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Personally I think KDE is light years ahead of macOS and Windows. In fact I find macOS to have been be of the worst window managers of all the popular platform

Personally I think KDE is light years ahead of macOS and Windows. In fact I find macOS to have been be of the worst window managers of all the popular platforms (sure it’s pretty and easy to use, but trying to do anything beyond the basics requires magical incantations that are impossible to discover organically). Each to their own though.

rubymamis 3y ago
Well, I'm a Qt programmer (and love it!), so I know a bit about this ecosystem. Unfortunately in terms of UX and aesthetics, KDE apps don't come even close to the macOS ecosystem. But that's alright. I'm here to change that.
- lovelyviking 3y ago
  Can you share some of this ‘love’ to me? Because my experience with QT so far was : it does ‘who knows what’, ‘who knows when’ and ‘who knows why’ And if you wish it to work the best tactic is “do not change anything, it will surprise you and there will be no way to go back” :) May be I am missing something important in understanding? I was trying to tweak some projects for my needs. I successfully did it but it was a nightmare.
  - rubymamis 3y ago
    If you learn how to separate your logic in C++ and your views (GUI) in QML you can achieve the best of both worlds. C++ is fast and I love programming with it. QML is easy and powerful you can create slick looking apps with it with beautiful (and easy!) animations. I bought the Udemy course of Bryan[1] and learned QML in one day. The next day I already had a prototype for a Kanban[2] that is based on Markdown. [1] https://www.udemy.com/course/qml-for-beginners/ https://www.udemy.com/course/qml-for-beginners/ [2] https://rubymamistvalove.com/notes/kanban.mp4 https://rubymamistvalove.com/notes/kanban.mp4
    - tfinch 3y ago
      That second link is the the sort of thing I wish I saw more being pushed as an example of QT. Looks great!
      - rubymamis 3y ago
        Thanks! I know, it's totally possible to create beautiful apps using Qt. The problems are: 1. Most people in OSS don't care about UX and aesthetics (most of the people using Qt) 2. The Qt Company's examples are absolutely ugly (with the exception of one). If that's what you show developers they would either not believe it's possible to create beautiful apps with it or that it's too hard.
lovelyviking 3y ago
Can you elaborate more? What features you are talking about? I can criticise Mac OS endlessly and was even actively downvoted here when reported facts of my personal experience with bugs on newly purchased M1 (you can dig the history if you wish). I was shocked how quality degraded in my opinion. People here were even claiming that it’s my specific faulty machine was to blame. This ‘faulty’ machine by the way works to this very day without any hardware problems except flickering of the monitor which is idiotic in my opinion design decision (to use PWM). So as you can see I am very critical of macOS and consider using Windows after macOS like completely unbearable. And yet your comment have puzzled me. When I was learning macOS after years with Windows I remember that certain things were like you say “impossible to discover”. Yet with all that being said I find other GUI implementations in GNU/Linux not any better. Perhaps I’ve missed something in KDE? What did I miss? What “doing anything beyond basic” means in your usage? What kind of tasks/workflows are those ? How KDE better in those?
askonomm 3y ago
KDE _functions_ well, but my god does it need someone with an actual design education to help out.
- hnlmorg 3y ago
  People with actual design education created macOS and Windows 11. Both of which strip back features in the name of design purity. I see KDE more like a professional piece of equipment. And when viewed through that lens, I think it’s designed rather well.
  - askonomm 3y ago
    To be fair, the upcoming KDE release cleans up a lot of my UI annoyances (like having frames within frames), so it is definitely getting better.
  - sph 3y ago
    It is very naive to believe that professional equipment do not benefit from well-thought design and UX. Design does not have to be fancy colours and flashy animations. Design does not mean Fisher-Price UI and massive amounts of whitespace. Ask Dieter Rams.
    - hnlmorg 3y ago
      > It is very naive to believe that professional equipment do not benefit from well-thought design and UX. I know. I never claimed otherwise. > Design does not have to be fancy colours and flashy animations. Design does not mean Fisher-Price UI and massive amounts of whitespace. Ask Dieter Rams I never said it did. You’ve completely misinterpreted my comment. My point was that commercial operating systems have design specialists and the end result is they suck for a great many professionals. Whereas KDE, despite “not having a design specialist” (I don’t actually know if that’s true, just quoting the GP) feels like it has the same well thought out design that specialist technical hardware does. I’ve worked closely with designers (because I have zero design skills myself) and seen first hand how an arguably less beautiful design can actually be more intuitive for users So at no point am I claiming that design is just about fancy graphics. If anything, I’m making the same point you were.
kcb 3y ago
KDE is the definition of all UI and no UX. Like there's no one actually planning out how a user would/should actually use the thing. That's why I generally prefer Gnome despite it's faults. Even if I don't agree with every decision and lack of customization at least it feels like there's some vision on how it should be used.

rubymamis 3y ago

Well, I'm a Qt programmer (and love it!), so I know a bit about this ecosystem. Unfortunately in terms of UX and aesthetics, KDE apps don't come even close to the macOS ecosystem. But that's alright. I'm here to change that.

lovelyviking 3y ago
Can you share some of this ‘love’ to me? Because my experience with QT so far was : it does ‘who knows what’, ‘who knows when’ and ‘who knows why’ And if you wish it to work the best tactic is “do not change anything, it will surprise you and there will be no way to go back” :) May be I am missing something important in understanding? I was trying to tweak some projects for my needs. I successfully did it but it was a nightmare.
- rubymamis 3y ago
  If you learn how to separate your logic in C++ and your views (GUI) in QML you can achieve the best of both worlds. C++ is fast and I love programming with it. QML is easy and powerful you can create slick looking apps with it with beautiful (and easy!) animations. I bought the Udemy course of Bryan[1] and learned QML in one day. The next day I already had a prototype for a Kanban[2] that is based on Markdown. [1] https://www.udemy.com/course/qml-for-beginners/ https://www.udemy.com/course/qml-for-beginners/ [2] https://rubymamistvalove.com/notes/kanban.mp4 https://rubymamistvalove.com/notes/kanban.mp4
  - tfinch 3y ago
    That second link is the the sort of thing I wish I saw more being pushed as an example of QT. Looks great!
    - rubymamis 3y ago
      Thanks! I know, it's totally possible to create beautiful apps using Qt. The problems are: 1. Most people in OSS don't care about UX and aesthetics (most of the people using Qt) 2. The Qt Company's examples are absolutely ugly (with the exception of one). If that's what you show developers they would either not believe it's possible to create beautiful apps with it or that it's too hard.

lovelyviking 3y ago

Can you elaborate more? What features you are talking about? I can criticise Mac OS endlessly and was even actively downvoted here when reported facts of my personal experience with bugs on newly purchased M1 (you can dig the history if you wish). I was shocked how quality degraded in my opinion. People here were even claiming that it’s my specific faulty machine was to blame. This ‘faulty’ machine by the way works to this very day without any hardware problems except flickering of the monitor which is idiotic in my opinion design decision (to use PWM). So as you can see I am very critical of macOS and consider using Windows after macOS like completely unbearable. And yet your comment have puzzled me. When I was learning macOS after years with Windows I remember that certain things were like you say “impossible to discover”. Yet with all that being said I find other GUI implementations in GNU/Linux not any better. Perhaps I’ve missed something in KDE? What did I miss? What “doing anything beyond basic” means in your usage? What kind of tasks/workflows are those ? How KDE better in those?

askonomm 3y ago

KDE _functions_ well, but my god does it need someone with an actual design education to help out.

hnlmorg 3y ago
People with actual design education created macOS and Windows 11. Both of which strip back features in the name of design purity. I see KDE more like a professional piece of equipment. And when viewed through that lens, I think it’s designed rather well.
- askonomm 3y ago
  To be fair, the upcoming KDE release cleans up a lot of my UI annoyances (like having frames within frames), so it is definitely getting better.
- sph 3y ago
  It is very naive to believe that professional equipment do not benefit from well-thought design and UX. Design does not have to be fancy colours and flashy animations. Design does not mean Fisher-Price UI and massive amounts of whitespace. Ask Dieter Rams.
  - hnlmorg 3y ago
    > It is very naive to believe that professional equipment do not benefit from well-thought design and UX. I know. I never claimed otherwise. > Design does not have to be fancy colours and flashy animations. Design does not mean Fisher-Price UI and massive amounts of whitespace. Ask Dieter Rams I never said it did. You’ve completely misinterpreted my comment. My point was that commercial operating systems have design specialists and the end result is they suck for a great many professionals. Whereas KDE, despite “not having a design specialist” (I don’t actually know if that’s true, just quoting the GP) feels like it has the same well thought out design that specialist technical hardware does. I’ve worked closely with designers (because I have zero design skills myself) and seen first hand how an arguably less beautiful design can actually be more intuitive for users So at no point am I claiming that design is just about fancy graphics. If anything, I’m making the same point you were.

kcb 3y ago

KDE is the definition of all UI and no UX. Like there's no one actually planning out how a user would/should actually use the thing. That's why I generally prefer Gnome despite it's faults. Even if I don't agree with every decision and lack of customization at least it feels like there's some vision on how it should be used.