A Call For KDE To Fully Embrace Simplicity By Default, Appeal To More Novice Users

[Henk717]

Since he specifically mentions Plasma as an example i'd say its a good design philosophy, Plasma greatly benefited novice users by locking down panel editing behind a button combination / menu click. Its all about defaults that make sense, putting the advanced screw it up features a little further away and putting the stuff everyone wants front and center. It falls or stands with how easy it is for power users to get the features they desire.

Another good example of where i think this was done right is Gwenview, to me that was just an imagine viewer i just open a photo and it works. But only yesterday did i find out it can do basic image manipulation if you care to click a button. That one also is simplistic by default, but powerful when needed.

The issue i have with Gnome is that its an absolute hassle to do anything powerful, they overdid the simplicity and alienation of the workflow. But i trust KDE's track record on this if they specifically use Plasma and Gwenview as examples (I heard them use Gwenview in this philosophy before). And they said it would be done instead of making tiny little apps for everything, instead they want one app that seems basic at first but can be easily expanded upon when needed by just toggling a few settings.

[bple2137]

Is it just me or the problem with Linux ease of use is not that much about the UI, which for most people is already straightforward, but rather the system itself?

What we really miss is ootb support for some peripherals or available software popularity. That being said, most of usecases are already easy when you know where to look, but without some research, noobs are simply lost. It's also difficult, because there is not just one way to achieve stuff and it may vary from one distro to another.

We'll never make that sort of OS easy for noobs, because it stays the way we, advanced users, like it. We try for quite a long time to bring those easy to use desktops and some UI automation but there's not much of a success yet.

Standalone, pre-configured devices focused on particular usecases are the only way to achieve that.

[Nille_kungen]

I think hes right that KDE apps need to be improved.
I use ktorrent a lot but i think about switching since it doesn't work as it should, it doesn't start magnets (i can wait half a year without magnets starting), it can't handle sources in a good way so it doesn't downloads as fast as other clients, it also takes a long time for it to start a download.
I do have a lot of torrents and i think about switching to qbittorrent since it works much better but ktorrent has functions that qbittorrent lacks.
I do appreciate the work that has been going into making plasma better i every detail like the improvements to battery in the system tray. and so on.

Well kde is for power users, they need to make some radical changes for it to be beginner friendly, for ex making windows key actually open the menu like most people expect to begin with.

I don't agree, i actually think plasma is more beginner friendly than alternatives like gnome or other DE/VM.
Windows key opens the menu by default.
But i can agree that some distros do have bad kde/plasma integrations instead of using vanilla KDE/plasma.

[OneTimeShot]

Simple out-of-the-box largely involves copying Windows layout. (And hiding terminals, etc). There isn’t really a non-Windows/Mac noob user base to target a desktop at…

As long as you can set it how you want afterwards, it’s all good. They still need to fix the QT licensing situation, though…

[M@GOid]

As long as I can make the tweaks I like, I don't really care about they do with the defaults.

Speaking of simplicity, how about making the "Application Menu" the default? Is way simpler and direct than the one they use. Is a no bullshit, direct and simple to understand launcher. Your favorites, right there. Any program perfectly categorized? Right there. Search, last used? Right there. And the power off and restart buttons are not ridden and perfectly placed. Is perfection.

Kicker_applications_menu.png

Plasma developers had tried for years to teak a hopeless design launcher, trying to make a something similar to the Windows launcher that, lets face it, is a steaming turd. And all along the perfect launcher is right there, buried away like a step child.

So I suggest, stop losing time making KDE look too much like Windows, and start making a better Windows, which KDE is already, but can be even more.

[ehansin]

I have not used KDE much, but I can see the potential. Small nag here, and I have mentioned before and was told they may be changing this. In the past when I installed KDE, it put all of its config files into the root of "~/.config" and basically made an outright mess there. My complaint was that they should use a directory or two (or whatever made logical sense) in that same location and then put the configs into these directories, namespacing if you will. Anyone know if this has happened?

[sinepgib]

I use ktorrent a lot but i think about switching since it doesn't work as it should, it doesn't start magnets (i can wait half a year without magnets starting), it can't handle sources in a good way so it doesn't downloads as fast as other clients, it also takes a long time for it to start a download.

I guess they rolled their own engine, as such is the DEs way. They should have just used one of the myriad of awesome libraries already there, such as rasterbar-libtorrent, the backend for QBitTorrent.

We'll never make that sort of OS easy for noobs, because it stays the way we, advanced users, like it.

I think it's a fundamental defect of the bazaar development model open source advocates seem to love. No direction, follows the scratch-your-own-itch pattern, which necessarily ends up leaning towards what power users want because you generally are a power user if you have the skills needed to send patches. With no central authority dictating a path forward you invariably end up with this kind of system.

[remenic]

Well kde is for power users, they need to make some radical changes for it to be beginner friendly, for ex making windows key actually open the menu like most people expect to begin with.

But why is it expected? Because Windows does it? It is the only OS that does that, no? Personally I'd expect it to show me all the open windows in a grid, since that's what the key's pictogram implies. The pictogram does not depict a menu, so why should it open a menu. We have another button for that (a key with the pictogram of a menu), but for some reason that one is tied to a context menu under the mouse pointer, not *the* menu. I never use that button though.

[sdack]

"Let us try to please everyone!" ... Famous last words.

[sinepgib]

But why is it expected? Because Windows does it? It is the only OS that does that, no? Personally I'd expect it to show me all the open windows in a grid, since that's what the key's pictogram implies. The pictogram does not depict a menu, so why should it open a menu. We have another button for that (a key with the pictogram of a menu), but for some reason that one is tied to a context menu under the mouse pointer, not *the* menu. I never use that button though.

Well, noobs tend to come from Windows. Believing otherwise is simply denial.
The amount of Linux natives (people who didn't use Windows or Mac as their first ever OS) is negligible. Heck, Mac and Linux (and the BSDs and fringe OSes, for that matter) are a tiny fraction of the market even counting power users.
This means whatever Windows does is what's gonna be intuitive for the bulk of noobs.
At some point you have to adapt to reality to reach your goals, reality won't adapt to you. If that goal is being beginner friendly that means stealing a lot from Windows.