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List:       kde-devel
Subject:    Re: kde's future
From:       "Thomas Diehl" <thd () kde ! org>
Date:       2000-12-31 10:05:59
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On Sat, 30 Dec 2000 16:15:30 +0100, Mudonja Tekara wrote:

>Gnome is behind KDE, and no foundation nor money would help here.
>But KDE is behind MS Windows ...

Sorry to have to agree here.

[snip]

>10. printer support with cups, qups and kups becomes easier to use

Definitely. I just wrote a small introductory book (in German) about
KDE 2.0 for Windows users. And I think, from a Windows perspective, the
main problems are still with such basic usability issues:

*   Just compare the Control Center with the Windows Control Panel: no
central font management, no print management, no graphic settings, no
help with installing new software or hardware. -- I know the reasons,
newbies don't. But even if they did they would not care, they simply
WANT this. Much more than the incredible load of system info they are
getting at the moment.

*   There is still no common clipboard for all contents in all apps
including eg pictures and formatting. Drag and drop is not working for
all elements, either, not even inside KOffice. -- Again I know it's on
the way but be assured that most Windows and Mac users consider this
functionality so basic that they will never take KDE serious before
stuff like that is there.

*   Usability problems with many elements in KDE, from the basic file
dialog to the biggest programs, sometimes stemming from lack of basic
features, more often from lack of effective design.

As for "lack of basic features": No Windows user will understand, for
instance, why you can create a folder in the KDE file dialogs but you
can apparently not delete or rename it. In Windows people are used to
have full file administration capabilities in every single file dialog:
you can copy, paste, and move every file and every directory to and
from everywhere. You can switch with a single click between basic and
full information about the files (and don't need the additional idea
that an additional right click is needed). And so on. Totally basic
stuff from their perspective.

Other examples could be the bad word wrap which lets most file dialogs
in KDE look like shit. (Sorry but they do.) Especially in languages
with big average word length like German. Or the missing right-to-left
support. (Coming up, I know, and I'm very grateful about it.)

I don't want to pick any apps for "lack of effective design" here. But
eg the maintainer of KWord will remember painfully how difficult it was
to make me understand the "DTP" mode of the program -- although (or
because?) I'm a professional DTPer myself. ;-) But it sure wasn't the
only case when I really wished we could find a good way for usability
testing of all KDE apps.

Happy New Year,

Thomas


--- 
KDE translation: http://i18n.kde.org/
Deutsche KDE-Uebersetzung: http://i18n.kde.org/teams/de/






























 
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