KWin highlight window effect enabled by default?
Recently the KWin highlight window desktop effect was made to be enabled by default in the KDE Plasma Desktop workspace. As I was not a part of the discussion to decide this I do not know the exact reason why it was enabled by default but I would like to voice my opinion that it was the wrong choice. The highlight window effect is the one that, when you hover over a taskbar item, fades out all windows except the one being hovered over. As this animation affects the entire screen and as it can occur often during normal desktop usage it has a large influence over the entire KDE Plasma Desktop visual identity. The effect is also a major part of the Windows 7 visual identity with the Microsoft equivalent being Aero Peek. I feel that although the effect can be an improvement to usability with some minor changes it should not be a part of the default KDE Plasma Desktop installation as it makes KDE feel less like KDE and more of a blatant Windows clone. Although it could be argued that the same can be said for the new KWin quick tiling and maximization features being a copy of Aero Snap I do not feel that it affects the KDE Plasma Desktop identity in any way and can be more thought of as just being a feature that was inspired by Windows 7 and GNOME (They have had drag-to-screen-top maximization for a while now). I would just like to emphasise that I believe that the effect is not an improvement on usability in its current state either and is more of a distraction than anything else. Having both taskbar thumbnails and the highlight window effect enabled at the same time is redundant; having all windows fade back in sometimes when moving between taskbar items is a major graphical glitch; not having the highlighted windows raised to the top of the window stack partially occludes the window and makes it look messy. Definitely the most annoying part of the effect is how easy it is to activate by accident. Just to summarise: I consider that enabling the KWin highlight window effect by default is the wrong choice and that the change should be reverted before the next KDE SC release. -- Lucas Murray GPG Fingerprint: 0B88 499E 3F5B 1405 D952 258A AD90 B4F5 90B6 3534 pgpB0YvJy6v9k.pgp Description: PGP signature ___ Plasma-devel mailing list Plasma-devel@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/plasma-devel
Re: KWin highlight window effect enabled by default?
On December 20, 2009, Lucas Murray wrote: > Just to summarise: I consider that enabling the KWin highlight window > effect by default is the wrong choice and that the change should be > reverted before the next KDE SC release. fwiw, i whole-heartedly agree with everything Lucas wrote. +1 from me. perhaps the person(s) who enabled it by default could help us understand the reasoning more? if there isn't a compelling reason there, i think Lucas is quite correct. -- Aaron J. Seigo humru othro a kohnu se GPG Fingerprint: 8B8B 2209 0C6F 7C47 B1EA EE75 D6B7 2EB1 A7F1 DB43 KDE core developer sponsored by Qt Development Frameworks signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part. ___ Plasma-devel mailing list Plasma-devel@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/plasma-devel
Re: KWin highlight window effect enabled by default?
Am Dienstag 22 Dezember 2009 22:42:55 schrieb Aaron J. Seigo: > On December 20, 2009, Lucas Murray wrote: > > Just to summarise: I consider that enabling the KWin highlight window > > effect by default is the wrong choice and that the change should be > > reverted before the next KDE SC release. > > fwiw, i whole-heartedly agree with everything Lucas wrote. +1 from me. > > perhaps the person(s) who enabled it by default could help us understand > the reasoning more? if there isn't a compelling reason there, i think > Lucas is quite correct. > I run the effect several days without noticiing any of the problems why it wasn't enabled in 4.3. Lucas noticed some problems and those were fixed (e.g. with multiple desktops) or should be fixed (e.g. the mentioned problem on fast movement). Personally I think this is an effect which adds lots of functionality and usability. For me it is very useful for example to just have a peak at a window, to read a few lines of text on a web page or to look at the opened documentation in Qt Assistant... Of course I'm an experienced user and have not done any usability studies on that subject ;-) Of course I understand the reasoning that it is one of Windows 7 main user interface points. But I think we have enough unique features and new improvements in 4.4 that we do not have to fear that users think we only copy from Windows and it should not be a reason to turn off useful features. With the same arguments we would have to turn off for example Present Windows as it's "just a copy of MacOS". The highlight windows effect is not only used for the taskbar highlights, but I also turned it on in the "classic" non-composited tabbox to provide the same highlight of the current selected window as the boxswitch effect does. In fact I was thinking about switching off boxswitch by default in favor for the classic tabbox with the highlight effect as that one scales better for a larger number of windows (thumbnails are too small in boxswitch effect). So here we have the problem that turning on the effect is not side-effect free. If you want to use it for alt+tab you have to use it for taskbar as well as it is not configurable (and it's too late for 4.4). Personally I do not object to a default off although I do not have the same doubts as mentioned by Lucas. signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part. ___ Plasma-devel mailing list Plasma-devel@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/plasma-devel
Re: KWin highlight window effect enabled by default?
On Tue, Dec 22, 2009 at 11:07:00PM +0100, Martin Gräßlin wrote: > The highlight windows effect is not only used for the taskbar highlights, but > I > also turned it on in the "classic" non-composited tabbox to provide the same > highlight of the current selected window as the boxswitch effect does. In > fact > I was thinking about switching off boxswitch by default in favor for the > classic tabbox with the highlight effect as that one scales better for a > larger > number of windows (thumbnails are too small in boxswitch effect). So here we > have the problem that turning on the effect is not side-effect free. If you > want > to use it for alt+tab you have to use it for taskbar as well as it is not > configurable (and it's too late for 4.4). This changes things somewhat as I didn't even know that feature existed. Since the window switcher cannot use the effect without it being enabled for the taskbar as well it's time to mention that Plasma should really have its own settings for enabling both highlight windows and taskbar thumbnails. Both effects are intended to be passive--as in they are always enabled and are used whenever an application requests it. As they can be used by multiple applications at the same time only having a single global setting doesn't really work that well. The only hurdle for this right now is string freeze so if a string exception cannot be gained (Since we're already past beta 2 I doubt one can be given) I guess the Plasma highlight effect setting will need to be a hidden option in KDE SC 4.4. -- Lucas Murray GPG Fingerprint: 0B88 499E 3F5B 1405 D952 258A AD90 B4F5 90B6 3534 pgpNdE1XJWvYU.pgp Description: PGP signature ___ Plasma-devel mailing list Plasma-devel@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/plasma-devel
Re: KWin highlight window effect enabled by default?
On Monday 21 December 2009, Lucas Murray wrote: > Recently the KWin highlight window desktop effect was made to be enabled > by default in the KDE Plasma Desktop workspace. As I was not a part of > the discussion to decide this I do not know the exact reason why it was > enabled by default but I would like to voice my opinion that it was the > wrong choice. > > The highlight window effect is the one that, when you hover over a > taskbar item, fades out all windows except the one being hovered over. > As this animation affects the entire screen and as it can occur often > during normal desktop usage it has a large influence over the entire KDE > Plasma Desktop visual identity. > now the window effect has its own configuration to be turned on/off in the taskbar. the only gripe i have by turning it off by default from there is that since we can't put new configuration ui it will be simply impossible to find. in the kwin ui of course isn't obvious but is still an ui mean to enable it. i would say we can do the following: 1) keep enabled by default in the taskbar config 2) keep the ui in kwin to enable/disable it and disable by default from there in 4.5 it will go away from the kwin ui and it will get a chekbox in the taskbar config, disabled by default Cheers, Marco Martin ___ Plasma-devel mailing list Plasma-devel@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/plasma-devel
Re: KWin highlight window effect enabled by default?
On Monday 21 December 2009, Lucas Murray wrote: > Recently the KWin highlight window desktop effect was made to be enabled > by default in the KDE Plasma Desktop workspace. As I was not a part of > the discussion to decide this I do not know the exact reason why it was > enabled by default but I would like to voice my opinion that it was the > wrong choice. > > The highlight window effect is the one that, when you hover over a > taskbar item, fades out all windows except the one being hovered over. > As this animation affects the entire screen and as it can occur often > during normal desktop usage it has a large influence over the entire KDE > Plasma Desktop visual identity. > > The effect is also a major part of the Windows 7 visual identity with > the Microsoft equivalent being Aero Peek. > > I feel that although the effect can be an improvement to usability with > some minor changes it should not be a part of the default KDE Plasma > Desktop installation as it makes KDE feel less like KDE and more of a > blatant Windows clone. > > Although it could be argued that the same can be said for the new KWin > quick tiling and maximization features being a copy of Aero Snap I do > not feel that it affects the KDE Plasma Desktop identity in any way and > can be more thought of as just being a feature that was inspired by > Windows 7 and GNOME (They have had drag-to-screen-top maximization for > a while now). > > I would just like to emphasise that I believe that the effect is not an > improvement on usability in its current state either and is more of a > distraction than anything else. Having both taskbar thumbnails and the > highlight window effect enabled at the same time is redundant; having > all windows fade back in sometimes when moving between taskbar items is > a major graphical glitch; not having the highlighted windows raised to > the top of the window stack partially occludes the window and makes it > look messy. Definitely the most annoying part of the effect is how easy > it is to activate by accident. > > Just to summarise: I consider that enabling the KWin highlight window > effect by default is the wrong choice and that the change should be > reverted before the next KDE SC release. > asked for a freeze exception, let's see how it goes :) -- Marco Martin ___ Plasma-devel mailing list Plasma-devel@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/plasma-devel
