Comments on Benjamin's Personal Blog: Nine things KDE should learn from OS X

There's also kde-open... I have that aliased to op...

2008-12-10T17:33:00.000-05:00

There's also kde-open... I have that aliased to open ;)

How do you know if the number of KDE users has imp...

2008-12-10T16:43:00.000-05:00

How do you know if the number of KDE users has improved?
Simple: just take a look at this post!
The article is from 2005, the first two comments are from 2007 and now that it showed up again in Planet KDE it got more than 20 comments in less than one day!

@kanttu:xdg-open works very similar since KDE/GNOM...

2008-12-10T16:31:00.000-05:00

@kanttu:
xdg-open works very similar since KDE/GNOME now uses its mimetypes database. I've even got an alias from 'open' to xdg-open just because of that, and it works quite well :D .

TextMate

2008-12-10T14:25:00.000-05:00

TextMate

Jack, this was posted on 2005...And many critics a...

2008-12-10T14:23:00.000-05:00

Jack, this was posted on 2005...

And many critics are still valid, sadly :(

On the other hand, many have been corrected/improved.

when I see the screenshots I said to myself I've s...

2008-12-10T12:56:00.000-05:00

when I see the screenshots I said to myself I've seen this somewhere in the past!
Ok it's three years back !

I'd agree with 99% of what you say here, and it ma...

2008-12-10T12:41:00.000-05:00

I'd agree with 99% of what you say here, and it makes me even happier to see the huge improvements we've seen in KDE 4.

Many of the problems you highlight are gone, and distributions like Kubuntu have become quite adept at making better default application settings where there is still a bit of a mess.

I really like the integration ideas, it seems like KDE4 is introducing lots of frameworks for programmes to link things together, and with Akonadi et al we may start seeing some more user level integration too!

Author-Do your research. You're using outdated te...

2008-12-10T12:25:00.000-05:00

Author-

Do your research. You're using outdated technology.

If you had researched KDE at all, you would know there have been great strides in KDE4 which has achieved many of the goals and fixed many of the problems you've pointed out.

Heck, you had an entire section on a unified document viewer. Okular has been touted as fixing this probelm since the creation of KDE4.

Your research and article is really really bad. I would be embarrassed to post something like this.

haha. good old 2005. this made my day ;)

2008-12-10T09:53:00.000-05:00

haha. good old 2005. this made my day ;)

About your first issue. You can mark one entry of ...

2008-12-10T09:50:00.000-05:00

About your first issue. You can mark one entry of in you addressbook as "Tht's me".

In every KDE application, this entry can be referenced by calling
KABC::StdAddressBook::self()->whoAmI()

Interesting view from the past. It would be extra ...

2008-12-10T09:20:00.000-05:00

Interesting view from the past. It would be extra interesting to examine the state of play now.

PS. Re: the first point, I think even kde3 (on fedora) knew my name. Whether it used it everywhere it could was just a matter of the fifth point, integration.

I think it's very interesting to see this post fro...

2008-12-10T09:15:00.001-05:00

I think it's very interesting to see this post from 2005 make a comeback like this :). Thanks to it we can see how things have changed in three years. And while many things ahve been fixed in KDE4, there are still things that remain more or less unchaged. Kaddressbook, I'm looking at you! And you can add Korganizer to the mix as well.

I was just thinking to write an article like this....

2008-12-10T09:15:00.000-05:00

I was just thinking to write an article like this.. lol?

I'm anti-apple / mac os x, but you still need to appreciate the good stuff from your enemies in order to be able to become better.

Even though Dolphin is great and so, I really love...

2008-12-10T09:13:00.000-05:00

Even though Dolphin is great and so, I really love to use command line for this and that.

One thing really I miss from Mac OS X is this terminal command called 'open'.

If you write 'open filename' in console, it opens the 'filename' obeying your file associations.

Like 'open image.jpg' would open a png file called 'image.jpg' in gwenview and 'open song.mp3' would open 'song.mp3' in amarok.

Of course this 'open' would fork this process, so you could continue using your terminal without closing this gwenview or amarok or whatever you have specified in your file associations setup.

Haha! 2005. That makes sense. Sorry.

2008-12-10T09:01:00.000-05:00

Haha! 2005. That makes sense. Sorry.

Your recommendations in this blog are 100% spot on...

2008-12-10T08:34:00.000-05:00

Your recommendations in this blog are 100% spot on. I have squawked about integration across programs for years. Having to keep multiple addressbooks with computers is absolutely crazy. If Mac can do it, why not KDE???

Not wanting to be a troll, I think KDE doesn't nee...

2008-12-10T08:32:00.000-05:00

Not wanting to be a troll, I think KDE doesn't need to go too far to borrow some of these design principles; that's how GNOME has been doing stuff for some time now.

Did anybody look at date, when it was published?An...

2008-12-10T08:13:00.000-05:00

Did anybody look at date, when it was published?

And most of it still suck in KDE4. ;)

Ay guyz, I'm from teh future.

2008-12-10T08:08:00.000-05:00

Ay guyz, I'm from teh future.

@xSacha:There should be an error with PlanetKDE. T...

2008-12-10T08:01:00.000-05:00

@xSacha:
There should be an error with PlanetKDE. This post is dated 2005!!

ONEThe desktop SHOULD prompt for your name in appl...

2008-12-10T07:48:00.000-05:00

ONE
The desktop SHOULD prompt for your name in applications. Chances are you want one different to your own name.

When I get a highscore in a game I don't want it to say 'John Smith got 500'. I want something like 'Mr. Awesome Dude got 500'.

Also, what happens when friends play? I often play a cool little game that comes with the OS and then a friend tries to beat my score. I don't want to have to create a user account for him, switch to that account just so he can compete with my high score. That's stupid and backwards.

The way it works in Windows and Linux is fine. The Mac way assumes no one else ever uses your computer -- which is not always true. Though perhaps there should be a toggle for this.
TWO
You used a screenshot from KDE3. KDE4 uses this method. I agree, this looks good. KDE4 does look like this too. However, tt is hard to force people to design like this.
THREE
That's a KDE3 screenshot again, very messy - yes.
Mac has a nice addressbook there but it is a little TOO bare and it is missing essential information.
When I open an application like AddressBook I want to be presented with information. It's good and all that it looks nice and can do most things in one click, but the window is too small and it tells me NO information. I mean, the default window tells you your own name and address? That's not very helpful.

A mix of both KDE4 and Mac's approach would be optimal.
FOUR
Dragging applications and dragging storage devices to the trash are PROBLEMS with macintosh, not features. These need to be fixed. They need to start putting eject buttons on their cd drives. It isn't logical. Right-click is actually faster, more convenient and it actually makes sense.

That being said, the features you mention are actually present in Windows and Linux. I notice a lot of people are surprised when they can drag and drop things - it's just that they never tried it before.

You can drag icons in to applications on Windows and it opens them. If you use third-party programs, it's up to the third-party developer to make use of the feature though. This is the same on all operating systems.

FIVE
This, of course, only works for bundled applications. Windows actually does this but its bundled applications suck so people use third-party apps. In doing this, they lose the integration. To a certain degree, the same thing happens in OSX.

Linux is much harder because there are just so many apps doing the same thing. Which one would you integrate? They all use different methods.

SIX
Cool, thanks for patch!

SEVEN
Please no.

EIGHT
There are a few projects on Linux and Windows that do this.
I don't think it matters though because when you are using PDFs you are generally not (never?) using Images at the same time. Also as the user isn't actually opening the application manually, it wouldn't matter which one opened.

Oh yeah, Okular does this and is part of KDE4 :). I don't think you realise but the other applications are KDE3 and yes, Okular has replaced them in KDE4.

NINE
You're talking about KDE3 again. Fixed in KDE4.

You should check out KDE4.2 :) It has really matured.

Good post. I think this is the right time to think...

2008-12-10T07:35:00.000-05:00

Good post. I think this is the right time to think about your topics, cause after kde 4.2 new innovativ features could be added.
I don't like apple so much cause of the non open philosophy but i'm interested in usability topics and i have to say, that apple makes a very good job at this point.
I agree with you that less default application are good for new users but open source is all about "use what you like and the free choice" and that should be considered.
Just my two cents.

bye

You mentioned that applets or setting gizmos shoul...

2007-11-06T18:40:00.000-05:00

You mentioned that applets or setting gizmos should be turned into web applications/applets.

The one problem with web apps is the interfaces suck. Every last one of them.

Why?

Because web interfaces are based on batch I/O, not interactive I/O. All we've done is taken the protected-region terminals of yesterdecade and fancied up the interface.

That said, I acknowledge that client-side is not going to mysteriously replace web-based interfaces. Sadly.

will your patch for kwin will go in kde4 ?having w...

2007-11-06T14:14:00.000-05:00

will your patch for kwin will go in kde4 ?

having windows grouped by application like the Mac does would be so sweet.