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List:       kde-devel
Subject:    Re: Fork of KDE4/Qt3?
From:       Ian Wadham <ianw2 () optusnet ! com ! au>
Date:       2008-06-10 11:06:53
Message-ID: 200806102106.53899.ianw2 () optusnet ! com ! au
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On Mon, 9 Jun 2008 05:00 pm, Aaron J. Seigo wrote:
> *sigh* you'd maybe, just maybe, think that i would have something of an
> understanding of these things? evidently you don't think so.
>
> so let me say it really slowly this time in hopes you will stop your
> howling:
>
> a Containment is what paints the wallpaper.
>
> it also puts any other instrumentation on it by default. such as icons, or
> the toolbox.
>
> it fills your whole screen.
>
> it handles everything under and around the widgets it contains.
>
> it is not a dead parrot.
>
Well, I hate to say this, Aaron, but it might as well be ... a dead parrot
that is ... I just do not understand a word you are saying here, however
slowly you say it.  If you will excuse me being facetious for a moment,
a containment (to me) is part of a hostage situation and I do not paint
wallpaper, I stick it on.  And what are a "toolbox" and "widgets" in this
context?  I am sorry, I simply do not understand what you are saying ...
except for the dead parrot bit.

Yes, I read the rest of this thread.  Yes, after many months trying, I did
manage to construct a user account with a KDE 4 desktop, but still with
no special effects.  No, I could not find any kind of manual or help on it,
so I have been mostly unaware of the finer points mentioned in this
thread, such as a "folder view".

So off I went to Techbase and searched on "containment" and found a
very brief article on plasma architecture, which linked to one of Aaron's
blogs on containment, which in turn left me thoroughly confused.  I also
read a link to an older blog on desktop zooming.

Inspired by all this, I decided to have a play.  At first I could not figure
out at all how you do this "zooming" and still have not found out how to
do "panning", and the method I have found is nowhere near fast enough
for the hypothetical lazy student to hide stuff from his mother.

There's a sort of crescent moon at the top right of the screen and if I
left-click on that I get a Zoom Out option.  I zoomed out and got two
"desktops" with unreadable icons and a whole lot of grey chequerboard
pattern ... not a good look.  Clicking the moon thing on the right-hand
"desktop" got me a Zoom In option, but nothing happened when I clicked
it.  Then I tried the moon thing on the left-hand "desktop" and its Zoom In
worked and got me back to my original desktop.

These moon things are powerful juju, I thought.  Then I noticed one that
was almost invisible in the darkness on the right-hand end of the strip at
the bottom of the screen (is that what you call a "panel"?), and another
strip opened up above the first.  It did not seem to contain anything very
meaningful or useful and I only wanted one "panel" anyway, so I
clicked on the button that said "Remove this panel" and lost them both!

I can find no reference to Panel or Containment in the list that pops up
when you say "Add Widgets", so now I am without a panel, even though
I know a panel is a kind of containment.  I was just reaching for the power
off button, in order to close Plasma down, when I remembered something
you said about a "launcher" and its ability to guess what you want when
you type something, so I tried typing "logout" and it worked!  Just like the
good old command-line days on the PDP-11 and before.

All this probably makes me sound like a complete idiot, but I am actually
the author/maintainer of three working KDE 4 applications (in KDE Games)
and somewhat of a connoisseur of desktops.  My first was a Xerox Star
workstation and KDE 4 will be about my twelfth, if I ever get to use it.  So
far, this has been by far my worst experience with a desktop, I regret to say.

I think a lot of the problem lies with the use of terminology: by Plasma,
by writers in this thread and by you, Aaron.  It is vital that developers use
plain English terms that people like my wife and me can understand and that
they define special terms in ways that we can easily locate and understand.

Otherwise KDE 4 is going to encounter even more of the Wittgensteinian
conflicts that have arisen in this thread.

I wish you well, Aaron, honestly I do, but I must admit I am also more
than a little irritated by this whole Qt4/KDE4 thing, which I feel is setting
application development back more than somewhat.  And the things that
make or break a desktop, I believe, are the applications and the ability
to attract applications.  Why else would Windows be successful?

All the best, Ian W.

 
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