What is Digg?63 Comments
- inactive, on 10/11/2007, -1/+34This is really, really cool. It's usability features like these which make the KDE4 release something to look forward to.
- Gman1223, on 10/11/2007, -1/+28I wonder when the apple fanboys will raid this and clam they stole it from apple. "sigh"
- schestowitz, on 10/11/2007, -2/+29This is absolutely brilliant. Hasn't anybody thought about this before?
- inactive, on 10/11/2007, -0/+24As a Mac fan (and Ubuntu Linux user), I have to say KDE4 looks mind-blowing! I can't wait for this!
- aseigo, on 10/11/2007, -1/+22it improves on a regular context menu in two important ways:
- it's immediately discoverable: you point, get feedback (the interface) then click on what you'd like
- you only need to use one mouse button, which makes the interaction pattern simpler
these things tend to lower the "mental friction" that occurs when using an interface. i've experimented with various user groups (yes, inc non-geeks =) with these kind of hover interfaces and it really does improve things. we're starting to see this approach pop up more and more in interface design, though this represents a bit of a new direction for these things. and i'm glad i started presenting about this a few years ago at conferences so i can prove it wasn't just a copy cat idea ;)
and yeah, this is just one of the things we're bringing with plasma.... - diablo75, on 10/11/2007, -1/+19I use GNOME myself, but hopefully this feature will find its way across the gap.
- SimonGray, on 10/11/2007, -2/+19"Personally, I think it would be nice if a small box appeared to the side of an icon when clicked once, which provided a list of actions with text."
When did everyone suddenly forget about the context menu that shows when you right-click...? It's everything you describe. - amfantasy, on 10/11/2007, -1/+18they keep making the wait harder and harder.....
- schestowitz, on 10/11/2007, -2/+13It won't be stable before 2008 unfortunately. I can attest to the same experience (big KDE fan over here!).
- GMorgan, on 10/11/2007, -2/+13Well Apple is the king of innovation with great products like Safari, the Mach microkernel and Darwin. [/sarcasm]
- baalzebub, on 10/11/2007, -5/+15and that "foot" icon does not look cartoonish?
- SimonGray, on 10/11/2007, -7/+16"I'm sorry.. but you're a f***ing dunce..."
That's nice. I ask a fairly valid question and you respond with a personal attack...? I'm not criticising the almighty KDE 4 desktop for no reason, I'm asking what makes this feature any better than the context menu. It's a fair question, I don't deserved to get dugg down and be attacked by users with a short temper.
Now to the _real_ reply:
"- it's immediately discoverable: you point, get feedback (the interface) then click on what you'd like
- you only need to use one mouse button, which makes the interaction pattern simpler"
Thanks for responding Aaron! What makes me really puzzled about the feature is that while you're moving away from icons without labels such as the ones in KDE 3, you're now introducing an alternative to context menus _without_ labels in KDE 4. It doesn't make sense to me. The thinking is that users won't be able to tell what icon does what in a Qt toolbar when there's no label attached to it, but they apparently will in this case...? - inactive, on 10/11/2007, -0/+9I'm also a Gnome user, but with this kind of stuff I might be switching.
Actually I would be happy with Fluxbox/Enlightenment(e16) if it ran with Beryl/Compiz/CompComm but I needs my eyecandy. - Mandeep, on 10/11/2007, -0/+8your head explodes.
- kelvie, on 10/11/2007, -0/+8Also check out this guy's blog (he's one of the KDE devs):
http://www.kdedevelopers.org/blog/280
He's aiming to implement features to kwin such that beryl won't be required for (most) KDE4 users, and is making quite some progress.
He's made quite a few screencasts (that are youtubed for easy viewing) of his work.
I can't wait for the first beta yet, even. - inactive, on 10/11/2007, -0/+8This is really cool, but as someone unfamiliar with KDE and 'Plasma', it sounded way cooler in the title ;-)
- Schalken, on 10/11/2007, -1/+8Thats a burn.
Both desktops have some cartoony icons. Oxygen will help remedy this on the KDE side. :) - mournsanity, on 10/11/2007, -1/+8KDE4 honestly looks to be one of the most exciting projects I've seen in a while. You hardly see this kind of innovation and polish outside of Apple, let alone an OSS project.
Props to the KDE and Plasma guys. Here's to what will hopefully be the greatest desktop on the planet! *cheers* - Revolt25, on 10/11/2007, -2/+9it should be stable october 23, 2007...
- HerbertScrunge, on 10/11/2007, -0/+6World War 3
- BigBadger, on 10/11/2007, -1/+7I'm sure the almighty ms will "come up with it" after Kde releases it and it proves to be popular.
- Spr0k3t, on 10/11/2007, -1/+6Have you seen Office 2007's ribbon yet? If you haven't... the answer is yes... they have.
- inactive, on 10/11/2007, -0/+5do not forget to give some bucks, http://kde.org/support/
- coldphoenix, on 10/11/2007, -4/+9You know I started out on GNOME, because though I found KDE to be entirely more intuitive and robust compared to GNOME in regards to features, I found the interface itself rather tacky and cartoonish. But with every new bit I hear about KDE 4, the more and more I believe this will be the time I switch permanently, and possibly make a desktop PC out of linux.
- alanic, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4It's cool, but I probably will never use it since it requires too precise mouse movements that will give me bad RSI on my right hand.
- xspinkickx, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4I agree this is great.......while right click is great, this would save so much time, since its KDE I figure what each corner does is configurable (including for mimetypes)....... definitely going to try KDE 4.
- zweben, on 10/11/2007, -3/+7It's a good idea, but it seems to me that using the corners of the icon isn't the most efficient way to list the actions. It doesn't allow space for a description of the action, only an icon. That can create clarity difficulties with actions that are harder to represent visually. Also, it only provides enough space for a few actions.
Personally, I think it would be nice if a small box appeared to the side of an icon when clicked once, which provided a list of actions with text. - sishgupta, on 10/11/2007, -1/+5Unless they have said they don't think they will make the release date I dont see why they can't get this done in 4.5 months. KDE seems to be well organized, and from what i can tell...on schedule.
I am a Gnome user but KDE4 may have me as a convert. - HerbertScrunge, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4Dolphin supports the adding of rating and arbitrary meta data to files via KDE's nepomuk/ braid/ tenor/ whatever-it-is-currently-called, so this sounds quite plausible along the line.
As for automatic tagging of the progress through media files: this really depends on the player app, but I see no reason why a Phonon-ised player couldn't have this kind of functionality as a plugin. It might even just be a couple of lines of code! - HerbertScrunge, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4". its nothing like beryl/compiz...."
What do desktop icons have to do with Beryl/ Compiz? - jlebrech, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4I would also like the option to place "tokens" onto my icons, for example: im watching a season of lost or 24 that i have in divx format, but the episodes are just number and i can't really remember where im up to the easily. So I place a token on the next episode that i will play tomorow.
Ideally kde should be able to read the filesystem info and place a "where i am upto" token onto an icon. - GMorgan, on 10/11/2007, -1/+5The amazing thing is when they did all the mock ups we all treated it like they suggested they were going to implement Minority Report (hate that film) style computers 'Yeah it looks cool and is a nice dream etc'. Then the useless gits went out and did it, ok some of the cool stuff has been sidelined for implementation until after release but how much they have done is impressive.
Also, the trolls. They tell me OSS doesn't innovate? They lied to me! - Schalken, on 10/11/2007, -2/+6They wont release it until it is stable. That's what makes it a release and not a beta.
Of course 4.0.0 will have more bugs than say 4.3.12 will, and it wont have some features or applications yet, but it is still considered stable. - Fordi, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3beryl/compiz, while they enable the desktop to be more dynamic and potentially more usable, do nothing to increase usability by themselves. KDE4's Plasma promised to take advantage of the concepts in beryl/compiz to improve usability overall.
- dbr_onix, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3"KDE 4, for some reason or another, thought it was a great idea, UI-wise, to just slap about 3 buttons on each icon on your desktop as you hover over it. Other than being brightly colored, they are quite nondescript.
[..]
Okay, I hear you say, it’s not even done yet; he’s just made it to show what it can do! Well, in that case, fantastic job regressing in the history of UI design. We’ve been doing everything possible to limit nondescript buttons and too much choice in the UI on the Mac; it’s in our interface guidelines. GNOME has been doing a great effort to keep it as simple and minimal as possible. What do these guys do? They just liberally sprinkle badges all over existing icons, that were meant to serve the function of the badges in the first place.
[..]
The same reason why the GNOME team is often criticized for being overly conservative when it comes to UI additions. KDE’s been known, to me, as the desktop with the ‘in progress’ cursor of a bouncing object and it’s XP-like icon sets. It’s never been usable, pretty, or otherwise impressive to me. This addition adds to that."
[ http://blog.cocoia.com/?p=130 ] - modifiedbears, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3They should call this the lazy right click.
- GMorgan, on 10/11/2007, -1/+4Since KDE4 uses D-BUS most of the applications should work better on GNOME in any case though naturally this particular feature needs extra work.
- GMorgan, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3@Desimat0r
If you look at something like the MouseEvent Java class you'll see that we have several type of mouse event including ButtonPressed, ButtonHeld, ButtonReleased. The way a click usually works is if a pressed and released signal are received on the icon without moving the mouse beyond a certain threshold then it registers. So if you only get a pressed signal it will not count as a click. - HerbertScrunge, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3"Both desktops have some cartoony icons. Oxygen will help remedy this on the KDE side. :)"
On both sides, really, as it adheres to the fd.o icon spec and so can be used in both :) - Desimat0r, on 10/11/2007, -1/+4What happens if you want to drag an icon somewhere, and these start getting in the way?
- jellygraph, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2nice, kde is looking slicker and slicker... even the fonts look very nice and smooth... can't wait for it to be released!
- davigno, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2I'm the mad guy who had this idea years ago. Blame me if you want but I still think if properly used this will be a killer option.
- bennettp, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2If you need more than four actions for a particular mimetype, the first four can be found on the icon by hovering over it; the rest can be found by right-clicking.
- slapthemonkey, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2This would be great.
- Soapdish, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2Plasma is not responsible for drawing the desktop, compositing, etc.
KWin is used for that, and they've implemented compositing WITH A PLUGIN INTERFACE! That essentially means that KWin can have all the functionality of Beryl/Compiz, and all the old functionality of KWin that's missing in Beryl/Compiz. It's also easier and safer for developers to create plugins, because there's a proper plugin API unlike Beryl/Compiz. - Theli, on 10/11/2007, -1/+2I don't see why they couldn't add a small yellow text box that pops up if you hover the mouse pointer over the play button for a couple of seconds that says "Play file". Think of it like the X in the upper right corner of any window. You don't really need a label available all the time saying "Close Window" as you soon learn what that button does. But you can still hover your mouse pointer over the button and see that label.
- ilgaz, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1Gmorgan making first end user usable Unix like OS is a great accomplishment. I don't think KDE team which has a great respect from all industry really coded millions of lines just to make you post bad sarcasm.
Mach and BSD Mixing is the trick. Also Mach on OS X is not really the famous Mach experiment, it is Mach with real life/real World fixes.
Also you will be using Apple Safari Webkit code since both Konqueror and (Webkit) Safari will merge somehow, especially on KDE 4.
KDE team doesn't deserve some "fans" for sure. - powatom, on 10/11/2007, -1/+2If this feature ever gets implemented, I think it will persuade me to move to KDE permenantly. As much as I like Gnome right now, I don't think this is something the Gnome devs would seriously consider - although we do already have hover-previews of sound files (still waiting for hover preview on videos!). KDE seems to be moving in the right direction (I don't use it right now because it doesn't seem to me to be any more 'usable' than Gnome, but adds a whole lot of bells and whistles which I have no real need for.), and this Plasma would probably get me to at least use KDE more than Gnome, even if I don't switch to KDE completely.
- shinigami2057, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1@Theli
Have you stopped to think that this is alpha software, and this is a very early implementation of the feature? Email the developers, ask them to implement it - they have plenty of time to do so. It seems that this idea is still very open-ended. - dutchkabuki, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1on youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CxGDFkp6iY -
Show 51 - 61 of 61 discussions
Digg is coming to a city (and computer) near you! Check out all the details on our 
© Digg Inc. 2009
— Content created and posted by Digg users is