SUMMARY Users don't understand widgets with no visible way to close (such as battery, calendar, clipboard, discs & devices, keyboard layout, lock keys, networks, notifications, night colour, printers, volume, weather forecast, etc.) STEPS TO REPRODUCE 1. Accidentally open widget. 2. See no X to close it. 3. Maybe can't use PC without invisible closing expert help. OBSERVED RESULT Users don't understand widgets with no visible way to close (such as battery, calendar, clipboard, discs & devices, keyboard layout, lock keys, networks, notifications, night colour, printers, volume, weather forecast, etc.) EXPECTED RESULT 𝘝𝘪𝘴𝘪𝘣𝘭𝘦 option to close widgets (not invisible!) SOFTWARE/OS VERSIONS Linux/KDE Plasma: KDE neon User - 5.25 KDE Plasma Version: [up-to-date one minute ago] KDE Frameworks Version: [up-to-date one minute ago] Qt Version: [up-to-date one minute ago] ADDITIONAL INFORMATION I administer KDE Neon GNU/Linux PCs for seniors who started using PCs with MS-DOS & Windows 3. They do not know what system-tray is (despite being told 100+ times) let alone widgets (despite being told 10+ times) and haven't been able to learn one must press same area that opened widget to close. Even I (BSc CS started with MS-DOS & no Windows) took time to learn. They're smart users (science PhD, MA) but you can't expect users who didn't grow up with PCs to learn more about them than they might about their car engines. Maybe this won't be a problem in 50 years but currently billions still don't understand PCs, and unnecessary pad/tab(let) conventions on desktop are making it hard for many... so certain older Apple & Windows 3 conventions shouldn't be dropped (X to close, types of program launcher groups/managers/menus, but I'm diverging now...) On top of it all, I noticed KDE Plasma panel is regularly unresponsive, which I think might've always been case (since KDEP4) though happened more to me when mining ethereum, etc... now I do use a miner that says it'll take it more easily because a monitor is detected, though I don't know still slows non-game usage... I know if I open some number over 10 programs panel halts for hours, but have to investigate/count how many and whether also widgets not just on my but users' PCs (isn't mining during their usage, at daytime.)
Git commit b91c8177070b110fb20c97801c86f14b6850b556 by Fushan Wen. Committed on 28/06/2022 at 01:00. Pushed by fusionfuture into branch 'master'. applet: add keyboard navigation in QR window To close the window by using keyboard. M +11 -4 applet/contents/ui/ShowQR.qml https://invent.kde.org/plasma/plasma-nm/commit/b91c8177070b110fb20c97801c86f14b6850b556
Git commit 920a469b93ecfa4465539002e2a1bb9c2abc418f by Fushan Wen. Committed on 28/06/2022 at 02:26. Pushed by fusionfuture into branch 'Plasma/5.25'. applet: add keyboard navigation in QR window To close the window by using keyboard. (cherry picked from commit b91c8177070b110fb20c97801c86f14b6850b556) M +11 -4 applet/contents/ui/ShowQR.qml https://invent.kde.org/plasma/plasma-nm/commit/920a469b93ecfa4465539002e2a1bb9c2abc418f
A possibly relevant merge request was started @ https://invent.kde.org/plasma/plasma-nm/-/merge_requests/132
A possibly relevant merge request was started @ https://invent.kde.org/plasma/plasma-workspace/-/merge_requests/1875
Git commit 0d9cd3c9ce7000268fb59da490b2613aea42fd05 by Nate Graham. Committed on 28/06/2022 at 20:29. Pushed by ngraham into branch 'master'. applet: add visible button to close QR code overlay We generally include such buttons in full-screen overlays so that it's visually obvious how to close it, for people not familiar with the UX concept of clicking on the thing itself or its darkened background. M +16 -0 applet/contents/ui/ShowQR.qml https://invent.kde.org/plasma/plasma-nm/commit/0d9cd3c9ce7000268fb59da490b2613aea42fd05
Hi! It would be good if you could provide more information about this problem. Can you describe what those users are trying to do to close the panel? If they're actively using the computer, it's likely they will at some point try clicking on something else, in that case, the panels should be automatically dismissed. If that's the case, why are they having trouble closing the panels? Have they accidentally pinned them? Is there's a bug somewhere that prevents the panels from closing automatically when clicking on anything else? What about Kickoff? Do they also have trouble closing it too? I noticed clicking on an empty area of the panel doesn't close the applets. Can you observe if they're trying to do that or something similar unsuccessfully? That's the only instance where clicking outside of the applet doesn't close them. On any other occasion, with normal usage, the panels should never get in the way, even if you don't explicitly close them, as doing anything else on the computer should make the applets close. It would be highly appreciated if you could answer those questions and describe in detail how they are failing at closing the panels. Thank you in advance.
(In reply to guimarcalsilva from comment #6) > Hi! It would be good if you could provide more information about this > problem. > > Can you describe what those users are trying to do to close the panel? If > they're actively using the computer, it's likely they will at some point try > clicking on something else, in that case, the panels should be automatically > dismissed. If that's the case, why are they having trouble closing the > panels? > Have they accidentally pinned them? Is there's a bug somewhere that prevents > the panels from closing automatically when clicking on anything else? What > about Kickoff? Do they also have trouble closing it too? > > I noticed clicking on an empty area of the panel doesn't close the applets. > Can you observe if they're trying to do that or something similar > unsuccessfully? That's the only instance where clicking outside of the > applet doesn't close them. On any other occasion, with normal usage, the > panels should never get in the way, even if you don't explicitly close them, > as doing anything else on the computer should make the applets close. > > It would be highly appreciated if you could answer those questions and > describe in detail how they are failing at closing the panels. > > Thank you in advance. Just a correction: Here I used the word panel. I actually meant applets/pop-ups.
(In reply to guimarcalsilva from comment #6) > Can you describe what those users are trying to do to close the panel? I explained they don't know, so don't try, and what they do (they ask me.) They don't pin them and they use kicker, not kickoff. If I'm very tired, sometimes I have same problem because widget interface deviated from older interface style to become counter-intuitive: there have been similar past bugs no visible way to do something causes what KDE people call 'discoverability problems.'
Do these users have difficulty figuring out how to close normal menus? I ask because the UX is very similar: you click on a thing to open a popup adjacent to it, then you can close that popup by clicking on the same thing or by clicking somewhere outside of the popup. Do the users have trouble with this too?
(In reply to Nate Graham from comment #9) > Do these users have difficulty figuring out how to close normal menus? I ask > because the UX is very similar: you click on a thing to open a popup > adjacent to it, then you can close that popup by clicking on the same thing > or by clicking somewhere outside of the popup. No: we learned that in Windows 3.1, but isn't very similar: if a menu is open and you select a blank part of a menu-bar, the menu closes, but if a widget is open and you select a blank part of the panel, nothing happens. That's why they've asked me dozens times and maybe always will (and why I forget if I'm very tired.)
Got it, that makes sense. So if we fix that, do you think it would be enough? If so this is a duplicate of Bug 367815.
(In reply to Nate Graham from comment #11) > Got it, that makes sense. So if we fix that, do you think it would be > enough? If so this is a duplicate of Bug 367815. For me, yes; for users such as mentioned I'd have to wait & see. By time they tell me (sometimes email minutes/hours later) and then by time I check (if not immediately) sometimes they found a way (select some other area) or I explain. I think of drop-down widgets more like normally-closable programs in a tiling window manager (xmonad, etc., when arranged as tabs) and though they haven't used one (and I never learned to like those) they probably do also...
Cool. For now let's mark this as a duplicate of Bug 367815 since that's clearly a real issue that people run into. And then let's prioritize fixing it, and after that, we can see if it's good enough for your users. *** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 367815 ***