Personally I was surprised your comments were not more of the form "this new thing is not usable" ;-)
I try to keep personal anti-Gnome bias out... :-) and it's still Beta so I expect some problems still need to be ironed out.
This raises an important usability issue... with a totally different software maintenance component between Gnome and KDE, there is a major impact to documentation, support and the development path.
Hokay, agreed - however this is basically true of all existing Gnome / KDE differences :-) how do I launch applications ? where is the menu ? how do I configure the networking ? change the screen size ? etc. So, agreed - but we're used to this problem in a lot of areas I think.
Agreed, but those tasks are window manager specific. They are an intrinsic part of the window managers themselves and are generally not administration level toolsets. YAST is though.... and this is where I see the issue. The administration toolset (in my view anyway) should be consistent across all window managers. The administration is not window manager specific... yet this change makes it so (and would be the same issue if it was a QT rework that was not available to Gnome users).
I agree that it would be ideal to expose the old software installer for those people that like it & are familiar with it. I'm still a fan of using the (fixed) new installer by default, since IMHO it is rather simpler to use.
OK, that works too. This is what was done with the "new" panel menu thing in KDE, and the very rough equivalent for Gnome. With the panel menu it's a right click and people are able to switch back and forth. Granted the change is also possible with the software installer, but it is well hidden in the sysconfig file, and definitely not something I want to be walking a new user through while I am talking to them on the phone. It (the sysconfig) is not a change I want to do because the new tool is different than what I am used to. If the change is an improvement on the old situation, it's silly to insist on the old broken methods simply because they are familiar.
understanding the use-cases you have for it. IMHO conceptually, installing packages should not require intensive training :-)
I couldn't agree more. This has been a weak point for SUSE for a long time - compared to say.. Synaptic in Ubuntu which new users seem to find their way around in quite easily. YAST needs work.. and things are being done to improve... muchly appreciated :-)
As you point out, this is the case for ~virtually everything except the package selector; which is unfortunately an oddity here; and I hope we can provide in parallel the old style tool you're obviously familiar with for the next release.
Well, I am also fine with major changes as long as they can be close to equal regardless of window manager. I tried to make this point clear in my original message, and it is also one expressed by a few others on the user mailing list (in between the flame warring) that the admin tool should be as window manager agnostic as is possible. Theming is nice and an important aspect, but that should not include major functionality differences. I don't care how I get to YAST (the path is different in Gnome or KDE) but I expect YAST to be the same in all window managers. Take Firefox for example. If you launched Firefox in KDE and got one set of functionality (I don't mean theming of buttons etc., but workflow and way of using the browser) and then you start Firefox in Gnome and it operates totally differently to achieve the same result (displaying a webpage) you have a problem.. it's no longer Firefox.
caricature: one side rejoices in exposing complexity to the power user, and at the other extreme the other would prefer a computer to have just one button labelled "make money" that can be clicked repeatedly ;-)
I could do with that button.. Do you have a spare one I could borrow for a couple of days? :-) In my case anyway, I don't care so much about complexity vs one button... I, and the users I deal with, need consistency. if it's complex, then it needs to be complex in all window managers. If it's one button, then it needs to be one button in all window managers. Creating a new tool that is window manager specific only serves to widen the rift between the camps. In this case, assume the Gnome one works better and has a much better user experience. Then the QT guys are left in the proverbial cold with a complex and difficult to use interface... and the wars begin... err or continue. Whereas if the changes and development can be rolled out in parallel on QT and GTK, then... wouldn't that strengthen openSUSE's toolset? ie the underlying tool and workflow is the same and has nice QT of GTK theming to fit in line with the selected window manager. Hmmmm... can the new workflow designed around the GTK version be "turned on" in QT YAST without looking like a GTK applet? If yes, why wasn't it? If no, why not? Anyway, I hope this sparks some discussions... C --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org