the target auditory any more, now some DJs or people who likes to browse internet music all day long are auditory, because Amarok is not that small and pretty player any more. I even started to learn C++ to do something in Amarok 1 style, aTunes is cool thing but a bit ugly comparing to other KDE apps.
@Oceanwatcher
I think better tool for you is "Shutter".
I hoped that KSnapshot would get a such "Edit" function. But I must say Shutter is more complex and harder to use for avarage joe. KSnapshot is just great that you can drag the area what to capture and then drag'n'drop it to pastebin widget and send the URL to forums etc. Or drag'n'drop it to emails, FTP server etc.
(and then littlebit offtopic)
And what comes to K naming, the application name should always be personal and unique so it can be easily remembered what is meant with it and it should tell right away is it designed to be used GTK+ or KDE Platform technologies. Sorry but many people want that their applications works same way. That is one important thing in usability that you do not get two different open/save dialoges or different save/open/print icons etc. Thats why the KSnapshot is much better than Snapshot.
People believe that Ekiga is a application for KDE Platform. Even that it is a GTK+ app. And when people finds it out _after_ they opens the application, they dislike it totally. They expected it to be for KDE platform.
Shutter, can you say right away for what environments it does fit well? You know that KDE Apps does not look so well integrated to LXDE or XFCE, even for Gnome itself.
Some people wants to know right away what toolkits the application use so they can know right away do they drag hundreds of megabytes of depencies or not.
The K and G on names does matter for branding, information, imago building.
It is true that when choosing a name for application, it can go totally wrong. Safe bet is always call every office application "Office something". Every picture viewer "Picture Viewer" or every photo manipulation application as "Photoeditor". But they are lame names and when you ask help for those and if application has typical name, no one even knows what you actually mean.
And then when names are typical names, the localization teams believes that it is their duty to turn those names to their language. Like what Gnome does, they do not use application names in menus but the description so end up to situation where the name is not reconized at all.
Then you have a "Web browser", "Videoplayer" "Musicplayer" etc in your menu and user does not even know that they use Firefox, Totem and Banshee. The branding is totally ruined.
And application names should not be always English. There are hundreds of other languages what have nice words for the thing what the application purpose is.
Ekiga, Gwenview, Shutter, Totem, Terminal, Dragonplayer, Moovida, VLC.. are names what does not tell right away for what desktop they are made and how they actually work.
The branding with K even helps support people. User can find out right away should it turn to KDE or Gnome community for asking help.
We should not hate or laugh for K-brand. Some windows users laugh about Apple i-brand but it is just what people really love, the avarage people who do not even know what is newest windows or what the windows actually is. iMac, iPhone, iPod, iTunes and possible rumored coming iSlate what was registered 2007 and even Microsoft was in panic of that and tried to steal the thunder (from rumor :D) and called it partners (HP, Dell, Lenovo etc) tablets as "Slate PC".
We have great community, KDE and we have great desktop environment and technologies, KDE Software Compilation. And even Gnome users try to laugh about K because no one rememberes their application names, and how they could when they hide their brand behind everything else and now even stronger brand is "Ubuntu" than what Gnome has. Ubuntu is even gaining the Linux in brand and that is scary!
We are trying to protect the KDE so we would not fall under "Ubuntu".
First things I do when setting up a new kde:
- disable desktop effects
- remove all plasma itens from desktop (I use programs, not desktops) except for a show folder configured for desktop directory
- install the "I hate the cashew" plasmoid
- lock widgets
remove or hide things like multiple desktops, klipper and network manager
- add a shutdown button on the panel
- try to uninstall or disable all those fancy file search or semantic b88ll-sh8t
Voila! A decent desktop to do what I cant: use the apps!
cant -> want. Sorry for the type :-P
2cschroder: I think you can't blame Aaron for writing this article. Especially, considering that he agreed to the fact that more info below thumbs might be good feature to bring back in G4.
2aaron: I like the question of cschroder, however. What if user used to do something using an app. and then this app changes dramatically without even an option to enable "old behavior"? Is it good for KDE? Let say he used wrong app for his aims, no matter really -- he used to it. Why not to leave an older behavior as an option?
IMO: there are too many people, who liked KDE 3 and now find KDE 4 "Full of glitz, but no features/usability". Especially, this is about Amarok 2, I believe.
Now 2nd question: was KDE 3 so badly wrong, that many users find KDE 4th "improvements" breaking? Maybe, that "wrong things" were exactly the things, that made KDE the best linux desktop? Could it be that?
Today, what's the difference between KDE and Windows/Mac OS?
This may not be totally out of context,though this is a comment about kmixer.When Carla says,KDE4 is dumbing down,she may not have mentioned Gnome,but I see Gnome imitations at some places in KDE4 and kmixer is one such application.
In kmixer3,we have three tabs,one for output,input and switch.A nice segregation.One saw all mixer devices in their respective category.
In kmixer4,almost identical to Gnome Mixer,there is a long list of channels and you are supposed to work out what is input,what is output and what is switch.There is no doubt that the imitation was inspired by the notion that Gnome is supposed to be fool-proof and KDE must imitate Gnome to become easy-to-use.
I feel things like this may have prompted Carla to think KDE is dumbing down,though her analysis of Gwenview may be misplaced.One can a good deal of such Gnome-likeness in KDE4.
As a user of KDE,I would say be KDE-like.
One thing I've learned watching KDE 4 develop, and watching users react to it, is that people hate change. Baby duck syndrome rules the show.
There's a lot of software that can be improved from a design perspective, but actually improving the user experience for long-time entrenched users, while simultaneously making any significant improvement to design, is next to impossible.
I initially reacted badly to KDE 4, but by 4.2 I came to understand that KDE was being reinvented, and that meant that sometimes I need to be open-minded and open to adjust my workflow to see if there really is an improvement. And often I find there is.
Honestly, with the 5th release of KDE 4.x coming, people need to let it go. It's time to quit griping about how much better KDE 3 was. If you see missing features, file a wishlist, brainstorm, bug report, whatever. Get involved. All of Carla's griping is about TWO FEATURES. Where's your bug report, Carla?
@Alan Moore: don't pretend everything will be fixed right away. I made a dozen of bugreports, plus voted for another dozen and nothing gets better. I just have to sit and wait until it will be fixed some day. Being Java developer it seems to me that some bugs are 5 minutes to fix, but still they're hanging somewhere in bugs.kde.org for month/years. Some of them are quite popular, like 198080, and in some of them problem looks absolutely obvious, like 218922, just someone need to sit down and start the process. And Amarok, my favorite of course, they're just closing bugs with notes like "ah, it was the feature of old amarok, new one is too cool to do something so stupid as play music". I still can remember the times when I told people that Amarok (1.4) is the best audio player I know about, but now they just moved away.
@Aekold: I don't pretend that, and yes I too have bug reports that have languished for years without even a triage. Bug reporting is not perfect.
But by heaven how else is a developer to know that something is a problem for a user? Should we just throw out bug trackers and make developers read through every user's gripe blogs looking for improvement ideas?
Yes, unfortunately, sometimes you have to rattle the cage a bit to get a problem recognized. Sometimes you have to piss off a few people to get action on an item. But it seems like more and more often these days people want to come in with guns blazing before doing the due diligence.
@Alan Moore: well yes, users can see that bugreporting is not perfect and they're "exploring options". For example Carla wrote article, and article got popular, and maybe her problem will be addressed with higher priority, and will be fixed sooner than most bugs in bugzilla. Other users, who's articles were not so popular, will wait farther.
I am totally agree that it's not the way to go, but at least it's an option, a dirty way to shout about the problem to the world and eventually developer will fix it just to say that it already fixed.
@Aekold: "For example Carla wrote article"
i'll let you in on a little "secret" of mine (it's not really a secret, i've said it a few times in the past couple of years):
if you pull such a stupid stunt and the topic is something i work on, i immediately de-prioritize your bug reports and wishes. how it works is simple: if there are other bugs and feature requests of a similar criticality level, they immediately get bumped up ahead of that person's reports. iow, they go to the end of the line.
i refuse to reward such community destroying stupidity, and i'm happy to tell that to each and every person who tries such extortion techniques on me and my team.
@Aekold: "Being Java developer it seems to me that some bugs are 5 minutes to fix"
as a developer, you ought to know better than to make such remarks. unless you've looked at the code, you have no idea how long it will take in the vast majority of cases.
beyond that, it's often a matter of manpower available vs the number issues to address. bugs usually get worked out eventually, and the time frame usually depends on how many people help out.
@Alan Moore: yes, it's a very human behaviour; it's a short term pain thing, however, so i think there is indeed hope for the ability to innovate, keep things moving while retaining most of the existing user base and simultaneously growing entire new segments of our user base.
still, as you note, we do indeed face the change resistance that is a hallmark of being human :)
@peebhat: you're drawing an incorrect conclusion by looking at the surface of things.
kmix didn't try to be more like the gnome mixer, it has had to adjust to the new systems we have to work with (which in some cases are more limiting) while also dealing with the pain of porting to Qt4.
i agree with you that there is room for improvement left in kmix right now, though thankfully there are people working on it (that isn't always the case, sadly)
it would be a mistake to identify "kmix doesn't separate out things into input/output anymore" as "it's trying to dumb things down like GNOME".
there will be areas where KDE 4 applications do indeed become simpler in terms of UI, but GNOME is not what we're chasing after there either.
i think there is an unfortunate knee jerk reaction to go "oh no, it looks less busy and complex, so there must be fewer features and they are trying to do what GNOME did!"
i really invite people to examine the interfaces a bit more closely and also to recognize that we do have fairly limited developer resources. we aren't supermen, even if that's what some people seem to expect of us. :)
@pilate: "Why not to leave an older behavior as an option?"
good question; one that has a fairly simple answer, even :)
the amount of work to maintain two completely different interfaces (or even two "subtly different") interfaces, such as G3 vs G4 or Amarok1 vs Amarok2, is more than double the work. we are doing well if we have enough manpower to do a good job with one interface, and rarely have the luxury of doing multiple interfaces (at more than double the cost).
we do often make it possible to re-arrange the existing interface to various extents (dockers, widget selections, etc), but the basic workflow is pretty difficult to get right with just one interface. two is unrealistic.
now, that said, people can still use G3. how do you think i wrote this blog entry? ;) i was running G3 and G4 side by side on my computer.
of course, G3 isn't going to see much more in the way of bug fixing, unless someone steps up to do so.
@pilat: "was KDE 3 so badly wrong, that many users find KDE 4th "improvements" breaking?"
i think this article demonstrates the kinds of things that were so badly wrong. comparing G3 to G4 it's painfully obvious that G3 was really, well, poorly done. it worked very well for a small number of people, but whenever we put it in front of random KDE users as well as random non-KDE users, the general reaction was not great. people couldn't figure out how to open a new folder, they found the UI overly busy to the point of not being able to use it well and struggled with the configuration of the application.
this is all covered in the blog entry, in fact.
now, take that and extend it to various aspects of KDE 3 and we see similar patterns elsewhere.
HOWEVER, many parts of KDE 3 were great. and we retained many of those parts. some of them we refined just as we would have refined them in a "KDE 3.6". we have tried to keep as much of what really works well (and there is a lot!) while repairing or replacing that which didn't.
also realize that something that is deemed to "work well" in 1985 failed to make that same grade in 2000. i'm sure i'm not the only one who remembers the "graphical user interfaces are horrible and a step backwards!" arguments. (i was a Mac guy during all of that, actually, so got both barrels in those discussions ;)
so some things that i found to be awesome back in 2000 when i joined KDE just don't hold up very well anymore.
between those various principles, we can start to see the strengths and weaknesses inherent in KDE 3's code base and start to see the motivation for changes that have been made.
"Maybe, that "wrong things" were exactly the things, that made KDE the best linux desktop? Could it be that?
i do think that some people very much did enjoy some of those things we identified as undesirable when working on KDE4. i said as much in my blog entry, in fact, near the end.
they simply aren't our target audience. that's not a conclusion we came to lightly, but it is based on the realities of things.
when we looked at various parts of KDE 3, some of them were even being avoid by KDE developers themselves! our users were, on the whole, being let down by certain things. some of those things were really enjoy by others.
we decided that we could continue on that path and make a dwindling number of people (inc KDE developers) happy over time and eventually end up with something that had a rabid following but was completely irrelevant. sort of like windowmaker, blackbox or many of other similar window managers that fell away over the years. that does NOT make them "bad", it just means those projects chose to remain focused on a highly marginalized user based. that's very cool, in my opinion. it's not, however, what we wanted for KDE.
there's also a tandem confusion point here: in addressing some issues and modernizing other areas of our software there were regressions. these are temporary (most are already gone by this point) but some figured that was "the end" and it would always be that way.
we've worked hard to fill in the regressions that we never wanted to leave in that state in the first place, and that is a big reason why people are embracing KDE 4 apps more now than they did in 4.0.
we did warn people when we released 4.0, unfortunately that wasn't enough :)
"Today, what's the difference between KDE and Windows/Mac OS?"
that's a question that would require a very long set of answers. (longer than i have time for right here/now.) one obvious difference is Freedom, but you probably were asking in terms of features and capabilities. what those features and capabilities are is something we really needs to be doing a more effective of communicating via our promo/communication.
@Iuri Fiedoruk: and i'm very glad you can do that. not everyone works the same way, and we know that. i'm glad that you can make the KDE Plasma Workspace fit you reasonably well even if the defaults aren't tuned for you personally and even when the core ideas aren't really in line with what you need/want. :)
@Aeknold: "Just simple case: open some folder with about 2000 of big photos, about 10 megapixels each."
i do this rather regularly (ok, only hundreds usually, not 1000s) in gweniew. it works well for me as i don't jump much between the thumbnails and the full pictures (i'm usually doing one or the other). we used it just yesterday at the house here to show some pictures from S.'s holiday vacation, and it did really well for that. much better than G3.
if i'm trying to do photo management, however, which is a rather different kind of work flow, i use DigiKam. it is also miles ahead of G3 for that.
to me, G3 was an app that did photo management type things in a so-so fashion. it did the "browse my pics" thing so-so as well.
with G4, i have app that does "browse my pics" workflows amazingly well (and looks good doing it) and photo management type things so-so. this, to me, is a step up. given that "browse my pics" is far more common for the average daily usage of the KDE Plasma Desktop (to view gwenview as a default part of the SC in those terms), that's a good direction.
and, no, you couldn't make me give up DigiKam for anything ;)
"It was better to start new application, name it something more KDE-style, Kwenview or something. "
G3 still exists, and anyone can work on it further, including porting it's UI as-is to Qt4 and KDE 4. i used G3 yesterday to write this blog entry, of course.
"Amarok is not that small and pretty player any more."
well, let's be honest here: Amarok was never very small. JuK was and still is small (on purpose). Amarok 2 is what Amarok 1 was always trying to be.
"I even started to learn C++ to do something in Amarok 1 style, aTunes is cool thing but a bit ugly comparing to other KDE apps."
very cool that you did that. personally, i'd suggest looking at JuK. it is a very nice, light and basic player that ships with KDE SC and is likely more what you're looking for.
I tire greatly of anyone who keeps trying to pitch GNOME interface design against KDE.
The minute anyone actually tries to make a well-designed program that happens to have a simple interface, you're bound to have someone say "But we're not GNOME! Stop doing that!"
I want those people to stop talking. Good design is good design. Beating on GNOME or Mac OS does not help make better software.
I am Gwenview developer. Carla didn't contact me about this article, I learnt about it through Aaron blog. It's too bad, as I could probably have explained a few things.
Some answers to Carla and commenters:
- I would like to get image size back below thumbnails. Need to find time to do it. I doubt file size is useful, though.
- I won't duplicate fullscreen options in the configuration dialog. The cited use-case is power-users setting up their desktop. I believe this is situation much rarer than less technical users venturing in the configuration dialog, and I do not want to overwhelm the latter with tons of widgetry to please the former.
- Proper session management is finally there in KDE SC 4.4.
- Indeed, the resizing dialog could use more settings. Need time.
- I can see how some can find the name confusing.
@agateau
Just remember that there is actually a demand for file size and dimensions, regardless of whether you think it is useful. It's always nice to have the option available, so that those who want it can have it, and those who do not want it, don't.
https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=210891
When developing software to be used by people, it is very important to carefully consider how your software is going to be used. Different people have different needs, and that is why we have configuration options.
On the other hand, if you are making an app that only you are going to use, then you can make it work any way you like.
KDE 4 on Suse 11.2 seems a good system to me; clean, easy to follow, and logical. I wish all the discussion were also clean, easy to follow and logical. Why has computer language and logic reached such a state of perfection, yet the English language and logic used by computer specialists (and others) become so dreadful. One example: most English users now ignore the basic rule that sentences do not start with conjunctions. Failure to observe this rule results in language which is a continual sequence of afterthoughts separated by hesitations instead of a smooth and logical statement of facts and opinions, with closely-related qualifications or related facts linked within a sentence and only then linked by the use of a conjunction. Image the equivalent in computer code: a series of statements linked by hiccups and glitches!
OK, really, KDE 4 is better than KDE 3 in most of parts but I've some points to underscore:
1) Auto-resize the windows when is possible. Yes, because is not possible in 2010 that I open a window and the content is too large for default window size and I must see a scroll bars when the window could be 5px largest...brrr
2) The Oxygen style is beautiful but some parts are too big and have too white spaces. e.g. plastique menu style are small while oxygen menu style eat a lot of space...gnam gnam... OK OK, you can tell: "But you can choose different style theme". Yes, but it is just my observation about Oxygen ;-)
3) Some user application must be reinvented...
e.g.
- Kmix uses much space in the screen: Menubar - Tab (also with single audio card?) - space (for what?) - icon - mute label and mute checkbox - volume slide - some times also check for capture. Terrible! Also when you single click on systray icon the tooltips dialog with volume slide is bad.
- Systemsettings has a lot of white spaces in the icons grid...why? On my 13.3" notebook with 1280x800 resolution I must maximize the system settings window to see all icons... On Mac OS, for example, the similar panel has a lot of icon in a small space and is simple and good and auto-resize himself when is necessary ;-) Generally I don't like Mac OS but in this case...or not?
- Compares kdevelop and qtcreator...see the difference? Qtcreator is really compact than kdevelop...
- Some programs shows by default the scroolbars also if are not necessary....WHY??? (e.g. kwrite)
...
4) Kwin is really slow with composite (but is a bit slow also without composite). I've tried, on 4 different PC, metacity, compiz and openbox on KDE and are better than kwin... But kwin is better in functions (also if I don't like the effect's settings window...)
Ah, I can't choose different images for all my desktop (I speak about desktop, not activities!)...is terrible! ahahah :-P
PS: I'm using only KDE 4 on my PCs (2 Debian sid and 1 Ubuntu lucid). At work all software engineers like me use KDE 4 on Debian ;-)
@JacoG: "Different people have different needs, and that is why we have configuration options."
agreed; however, as a designer one must be careful because time and experience has proven quite irrefutably that unless there is care paid to the issue of configuration, the body of users as a whole will request an op tion for just about anything, sometimes without much care or thought put to the request and/or how it will affect others.
there is a balance point to be found. i think Aurelien (and others, such as Peter Penz with Dolphin) have been doing a very nice job of that.
@Fri13
Thank you for the tip. Shutter seems to be a much more mature product and has what Ksnapshot should have had - including a good name :-) Kudos for rebranding it!
Aron: It would actually be nice to get a serious round of discussion about naming of applications in KDE. A blogpost please, so we can take the discussion there?
OT: Regarding names - using an i in front of a lot of names works for Apple. And it is a wovel so it sounds ok. But a k is a consonant and makes a mess with some names. Apart from that - it really makes KDE look bad.
How deos people react when Microsoft try to mimic Apple in some of the things they are doing? Laughter...
So why should KDE mimic Apple? Good rules for program naming:
Use a name that is easy to pronounce in English. It does not have to be English, but it should not need a lot of explanations.
Use a name that does not contain any special characters. Stick to the English alphabet. This makes it A LOT easier when it comes to domain registration.
Stick to normal rules of spelling - don't try to be cute. It can work sometimes, but most of the time it looks desparate and pathetic.
Don't mix upper/lowercase in any unusual way. First letter uppercase, the rest lowercase. If you tie your branding to the way you use upper/lowercase letters, you will loose a lot. Some publications have now decided on rules for how they report such names. They will always write Ipod, not iPod. So better avoid it.
Nothing say that you can not break any of these rules, but it should be the exception.
I have never heard anyone argue that you need to put an a or m in software names to distinguish if the program runs on Apple OSX or Microsoft Windows... Also, the first question from a support person (apart from the "is the computer turned on?) should be "What operating system do you use?".
Sorry for any spelling mistakes - I am not an English native :-)
KDE4 is awesome in everything related to appearance and usability, absolutely great, but unfortunately for us, the performance was really hurt.
Thats my constructive complaint :-)
Thanks for your hard work!
@Julian: I could not said better. That is it, performance is not good (even on my core 2 duo system), but the UI is really nice.
What we need is a .version just focused on speed. Yes, optmization of code and bug fixing are boring, but a big project like KDE, needs to stop adding features sometimes to fix what is wrong :)
while there are certainly areas for performance improvement, there is a certain hard limit we do hit in the stack: graphics driver quality and performance.
this is the #1 difference in whether people feel KDE 4 is performant or not.
(#2 is how well set up nepomuk is, e.g. if disk indexing is on, if virtuoso is used, etc)
there is very little we can do about graphics drivers other than continue to highlight the issue and work with those driver teams that are at all interested in working on such issues.
so while we are interested in performance and do work on it quite a bit (the improvements in qt 4.6 are quite noticeable, for instance), i don't want to set up unreasonable expectations because it isn't all up to us.
a good example is the Intel driver for the integrated chipsets so common on laptops. the performance was quite good and the KDE Plasma Desktop pretty well flew on such devices, even netbooks. and then the switch to GEM and a few other decisions happened and the performance went straight to hell and we started getting complaints (as did everyone else who shipped systems on top of that driver, just ask Canonical ;). performance improved somewhat in the next release, but honestly it still isn't anywhere near where it ought to be.
no changes in our code, short of deciding that we don't really want to do a composited desktop and screw argb visuals (aka "going back to 1995"), will paper over such disasters.
@Aaron.
The work of KDE Team is very good, I love KDE and I'm using it from a lot of year and whenever that I see also a small single improvement I'm really happy!
The problems of "performance" are generally caused by nvidia and ati. My lenovo workstation at office with intel integrated graphic card, works good also with composite... (is a bit slow becouse the hardware is slow). I hope in a better open source nvidia/ati drivers for a future...
KDE 4 is a big project and is the best integrated DE for linux and not (the kde apps work so good also in windows xp on virtual machine ;) )
I believe in KDE project ;-)
Good luck!
I know I shouldn't even write this, as it will be construed as another attack. But I loved kde too much to just let go of it without explaining what is "hurting" me now.
Let's start with two agateau comments that really rattled me:
"- I would like to get image size back below thumbnails. Need to find time to do it. I doubt file size is useful, though."
Carla did explain why file size is useful. And as JacoG wrote, more people need it. But...
"- I won't duplicate fullscreen options in the configuration dialog. The cited use-case is power-users setting up their desktop. I believe this is situation much rarer than less technical users venturing in the configuration dialog, and I do not want to overwhelm the latter with tons of widgetry to please the former."
This, together with aseigo's statement "they simply aren't our target audience. that's not a conclusion we came to lightly, but it is based on the realities of things.", makes me feel that I, and other power users, are no longer the target audience for kde. I understand, but I'd prefer you'd came out and said that when you set the route for kde 4. Because it isn't any more a case of functionality that hasn't been ported yet, but rather functionality that won't be added because "it only interests to power users". And unfortunately, this is not the first time I see this discussion on kde.
What I mean, with all this rambling, is fine, that is what you guys are aiming, a desktop for the common people, good luck. I really have to start looking elsewhere, even when most things out there still fit me worst than KDE. But there are already more "simplified" desktops out there, Gnome and Mac being two examples. I'd say that they have that market cornered, and by choosing to alienate power users you might be doing a great mistake.
Please don't take this as a attack. It is more a last cry of someone who still likes a lot of KDE, but is feeling more and more frustrated at having configuration removed because it might confuse the sheeple, and who feels he's no longer important to the developers.
PS: no, juk is no replacement for amarok1. I used Amarok 1 mostly to manage my collection of CDs, to apply replay gain, to edit tags, etc., and then to copy the songs I wanted to my mp4, sometimes also to listen to them on amarok. All of that is now more difficult or impossible with amarok2. And even if that wasn't the stated objective of amarok, it was one of the things it did well.
@jbs: "that I, and other power users, are no longer the target audience for kde."
power users are still very much a key target audience for KDE. there is a particular segment of power users that aren't quite the focus for KDE that they used to be: those who measure a user interface by the number of checkboxes in a configuration dialog, those who prefer huge configuration interfaces full of jargon.
it turns out, however, that the majority of power users out there don't fall into that category. most power users do appreciate "elegant" interfaces as well. the exodus to MacOS of many of the quintesential Linux/BSD power users is fairly easy to see evidence of that.
yes, it sucks to say "well, we're not going to be creating software that this particular group likes anymore" when you are in that group, if only because it sucks to so "no" (and it does).
but we're also saying "yes" to far more people in the process, including the majority of power users.
on a side note, i think it is slightly distasteful when people imply that there are no power users on, say, MacOS or GNOME. or that they themselves are the definition of "power user". it seems very ... self agrandizing.
"is feeling more and more frustrated at having configuration removed because it might confuse the sheeple,"
oddly, this blog entry actually shows that this isn't even the case here. things aren't removed because they "confuse the sheeple", and no amount of repeating that lie will make it truth. it isn't the motivation for the design direction in the least.
and as can be seen with gwenview, configuration actually isn't going away, it's being designed for smoother workflow. i understand that your personal workflow may differ from that, which is likely the cause of dissent.
"and who feels he's no longer important to the developers."
it's really not personal.
@cschroder: sorry for not replying to your comments here sooner; i wanted some time to think about how to respond to you without it becoming two people simply repeating the same things back and forth.
"I know from painful experience that having your "children" criticized is no fun"
this really has nothing to do with it, and i don't think deflecting by wrapping the cloak of "poor people getting their feelings hurt" around what is a set of technical and design issues helps anything. let's just not.
"that I used a lot and was very fast and efficient in, and turned it into a tool that is slow and in my way."
i won't deny that you feel that way. but consider that we (the same royal 'we' you used :) took an app that was failing the majority of people who tried to use it and made it work well for them. maybe you could explain to all those people why you think it was a mistake.
"the thumbnail bar displays the file and image sizes, so I can see this data on batches of them at once. "
you did read how i agreed with you on that, right? it was everything else you wrote about from that point forward, the analysis gone horribly wrong ("there are so few widgets in the configuration dialog, it must lack features!") that i differed with you on.
i think it's also an interesting though experiment to go the reverse direction. give someone G4 to start with, then after some time give them G3 and see how that goes.
it isn't quite such an "intrinsic to the changes made in G4" reaction you are having.
there were lots of warts in G3, far fewer in G4 (based on testing done, anyways), and if you give us reasoned feedback along with the time to do so, there'll be even fewer warts in G4 (and other KDE4 software).
but jumping from "my workflow was disrupted" to "that was intentional!" and "there is no conigurability!" doesn't follow, at least not in this case.
(con..)
"The dratted filepicker defaults to ~/home, so I must navigate through the filesystem to my CWD."
ah, you want it to reflect what directory Gwenview is currently viewing. yes, that makes sense and should be fixed.
again, i don't see what that had to do with the claim of "there are no configuration options!"
"Putting the folder view on a separate tab means extra clicks when I want to go to a different directory."
try the breadcrumb at the top; it's very efficient. if you want a more traditional treeview, it's in the sidebar (at least in KDE SC 4.4? dunno about 4.3 ...) so you can treeview-and-thumbnail simultaneously if you wish.
"I'm not working on a tiny netbook, I have a 22" screen."
people who aren't shouldn't be penalized for that.
"Also lost are the Back and Forward buttons. The Up button is only good one-way. So there are two more speed tools gone."
i actually don't even see an Up button; nor do i need one with the breadcrumb which lets me go up (or up-and-down-one) at any level in the folder hierarchy with one click.
back/forward are more interesting as navigating from foo/bar/baz/ to blue/yello/red/ is indeed more clicks without them; the question is whether they are worth putting there given that i can click "start page" in the toolbar and go to -any- folder i've recently been to. this is faster for all but the "just the last one" case and a more general a solution to the "i want to go back to where i once was" use case.
i can understand that your opinion may differ on the last one, as your workflow may indeed be focused on just single step movements forward/back through the history and that you might jump between very different parts of the directory structure (so that the breadcrumb nav bar at the top doesn't help), coupled with a really good memory for where you've been. that's not a workflow that it's been optimized for, and i'd suggest it's not a workflow that should be optimized for because it isn't as common.
"The Browse button has the opposite meaning in G4."
perhaps the meaning it had in G3 was inconsistent with how that word is generally used elsewhere? i understand transitions suck, but clinging to all mistakes just because they've already been made isn't always the most sensible choice.
(con..)
"but I wonder if clutter is defined as whatever is not important to you."
no, it's not. we're a lot more careful than that. we actually do test things, keep up with research being done elsewhere, etc.
"The great appeal of KDE3 was the ability to configure everything down to minute details,"
that this was exposed blatantly, without much thought to design (witness how G4 actually pays attention to how it offers configurability in addition to simply offering it) and that many irrational things were offered as configurables (such as G3's "turn off the busy cursor") was also the greatest point of *non*-appeal in KDE3.
what we're doing, therefore, is finding ways to continue to create powerful software but that presents the configuration in more sensible/humane ways.
"It has been said more than once that KDE3 users are not your target userbase."
i'd prefer if you wouldn't misquote me, it's disingenuous.
what i've said, and stand by, is that not every single KDE3 user will fall into the KDE4 target user base. the vast, vast majority of KDE3 users do fall under that umbrella just as they always have. people who were with KDE during the 3.x (and further back) are valued members of our community.
at the same time, there are changes in KDE 4 software. not everyone will agree with them. that's the nature of change.
"I was debating whether to do some more detailed analysis, and I think I will. It's interesting and might be useful to readers."
it could be useful and interesting indeed; i'd invite you to discuss your thoughts directly with some of us who are involved directly, however, in the process of doing your analysis. if only to try and ensure you have all the facts and viewpoints accurately on the table.
my email address is aseigo at kde dot org, and i'm easily available by phone as well.
ok, wait a minute here....
"Then I go into Plugins--Batchprocessing--Resize Images, and the filepicker opens in the current working directory, so adding all the images I want to resize, or convert, or whatever else I want to do is dead-easy."
i just went and checked this with Gwenview from KDE 4.4 after looking briefly at the code and realizing that it SHOULD work. and you know what? it does!
here's what i did:
* open gwenview
* go to the directory i want to batch process in
* go to Plugins -> Batch Processing -> Resize Images
the resize dialog pops up and the URL in the line edit is exactly what i'm viewing in Gwenview.
i click on the folder button next to the line edit showing the path which opens the file dialog ... and it takes me to that same directory -> no navigating needed.
i don't have a full 4.3 install anywhere nearby to test with, so maybe this wasn't working previously?
in any case, it is now. the batch processing dialog and all file dialogs opened from there go directly to whatever directory is currently being viewed.
so that issue is apparently not an issue at this point. it starts to feel more and more like tilting at windmills. :/
Just to clarify, when I meant configuration options removed not to confuse basic users, I was just picking agateau's statement:
"I believe this is situation much rarer than less technical users venturing in the configuration dialog, and I do not want to overwhelm the latter with tons of widgetry to please the former.".
As for it being personal - if a application I use no longer allows me to do my work as productively as before because I am not in the target demographic any more - then it is personal. The demographic I'm in no longer is important to the developers, and my views haven't any impact on a product I used and liked.
There seems to be a lot of misunderstanding here, from both sides, users who are having to learn new functionality, and developers who are trying to optimize functionality to what they view as their target demographic. But attacking each other won't help anything. Some of us complaining used to be your biggest advocates. I still recommend KDE over other environments to everyone. Maybe because I like it, and I liked so much 3.5.x, is why I am so vocal complaining. I can't speak for the others, but that is one of the reasons I still take the time to write these comments.
Since this is turning into a rant, let me tell you a little more on experience with other DEs. What made me switch from windows was having to use some power tweaks or similar utility just to configure basic stuff. Then, trying Gnome, I started fighting gconf and gave up just as fast. Then I found KDE - and suddenly I could configure everything as I liked. And I've stuck with kde since 3.0. I've accepted that functionality would be missing for some time with the transition to 4.x. But I am feeling frustrated. Sometimes with functionality hidden in text files and only documented in a blog post (powerdevil showing estimated battery time left is one example). Other times, as agateau wrote, not enabled because it is only used by power users and might confuse the others. Other times, no longer there because the application has evolved towards another aim (amarok).
I'm not saying that the reasons behind these choices aren't valid. Just that to me, these options are nuisances.
With all that out of my chest, I must say I still use KDE every day, and nothing comes near to it. So, thanks for all the work gone into it - even though it might not seem so, I am grateful to you guys.
Please, do not blame video drivers.
Most peple compaining here have disabled desktop effects.
Also, why is only KDE affected by low quality drivers? In my computer and on my eee 701 other DEs like kde3 itself, gnome, lxde and iceWM simply fly in light speed compared to KDE4... Or is it that KDE4 is made in a way you can't use it if you do not have a decent video board AND a good video driver? If so, I believe you should review your concepts ;) (we depend on X11 and bad drivers all the way)
Two things I'd like to see with Gwenview.
1) Easier access to filters. Like control+f in Firefox. Come to think of it a find feature (we have only a filter I think).
2) Can we get "Open in Gwenview" to be a tool button in Dolphin with a hot key.
@Iuri: "Also, why is only KDE affected by low quality drivers?"
any software that uses the same features we do will be similarly affected.
"Or is it that KDE4 is made in a way you can't use it if you do not have a decent video board AND a good video driver?"
the video card itself is not such a big deal; there haven't been cards on the market for many years that aren't capable of handling what we do.
the problem is that the drivers tend to be of dubious quality in certain regards. for instance, nearly none of them had ever been seriously tested with argb visuals; the nvidia driver saw a number of releases during KDE SC 4.0 and 4.1 that addressed several such bugs that were exposed in this manner, for instance.
so the choice is between never moving beyond what software was capable of doing in the 90s, or moving on and improving the graphics stack (among other things) as we go so that desktop Linux can remain competitive.
we may have different opinions on what the best choice to make there is.
now, i've written about this extensively before, including in conversation with you Iuri. others have written about it as well. repeating it over and over doesn't change things. it would be nice if we could stop doing so.
Iuri, i also deleted your other comment because i have no desire to give that fellow's blog/rant more attention than he's already gotten.
@David:
"1) Easier access to filters. Like control+f in Firefox."
good idea; if you haven't already, you should file a feature request (aka "wishlist") on bugs.kde.org
"Come to think of it a find feature (we have only a filter I think)."
gwenview isn't a collection manager, however. so imho that's something more for a tool like digikam (which is a collection manager) or the file manager (which is there to get you to files).
gwenview does support "go to the image matching the name you type" in the currently viewed folder. that isn't quite the same as a full blown search, of course.
"virtual folders" via nepomuk might an interesting idea .. but then again i'm not sure how much that would be stepping out of gwenview's feature target and into what a tool like digikam aims for.
"2) Can we get "Open in Gwenview" to be a tool button in Dolphin with a hot key."
not a tool button, per se, but you can right click (or press the "context menu" key if you have one on your keyboard (most do these days)) and select open with -> gwenview.
here that's three keystrokes: context menu key, 'o', enter. it might be 4 if gwenview isn't the first option in the menu for you (it is here, but that menu is dynamic and may change :)
What other apps have received this treatment?
I'd just like to throw in my two penneth if I may. :)
The bile KDE4 has attracted staggers me and seems way out of proportion to how much change there is from version 3 to 4.
Aaron, I think the team has made an absolutely wonderful job of KDE4. It looks stunning and it's an absolute joy to use now. It gets faster with each release and I love some of the new features introduced. Really looking forward to getting my hands on 4.4.
Also, I think it's great that you have taken the time to explain why decisions were made on so many points, so thanks for that.
agateau, I would respectfully make one point. I too, cannot see why the size of the file would be useful, but it seems that some users would like it and find it useful. I honestly can't see that it would be difficult to add it as an option. JacoG is right, there is that matter of giving uses what they want and require when it doesn't detract from the usability of the program for others. This seems like a case in point.
Personally, I prefer G4 to G3, it looks way nicer and I had absolutely no problem going from G3 to G4, but it doesn't stop me from seeing how it would be disappointing for users that miss some of the older features. (I do not include the features Aaronn dealt with in that.)
@DiBosco: thanks for the kind words, it' good to hear both side of the story (for all of us).
oh, and in case anyone cares, two night ago a sat down and (mostly) implemented support for the two extra pieces of thumbnail information that Carla was looking for. i have one small issue with the image size information (file size is working great) and which should be solvable with gwenview's internal information bookkeeping. unsure exactly what the most "gwenview" way to go about it was, however (as i am most certainly not a "gwenview hacker" most days :), i've fired off an email to aurelien for some direction.
assuming aurelien gives the thumbs up, the code at least should be ready for inclusion in KDE SC 4.5.
and aurelien committed the patch :)
so, they you go. it's now officially a storm in a teapot ;)
I just forgot to write more usability problems when I created skel for my previous comment. That would include:
• going back to different view mode when switching to fullscreen (left sidebar shows at random when switching between icon view, image view, fullscreen).
• too small button for showing back this left bar,
• problem with scrolling, but now I see it's KDE-wide problem - it doesn't react to my setting on how much it should scroll when I move mouse wheel,
• in fullscreen and 1:1, when you press arrows, image hardly even moves and this is not configurable,
• where is option to directly switch to fullscreen when clicking on icon? Am I condemned to always do double double clicks? ;-)
BTW when I compare now G3 and G4, G3 is blazingly fast at creating thumbnails. I can't imagine what devs did to G4 to slow it down. How? What for?
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