Re: [trinity-devel] My opinion on Trinity project quality

On Fri, Sep 13, 2013 at 01:09:57PM +0400, Aleksey Midenkov wrote: Would you please identify these "unprofessional decisions" and "strange unpractical ideas" ? Has the project been terminated? There's no hint of that on the website. Please specify this trouble. I thought TDE was pretty well usable now. (Haven't tried it myself, still using KDE3.) From what I've seen, the problem with KDE4 isn't only that it lacks some features. It has some very undesirable aspects, which is why so many people want to stay with KDE3 (which OpenSuse still offers in its latest version 12.3) or TDE. o KDE3 and TDE try to be minimal systems to get the job done. That's the Unix way. KDE4 throws in a lot of misfeatures that most people don't need. o KDE4 has trashed the virtual desktop system. The desktop switcher (pager) applet puts window outlines in the button for each desktop and they obscure the desktop's name. I use all 20 desktops, each for a different purpose (Mail, Music, Website, etc.), and each containing multiple konsoles with mc running in them pointed to appropriate places in the file system for that purpose. I can get to any of these places with two mouse-clicks, and the computer works as a wonderful extension of my mind. With KDE4 it feels like I've had a stroke. o KDE4 has a non-intuitive UI for setting up and adjusting panels and their contents. o KDE4 tries to index the _contents_ of every file in the system, which paralyzes the computer unless you make the programs that do this non-executable. This "feature" is unnecessary, because you can make files findable by giving them good descriptive names, and organizing the filesystem hierarchically by subject, e.g., /science/energy/solar. Then use the locate command with a handy bash script like the one below, that constructs a pipeline of locate and greps for you from the keywords you specify, and executes it. o KDE4 tries to force you to use the Phonon sound system, which doesn't work with some sound hardware. I had to rip that out and use ALSA. o KDE4's panels don't retract. o The KDE4 devs aren't very responsive to user needs. I tried several times to get them to fix the problem with the virtual desktop pager, but they weren't interested. (And they didn't want my hacked version that fixed it, because I'd eliminated the window outlines permanently.) They either use only a single desktop, or they use the "activities" system, which they think should replace virtual desktops. But there's no good applet for switching between activities with minimal mousing. KDE4 is not an incremental improvement over KDE3. It's an entire redesign, and I'm talking about what the user sees, not the innards. The people who redesigned it apparently thought that they knew better than all those who had created KDE3 and previous versions. In my opinion, they didn't, and they created an ugly monster. I find KDE4 very aggravating, and will not use it. I'm very grateful that TDE exists, and I'm sure that many other people are, too. Mark ****************************************************** #!/bin/bash # locgrep if [ -z "$1" ]; then echo 'Usage: locgrep string1 string2 ... [-v stringA stringB ...]' echo echo 'Find files in the locate database whose pathname' echo 'contains all of the strings 1, 2, etc,' echo 'and none of the (optional) strings A, B, etc.' echo 'Case insensitive.' exit fi function printfct { while read fqname; do size=$(stat -c %s "$fqname") size2="$(printf "%'13d" $size)" echo "$size2" $fqname done } cmd="locate -i $1" vflag=false while [ -n "$2" ]; do if [ "$2" = "-v" ]; then vflag=true else if $vflag; then cmd=$cmd" | grep -iv $2" else cmd=$cmd" | grep -i $2" fi fi shift done eval $cmd | sort | printfct | less exit ******************************************************