PPD files

Posted Dec 13, 2005 19:48 UTC (Tue) by cventers (guest, #31465)
In reply to: PPD files by jdub
Parent article: GNOME v. KDE, December 2005 edition

Can I ask an honest question? How often do features in GNOME programs
that KDE counterparts include get excluded specifically because you guys
are worried they will get in people's way?

I'm not saying my MP3 player should make coffee, bit it would be awesome
if, for example, my File Open dialogs were a bit more powerful. What if I
want to sort by filetype? Or type a location (ok, start typing, but
nothing on the dialog indicates this. Perhaps a 'Type Location' button is
needed!)

We may be totally wrong about your motivations or intentions. As far as
Linus or I can really see, GNOME development is a big black box as much
as kernel development is to most users. But when the whole normal GNOME
user interface feels "reduced" from this File Open dialog, down through
the rest of your applications and dialogs, and we then hear shorthand and
regurgitation saying "we didn't implement it because it's too confusing
for users", what are we supposed to believe?

PPD files

Posted Dec 13, 2005 20:52 UTC (Tue) by Frej (guest, #4165) [Link] (3 responses)

If there is a feature missing, don't assume it is because of design decisions. GNOME is an incremental approach with releases every 6 months. Nothing is perfect.

PPD files

Posted Dec 13, 2005 21:10 UTC (Tue) by cventers (guest, #31465) [Link] (2 responses)

When were they going to get around to doing an incremental release on the
file dialogs then? Perhaps they really should leave printers alone if
they can't get this simple thing right!

Sorry, apologies for missing GNOME features aren't going to go anywhere
for me. No one is being forced or required to author GNOME - this much is
true. The same is true of KDE.

But if all these "missing features" that fill the delta between KDE and
GNOME are simply because no one has had time to implement them, how does
KDE have all of the following superior apps when GNOME has, by far, more
support from the enterprise distributions?

A) Our very own fast CSS3 HTML renderer and JS component
B) amaroK, one of the highest regarded OSS music players (so good that
Ubuntu, a Gnome distribution, broke its release plan just to include the
latest amaroK)
C) K3B for burning, excellent at what it does
D) Kontact, I think it's a lot better than Evolution but to avoid another
tangent we'll call it "on par"
E) Entire KOffice Suite (though it has a long ways to go)
F) Kaffeine, a simply superb media player
G) KPDF, one of the best open source PDF readers
H) Kate for advanced text editing
I) KDevelop for all your IDE needs
J) Quanta for HTML

Now, I've left off a few apps like Kopete. I think Kopete is very good
but I'll be honest - I'm still using GAIM for GAIM-encryption. But look
at the above list. "Web surfing, playing music, burning CDs, working on
documents, watching movies, reading documents, editing text, writing
software, writing websites"... that sounds like some pretty good coverage
when you consider that all items on those list are either "as good as" or
"far better" than their GNOME alternatives.

This is yet another reason I don't use GNOME. Because if I used GNOME, I
wouldn't stop using Konqueror, amaroK, K3b, Kontact, KPDF or Kate, and
that's a lot of K's not to be running on a K desktop.

PPD files

Posted Dec 13, 2005 22:49 UTC (Tue) by Frej (guest, #4165) [Link]

KDE has great apps. Great devs and a great toolkit :) Not arguing that you should change your desktop to gnome.

I agree that the file selector was included in a release to early. It was quite a hot topic on a mailing list.

But really, i don't think anyone has really _TRIED HARD_ to make a print dialog. GNOME lacks developers, as every software project does ;).

If something bothers you that much, try to fix it(patches, bugzilla, docs)? Just don't assume that your first idea for fixing the issue is the right to do it for everyone.

PPD files

Posted Dec 13, 2005 23:38 UTC (Tue) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

Also, compare KParts and what it lets you do with e.g. Konqueror pluggability with the steaming mostly-unused wreck that is Bonobo in GNOME. :/