said Alexandre Couture:
| Hi everyone!
|
| In the trinity-devel mailing list, there is a nst about keeping or
| removing the Kick-Off launcher. Here is a part of what is written:
|
| Timothy Pearson wrote:
| >> A good solution would be to 1) remove kickoff since it's unlikely
| >> that it is used, and doesn't keep in the style of trinity and port
| >> the cool features of kickoff into the original kicker panel, if there
| >> are any.
| >
| > I would need a list of any improvements in Kickoff that are not in
| > Kicker. Copious amounts of whitespace around each widget is not
| > considered an improvement. ;-)  Perhaps you could gather information
| > from list members on why they use Kickoff vs. Kicker?
|
| Francois Andriot wrote:
| >Hello, I'm always using Kickoff menu instead of Kicker, so I would'nt
| >like it to be removed.
| >I currently have no problem with it.
| >
| >
| >Here are some reasons:
| >- I prefer having separate tabs for favorites/all
| >applications/Computer/History , instead of having a single huge menu
| >with many submenus.
| >- I prefer the search feature of Kickoff, which displays immediatly the
| >icon of the app I'm searching. In kicker, the search feature justs
| > grays out the directories, but I still have to browse the tree to find
| > the application I want. When the application list is very long, it is
| > still not very convenient.
| >- I like the way applications are shown in menu: a "big" icon,
| >application name written with big letters, application summary with
| >small letters. So there is no confusion between application name and
| >application summary.
| >
| >Maybe we should just ship Kickoff as a separate application, like kbfx 
| > ?
|
| I have the same point of view as Francois Andriot on that and I can even
| add:
|
| -Kick-Off is as fast as though. If the program I want to launch is Gimp,
| I click on the start menu, I write ''gim'' on the keyboard and a menu
| with ''Gimp'' already highlighted appear. I just have to press enter.
| Otherwise, in the classic menu, I would have to find the ''Graphics''
| menu and I would need to read all the names of every programs in the
| list before I can see ''Gimp'' in the list. And everybody here knows
| that TDE comes with plenty of programs, so depending of what you are
| looking for, the menu can be long... We use search engines to find what
| we want on the Web, but it wouldn't be a good idea on your computer?
|
| -Having a little summary of what the programs are is much more intuitive
| than having to start it, to see what it is. It is just more simple for
| users coming from Windows.
|
| -On my little Asus EEE, with a screen resolution of 800x480, the
| Kick-off is just the right size, where on the classic start menu, often
| a sub-menu takes all the screen and many columns, and it gets just
| confusing and harder to find what you are looking for.
|
| -I just don't get the point of users telling everywhere on this mailing
| list that NOTHING should change in TDE incomparison with KDE 3.5.10 and
| every single bit should stay identical, but the Kick-Off should be
| dropped. It is the same thing with Dolphin. Those are 2 KDE3 programs,
| it is not because they also exists in KDE4 that they are evil.
|
| If the Kick-Off is to be dropped one day or another, would it be at
| least possible to implement the search feature of the classic start menu
| in a more efficient way?
|
| Just my opinion...
| -Alexandre

My opinion of Kickoff is so strong that I had to Google it to see what it 
was. After having done so, I realized that it was one of the reasons I 
stuck with KDE-3.x and now TDE, it being one of those "we did it because 
we can" features that demonstrate that KDE was done, design-wise, in 3.x 
that, in keeping with KDE's "we know what's best and you don't" design 
philosophy.

If there is fervent support for this among TDE users, might it best be a 
separate and optional package? Then those who want it may have it and 
those who don't won't need to carry it around.

(Likewise, the best I can tell entirely useless plymouthd! Maybe somebody 
wants it, but I don't and would love to learn how to cast it into the 
abyss forever.)
-- 
dep

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