Mailinglist Archive: opensuse (929 mails)

[Bob Williams <linux@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Sunday 28 Aug 2011 15:15:22 James Knott wrote:
> Like you, I find KDE 4 tends to get in the way, in the same manner that 
> Windows 7 (which I use at work) gets in the way, compared to XP.  Why do 
> developers consider many of these "features" to be an improvement, when 
> all they do is get in the way of users?  Incidentally, a friend of mine 
> recently bought a new computer that came with W7.  She hates it and 
> she's by no means a "power user".  She just wants to get her work done 
> and finds all the "improvements" in W7 to be an aggravation.  It's a 
> shame the Linux desktop developers seem to think they have to follow 
> Microsoft's cue.
>
> I don't want eye candy crap.  I want a desktop that works well.

It took me a while to get used to the KDE4 paradigm, but now I'm very 
comfortable with it. I don't like a cluttered workspace with lots of windows 
hiding behind each other, so multiple desktops is a must. When Activities came 
along, I initially thought it was just a fancy way of doing multiple desktops, 
but I now find it very helpful to have different types of work/play located in 
different Activities. So, I now have eight Activities (Office, Finance, 
Virtual Machines, DTP, Music, Games, Coding and Graphics), each with six 
desktops available, and twin monitors. The sense of a big, expansive working 
space this gives is incredible and liberating.

Each Activity has an Activity Bar widget at the top of the screen, containing 
links to the eight Activities, for easy switching between activities, and 
below that is a customised Application Launcher widget containing launchers 
for the most commonly used applications in that Activity. So, Graphics will 
have launchers for Digikam, Gimp, Inkscape, Darktable, Scanlite, Dolphin and 
Kcalc, for example. This doesn't stop me from launching an application in the 
'wrong' Application, but it helps me keep different projects in different 
workspaces, while providing an easy way to switch between them.

The hardware is nearly five years old, but has plenty of grunt to run rotating 
desktop cubes, etc. Details in my sig.

I realise that some people would find my desktop cluttered and fussy, but the 
point is, it's my desktop and I feel quite at home with it. YMMV, as they say 
;)

Bob
-- 
Registered Linux User #463880           FSFE Member #1300
GPG-FP: A6C1 457C 6DBA B13E 5524 F703 D12A FB79 926B 994E
openSUSE 11.4 64-bit, Kernel 2.6.37.6-0.5-desktop, KDE 4.6.5
Intel Core2 Quad Q9400 2.66GHz, 8GB DDR RAM, nVidia GeForce 9600GT
-- 
To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxx
For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@xxxxxxxxxxxx