[opensuse-factory] KDE43 Desktop Effects - Need Usable "Next" and "Previous" Desktop key defaults
Listmates, A Couple of issues for kde43B1 today. (First KDE43 - Rocks!) I never thought I would type those words.... First issue, the "Next" and "Previous" desktop keyboard shortcuts are not defined. There should be a consistent default for users regardless of whether the wm is kwin or compiz. Defining ctrl+alt+left for previous and ctrl+alt+right under global shortcuts -> kwin works fine. (I'll reference ctrl+alt as CA hereafter) Next, the ctrl+f1 -f4 shortcuts for desktop 1-4 are horribly inefficient due to the left ctrl being at the absolute bottom of the keyboard while the F'keys are at the absolute top. This eliminates the chance of an efficient switch without having to reposition your hands on the keyboard and then reset after the key combo is entered. Even using the right ctrl (which many laptops do not have) requires a stretch with the left hand to reach the F'keys. If the CA+left and CA+right are defined for the 'previous' and 'next', that takes care of the problem, but if anyone can suggest another scheme for desktops 1-4, it would really help get rid of some keyboard inefficiency. On the same topic of desktop cube rotate efficiency, what is the mouse rotate activation sequence? The CA+leftmouse that compiz uses is great. ctrl (left pinky) + alt (left thumb) and leftmouse with the right hand feels natural by now. Where can we set this in 43? If we can't set it, then that is something to add. If we are consistent across the WM's then a whole lot of confusion can be avoided and the learning curve cut in half. Next (a polish [not Polish]) issue. The animation in all the effects seems rigid or jerky compared to the similar compiz effects. "Cover Switch", "Flip Switch", etc. just seem to jump to the next item without a smooth transition. Adjusting animation duration seems to have little or no effect. Is there something that can be done here? The "Present Windows" (compiz scale clone) randomly thumbnails the window representations on the desktop seemingly without any rhyme or reason (no alignment, etc..). Can this be updates to work more like its compiz counterpart where you get 1, 2 or 3 "rows" (as needed) of windows of similar size (unless they are just really small windows to begin with)? It looks visually a whole lot better than a hodgepodge or smattering of different sized windows on the desktop. Also on wobbly windows, the current "advanced" adjustments make no sense. Wobbly is basically set up as a spring and mass damper. The relevant constants are the (1) the spring constant (or stiffness) [ that one is right ] (2) damping (or friction) and (3) mass (applied force, tension or displacement). "Wobbliness, "drag" and "move factor" are horribly confusing and just make no technical sense. From working with all of them for a while it seems that the settings are actually fighting each other (like a double-double negative) Here again, being consistent with compiz (where they got the spring constant "Spring K" and friction right) would be a plus. Lastly, with compiz active and kicker set to auto-hide, kicker seems to die and restart continually. (It may not actually be dying, but you can't get it to unhide a majority of the time) With compiz running, the only way I can get kicker to unhide is to first move the cursor against the left side of the desktop and then moving the cursor straight down the left edge to the bottom. Moving the cursor to the bottom edge anywhere else does nothing. That's all that I have had time to test so far... Looking great! P.S. The Obsidian Coast theme rocks! -- David C. Rankin, J.D.,P.E. Rankin Law Firm, PLLC 510 Ochiltree Street Nacogdoches, Texas 75961 Telephone: (936) 715-9333 Facsimile: (936) 715-9339 www.rankinlawfirm.com -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org
Hey, Le jeudi 04 juin 2009, à 00:30 -0500, David C. Rankin a écrit :
Listmates,
A Couple of issues for kde43B1 today. (First KDE43 - Rocks!) I never thought I would type those words....
(happy to see good feedback on latest kde) [...] Not complaining, but I would think the opensuse-kde mailing list is more appropriate for those comments. Cheers, Vincent -- Les gens heureux ne sont pas pressés. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org
On Thursday 04 June 2009 01:02:25 Vincent Untz wrote:
Hey,
Le jeudi 04 juin 2009, à 00:30 -0500, David C. Rankin a écrit :
Listmates,
A Couple of issues for kde43B1 today. (First KDE43 - Rocks!) I never thought I would type those words....
(happy to see good feedback on latest kde)
[...]
Not complaining, but I would think the opensuse-kde mailing list is more appropriate for those comments.
Cheers,
Vincent
OK Guys, I didn't know where the dividing line was between the openSuSE defaults and the kde imposed defaults. I'll try and steal the time needed for the addition of yet another list. On some of these defaults, if the kde defaults are not being set correctly, then someone here should come up with a sensible collection of default values to apply to the openSuSE 11.2 release so at least it will have a proper set of default values. Something as simple as the Animation durations in the desktop effects makes the difference between "this looks like crud compared to compiz" and "wow, kde4 is really a cool desktop" Think about it.... Not everyone will take the time to test the effect settings down to the level of altering animation durations. I would certainly want the first impressions of 11.2 to be the best that it could be, especially on the simple stuff. -- David C. Rankin, J.D.,P.E. Rankin Law Firm, PLLC 510 Ochiltree Street Nacogdoches, Texas 75961 Telephone: (936) 715-9333 Facsimile: (936) 715-9339 www.rankinlawfirm.com -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org
On Thursday 04 of June 2009, David C. Rankin wrote:
Listmates,
A Couple of issues for kde43B1 today. (First KDE43 - Rocks!) I never thought I would type those words....
First issue, the "Next" and "Previous" desktop keyboard shortcuts are not defined. There should be a consistent default for users regardless of whether the wm is kwin or compiz. Defining ctrl+alt+left for previous and ctrl+alt+right under global shortcuts -> kwin works fine. (I'll reference ctrl+alt as CA hereafter)
Next, the ctrl+f1 -f4 shortcuts for desktop 1-4 are horribly inefficient due to the left ctrl being at the absolute bottom of the keyboard while the F'keys are at the absolute top. This eliminates the chance of an efficient switch without having to reposition your hands on the keyboard and then reset after the key combo is entered. Even using the right ctrl (which many laptops do not have) requires a stretch with the left hand to reach the F'keys. If the CA+left and CA+right are defined for the 'previous' and 'next', that takes care of the problem, but if anyone can suggest another scheme for desktops 1-4, it would really help get rid of some keyboard inefficiency.
I suggest discussing this upstream, e.g on the kde-usability list (http://www.kde.org/mailinglists/). This does not seem to be openSUSE-specific in any way.
On the same topic of desktop cube rotate efficiency, what is the mouse rotate activation sequence? The CA+leftmouse that compiz uses is great. ctrl (left pinky) + alt (left thumb) and leftmouse with the right hand feels natural by now. Where can we set this in 43? If we can't set it, then that is something to add. If we are consistent across the WM's then a whole lot of confusion can be avoided and the learning curve cut in half.
There is no mouse activation of the cube in KWin now (https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=163121).
Next (a polish [not Polish]) issue. The animation in all the effects seems rigid or jerky compared to the similar compiz effects. "Cover Switch", "Flip Switch", etc. just seem to jump to the next item without a smooth transition. Adjusting animation duration seems to have little or no effect. Is there something that can be done here?
Works fine here with nvidia. Possibly card-specific. These kinds of bugreports often last until somebody with a similar setup gets bored or tired of it and tries playing with the code.
The "Present Windows" (compiz scale clone) randomly thumbnails the window representations on the desktop seemingly without any rhyme or reason (no alignment, etc..). Can this be updates to work more like its compiz counterpart where you get 1, 2 or 3 "rows" (as needed) of windows of similar size (unless they are just really small windows to begin with)? It looks visually a whole lot better than a hodgepodge or smattering of different sized windows on the desktop.
There actually is a reason for the layout, but if you don't like it, the fixed grid mode can be selected in the settings for this specific effect in the configuration module.
Also on wobbly windows, the current "advanced" adjustments make no sense. Wobbly is basically set up as a spring and mass damper. The relevant constants are the (1) the spring constant (or stiffness) [ that one is right ] (2) damping (or friction) and (3) mass (applied force, tension or displacement). "Wobbliness, "drag" and "move factor" are horribly confusing and just make no technical sense. From working with all of them for a while it seems that the settings are actually fighting each other (like a double-double negative) Here again, being consistent with compiz (where they got the spring constant "Spring K" and friction right) would be a plus.
Upstream. -- Lubos Lunak KDE developer -------------------------------------------------------------- SUSE LINUX, s.r.o. e-mail: l.lunak@suse.cz , l.lunak@kde.org Lihovarska 1060/12 tel: +420 284 084 672 190 00 Prague 9 fax: +420 284 028 951 Czech Republic http://www.suse.cz -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org
David C. Rankin wrote:
Next, the ctrl+f1 -f4 shortcuts for desktop 1-4 are horribly inefficient due to the left ctrl being at the absolute bottom of the keyboard while the F'keys are at the absolute top. This eliminates the chance of an efficient switch without having to reposition your hands on the keyboard and then reset after the key combo is entered. Even using the right ctrl (which many laptops do not have) requires a stretch with the left hand to reach the F'keys. If the CA+left and CA+right are defined for the 'previous' and 'next', that takes care of the problem, but if anyone can suggest another scheme for desktops 1-4, it would really help get rid of some keyboard inefficiency.
Hi David, Har! You hit on a very old gripe of mine! God and UNIX demand that the control key be located directly left of the "A" key. I've been cursing that knuckle-headed IBM engineer who redesigned the IBM-AT keyboard for 25-years. I've also been remapping my keyboard layouts, making the caps lock key and extra control key. It can be done with sax2 or by adding Option "XkbOptions" "ctrl:nocaps" to the "InputDevice" section of /etc/X11/xorg.conf. Regards, Lew Wolfgang -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org
On Thursday 04 June 2009 19:11:42 Lew Wolfgang wrote:
David C. Rankin wrote:
Next, the ctrl+f1 -f4 shortcuts for desktop 1-4 are horribly inefficient due to the left ctrl being at the absolute bottom of the keyboard while the F'keys are at the absolute top. This eliminates the chance of an efficient switch without having to reposition your hands on the keyboard and then reset after the key combo is entered. Even using the right ctrl (which many laptops do not have) requires a stretch with the left hand to reach the F'keys. If the CA+left and CA+right are defined for the 'previous' and 'next', that takes care of the problem, but if anyone can suggest another scheme for desktops 1-4, it would really help get rid of some keyboard inefficiency.
Hi David,
Har! You hit on a very old gripe of mine! God and UNIX demand that the control key be located directly left of the "A" key. I've been cursing that knuckle-headed IBM engineer who redesigned the IBM-AT keyboard for 25-years.
I've also been remapping my keyboard layouts, making the caps lock key and extra control key. It can be done with sax2 or by adding
Option "XkbOptions" "ctrl:nocaps"
to the "InputDevice" section of /etc/X11/xorg.conf.
Regards, Lew Wolfgang
Lew, Now that is something I definitely have to try... That is a hell of a lot easier to manage than stretching the pinky to the far bottom-left of the keyboard while trying to stretch the rest of the fingers to reach R, T, G & B. The overriding problem is that most devs don't think in terms of keyboard efficiency when implementing a key combination. It's usually just a look at what is already taken and then the epiphany of "hey they combo isn't taken..." and you end up with ctrl+F8 -F11 for commonly used combinations. What the hey, maybe the devs are just into distal phalange extremism.. -- David C. Rankin, J.D.,P.E. Rankin Law Firm, PLLC 510 Ochiltree Street Nacogdoches, Texas 75961 Telephone: (936) 715-9333 Facsimile: (936) 715-9339 www.rankinlawfirm.com -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org
participants (4)
-
David C. Rankin -
Lew Wolfgang -
Lubos Lunak -
Vincent Untz