Description: SimpleKDE aims to be a lightweight, clean, and user-friendly fork of the KDE desktop environment. KDE is often criticized as being too bloated, and SimpleKDE is meant to be a response to this.
Goals: * Providing a less bloated, less featured but more usable fork of KDE * Providing an easier Control Center * Making speed improvements by dropping unnecessary features * Optimizing KDE for higher performance * Being more responsive to patches/improvements coming from the KDE community (kde-look.org) * Sharing our improvements with KDE communityLast changelog:
The initial release is for preview purposes. It has some known bugs and it does not contain all the purposed features. Current changes over KDE 3.4.1:
* Confusing system messages have been removed in all parts of the desktop environment. Forexample, the term "Administrator" is used instead of "root". * Multiple Desktops feature has been dropped. (code trimmed) * Simplifications in the whole UI (user interface) * Clock applet has been redesigned with simplicity in mind * Konqueror toolbars have been redesigned with simplicity in mind. * Some standart sidebar modules and panel applets have been removed for smaller package size and higher performance * Some KDE dialogs have been modified with simplicity in mind * Changes in KControl modules in favour of consistency, simplicity and ease of use.
Its a fairly common (even sophomoric) mistake to conclude that "improving usability and performance" is done by dropping features. It is a false dichotomy. This is the open source world and you are welcome to do as you like, but your efforts will not, unfortunately, help make KDE a better desktop.
Bobby
I think this is really good actually. The bloated KDE user inteface really needs to be cleaned up. I hope at least parts of this is merged for kde 3.5.
I agree KDE needs some rethinking of the user interface. Some progress is already made. Compare KDE 3.1 vs 3.4 and you'll notice differences. Some bloat has been reduced, menu's gotten shorter, control panels got better. KMail has seen nice improvements with the help of openusability.org
But this progress is not made by undoing what others build with sweat and tears. Perhaps an implementation was bad, but should we erase the entire idea for that alone?
KDE can move on by organizing widgets nicer, finding better layouts. Moving stuff to the place it should be. In your limited design people well eventually have needs for more features. Where will those be put? IMHO, it's a dead end.
I agree with the ideals of the project: a desktop environment should not overwhelm users with options, should be consistent, and work like the user expects it to. That does not that it shouldn't have any features. Just that the configuration of said features needs to be intuitive. That's one thing I have found annoying about the gnome environment. While they did some good things on overall desktop UI, their interface guidelines tend to produce applications which have few options, like the many, many itunes clones that never do make it to the ease of use of itunes, or epiphany which isn't as configurable or any more easy to use than mozilla firefox (although it's getting better). If you continue with this project, I hope you consider redisigning dialog boxes instead of removing functional code.
"Being more responsive to patches/improvements coming from the KDE community"
Um, what about styleclock, superkaramba, kompmgr and I believe akregator as well all came from kde-apps. Given how easy it is to get KDE SVN access, its hard to make the agrument that KDE could be more responive IMO.
I do agree that like Konqueror especially has way to many options. There needs to be a clear method of gaining agreement to remove options (like, why do I care what font settings are used for various time periods in my History view).
Gees! Do anything and somebody will complain about it. I just can't believe that so many people are so ready to criticize open source developers. Try to give something back to the community, and they heckle you for it.
I wholeheartedly concur that KDE is bloated. I'm really more of a Blackbox sort of person, but there are times I'd love to have desktop drag and drop capability built right into my window manager without resorting to KDE or Gnome.
So what if he writes that he's going to change root to Administrator. You have to start somewhere, and let's not forget that the primary sponsor of this site is Linspire, a company devoted to bringing Linux to the masses. The masses might understand the term Administrator a little better than root.
I've said this so many times, and I'm only copying others that have said it, but if you don't feel you need to use a certain product... don't. Don't sit there and criticize something because it is underneath your esteemed intellectual capacities. Not everything is created for experts.
BTW: I like the improved clock. I've always wondered why KDE chose to use an LCD-type clock, when it's going to be shown on a high-res graphic display.
I like what I see in the screenshots so far. I look forward to trying something out in the near future.
this is funny ... especially this one:
'* Confusing system messages have been removed in all parts of the desktop environment. Forexample, the term "Administrator" is used instead of "root".'
it's not a term ... it's a user ... duh *G* I would be quite confused if I couldn't 'su Administrator'
Yes... some of these are a bit strange.
At the same time, I agree about simplifying the "Control Centre"... I mean it's a nightmare. I understand though that work is now underway to make it more user friendly.
Half of the time I find myself wading through the myriad of settings to try and find some obscure mouse click setting, or settings re: file preview can be found in two different panels. Or the fact that some control panels run out of screen space on a 1024x768 laptop screen... most annoying.
People here hate comparisons, but Apple system settings are far more user friendly and if KDE is to succeed, it needs to have an intuitive control GUI.
I would bet my salary that the GUI for the control center has very little influence on how successful KDE will be in the future. Not that it shouldn't be improved. Not at all, I'd love to see it improved. But there are things that are far more important to improve first. Off the top of my head, the simplicity/usability/some-other-fashionable-buzzword of Kicker, the Desktop and Konqi are what I'd say will dictate KDE's success in the future. This project could produce some nice innovations that will benefit KDE. But while their feature list includes subjective changes like "replace the word 'root' with 'administrator'", I'm not holding any hopes.
Why is it a nightmare ? It's heavenly .... especially *because* I have a laptop with max 1024x768 I am *happy* I have all those controls so I can configure KDE to waste as little space as possible ...
And except for those few duplicate configuration options, and a few mislabeled one, I find it quite intuitive ...
Of course there could be something like a 'Leave me alone, I just spent 2 hrs figuring out I have to push this button so all this colorful stuff gets displayed on this TV' checkbox ...
but some ppl actually like KDE *because* of it's numerous, very useful features ... and some of them, including me, would be a *bit* angry if those were taken away from them ...
If somebody want's a desktop with no features ... give him Gnome ... and if he wants it fast also ... give him XFCE ...
and oh yes ...
no features!=usable ...
..... are there really people here who are taking this guy serious?
This idea is the most stupid thing I've ever seen on this site.. and I've seen a lot of stupid ideas. It's just so unrealistic that I can only laugh about it.
Stop smoking crack.
If you only want certain things in your KDE Installation, check out Gentoo. Gentoo has split all the KDE packages into single applications. So if you only wanted noatun, then instead of installing the entire "KDE Multimedia" packages, just install "noatun" and ditch the rest of KDE Multimedia that is not needed...
This explanation by no means does justice to what Gentoo has done for installing KDE, go to http://forums.gentoo.org and to http://packages.gentoo.org
and look for the "KDE Split Ebuilds"
Now, this doesn't dumb down the configuration windows & what not, but does allow users to only install what they want...that is after all what Gentoo is all about...
and it is not against KDE but for good for KDE in general.
I guess he is making simpleKDE by removing extra code from KDE's huge packages and making it small and simple.
I really like your approach.
Simple KDE menu should have ONLY
1. ONE Media Player
2. ONNE Audio Player
3. ONE Image Viewer
4. ONE Terminal application
5. ONE Text editor
no more redundant software which does nothing but keep KDE look ugly and bloated and big (package size).
I really feel bad for KDE to have too many partially-usable applications. like kaboodle, noatun, kplayer, kaffeine. they are just partial not complete.
I want a media player which can play audio, video, streaming, embedded media flawlessly, a Good MPlayer frontend would be good. But there are none. Perhaps KDE 4 will solve this mess of unnecessary applications.
Kde needs to conform to the user. You should be able to select as an option whether you want multiple desktops, verbose clock etc. Then remove orphan code if you wish to make mod permanent or apt-get install option if you change your mind.
I've sent a comment last night, when I come here now to see how the thread was coming I see my message (and the firt one posted) is not there any more.
So what? Are you deleting the messages you don't like? (Mine was not by any meand offensive, just telling what my thoughts).
By the way, I've just put my vote in (a negative one in light of this) and the aprovation percentage has been increased from 44% to 45%... how's that?
i like the idea, but please try to cooperate with the KDE guys as much as possible... they are 'trimming the fat' of KDE for the 4.x release anyway, why not join them? its quite useless to trim fork now, and having all the work of porting to QT4. join them, help the porting, trim as much as you can/as they let you, and when KDE 4 comes out, come with a light version... and try to share as much improvements as you can, it benefits both in the long term!
i don't like the smell of this project. you have plenty of other lightweight window managers, so i think this is a waste of time. make something usefull instead.
pager is one of the best things linux has, so removing it is a very stupid thing.
Not to mention the 'administrator' stupidity. administrators are for windows, and windows are for losers...
having the ability to configure everything you see and wish is IMO one of the main reasons why kde is so popular. Not being able the change almost anything is the worst thing that can happen. smells like windows...
* Multiple Desktops feature has been dropped. (code trimmed) so... WHAT ?!?!?!? If you want to make it lightweight, please drop support for multi-background-images, or drop support for svg-background-images, but why dropping support for multi-desktops?
once again people think that reducing number of features will increase usability. no, no and once again no! These things a NOT correlated. What KDE does need though is a proper HIG definition, which all programs would follow.
Ratings & Comments
27 Comments
Its a fairly common (even sophomoric) mistake to conclude that "improving usability and performance" is done by dropping features. It is a false dichotomy. This is the open source world and you are welcome to do as you like, but your efforts will not, unfortunately, help make KDE a better desktop. Bobby
make complains about anything related to automake blabla...kde 3.4.1 compiles cleanly, 3.4.1, too...so what is the problem ?
I think this is really good actually. The bloated KDE user inteface really needs to be cleaned up. I hope at least parts of this is merged for kde 3.5.
I agree KDE needs some rethinking of the user interface. Some progress is already made. Compare KDE 3.1 vs 3.4 and you'll notice differences. Some bloat has been reduced, menu's gotten shorter, control panels got better. KMail has seen nice improvements with the help of openusability.org But this progress is not made by undoing what others build with sweat and tears. Perhaps an implementation was bad, but should we erase the entire idea for that alone? KDE can move on by organizing widgets nicer, finding better layouts. Moving stuff to the place it should be. In your limited design people well eventually have needs for more features. Where will those be put? IMHO, it's a dead end.
I agree with the ideals of the project: a desktop environment should not overwhelm users with options, should be consistent, and work like the user expects it to. That does not that it shouldn't have any features. Just that the configuration of said features needs to be intuitive. That's one thing I have found annoying about the gnome environment. While they did some good things on overall desktop UI, their interface guidelines tend to produce applications which have few options, like the many, many itunes clones that never do make it to the ease of use of itunes, or epiphany which isn't as configurable or any more easy to use than mozilla firefox (although it's getting better). If you continue with this project, I hope you consider redisigning dialog boxes instead of removing functional code.
"Being more responsive to patches/improvements coming from the KDE community" Um, what about styleclock, superkaramba, kompmgr and I believe akregator as well all came from kde-apps. Given how easy it is to get KDE SVN access, its hard to make the agrument that KDE could be more responive IMO. I do agree that like Konqueror especially has way to many options. There needs to be a clear method of gaining agreement to remove options (like, why do I care what font settings are used for various time periods in my History view).
Gees! Do anything and somebody will complain about it. I just can't believe that so many people are so ready to criticize open source developers. Try to give something back to the community, and they heckle you for it. I wholeheartedly concur that KDE is bloated. I'm really more of a Blackbox sort of person, but there are times I'd love to have desktop drag and drop capability built right into my window manager without resorting to KDE or Gnome. So what if he writes that he's going to change root to Administrator. You have to start somewhere, and let's not forget that the primary sponsor of this site is Linspire, a company devoted to bringing Linux to the masses. The masses might understand the term Administrator a little better than root. I've said this so many times, and I'm only copying others that have said it, but if you don't feel you need to use a certain product... don't. Don't sit there and criticize something because it is underneath your esteemed intellectual capacities. Not everything is created for experts. BTW: I like the improved clock. I've always wondered why KDE chose to use an LCD-type clock, when it's going to be shown on a high-res graphic display. I like what I see in the screenshots so far. I look forward to trying something out in the near future.
this is funny ... especially this one: '* Confusing system messages have been removed in all parts of the desktop environment. Forexample, the term "Administrator" is used instead of "root".' it's not a term ... it's a user ... duh *G* I would be quite confused if I couldn't 'su Administrator'
Yes... some of these are a bit strange. At the same time, I agree about simplifying the "Control Centre"... I mean it's a nightmare. I understand though that work is now underway to make it more user friendly. Half of the time I find myself wading through the myriad of settings to try and find some obscure mouse click setting, or settings re: file preview can be found in two different panels. Or the fact that some control panels run out of screen space on a 1024x768 laptop screen... most annoying. People here hate comparisons, but Apple system settings are far more user friendly and if KDE is to succeed, it needs to have an intuitive control GUI.
I would bet my salary that the GUI for the control center has very little influence on how successful KDE will be in the future. Not that it shouldn't be improved. Not at all, I'd love to see it improved. But there are things that are far more important to improve first. Off the top of my head, the simplicity/usability/some-other-fashionable-buzzword of Kicker, the Desktop and Konqi are what I'd say will dictate KDE's success in the future. This project could produce some nice innovations that will benefit KDE. But while their feature list includes subjective changes like "replace the word 'root' with 'administrator'", I'm not holding any hopes.
Why is it a nightmare ? It's heavenly .... especially *because* I have a laptop with max 1024x768 I am *happy* I have all those controls so I can configure KDE to waste as little space as possible ... And except for those few duplicate configuration options, and a few mislabeled one, I find it quite intuitive ... Of course there could be something like a 'Leave me alone, I just spent 2 hrs figuring out I have to push this button so all this colorful stuff gets displayed on this TV' checkbox ... but some ppl actually like KDE *because* of it's numerous, very useful features ... and some of them, including me, would be a *bit* angry if those were taken away from them ... If somebody want's a desktop with no features ... give him Gnome ... and if he wants it fast also ... give him XFCE ... and oh yes ... no features!=usable ...
..... are there really people here who are taking this guy serious? This idea is the most stupid thing I've ever seen on this site.. and I've seen a lot of stupid ideas. It's just so unrealistic that I can only laugh about it. Stop smoking crack.
If you only want certain things in your KDE Installation, check out Gentoo. Gentoo has split all the KDE packages into single applications. So if you only wanted noatun, then instead of installing the entire "KDE Multimedia" packages, just install "noatun" and ditch the rest of KDE Multimedia that is not needed... This explanation by no means does justice to what Gentoo has done for installing KDE, go to http://forums.gentoo.org and to http://packages.gentoo.org and look for the "KDE Split Ebuilds" Now, this doesn't dumb down the configuration windows & what not, but does allow users to only install what they want...that is after all what Gentoo is all about...
and it is not against KDE but for good for KDE in general. I guess he is making simpleKDE by removing extra code from KDE's huge packages and making it small and simple. I really like your approach. Simple KDE menu should have ONLY 1. ONE Media Player 2. ONNE Audio Player 3. ONE Image Viewer 4. ONE Terminal application 5. ONE Text editor no more redundant software which does nothing but keep KDE look ugly and bloated and big (package size). I really feel bad for KDE to have too many partially-usable applications. like kaboodle, noatun, kplayer, kaffeine. they are just partial not complete. I want a media player which can play audio, video, streaming, embedded media flawlessly, a Good MPlayer frontend would be good. But there are none. Perhaps KDE 4 will solve this mess of unnecessary applications.
There are two mplayer front-ends, kplayer and kmplayer.
KPlayer and Kaffeine aren't part of KDE, dumbo.
Kde needs to conform to the user. You should be able to select as an option whether you want multiple desktops, verbose clock etc. Then remove orphan code if you wish to make mod permanent or apt-get install option if you change your mind.
I've sent a comment last night, when I come here now to see how the thread was coming I see my message (and the firt one posted) is not there any more. So what? Are you deleting the messages you don't like? (Mine was not by any meand offensive, just telling what my thoughts). By the way, I've just put my vote in (a negative one in light of this) and the aprovation percentage has been increased from 44% to 45%... how's that?
Well, sorry, I think the dissapeared mesages are a problem of the site, because they now have reappeared. So I retire what I said about this.
The dialog on the first screen is a joke right?
i like the idea, but please try to cooperate with the KDE guys as much as possible... they are 'trimming the fat' of KDE for the 4.x release anyway, why not join them? its quite useless to trim fork now, and having all the work of porting to QT4. join them, help the porting, trim as much as you can/as they let you, and when KDE 4 comes out, come with a light version... and try to share as much improvements as you can, it benefits both in the long term!
i don't like the smell of this project. you have plenty of other lightweight window managers, so i think this is a waste of time. make something usefull instead. pager is one of the best things linux has, so removing it is a very stupid thing. Not to mention the 'administrator' stupidity. administrators are for windows, and windows are for losers... having the ability to configure everything you see and wish is IMO one of the main reasons why kde is so popular. Not being able the change almost anything is the worst thing that can happen. smells like windows...
* Multiple Desktops feature has been dropped. (code trimmed) so... WHAT ?!?!?!? If you want to make it lightweight, please drop support for multi-background-images, or drop support for svg-background-images, but why dropping support for multi-desktops?
Wow. You don't need to fork. You need to get this into the next version of KDE. :(
once again people think that reducing number of features will increase usability. no, no and once again no! These things a NOT correlated. What KDE does need though is a proper HIG definition, which all programs would follow.