> While back I had offered the group a 4 or 5 year study  (can't remember
> how
> many years now) of users and their impressions, suggestions, complaint and
> so
> on regarding KDE and Ark Linux (most KDE since it was how they interfaced)
> but no one seemed interested.
>
> Because of this I've remained silent watching the emails go by. However,
> I'm
> going to offer some of that now.
>

Much appreciated.

<snip>
> Beware of excessive customization, they rarely go over well. 90% of the
> time,
> the users found a basic initial setup a good ground point to customize
> their
> DE.

You are correct.  However in this case, the only changes made were to
replace KDE references with TDE ones; this is required as Trinity is a
fork of KDE, and I don't know how much longer KDE e.V. (which holds the
trademarks for the affected images) is going to put up with this project
using their symbols.  Visually the changes are very minor.

>
>>
>> > 2. I always found the KDE-Classic Icon Theme somewhat unpleasant. The
>> Crystal SVG icon set is popular and cleaner.
>>
>> Agree; it looks like the default is already set to crystalsvg in the
>> code
>> though?
> A variety of icon sets should be made available, crystal is indeed one of
> the
> most popular, as were (in my studies) sparkle, Alien Aqua
> Baghira was also a very popular theme.

Are those icon sets fully GPL compatible?  If so, can you send over links
to them for possible inclusion?

<snip>
>> > 6. Change the default desktop icon text to non-shadowed, white.
>
>> Not sure on this one; the non-shadowed icons blend in to certain desktop
>> wallpapers and this may confuse users over time.  Any thoughts from
>> other
>> list members?
> None shadowing, helps in most cases, once again, especially with the
> visually
> impaired. A semi bright blue will show up on dark and light backgrounds.

I would; I'm just getting nervous about the amount of UI changes being
made in this release.  Maybe for 3.5.13?

>
>> > 7. Get rid of the bouncing mouse cursor. :) Yeah, I mentioned that
>> already. I'm making a not-so-subtle point. The thing is obnoxious.
>> Stupid,
>> > Dumb. Irritating. Annoying. Childish. Unprofessional. I greatly
>> appreciate > > any distro I test where the devs have changed the default
> mouse pointer  to Non Busy. And quite a few devs have done that too.
>>
>> Fully agree; I thought I already got rid of it though?
>
> The bouncy cursor is very popular, but was off by default on pure kde
> distros.

It's still available, just turned off by default.

>
>> > 8. None of the desktop device icons are enabled. You went through the
>> effort to create many new useful icons, so why not add them and set
>> enable
>> > Device Icons as the default?
>>
>> Agree; changed.
> Define Icon sets enabled?

The default is now for six new system icons to show up on the desktop,
much like MS Windows.  These icons can be turned off by the user in the
desktop configuration dialog if desired.

>
>> > 9. I don't understand the fetish and dumbing down with the default
>> view
>> in  Konqueror with icons. Set the default view to Tree View, and Show
>> Hidden
>> Files. Treat users like adults and not kids. :)
>
> I completely agree here as do the results of my studies. 100% of the
> average
> 80 people switched to treeview (but didn't show hidden files). This
> dumbing
> down, for example "folders" instead of directory, is killing the chances
> of
> creating an educated KDE user.

I'll have to think about it some more.  I have users at an educational
institution that are completely confused when presented with the tree
view; I wonder if this default should be set by each distribution based on
its intended audience.  E.g. Ubuntu users won't like the tree view, but
maybe Slackware users would?

<snip>
>> > 13. So you added the option to use a Kickoff style K-Menu. Nice
>>> programming touch. Really! You'll never see me use the Kickoff though.
>> I'm just too old to change some habits. :)
>
> None of my users like kickoff, they preferred a the straight to the point
> kmenu. They do like personalized menus, its basically a dir contained in
> a "system" dir in user's home. the dir contains deskop files of the fave
> apps. Which is then used as a quick browser on kicker. Its a great short
> cut
> to all the most used apps. I can create a video for anyone who is
> interested.
> The most used "mini menu" is the penguin menu (so called because use a
> crystal
> tux for the icon, everyone loves it). You drag and drop your fave apps in
> there and then click, there it is. As I said, I can provide videos to
> anyone
> who wants to see it in action.

I personally hate Kickoff myself, but it was a very popular feature
request for Trinity.  The K Menu will *always* be the default for the
Trinity project.

>
>> > 14. Place the Exit/Lockout applet buttons on the default kicker. Many
>> people use the buttons and they provide a familiar method to exit for
>> new
>> users.
> yes and no. I have found that, if people use a top bar, they like it, but
> putting it on the bottom kicker makes it "too busy". Most of my users, use
> ctrl, alt del, to bring it up or just right click on the desktop itself
> (most
> common way they use).

Good point; I started to notice this myself when dogfooding the recent
changes.  This change has been reverted, but I have left a single #define
statement in kdebase/kicker/kicker/core/containerarea.cpp to control this
feature, should a distribution wish to reactivate it.

>
> I hope this is of some use and for what its worth.
>

Thanks again; hard data always helps!

Tim