SUMMARY Hey there, as I noticed, what's loved about desktop environments like GNOME is it's simplicity and that it's not fearing users by the shear number of available settings. To make KDE more appealing to new users, KDE should feature a "minimal mode", where only essential options are shown. While this takes flexibility from the user, it adds simplicity that's desired by not few users. This option should e.g. only show one "theme" setting, that only changes the global theme, as this is the only essential option in this category, every other theme option is set when changing the global theme. Everything else should be hidden in this mode from the user (though the "extended" mode showing all options can always be activated ofc) This should be applied to every settings category, really questioning if the shown setting is essential to a new user or if actions can be simplified and more obvious what they actually change. The general scheme of the settings should not be changed, as this might confuse users, if they activate the "extended mode" and all settings are at a different place. For example, there should still be settings to configure which applications show notifications, but maybe not exactly, which notifications of an application will come through. Or hiding the setting for the position of the notification completely and showing it always next to the notification icon. Another example might be the compositor setting: would your grandma know what this setting is for and wouldn't be feared to change it? Mine would be, she wouldn't know what it is and also not care, so why show it to hear and frighten her. This mode should in a next step also be included in KDE applications respecting this setting, only making the really necessary configurable and everything else rely on defaults, This could e.g. mean that the position of the dock might be changeable, but not how tall it is or how transparent it is. This could also have the effect that applications make sure that their defaults are user-friendly and the application is easily usable at first start without the user having to fiddle around, making the desktop more polished and removing papercuts, making our all lives easier. The drawback of course is that the dev has to care about the defaults, though that should be the case anyway. I don't think that an argument like "it's hiding functionality from the user" is applicable here, as a) that's the intention of this option and b) it's only optional. For example, every application could feature a prominent option to switch to "minimal mode" / "extended mode" instantaneously. Also, a "welcome app" is currently in the works, that could ask at first start "Hey, are you a new user? Use this simple mode making your life easier. Are you an experienced user? Use the extended mode with more functionality" This mode could also mean that the system monitor hides the "processes" page in minimal mode, making sure the user doesn't accidentally closes system processes but shows the applications page listing the open applications. Or Dolphin not showing hidden folders starting with a dot, as these folders mostly contain folders and inexperienced users probably don't need to access them. If they still do, they can easily enable the "extended mode" and bam, there's an option to show hidden folders. Or they google, find the hint to press ctrl+h to show them. What should dolphin do? Show a prompt saying "Hey, you're trying to show hidden folders. To do this, you have to enter the extended mode. Are you sure?" Inexperienced users will then know that what they do doesn't seem to be trivial and will think about this again. But whey still have the choice to still show it. All in all, with this setting we protect the system from the user, as it's not that easily possible to do something harmful anymore and the user is protected from the system, as he's not overwhelmed by the amount of available settings. The applications will get saner defaults with a better focus on usability out-of-the-box, while also making Plasma more accessible to new users who can get to know plasma's features, power and flexibility step-by-step. Any thoughts, critics or recommendations are always welcome!
I'm afraid we explicitly don't want to do this. See https://community.kde.org/Get_Involved/Design/Lessons_Learned#Basic.2Fadvanced_modes for the reasons why. We will have to come up with another way to make things seem simpler.
(In reply to Nate Graham from comment #1) > I'm afraid we explicitly don't want to do this. See > https://community.kde.org/Get_Involved/Design/Lessons_Learned#Basic. > 2Fadvanced_modes for the reasons why. > > We will have to come up with another way to make things seem simpler. Thank you very much for the answer and the link! It's great to know that you also think that things have to seem simpler (as you've also written on your blog). Unfortunately, I can't think of a way to preserve all features visible, without it seeming bloated or complex, even if it just was a list of simple checkboxes. One question to the lessons to be learned though: There's stated that users with a big ego might use an "advanced" mode, even though the basic mode would fit them better. I think to use this as an argument is difficult for 2 reasons, including the exact opposite reason: The plasma environment seems pretty complex now for new users, as it lacks such a basic/advanced options, so all users are forced currently to see all options (which would then be the advanced mode), but have no option to switch to a simpler mode. So the exact opposite of what feared there happens right now, inexperienced users without a big ego are forced to look through everything and might be afraid to change something as it seems complex. In my opinion, this is even worse, as users don't even have a chance to make the system seem simpler. Also, this only is an issue if a naming scheme of basic/advanced was used. Naming it e.g. normal/extra might not trigger the big ego issue. This would also help unexperienced users help use the advanced set, as they are only labeled "extra" and not advanced, so it might take their fear to activate/use them. Also, with the work being done on the welcome screen that's currently being developed, it could be explained there what these two modes do and that one does not need to be afraid of activating these options, but also stating that new users of Plasma might be more comfortable with the normal set and how to change to them. It could also be shown in an example, which options are typical to be found in the normal set and which in the extra one. The only other argument is that some users might think an option should be in the normal category and others would think it's an extra option. This issue would be applicable to every approach solving this, as some options HAVE to be more prominent and others will HAVE to be more hidden in some way or another, to take away the complexity just resulting from seeming to be bloated. So yeah, that's every argument made in the lessons to be learned on why this should not be used. I think / hope that this approach has been discussed before and should there have been any other arguments, I'd be happy to address them. As I see the situation currently, solving this issue creates other issues that, because of the nature of a theoretical fix, would always apply to every possible solution and the current situation has its own issue that's costing plasma, as you stated, the majority of the potential user base out there. Also, because of this, I think that this is a severe problem that has to be solved ASAP, to make sure that KDE actually gets to dominate the world. ;) Otherwise, other projects might evolve, that address this issue, might it be GNOME or anything else, just because those can be used by inexperienced users, sacrificing customizebility. This approach would not.