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List:       kde-usability
Subject:    Re: [RFC] Clock Defaults
From:       Ryan Cumming <ryan () completely ! kicks-ass ! org>
Date:       2002-08-23 8:24:04
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On August 23, 2002 00:52, Electronic Eric wrote:
> Your point that it's a nice tool for a quick assessment of the desktop is a
> good one, but it's unlikely that new users will be able to do this kind of
> diagnosis, or fix things using X-kill. 
Indeed, and it's far from an accurate gauge as to how "crashed" a desktop is. 
Sending a SIGSTOP to KWin didn't put a dent in my little blinking colon, but 
my desktop was of course unusable.

> However, we are only talking about
> turning it off by default, and you can of course turn it back on.  In fact,
> w/ luck, you can hang on to your KDE settings for some time to come, so you
> won't even have to deal with it.
Yes, every power user has their way of checking their computers heartbeat. I 
usually check if the hover effects on the buttons and toolbars work. I'll 
also sometimes minimize and restore an app to see if it refreshes. These 
checks are usually something that's developed after a lot of computer use, 
and depends on a very abstract relationship that novice users can't be 
expected to grasp.

I don't think dropping more of these unpredicatable, convoluted hints can be 
considered a usability benefit.

> Interesting idea.  Getting the dialog sort of depends on the type of crash,
> doesn't it?  I don't think I get the kind of crash that could be solved by
> this dialog - I get either completely locked display (doesn't respond to
> any input), or Kicker/Kwin stops accepting keyboard input, and I can only
> get out by using the mouse to choose logout.
It's also extremely hard for KDE to detected if the computer has crashed. A 
lot of the crashes I've had were when my display locked up entirely, but the 
computer was working perfectly fine over the network. What does KDE see? A 
normally functioning X server. What does the user see? A hung computer.

-Ryan
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