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List:       kde-devel
Subject:    Re: Abstracting the Linux Desktop from the File-system
From:       Stefano Borini <munehiro () ferrara ! linux ! it>
Date:       2002-11-29 17:32:34
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On Fri, Nov 29, 2002 at 05:57:33PM +0100, Julien Olivier wrote:
> I submitted two bugs: one to get kmail's default folder to .mail and one to 
> have the desktop path as ~/ by default.
> 
> 5 minutes after having posted those wishes, they were closed "WONTFIX".
> 
> Sadly, there's no hope to see KDE developers listen to users soon I believe...

indeed i must agree in some points. KDE is a _great_ desktop environment,
and i use it since the first beta of 1.0. As a tiny developer, after coding
for a while i feel the needs to get more "user friendlyness" skills to apply
to my app, so i took a popular book from alan cooper and started studying,
and thinking.

What i obtained is that my app _needs_ a redesign since it's interface is not
user friendly. My application is a chemistry application, it's used by specialized
users that know how to deal with the program, but indeed it's badly designed as
a interface, not as data needs.
I'm recoding it, and i'm glad i've found a better interface, which i'm developing.

What i'm trying to say is i think kde developers are purist, so abstraction
is bad -> device is a device, a mountpoint is a mountpoint, a directory tree
is a directory tree. This could indeed give to kde some purist power, but
KDE is a desktop environment, and it must solve problems to everyone,
beginners and power users. I'm a power user, i use konsole for the 90% of my
work, but i feel really annoyed clicking here and there in certain applications,
and i'm sure also novice users are too... i can see every day, since i admin
machines for students, and some of them are real first time users (i mean, no
windoze imprinting at all)

some examples... is the popup in kword right when you start it ?
asking to user if he wants to create a new document, or open an existing document
(with a really unfriendly combobox with a long absolute path) _really_ a good
interface design? i feel no.
Every time i start kword to edit my file (always the same) i blame that annoying
interface that pops up. Popups are bad.. they stop the work flow.
Also, that combobox is bad. Wtf.. i don't need to know the path of my document...
maybe i'm more interested in title, maybe in path too, but probably as a secondary
information. Put user at the center of your environment, not the system.

There's a lot of user unfriendlyness in kde which come exclusively from purism.
purism time is over... we (yes... me too) need to develop intuitive applications,
not pedantic applications that follow every concrete implementation the unix backend
provide.

this is my humble opinion, of course, and you could reply me: "this is opensource,
take it and implement it by yourself"... but do you really think it's a viable solution
for giving popularity to KDE? spreading developing force isn't useful to this project.

lot of respect for kde developers, but giving hints is the driving force of opensource,
and there's a lot of
 
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