said Alexandre Couture: | Hi everyone! | | In the trinity-devel mailing list, there is a nst about keeping or | removing the Kick-Off launcher. Here is a part of what is written: | | Timothy Pearson wrote: | >> A good solution would be to 1) remove kickoff since it's unlikely | >> that it is used, and doesn't keep in the style of trinity and port | >> the cool features of kickoff into the original kicker panel, if there | >> are any. | > | > I would need a list of any improvements in Kickoff that are not in | > Kicker. Copious amounts of whitespace around each widget is not | > considered an improvement. ;-) Perhaps you could gather information | > from list members on why they use Kickoff vs. Kicker? | | Francois Andriot wrote: | >Hello, I'm always using Kickoff menu instead of Kicker, so I would'nt | >like it to be removed. | >I currently have no problem with it. | > | > | >Here are some reasons: | >- I prefer having separate tabs for favorites/all | >applications/Computer/History , instead of having a single huge menu | >with many submenus. | >- I prefer the search feature of Kickoff, which displays immediatly the | >icon of the app I'm searching. In kicker, the search feature justs | > grays out the directories, but I still have to browse the tree to find | > the application I want. When the application list is very long, it is | > still not very convenient. | >- I like the way applications are shown in menu: a "big" icon, | >application name written with big letters, application summary with | >small letters. So there is no confusion between application name and | >application summary. | > | >Maybe we should just ship Kickoff as a separate application, like kbfx | > ? | | I have the same point of view as Francois Andriot on that and I can even | add: | | -Kick-Off is as fast as though. If the program I want to launch is Gimp, | I click on the start menu, I write ''gim'' on the keyboard and a menu | with ''Gimp'' already highlighted appear. I just have to press enter. | Otherwise, in the classic menu, I would have to find the ''Graphics'' | menu and I would need to read all the names of every programs in the | list before I can see ''Gimp'' in the list. And everybody here knows | that TDE comes with plenty of programs, so depending of what you are | looking for, the menu can be long... We use search engines to find what | we want on the Web, but it wouldn't be a good idea on your computer? | | -Having a little summary of what the programs are is much more intuitive | than having to start it, to see what it is. It is just more simple for | users coming from Windows. | | -On my little Asus EEE, with a screen resolution of 800x480, the | Kick-off is just the right size, where on the classic start menu, often | a sub-menu takes all the screen and many columns, and it gets just | confusing and harder to find what you are looking for. | | -I just don't get the point of users telling everywhere on this mailing | list that NOTHING should change in TDE incomparison with KDE 3.5.10 and | every single bit should stay identical, but the Kick-Off should be | dropped. It is the same thing with Dolphin. Those are 2 KDE3 programs, | it is not because they also exists in KDE4 that they are evil. | | If the Kick-Off is to be dropped one day or another, would it be at | least possible to implement the search feature of the classic start menu | in a more efficient way? | | Just my opinion... | -Alexandre
My opinion of Kickoff is so strong that I had to Google it to see what it was. After having done so, I realized that it was one of the reasons I stuck with KDE-3.x and now TDE, it being one of those "we did it because we can" features that demonstrate that KDE was done, design-wise, in 3.x that, in keeping with KDE's "we know what's best and you don't" design philosophy.
If there is fervent support for this among TDE users, might it best be a separate and optional package? Then those who want it may have it and those who don't won't need to carry it around.
(Likewise, the best I can tell entirely useless plymouthd! Maybe somebody wants it, but I don't and would love to learn how to cast it into the abyss forever.)