LWN: Comments on "Seigo: activities as homonyms"

Seigo: activities as homonyms

Seegras — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 12:42:01 +0000

Widget? Like Athena Widgets?

No Desktop Clutter For Me

wstephenson — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 09:43:35 +0000

It's completely ok to only use 5% of KDE's total functionality - it's intended to be flexible like that.

But is Alt-Tab part of your workflow? If so, the stuff on the desktop could become useful to you. In the 'Task Switcher' config page in KDE 4.5, enable 'Include Desktop', then you can alt-tab to the desktop like any other app.

No Desktop Clutter For Me

halla — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 08:21:43 +0000

You're probably not the only one. In general, people who've been using unix or linux for a long time will work like you; but that's a group that doesn't grow anymore since the days people got introduced to computing through a workstation running twm and a bunch of xterms are gone.

No Desktop Clutter For Me

sfeam — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 03:19:36 +0000

That's my preference also. But I think they're still plasmoids even when docked into the taskbar, so you probably are using them.

No Desktop Clutter For Me

rsidd — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 03:19:22 +0000

There is a way to bring the desktop "in front" (ctrl-F12) but it never became part of my workflow. And I use xterms to do any kind of file management. I use the desktop environment for switching windows (I appreciate the expose-like feature, which was invented in OS X), controlling the volume (I like it that the volume control buttons on the laptop do what they're supposed to), and connecting to a WLAN of my choice. I also like inserted devices almost-automounting as in KDE: the USB icon tells me that a new device is available, and I can mount it, play it, or do nothing. If I mount it, I generally use the commandline to actually do anything with it... And I use the GUI to unmount it. Apart from that, I have a couple of quick-launcher icons, and that's all. I pretty much never use the KDE "start" menu, and rarely use alt-F12 to launch programs (I launch them from an xterm instead). So I use maybe 5% of what KDE offers, but I still like it.

No Desktop Clutter For Me

ldo — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 03:02:03 +0000

While Im a long-time KDE user, and did mess around a bit with plasmoids, I dont put anything on the desktop any more. Because you cant get at those things when theyre covered up by windows, and while I have 6-8 desktops, the purpose of those desktops is to put windows in them.

So everything I need to get at, I access from the launcher menu, some other part of the taskbar, or a Konsole terminal window (of which I typically have lots open).

I cant even be bothered with GUI file browsers like Dolphin.

Am I the only one like this?

Seigo: activities as homonyms

Duncan — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 01:07:00 +0000

Plasmoids are easy. In fact, Aaron and others prefer /not/ to use the term plasmoid when talking to ordinary users, but instead, prefer the term "widget", thus the "Add widgets" and Lock/Unlock Widgets choices in the plasma UI.

However, plasmoids is such a cute name, once it was out there, it kind of took on a life of its own, and most people once aware of the term and its meaning seem to use it. I know I do (but in the plasmoids/widgets construct, with an explanation that a plasmoid is simply a plasma widget, when I'm addressing the uninitiated).

AKA "kicker applet" for the folks who used kde3, tho there's more variety and flexibility with plasmoids, since they work on either the desktop or the panel. Which leads to the more generic simply "panel/desktop applet". Or more generically still, simply "applet", possibly adding, "for use in plasma".

Of course then one has to deal with "What is plasma?" But that's simple enough as well. Plasma is simply kde's combined desktop and panel UI. For kde3 users, it's the combination of kdesktop and kicker, with additional flexibility and modernized for kde4. For MS Windows users, it's comparable to the Explorer desktop shell. Or simply call it the desktop shell, or simply the desktop.

Within that context, "plasmoids" then become, pretty self-evidently, the little applets that run in plasma, the desktop shell.

That part's reasonably easy to explain, because there are existing parallel concepts in both MS and Unix GUIs (and Apple too, but I'm not familiar enough with them to attempt a named comparison) going back at least a decade and a half now, to MS Windows 95, with earlier versions going back much farther than that. But with the concept of virtual desktops we start losing a few people, because that hasn't been so common outside of X based GUIs, and advancing to kde4/plasma's concept of activities, we've lost pretty much everyone, because it's pretty much new ground now, without parallels in the existing computing environment to fall back on for descriptive aids.

Really, while I sort of understand the kde4 activity concept and am an avid kde user as I have been for nearly a decade now, I can't say that I use it much yet, One of the reasons I'm not using it much here is that I run a dual screen setup, 1920x1080 stacked for 1920x2160. That's both a problem for activities as currently implemented and gives me more screen real estate thus lessening the need for them. It's a problem because as originally implemented, an activity was confined to a single display, so two displays meant two activities displayed simultaneously and switching activities while keeping the displays synced was a big problem. That has been partially fixed for 4.5, which now at least once setup, considers the full current desktop over one or more displays a single activity, but there's still definite rough edges to how activities work on desktops spread over more than a single display, and with the pressure being less as well due to the same multiple displays, plus the fact that they don't really have the session stuff working properly yet, I've not really felt the need to use multiple activities.

Based on that and especially based on the early kde4 history where a *VERY* clearly still very broken alpha, not even beta, plasma, was released as "ready for ordinary users" (we're talking 4.2 and 4.3 here, where that claim was made), I must admit that I'm somewhat leery of how all this activity session management stuff is going to work -- or given past kde4/plasma history, NOT work but STILL be released as "ready for ordinary use" well before its time -- but I *DO* expect it to get there in the end, and become something others will ultimately be copying, as the technology matures.

Duncan

Seigo: activities as homonyms

mjthayer — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 20:14:10 +0000

> I don't mean this disparagingly, just in support of the idea that there's room for some good design work and metaphor-refresh here.

My thought though, is that the GNOME and KDE teams feel too much pressure to innovate -perhaps partly as a reaction to the old accusation that FLOSS can only copy and not produce new ideas. I would personally prefer to see them doing existing things well (what was that Cray quote about never being the first to do something?) than innovating at any price, but of course I recognise that other people may feel differently.

Seigo: activities as homonyms

mattdm — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 18:00:32 +0000

In my experience, many "ordinary" users have only a very loose concept of what an icon or window actually are, and are very hazy on the distinction between an icon and a button. (Actually, I'm hazy on that in many user interfaces.)

I don't mean this disparagingly, just in support of the idea that there's room for some good design work and metaphor-refresh here.

Seigo: activities as homonyms

mattdm — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 17:56:39 +0000

You owe me a new keyboard.

Seigo: activities as homonyms

pboddie — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 17:07:26 +0000

Thank you Aaron, I wish more people could describe all the flashy new desktop metaphors in such clear terms.

Next up, Aaron describes "plasmoids"...

Seigo: activities as homonyms

marduk — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 16:12:02 +0000

The truth is, a lot of "ordinary" users (in my experience) know only "windows", "icons", and "buttons". I doubt that introducing cool new terms like "activities" is going to help much.

Seigo: activities as homonyms

rahulsundaram — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 15:51:06 +0000

"Aaron Seigo says: "In GNOME Shell an "activity" is a virtual desktop". Thank you Aaron, I wish more people could describe all the flashy new desktop metaphors in such clear terms."

GNOME Shell developers disagree on equating virtual desktop and activities it seems.

https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=632044#c4

Seigo: activities as homonyms

mjthayer — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 15:45:17 +0000

Aaron Seigo says: "In GNOME Shell an "activity" is a virtual desktop". Thank you Aaron, I wish more people could describe all the flashy new desktop metaphors in such clear terms. Making things understandable for non-geeks would be good, but when they cease to be understandable for everyone in the process who is helped?

In the same vein, reading that blog entry makes me wonder whether KDE's "activities" could be described as "X11 session management with an easy way to create and switch between sessions"?

Seigo: activities as homonyms

skvidal — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 15:07:22 +0000

Alex,
Many points for the good pun, here.

well done.

Seigo: activities as homonyms

AlexHudson — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 14:57:32 +0000

Looks like a pretty weak ad-homonym argument to me.