On 05/29/2018 05:07 AM, David C. Rankin wrote:

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Thank you for your feedback on this list. Unfortunately it will lead to nothing, as you know already. Which ,makes me wonder about the reason for this post. I found the reason for this post "crystal clear", the open question is "is

On 05/27/2018 06:13 PM, Knurpht @ openSUSE wrote: there a way to revert the new interface to the old interface?"

James, I haven't made the leap to 15 yet on hardware and don't generally load it on VM's, but I'll load it on a VM and look.

I guess the folks have forgotten the corner-stone of development, that "A new feature is a bug if it cannot be turned off..."

It's worse than that.  I've noticed a general trend to dumbing down the interfaces, removing or crippling function and more and then calling it an improvement.  I've got a real example with my cable TV provider.  For years, I could use a browser to program my PVR and they also brought out an Android app for it.  Great, I had 2 ways to remotely program my PVR.  My normal practice was to open the Zap2it site, to see what programs were scheduled and then program the PVR, while sitting at my desk, in front of the computer.  Then a while ago, they came out with a new web interface that while prettier than the old, it can no longer program the PVR.  On top of that, it only worked with Chrome on Windows.  No Firefox, Linux etc.  Well, so what if it's now useless, it's prettier.  Now, this week, the Android apps will no longer work.  So, I'll now have to find out which shows I want to record, move to the other end of my condo, turn on my TV, A/V receiver and PVR, just to set up the recordings, something that I could previously do from my desk.  Yep, that's real improvement.  Another annoying trend it to low contrast web sites, which make things difficult for visually impaired people.  I'm not, but some sites are a real struggle to read, such as black text on dark blue background.  Why the trend to dumbing things down and more difficult to use?  In another thread, I mentioned how it's no longer possible to easily edit the Grub menu.  Why is this considered an improvement? -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 05/29/2018 10:15 AM, Stevens wrote:

An old fart's observation re: the above: this is a reflection of our society and what we are producing in our schools. Years ago there was a Sat morning show whose central theme was "consider all the possibilities". Boy, that concept is dead now. In fairness to the coders, I wonder how much of this "product improvement" is driven by pointy-haired bosses and totally incompetent and non-technical marketing types. These are the times we live in, mon ami.

It's everywhere.  There's currently a series about Tesla on TV.  I thought it might be an interesting bit of history about him.  I only got partway through the first show before I gave up on it.  It was all about gee we had to do this and that and very little on Tesla.  I recall reading, a few years ago, about how the Texas Republicans were opposed to teaching critical thinking in the schools!  I guess it's keep 'em dumb, so we can control them. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 05/29/2018 01:26 PM, ralph wrote:

On Tue, 29 May 2018 10:55:12 -0400 James Knott <james.knott@jknott.net> wrote:

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recall reading, a few years ago, about how the Texas Republicans were opposed to teaching critical thinking in the schools!  I guess it's keep 'em dumb, so we can control them. You 'recall reading' something, likely in some major-media left-wing rag, that 'Texas Republicans' were opposed to something. So, where was your own 'critical thinking' when you encountered this reporting? Did you investigate to find if it was actually true? Or did you just accept it as truth because the propaganda was in line with your own preconceived prejudices? Hmmm?

Ralph

Well, I know enough that Republicans can't be trusted.  Trump is a prime example.  Many of the current ones are not the likes of McCain, Goldwater or Eisenhower.  What's worse is they let the Religious Wrong idiots take over.  The current Republican party is an absolute disgrace. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 05/29/2018 12:26 PM, James Knott wrote:

On 05/29/2018 01:26 PM, ralph wrote:

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You 'recall reading' something, likely in some major-media left-wing rag, that 'Texas Republicans' were opposed to something. So, where was your own 'critical thinking' when you encountered this reporting? Did you investigate to find if it was actually true? Or did you just accept it as truth because the propaganda was in line with your own preconceived prejudices? Hmmm?

BTW, this is a very typical "right wing", I'd say wrong wing, response.  It fits right in with Trump's "fake news" whenever the news is something he doesn't like.  That is shoot the messenger, rather than admit reality.

Take it somewhere else James. For pete sake, people are wondering why the board is trying to shut down the mailing lists and you come along with a prime example. -- After all is said and done, more is said than done. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 05/29/2018 08:46 AM, James Knott wrote:

It's worse than that.  I've noticed a general trend to dumbing down the interfaces, removing or crippling function and more and then calling it an improvement.

You be signing to the choir here my friend.... We have gotten to the point that mediocrity is the new "improvement". The problem with wireshark is somebody just couldn't wait to give us the next greatest thing by using "new widgets" instead of the tried and true Gtk. With 15, you get wireshark-ui-qt (and 116 meg of crap installed) just so they could wrap wireshark in the shiny new (not quite finished) Qt! For leap 42.3 you have wireshark-ui-gtk. I suspect you can just hack the .spec and tell it to build against gtk. I'll play with that later. I had to build geany against Gtk+2, because the new Gtk+3 build icon spacing is so poor it forces the toolbar to elipsize and shove toolbar icons off the right side, and the status bar took up 2-lines worth of space instead of 1 for the same info. Looks like I'll have to do that with FF60 as well. Just loaded it and all the damn text boxes and text inputs are twice the height of Gtk+2 which really screws up some of my forms and weather pages. Mediocrity wins the day! -- David C. Rankin, J.D.,P.E. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 05/29/2018 03:12 PM, David C. Rankin wrote:

The problem with wireshark is somebody just couldn't wait to give us the next greatest thing by using "new widgets" instead of the tried and true Gtk.

With 15, you get wireshark-ui-qt (and 116 meg of crap installed) just so they could wrap wireshark in the shiny new (not quite finished) Qt!

The same problem has also infected the Windows version. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 05/30/2018 11:30 AM, Patrick Shanahan wrote:

* James Knott <james.knott@jknott.net> [05-30-18 10:37]:

...

On 05/29/2018 03:12 PM, David C. Rankin wrote:

...

The problem with wireshark is somebody just couldn't wait to give us the next greatest thing by using "new widgets" instead of the tried and true Gtk.

With 15, you get wireshark-ui-qt (and 116 meg of crap installed) just so they could wrap wireshark in the shiny new (not quite finished) Qt!

The same problem has also infected the Windows version.

geezee, linux dev's have fscked it again

The problem for us older folks, is for the decade ~1998 - 2008, we saw dedicated development and each new release of each package got better and better. Upmost care was taken in interface design and usability. You looked forward to the next release and the "improvements" it would bring. Since then, every new crop of devs seems to need to prove it can do something it can call special or improved. There has been virtually no "new" features added to many packages, yes, security has gotten a nod, but beyond that, the fallacy of "Let's port it to the new toolkit!" and it will be better has seemed to be the goto for saying something has been "improved". (many times this is done just for the sake of doing it, and not because there are any inherent problems with the existing toolkit, and many times this is done before development of the underlying "new" toolkit is even mature) Never confuse activity with accomplishment -- the two are separate and distinct. The problem has been, and continues to be, that there is very little care or attention paid to the usability or conformance of the package after the port has been made. It usually devolves to just getting the package running on the new toolkit and the rushing the release out the door while congratulating oneself -- while paying little attention to whether all the work and effort that went into the port actually resulted in any "improvement" to the package for the end user. Instead the result is generally a 1/2 baked, sloppy interface that takes twice as long to load, takes twice the memory, and is a regression in usability due to icons no longer fitting in toolbars, input or display widgets taking up twice the space as they did before, or buttons or input overlapping in some cooky way. (this just in Firefox, LibreOffice and Geany to name a few I've had to deal with or rebuild under the old toolkit -- just to make usable) It really begs the question -- do these jokers even know what they are doing? and Why can't they ever get it right? Every time there are promises that the new toolkit will be "just as good as the old", "easier to use", "a better interface paradigm", in fact, "there will be improvements" -- bunk, and "Mexico is going to pay for it" too... It's sad, but I now have to lump each such promise into the same category or candor. What is the response when users bring the shortcomings of the new toolkits to the developers? The answer when bugs are filed against the ill-fitting or wonky interface -- the *user* just need to add some CSS to some file to make something else change so the icons fit right, or the buttons don't overlap, or the input size can be adjusted... Are you kidding me? Put out something that no longer fits, and the answer is to tell the end-user to go learn CSS (or whatever the applicable tool it) so *the user* can go fix the f'ed up spacing and placement or size??? That's improvement? That's the promise of the new toolkits and web-izing of everything brought to fruition? Go learn CSS and fix it yourself? Whether something fits properly, or whether something takes twice as much room to display wasting screen real-estate are not simply qualitative or matters of opinion -- they are quantifiable metrics that can be measured -- and a factual determination made whether there has been "improvement" to the interface or space utilization. That is what is missing... Core applications that have always worked and were borne out of great care and detail in interface design, shouldn't be relegated to the trash heap of history of applications that used to work great, but now you can make work, but sure aren't enjoyable to use anymore. (this doesn't even touch on the reason business can not justify Linux as a desktop due to the hit to productivity every time workers can't find the icon or command that used to be right there in a convenient place but has now disappeared... LibreOffice is a prime example of "hide-and-go-seek" context menu commands, or a working or complete F1-Help for that matter...) I am always an advocate for improvement, but changing something for the sake of change, or changing something and putting it out 1/2 baked does not fall into the category of "improvement". The fact that we are even having to have this discussion is evidence that something has gone awry in what used to be a very systematic and reliable progression of "improvement". -- David C. Rankin, J.D.,P.E. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org