Version: (using Devel) OS: Linux Installed from: Compiled sources I believe KWin as shipped out of the box has some defaults that can be improved for a better user experience. I don't want to start a bike shed discussion - but I do believe the current defaults are not optimal. :) The following are what I think can be improved. 1. I think the default button arrangement can be improved. The button order suggested by aseigo some time back really does work very well in practice, for me and anecdotally for several users. 2. I think some of the default effects chosen when composite is on can be improved. Specifically: 1. I believe the default window switcher should be the present windows effect. 2. I believe translucency should not be used when moving windows. 3. The defaults of some effects can be improved. 1. The default keybinding for zooming in with the "Zoom" effect is meta+=. They "=" character is typed with shift + 0 on my keyboard. Pressing win + shift + 0 does not trigger the effect for me. Would meta++ be a better default? 2. I believe that the default present windows effect settings are not optimal. I think that the overlayed text and icon should not be on by default - the idea is to visually identify windows, and the text and icon get in the way. The above are only my thoughts. I would like to discuss this in the next KDE usability meeting - I've added a topic here: http://techbase.kde.org/Projects/Usability/Meetings. I will also link back to this bug on that page.
(In reply to comment #0) > The following are what I think can be improved. > > 1. I think the default button arrangement can be improved. The button order > suggested by aseigo some time back really does work very well in practice, for > me and anecdotally for several users. What buttons are you talking about? And what should be the layout? Just saying can be improved is no help ;-) > > 2. I think some of the default effects chosen when composite is on can be > improved. Specifically: > 1. I believe the default window switcher should be the present windows effect. That point is discussable. Using presentwindows for it can be useful, but I think it is too aggressive for a default effect. All windows start to move, even if you just press alt+tab for a very short time > 2. I believe translucency should not be used when moving windows. I think that's very useful > > 3. The defaults of some effects can be improved. > 1. The default keybinding for zooming in with the "Zoom" effect is meta+=. > They "=" character is typed with shift + 0 on my keyboard. Pressing win + shift > + 0 does not trigger the effect for me. Would meta++ be a better default? That's a problem with some keyboard layout (e.g. German as well). I don't think it's possible to define shortcuts which will work with each keyboard layout. > 2. I believe that the default present windows effect settings are not optimal. > I think that the overlayed text and icon should not be on by default - the idea > is to visually identify windows, and the text and icon get in the way. Here as well I think the current setting is very good for example several windows of the same type. The window could be scaled down to much to identify the correct window. Having the name is a great plus. But that's just my opinion and I'm not a usability expert.
(In reply to comment #1) > (In reply to comment #0) > > The following are what I think can be improved. > > > > 1. I think the default button arrangement can be improved. The button order > > suggested by aseigo some time back really does work very well in practice, for > > me and anecdotally for several users. > What buttons are you talking about? And what should be the layout? Just saying > can be improved is no help ;-) I mean the win deco buttons. There was a thread on kde-core-devel about this back before 4.0 was released - it resulted in a _long_ discussion. http://lists.kde.org/?t=119508170500002&r=3&w=2 This might be exactly one of those bike shed topics... > > > > 2. I think some of the default effects chosen when composite is on can be > > improved. Specifically: > > 1. I believe the default window switcher should be the present windows effect. > That point is discussable. Using presentwindows for it can be useful, but I > think it is too aggressive for a default effect. All windows start to move, > even if you just press alt+tab for a very short time All of these points are discussible :) In any case, I find the current default (box switch) extremely hard to use. I will file a bug separately about that. > > 2. I believe translucency should not be used when moving windows. > I think that's very useful > > > > 3. The defaults of some effects can be improved. > > 1. The default keybinding for zooming in with the "Zoom" effect is meta+=. > > They "=" character is typed with shift + 0 on my keyboard. Pressing win + shift > > + 0 does not trigger the effect for me. Would meta++ be a better default? > That's a problem with some keyboard layout (e.g. German as well). I don't think > it's possible to define shortcuts which will work with each keyboard layout. Maybe not, but perhaps it could be tried. I think the current default is broken for a majority of European users. > > 2. I believe that the default present windows effect settings are not optimal. > > I think that the overlayed text and icon should not be on by default - the idea > > is to visually identify windows, and the text and icon get in the way. > Here as well I think the current setting is very good for example several > windows of the same type. The window could be scaled down to much to identify > the correct window. Having the name is a great plus. But that's just my opinion > and I'm not a usability expert. Well, at least for me it detracts a lot from the window contents themselves - at that point I would be better of just using the task bar :) Exactly because these things are so subjective, I'd like to discuss it with the usability folks.
(In reply to comment #2) > Exactly because these things are so subjective, I'd like to discuss it with the > usability folks. Full ack
(In reply to comment #0) > 1. I think the default button arrangement can be improved. The button order > suggested by aseigo some time back really does work very well in practice, for > me and anecdotally for several users. Against. > 2. I think some of the default effects chosen when composite is on can be > improved. Specifically: > 1. I believe the default window switcher should be the present windows effect. Against. On multi-monitor systems and when running lots of applications at once the effect causes massive amounts of animations that can cause motion sickness for some users, it's just far too radical for the default. > 2. I believe translucency should not be used when moving windows. Don't care. > 3. The defaults of some effects can be improved. > 1. The default keybinding for zooming in with the "Zoom" effect is meta+=. > They "=" character is typed with shift + 0 on my keyboard. Pressing win + shift > + 0 does not trigger the effect for me. Would meta++ be a better default? That shortcut doesn't work for me on a US keyboard. > 2. I believe that the default present windows effect settings are not optimal. > I think that the overlayed text and icon should not be on by default - the idea > is to visually identify windows, and the text and icon get in the way. Text is okay to remove by default but not the icon.
All the items presented in this request are very subjective which require discussion, therefore I close this report. Please open seperate requests for each of the topics. Nevertheless I want to comment on the individual ideas again: 1. decoration button position: after ubuntu's complete failure in 10.04 it should be obvious that changing the order is not a trivial task. I would only change the order iff there is a usability study showing that a given order is better than the current windows compliant mode. 2.1. present windows as default alt+tab: disagree due to the strong motion espacially when using multi monitor setups 2.2. translucancy while moving windows: Seems to me very useful for manual positioning 3.1. shortcut for zoom: finding optimal keybindings is rather difficult. Given that we have the shortcut now for several years I think we should keep it 3.2. text in present windows: from my own experience I often have problems to visually identify the window if I have many open windows. So this should stay.