Make kde 1st class in fedora

[Avi Kivity]

David Nielsen wrote:
> lør, 18 11 2006 kl. 11:48 +0100, skrev Olivier Galibert:
>   
>> On Sat, Nov 18, 2006 at 08:37:16AM +0200, Avi Kivity wrote:
>>     
>>> Users want to configure using a gui.
>>>       
>
> That displays the fallacy that users want to configure stuff.
>
>   

Users don't want to configure.  But they do have habits and 
preferences.  Some like bigger fonts, others like animation.  Some want 
(*gasp*) to change their wallpaper.  I've been known to enter my name 
and email address into my mailer.

An unconfigurable application will probably be suitable for one user 
(its developer).


> They might want the option to tune an application but generally users
> just want applications to work and will as a rule rather live with a
> suboptimal default configuration for their soecific job than dig through
> options and confusing tools/dialogs. 
>
> The lesson we have to take away from this is to strive for good default
> but remain configurable through a nice uniform interface. This is
> exactly why gconf is so cool, translatable decriptor strings explain
> what every key does for the user who likes to tweak the more exoteric
> parts of their applications and the rest get a nice clean interface with
> good defaults and the bare essencesial options.
>
>   

gconftool is way better than configuration files (and you raise a good 
point -- localization -- that is missing from good old config files).

However an application specific UI can (and should) be much better 
organized than gconf.

> Please don't assume that users _want_ to configure, it's not an end
> goal, it's a means to get work done.
>   

That was my point exactly.  Putting things in configuration files 
_prevents_ users from getting that work done.  Putting things in gconf 
is better, but still user-unfriendly (open an external application, find 
the root of the configured application's tree, start hacking things in a 
generic interface rather than one tailored to the task).

-- 
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