KDE developer suggests Plasma needs to be simpler by default

I trust KDE. They deliver a strong yet friendly DE. Having better default settings fixes the complexity problem while also allowing power users to customize whatever they want. This has been happening for some time now as I've been on KDE for a few years. They don't always get it right the first time but it's going in the right direction in the long run.


Last edited by devland on 30 November 2021 at 4:06 pm UTC

What this doesn't mean is Plasma is going to get "dumbed-down"

Are you talking to me?

Seriously, I was referring to SteamOS "custom KDE interface", from what I read, that might be dumbed-down (really look forward to see what Valve means by "custom KDE"). I don't expect stock KDE to be "dumbed-down", but sane defaults can't be a bad thing. I even proposed the idea of a "dumbed-down" fork of KDE, in the other thread:

https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2021/11/kde-developer-thinks-they-will-become-the-windows-or-android-of-the-foss-world/comment_id=214078


Last edited by Mohandevir on 30 November 2021 at 4:23 pm UTC

Maybe one day, in a perfect world, KDE would finally become stable enough to daily drive it. But I guess that's besides the point.

Maybe one day, in a perfect world, KDE would finally become stable enough to daily drive it. But I guess that's besides the point.

Running it daily for many, many years.
Don't know what you're talking about.

I don't know. I always find these kinds of (proposed) changes frustrating to say the least. All too often instead of better defaults and better UX, you get the often-increasing mentality of "less options and heavy-handed". Or as I like to call it, high-resolution whitespace.

OR, it can also mean burying options under many sub menus which is the opposite of better UX -- you trade some things being frustrating with everything being mildly frustrating when you do that.

Unfortunately both of these methods, with the first being the more popular of the two, are becoming increasingly popular -- especially among younger developers I've noticed. Better UX is always a good thing, but I remain skeptical as often times these kinds of moves can be... the opposite of that.

Maybe one day, in a perfect world, KDE would finally become stable enough to daily drive it. But I guess that's besides the point.

Running it daily for many, many years.
Don't know what you're talking about.

Although I too have used KDE for like five years now without looking back, it is far more unstable than other DEs. I have installed it on three different machines (Kubuntu), and I still get frequent crashes with Dolphin, the plasma dashboards or even sometimes software I didn't even know were running (like the Bluetooth applet which I since deactivated). I never had such issues with Mateo or LXDE.

I'm not complaining though, the overall experience is really good and KDE really suits my tastes ! But still, yes, I wouldn't call it "perfectly stable". Or is it my distro (Kubuntu) ?

The part of KDE's UI guidelines that I disagree with in practice (although not necessarily in principle) is that an option is only worth having if it's worth having on by default. Which means that the default experience is having everything turned up to 11 with every edge-case-useful thing enabled. And that goes against providing a sensible non-scary initial experience. So hopefully they'll reconsider that guideline in endeavouring to make things sane.


Last edited by CatKiller on 30 November 2021 at 4:50 pm UTC

I do agree that better defaults are needed, one of which that I think they should make it default to double-click on things; sure it's been single click for years with KDE, but I'm sure many users are changing this to double-click as they're accustom to more than the amount of users that prefer single-click because that's the way it is across many operating systems and desktop environments.

Sane defaults matter for sure, and having to change numerous things to make that experience feel identical to what's expected isn't a great start.

One of the reasons I like Plasma is that it has sane defaults, for me, but also provides the option to customize further for those who want to do those things.

I don't like to do a lot of customizing, and I like things simple, but I DON'T want what something like GNOME offers.

Maybe one day, in a perfect world, KDE would finally become stable enough to daily drive it. But I guess that's besides the point.

Exactly that.
Used it for last 5-6 months..while it was mostly stable and working fine, there were loads of small annoying issues and bugs and sometimes updates changed some settings or moved things around.

Switched back to MATE for now, but surely will be checking back to KDE in the future, cause i liked the overall experience minus the annoying issues.

I do agree that better defaults are needed, one of which that I think they should make it default to double-click on things; sure it's been single click for years with KDE, but I'm sure many users are changing this to double-click as they're accustom to more than the amount of users that prefer single-click because that's the way it is across many operating systems and desktop environments.

Sane defaults matter for sure, and having to change numerous things to make that experience feel identical to what's expected isn't a great start.

I totally agree on this one. I like to ocationally click on a file once when browsing a directory and with KDE i always end up opening the files when I don't want to. And to new users the option to turn single-click off is not always obvious.

Plasma does need to be simpler by default. However, I disagree that it doesn't need "dumbed down". It should and needs to be simplified and advanced options should have to be enabled by the user. Users who don't want to tweak and fiddle with their settings shouldn't even see those advanced options. I think saying that Elementary and Gnome are for "those users" is absolutely the wrong mindset if they want to be the mainstream option like Windows or Mac OS. They don't need to remove all those options, just hide them all until advanced settings are enabled and provide sane defaults and simple customization options (like Windows and Mac OS do).

Or as I like to call it, high-resolution whitespace.

:-D

One way that any software project can move to become simpler is to stop trying to be everything. I don't want my DE to have its own built in video player or backup snapshotter especially when I probably already have my own tools in place to handle those things.

The usual points apply. It should be simple but not simpler than that. Gnome didn't nail it. But I think KDE developers get the idea in general.

I like the VtM reference in the linked article :)


Last edited by Shmerl on 30 November 2021 at 6:09 pm UTC

In the past, I've been keeping away from KDE as I've had all kinds of issues with KDE/plasma, anything from stability issues to inconsistency and confusing options in systemsettings.

But for various technical reasons I'm currently stuck on KDE/plasma and have been running it for a little over a year. And I have to say it's really growing on me, fast and hard. I have come to really like it. It's been stable, performant and just working.

But the overwhelming amount of settings and customization options can be a bit much, even for a person who have been using linux since back in 2005. So I can absolutely understand new users being a bit “put off” or even intimidated by all options and what they actually do. So in my mind, it's a good thing that the devs are picking up on this and hopefully trying to address it.

So maybe work a little on the defaults and then and the rework the system settings so you have "basic options" always shown. And then have the ability to expand to more "advanced options" when/if needed.


Last edited by mrazster on 30 November 2021 at 6:19 pm UTC

Plan does not sound so bad. Throwing a cartload of options at your face at every corner is one of the weaknesses of KDE. Hopefully they look more in the direction of things like Cinnamon than Gnome for inspiration and we might get a good improvement in usability. Another weakness is the need to constantly click 'apply' with KDE - the trained confirmation clicks are what cause 'L(inus)TT incidents' + an option to remove that would make workflow so much faster.

So maybe work a little on the defaults and then and the rework the system settings so you have "basic options" always shown. And then have the ability to expand to more "advanced options" when/if needed.

That's a pattern that they're specifically wary of:

However the basic/advanced paradigm does not work for grouping and separating features, especially when explicitly using the terms "basic" and "advanced" in the user interface. The problem is that different users have different needs, and what one user considers advanced will be considered basic to another user. Also, even "basic" users may very occasionally have a need to use or configure "advanced" features. Users who doubt their technical prowess will fear entering the advanced view, while users of great ego will find the basic view insulting even if it meets their needs better than the advanced view.

KDE has already been dumbed down.
I was a huge KDE3 fan, but KDE4 replaced all the great and useful features with pointless eyecandy, bad performance and instability while being an unreasonable resource hog.
So for me it already lost all its appeal and I switched to to something better performing.

So maybe work a little on the defaults and then and the rework the system settings so you have "basic options" always shown. And then have the ability to expand to more "advanced options" when/if needed.

That's a pattern that they're specifically wary of:

Yeah. I'm not sure they're right about that though.
And I mean, the extra options don't have to be very hidden, it could be just you click on that fuzzy line at the bottom of any given little options page that says "more options", and it sinks down and reveals them. And if you are a serious options person, well, you can have an option to reveal them all by default.