Is it just me...

Folderol · External Since: Dec 13, 2004 Posts: 135

Or does anyone else think that many of the latest versions of common
applications are much harder to use than before?
kwrite
krename
k3b
Are the first few that spring to mind Sad

--
Will J G

Simon J. Rowe · External Since: Aug 03, 2005 Posts: 98

Folderol wrote:

> Or does anyone else think that many of the latest versions of common
> applications are much harder to use than before?
> kwrite
> krename
> k3b
> Are the first few that spring to mind Sad

No, amarok 2 is completely useless and almost unusable compared with 1.4. I
can't say I've had any problems with k3b though.

Simon

Neil Ellwood · External Since: Oct 31, 2009 Posts: 2

On Fri, 30 Oct 2009 20:10:38 +0000, Folderol wrote:

> Or does anyone else think that many of the latest versions of common
> applications are much harder to use than before? kwrite
> krename
> k3b
> Are the first few that spring to mind Sad

K3b certainly isn't harder to use than before.
No experience of the other two - I don't use Kde.

--
Neil
Reverse 'r and a' Delete 'l'

Bruce Stephens · External Since: Aug 19, 2004 Posts: 186

"Simon J. Rowe" <srowe.TakeThisOut@mose.org.uk> writes:

[...]

> No, amarok 2 is completely useless and almost unusable compared with
> 1.4.

I'm finding it adequate, but I don't use it much. It seems to have lost
a feature, in that I don't seem to be able to copy a playlist to my MTP
device (which certainly supports playlists, and 1.4 was happy to create
them).

Bruce Stephens · External Since: Aug 19, 2004 Posts: 186

Folderol <folderol DeleteThis @ukfsn.org> writes:

> Or does anyone else think that many of the latest versions of common
> applications are much harder to use than before?
> kwrite
> krename
> k3b
> Are the first few that spring to mind Sad

Emacs 23 is better than its predecessors, for what it's worth.

Folderol · External Since: Dec 13, 2004 Posts: 135

On Sat, 31 Oct 2009 11:06:47 +0000
Bruce Stephens <bruce+usenet@cenderis.demon.co.uk> wrote:

> Folderol <folderol DeleteThis @ukfsn.org> writes:
>
> > Or does anyone else think that many of the latest versions of common
> > applications are much harder to use than before?
> > kwrite
> > krename
> > k3b
> > Are the first few that spring to mind Sad

>
> Emacs 23 is better than its predecessors, for what it's worth.

There is always one! Smile

--
Will J G

Folderol · External Since: Dec 13, 2004 Posts: 135

On Fri, 30 Oct 2009 22:02:01 +0000
"Simon J. Rowe" <srowe.RemoveThis@mose.org.uk> wrote:

> Folderol wrote:
>
> > Or does anyone else think that many of the latest versions of common
> > applications are much harder to use than before?
> > kwrite
> > krename
> > k3b
> > Are the first few that spring to mind Sad

>
> No, amarok 2 is completely useless and almost unusable compared with 1.4. I
> can't say I've had any problems with k3b though.
>
> Simon

The latest version of k3b doesn't seem to have the bottom layout of
quick entries for CD & DVD image files, and hunting for these through
the menus is less than intuitive (to put it mildly).

Incidentally I tried the new burner on the latest ubunto release and
gave up in the end - for the same reason.

I'm not a KDE user as such, but those apps have always been the best
for me.

kwrite now uses a small dialogue box at the bottom of the page for
things like 'find' entries, so you seem to keep having to scan up and
down. It also means you have to have the whole page visible, not just
the bit you're working on.

krename now has a multi-tabbed system which is far less intuitive for
quick 'n dirty bulk renaming.

--
Will J G

Chris Whelan · External Since: Jul 07, 2005 Posts: 51

On Sat, 31 Oct 2009 11:44:41 +0000, Folderol wrote:

[...]

> The latest version of k3b doesn't seem to have the bottom layout of
> quick entries for CD & DVD image files, and hunting for these through
> the menus is less than intuitive (to put it mildly).

As with earlier versions of K3b, you just right-click on the lower area
and select what you want to appear from an Add Button menu. All that has
changed is the default selection.

Now the stability of KDE4 is more realistically stable I'm trying to get
to like it. I'm still finding some things I don't like, and the changes
to Amarok have ruined it!

Chris

--
Remove prejudice to reply.

Nix · External Since: Jul 29, 2004 Posts: 688

On 31 Oct 2009, Bruce Stephens outgrape:

> Folderol <folderol.TakeThisOut@ukfsn.org> writes:
>
>> Or does anyone else think that many of the latest versions of common
>> applications are much harder to use than before?
>> kwrite
>> krename
>> k3b
>> Are the first few that spring to mind Sad

>
> Emacs 23 is better than its predecessors, for what it's worth.

Yeah, the butterfly is really useful. (Yes, really.)

alexd · External Since: Dec 15, 2005 Posts: 52

Meanwhile, at the uk.comp.os.linux Job Justification Hearings, Folderol chose
the tried and tested strategy of:

> kwrite now uses a small dialogue box at the bottom of the page for
> things like 'find' entries, so you seem to keep having to scan up and
> down.

Have to disagree with you there - I can't stand popup windows!

> It also means you have to have the whole page visible, not just the bit you're
> working on.

Not sure what you mean there. Just tested it here and it searches fine
regardless of how much of the page is visible.

--
<http://ale.cx/> (AIM:troffasky) (UnSoEsNpEaTm@ale.cx)
09:57:15 up 14 days, 7:06, 4 users, load average: 0.44, 0.27, 0.17
"Stupid is a condition. Ignorance is a choice" -- Wiley Miller

Chris · External Since: May 27, 2005 Posts: 474

Folderol wrote:

> Or does anyone else think that many of the latest versions of
> common applications are much harder to use than before?
> kwrite
> krename
> k3b
> Are the first few that spring to mind Sad

I think the 'k' is a giveaway. KDE4 is a big change across the board,
some apps will have 'got it' and other won't have. YMMV. Wink

--
The email address is a spam trap. I rarely use it.

Frank Peelo · External Since: Jul 25, 2006 Posts: 6

Simon J. Rowe wrote:
> Folderol wrote:
>
>> Or does anyone else think that many of the latest versions of common
>> applications are much harder to use than before?
>> kwrite
>> krename
>> k3b
>> Are the first few that spring to mind Sad

>
> No, amarok 2 is completely useless and almost unusable compared with 1.4. I
> can't say I've had any problems with k3b though.

I seem to recall, at one time, making an audio CD with k3b. I wanted to
play a podcast in the car. The podcast was well over half an hour. k3b
was able to split it into tracks of 5 minutes or so, to make navigation
easier.

I can't find that option any more! Is it gone, or just hidden? I'm
almost certain it was k3b... I don't do that sort of thing often, so my
memory may be failing. Maybe it was another app?

(Still using 2008.1 with kde 3.5)

Frank

Frank Peelo · External Since: Jul 25, 2006 Posts: 6

Chris Whelan wrote:
> On Sat, 31 Oct 2009 11:44:41 +0000, Folderol wrote:
>
> [...]
>
>> The latest version of k3b doesn't seem to have the bottom layout of
>> quick entries for CD & DVD image files, and hunting for these through
>> the menus is less than intuitive (to put it mildly).
>
> As with earlier versions of K3b, you just right-click on the lower area
> and select what you want to appear from an Add Button menu.

Eek! That's really arcane! You sure there's nothing less unintuitive
available? How about File|New Project?

Frank

Frank Peelo · External Since: Jul 25, 2006 Posts: 6

alexd wrote:
> Meanwhile, at the uk.comp.os.linux Job Justification Hearings, Folderol chose
> the tried and tested strategy of:
>
>> kwrite now uses a small dialogue box at the bottom of the page for
>> things like 'find' entries, so you seem to keep having to scan up and
>> down.
>
> Have to disagree with you there - I can't stand popup windows!

Yes, I'm surprised more editors don't do it this way. I bought EditPad
Pro, years ago, on Windows, and it uses this idea. So you don't have a
dialogue box hiding the text that you're trying to search, getting in
the way. Far better to have it out of the way at the bottom. Should have
taken over the world by now.

Frank

Martin Gregorie · External Since: Jun 26, 2009 Posts: 9

On Tue, 03 Nov 2009 23:48:18 +0000, Frank Peelo wrote:

> alexd wrote:
>> Meanwhile, at the uk.comp.os.linux Job Justification Hearings, Folderol
>> chose the tried and tested strategy of:
>>
>>> kwrite now uses a small dialogue box at the bottom of the page for
>>> things like 'find' entries, so you seem to keep having to scan up and
>>> down.
>>
>> Have to disagree with you there - I can't stand popup windows!
>
> Yes, I'm surprised more editors don't do it this way. I bought EditPad
> Pro, years ago, on Windows, and it uses this idea. So you don't have a
> dialogue box hiding the text that you're trying to search, getting in
> the way. Far better to have it out of the way at the bottom. Should have
> taken over the world by now.
>
My favourite Windows editor, the Programmer's File Editor (PFE) had a
number of pop-up windows that implemented the dialogues for searching,
executing OS commandline commands, manipulating window stacks, etc.
Editing windows occupied the whole of its MDF main window. The pop-ups
could be dragged away and positioned outside the main window on the
desktop. This worked very well - so much so that I'm surprised that more
applications haven't done something similar.

--
martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org |

Chris Whelan · External Since: Jul 07, 2005 Posts: 51

On Tue, 03 Nov 2009 23:43:20 +0000, Frank Peelo wrote:

[...]

> Eek! That's really arcane! You sure there's nothing less unintuitive
> available? How about File|New Project?
>
> Frank

The OP was specifically asking for help with buttons that exist in K3b
for KDE4; what you are suggesting would not provide those.

Chris

--
Remove prejudice to reply.

Folderol · External Since: Dec 13, 2004 Posts: 135

On Wed, 4 Nov 2009 00:45:11 +0000 (UTC)
Martin Gregorie <martin RemoveThis @address-in-sig.invalid> wrote:

> On Tue, 03 Nov 2009 23:48:18 +0000, Frank Peelo wrote:
>
> > alexd wrote:
> >> Meanwhile, at the uk.comp.os.linux Job Justification Hearings, Folderol
> >> chose the tried and tested strategy of:
> >>
> >>> kwrite now uses a small dialogue box at the bottom of the page for
> >>> things like 'find' entries, so you seem to keep having to scan up and
> >>> down.
> >>
> >> Have to disagree with you there - I can't stand popup windows!
> >
> > Yes, I'm surprised more editors don't do it this way. I bought EditPad
> > Pro, years ago, on Windows, and it uses this idea. So you don't have a
> > dialogue box hiding the text that you're trying to search, getting in
> > the way. Far better to have it out of the way at the bottom. Should have
> > taken over the world by now.
> >
> My favourite Windows editor, the Programmer's File Editor (PFE) had a
> number of pop-up windows that implemented the dialogues for searching,
> executing OS commandline commands, manipulating window stacks, etc.
> Editing windows occupied the whole of its MDF main window. The pop-ups
> could be dragged away and positioned outside the main window on the
> desktop. This worked very well - so much so that I'm surprised that more
> applications haven't done something similar.

My 'history' is Acorn RPC, where again dialogue windows are separate
and can be moved where you want them instead of taking up fixed desktop
space, so I always tend to look for applications that work in that way.

For a similar reason I originally chose kwrite against gedit mostly
because kwrite gives me a separate window for each view whereas gedit
forces tabs on you. Copy and paste (or simply just looking for
reminders) is dramatically faster with separate views - especially if
you configure the desktop so that working inside a window work area
does NOT bring the window to the front - something that is impossible
in gnome Sad

--
Will J G

Tony Houghton · External Since: Jul 22, 2006 Posts: 113

On Wed, 4 Nov 2009 08:33:31 +0000
Folderol <folderol DeleteThis @ukfsn.org> wrote:

> For a similar reason I originally chose kwrite against gedit mostly
> because kwrite gives me a separate window for each view whereas gedit
> forces tabs on you. Copy and paste (or simply just looking for
> reminders) is dramatically faster with separate views - especially if
> you configure the desktop so that working inside a window work area
> does NOT bring the window to the front - something that is impossible
> in gnome Sad

You can drag the tabs out of gedit to get separate windows. And of
course it isn't impossible to prevent windows jumping to the front in
GNOME. Even metacity [1] can do it, but with side effects.

[1] I don't know why GNOME still uses it as the default window manager.
It's a botched experiment attempting to prove that it's impossible to
write a window manager that's flexible, friendly and consistent, and
maintainable, which is all proven wrong by xfwm4.

--
TH * http://www.realh.co.uk

Nix · External Since: Jul 29, 2004 Posts: 688

On 3 Nov 2009, Frank Peelo spake thusly:

> alexd wrote:
>> Have to disagree with you there - I can't stand popup windows!
>
> Yes, I'm surprised more editors don't do it this way. I bought EditPad
> Pro, years ago, on Windows, and it uses this idea. So you don't have a
> dialogue box hiding the text that you're trying to search, getting in
> the way. Far better to have it out of the way at the bottom. Should
> have taken over the world by now.

Emacs has done this since the 1970s. Since a bunch of very popular
wordprocessors descended fairly directly from Emacs (notably WordStar,
at I think a two-generation remove), it's suprising that the avoid-dialogs
isearch-is-king idea fell so much into abeyance.

Folderol · External Since: Dec 13, 2004 Posts: 135

On Wed, 4 Nov 2009 14:01:00 +0000
Tony Houghton <h.RemoveThis@realh.co.uk> wrote:

> On Wed, 4 Nov 2009 08:33:31 +0000
> Folderol <folderol.RemoveThis@ukfsn.org> wrote:
>
> > For a similar reason I originally chose kwrite against gedit mostly
> > because kwrite gives me a separate window for each view whereas gedit
> > forces tabs on you. Copy and paste (or simply just looking for
> > reminders) is dramatically faster with separate views - especially if
> > you configure the desktop so that working inside a window work area
> > does NOT bring the window to the front - something that is impossible
> > in gnome Sad

>
> You can drag the tabs out of gedit to get separate windows. And of
> course it isn't impossible to prevent windows jumping to the front in
> GNOME. Even metacity [1] can do it, but with side effects.

I must admit I wasn't aware of that. Although I think it still doesn't
allow multiple views on the same document.

> [1] I don't know why GNOME still uses it as the default window manager.
> It's a botched experiment attempting to prove that it's impossible to
> write a window manager that's flexible, friendly and consistent, and
> maintainable, which is all proven wrong by xfwm4.

I'm an openbox user myself. I have very precise demands on how my WM
behaves and this one works for me.

--
Will J G