GNOME Shell 2.29 Brings A Lot Of Improvements

[V!NCENT]

Btw. What makes an app a gnome app?

GTK+ and inclusion of Gnome libs.

[liam]

Small edit...

I looked at the reference and from their I found numerous sources. Here they are if you are at all interested http://techbase.kde.org/Projects/Usability/Reports
If you go one level up to the Usability page you'll see a couple case studies(I only read the one for Games, but it didn't seem to be much of a study[very limited testing group and very limited scope come to mind immediately]). The reports section is more interesting, but what, again, I looked at the KDE4 HIG, and it is rather sparse. I found it by following a link from a KDE forum where a KDE person (he seemed to be a developer, but was unaware that the HIG existed) said (BTW, this was in 2008) that the general thought was that a HIG was would affect "productivity" too much. Now, having read parts of the HIG, and following KDE4's development (from a user's perspective mostly), it really doesn't seem like the HIG, such as it is, is followed closely. I say this, again, from having had KDE, in some form or other, installed on my computer now since 4.0. The impression I get is a mess of widgets (not simply referring to the desktop plasmoids) that were thrown, again, this is my impression (I don't know what the devs had in mind), together with the idea to expose 95% of the functionality easily, rather than 80% chosen carefully.
I don't know what kind of help KDE (as opposed to QT) gets at the corporate level, but, if possible, they really need to create a comprehensive HIG. This is really vital for a DE to be somewhat uniform. I know that a good HIG requires expensive studies and a lot of work (and not fun coding work, but guideline work) but it is important, IMHO. KDE seems like it has some very nice ideas (I really like the idea of plasma) and good devs, but I am left to wonder about how much thought goes into the interface to actually increase usability (yes, I know, "I one's ..." ). Perhaps that is why I like Gnome Shell so much. It seems to be trying to really address issues of workflow (they are clearly not there yet, but I am hoping they keep to their plan to allow plugins to Mutter and make true tiling an option, along with adaptive interfaces that try to optimize according to the user). I say this with a very definite idea of how I would like things to work. I want windows to be grouped (spatially and by activity). I want quick resumption of old activities (creating "jobs" in Zeitgeist). I want to basically get rid of the file browser and rely on Zeitgeist (with a Tracker db) to find things that relate to what I want. Gnome 3 seems to be attempting all of these things.

Best/Liam

I meant "One person's hell..." rather than "I one's...". Typing late at night

[duby229]

Imagine if every application decided to use its own OK/CANCEL or CANCEL/OK order, its own menu layout (where do you find settings, is it under the file, preferences or tools menu?) and used different background/foreground colors. Total madness.

There are many ways to differentiate applications without making the user's desktop look like a circus.

I can remember years ago there was an application that did just that... I dont know if its still around, but the unregistered version of winzip was free to use as long as you clicked past a dialog box. I remember there being three buttons on this dialog and they would change position randomly every time it was opened. It was very weird and annoying, possibly intentionally to make you want to pay for it. It didnt to that for me though, it just made me hate it even more.

Needless to say 7zip changed my world.

[yotambien]

Hahah, that's the crapware version of WinRar. It still does it, so often times you end up with an informative screen asking you to pay for the program. One of the first things I remove from Windows computers when I have the chance.

[V!NCENT]

Hahah, that's the crapware version of WinRar. It still does it, so often times you end up with an informative screen asking you to pay for the program. One of the first things I remove from Windows computers when I have the chance.

WinZip != WinRar

And WinRar doesn't change button positions...

[yotambien]

You may be right, I thought it was WinRar. I don't install any of them, and remove them both if I'm asked to do any 'maintenance' on friends' Windows computers.

[BlackStar]

WinZip != WinRar

And WinRar doesn't change button positions...

Indeed, WinRAR simply displays a modal popup dialog, timed to interrupt any operation you were doing (for example trying to drag & drop a file to extract or moving the window or whatever). Like WinZip, it's yet another crapware application that should die a fiery death.

7zip provides superior compression, opens the exact same file formats and is completely free.