Not very long ago, Aaron wrote an article about improving our user experience, stating that "Micro-Options Suck". Coincidentally, an article appeared on dot.kde.org only a few hours later, stating the following: "Choice Is Not A Usability Problem".

Ardent readers will notice that there is possibly a contradiction here. In this article I would like to explain why this is not really a contradiction, but rather a misunderstanding. To get us started, let's make a jump back in time (using Flux Capacitor technology):

The year is 2004. It's cold. You are alone. There is a house in the north (called "KDE"), and a house in the south ("GNOME"). Press "n" or "s".

> n

You have entered the house of KDE. It's a big house, full of obscure items. The sheer number of items is highly impressive, but you get confused. It is too much. What is your next step? Press "n" or "s".

> s

You have entered the house of GNOME. This house is neat, clean, but also kind of empty. There are very few things to play with. You get confused. What is your next step?

> I give up. User reboots into Windows.


The gist of this little analogy:

KDE was wrong. GNOME was wrong. Also - they both were right!


This is quite obviously another contradiction. Obviously this means that Mark is not quite right in the head! Well, you're possibly right on both accounts, but let me explain why it actually makes sense: The truth is somewhere in between.

KDE has historically been known for being "the nerd's desktop". Basically, we were so proud of having our own desktop that we quickly determined that giving everyone as much freedom as possible is ideal. After all, the competition (Windows) did not offer this. Developer A came along, going "Hey, I have this fancy idea. It's a bit weird, but let me show you!". Developer B was quick to reply: "Hell yeah, why not? After all this is our own desktop. We can make all of our dreams come true. Let's do it!"

GNOME has historically been known for being very sparse with options. They did this for a good reason: Someone smart realized that KDE was totally going overboard with options. Too much is too much. Let me show you a classical example:




Now let me show you an example of the Dolphin settings dialog:



Dolphin has won 2009's Akademy Award for "Best Application". The above screenshot demonstrates one of our reasons for choosing it: Peter Penz realized what generations of GUI developers (both in KDE and GNOME) got wrong: The true secret to getting your settings right is choosing the essential ones, while making good choices for defaults that don't need micro-options.

Unfortunately, this is not easy, and it separates the good GUI designer from the bad one. In fact making these choices is bloody damn hard, I kid you not. It requires a lot of thought, experience, and taste. But in the end, you, as a developer, are responsible for making these choices. Creating software is not about giving the user a LEGO blocks game. If options get too complex, the users might as well learn programming and do it all by themselves. That's because, if you think about it, choosing an option is programming: You make the program use one code path, or a different one. This is essentially the same as an "if() {}; else() {};" block wrapped in GUI sugar.

To sum it up:

Before adding an option, think hard about it. Could the same be achieved with a smarter algorithm? Often options are bad excuses for deciding between one bad implementation and another bad one. Find a good one!

Don't try to solve the problem by removing all options. Some options are very useful, and they are actually needed. Finding out which of these are needed is the developer's task. It's a hard task, but it can be done.

Consider asking professionals. We have a KDE Usability team, comprised of real experts on this topic. Among them is Celeste, a member of the KDE board. She knows what she's talking about, and she's generally very helpful. Don't be shy, ask them!

That's it for this time, I hope you will be able to get something useful out of this blog. Remember, it's not meant as bashing, but rather as useful advice, stemming from many years of experience with these things (we Amarok developers have made our good share of mistakes as well, there is little doubt about that).


Thanks for reading

What is const correctness?

It's a programming paradigm that helps writing correct code. In C++, const correctness comprises a set of different techniques, you can read up about them here. In this article however I only want to focus on one form of const correctness, that is object constness.

Why should I care about const correctness?

Because it increases type safety, makes your code more easy to understand, and it helps making your code correct. Const objects can be seen as invariants in mathematical terms, that is, objects that do not change, that do not vary.

An example in code:

const int myNumber = 41;

int result;



result = myNumber + 1;

KMessageBox::information( 0, "The meaning of life is: " + QString::number( result ) );

In this example, myNumber is a const object (an int is really a POD type, but let that not distract us). This indicates that I cannot change the object. And indeed, if I were to try that, the compiler would complain about it, which is a good thing. It helps preventing mistakes by accidentally changing this object later on.

Additionally, it helps readability, because anyone can clearly see that myNumber is not meant to be changed. So you see, writing that "const" before it is a little bit of work, but it has a big pay-off. I think it's worth it, so I try to use it always in my code.


PS: It's likely that somewhere in this article I made a slight mistake or a bad wording. With these things, you will always find a C++ expert who will point out something, because C++ is very pointoutable. So that might happen, but I'm fairly sure I got the gist right

As you might have noticed from other blogs on PlanetKDE the KDE promo people have been quite the busy bees this weekend in Stuttgart. Getting together with great people, getting stuff done, having good beer and food -> great sprint. And of course a sprint with Jos and me has to include at least one proper group hug

(fltr: Valerie, Kenny, Martin, Claudia, me, Rainer, Justin, Jos, Eckhart, Ingo, Stuart, Daniel, Luca, Cornelius, Frank, Troy, Frederik)

It was a great weekend which got us a lot further to the 4.4 release announcement, the rebranding of KDE, a new KDE booklet to give out at events, a redesign of www.kde.org and more. It is amazing what you can get done if you get the right people together for 3 days.

Most important for me though was finally getting to know Ingo, Stuart and Luca. It was their first KDE meeting. I hope we introduced them properly (including group hugs and old stories about KDE) It feels good to know that that part of the forum team got even closer to our community now after doing an incredible job for a while already.

Getting feedback on stuff like the rebranding discussion or the move to Git from the people who helped start KDE was very valuable. We should definitely make sure to keep this connection as long as possible. A simple “been there – done that – it was an incredibly stupid idea” can save everyone from quite some headache and bike shedding.

I miss you all already… Damn.

But the promo people were not the only busy bees. No the Amarokers decided it is time to release 2.2.1. It includes improvements to podcasts, collection scanning, automatic script updating and much more. Read the release notes and download it. Of course don’t forget it is Rokvember

In the spirit of Aaron's post, I also wanted to contribute something positive to Planet KDE. However, instead of writing it myself, I leave this to someone who could do it much better than me, Max Ehrmann (1872 – 1945). His work "Desiderata" is one of the most famous prose poems ever written. Famous as it may be, not everyone knows it, and I think that's a shame, as it has much to give.

Enjoy this little off-topic post, have a nice weekend, and maybe give some thought to Desiderata; it would make me happy, and maybe you as well.

Desiderata

Go placidly amid the noise and haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons,
they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain and bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.

Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs;
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals;
and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself.
Especially, do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love;
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment
it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.

You are a child of the universe,
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be,
and whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful.

Strive to be happy.


Max Ehrmann, Desiderata, Copyright 1952.

So, long story short, or maybe long, we'll see after I've finished writing this:

I had been looking for a new portable music player for a while. My old one was crappy, to say the least. Incidentally I had talked about this on IRC, and fellow KDE developer Will Stephenson said he was also on the look for a new player. So we googled a bit. I had some special wishes for my "ideal" device, and Will eventually found one that exactly fitted my needs. What I needed was this:

Small size of the device. With a bigger device, I might as well carry a smartphone.

Rugged and water proof. I'm an avid jogger, I run in all weather conditions, and I sweat a lot while running.

Flash based. For jogging I need the device to be shock resistant, HDD is out of the question.

Supporting all formats. I don't want to transcode constantly, so I need MP3, OGG, FLAC, AAC, etc.

Usable with Amarok. What Amarok does really well is MTP, so I wanted that.

Not made by Apple. For various reasons (ethical, reality distortion field, etc) I boycott Apple products.

No fancy schmancy video features. I need the device to do one thing well, that is playing music.

Long battery life. Preferrably easily chargable with the my PC.

As it turned out, the Sansa Clip is exactly the device I had dreamed of. Impatient as I (notoriously) am, I had to head out instantly and buy the thing (4GB version costs about 60 USD). Loaded some music on it, went on a jogging tour today, and what can I say: The thing rocks I'm a happy camper now. The Clip worked out of the box, the original firmware from Sandisk supports all formats I need (including OGG and FLAC), so I didn't even have to upgrade it (or install Rockbox).

Additionally, I bought these sweet headphones, cause the bundled ones didn't really cut it for sports. They have a fancy name, "Skullcandy Chops", and their sound quality is fancy too. Also ideal for sports, as they are not classical earbuds, but instead they are worn close to the ear, which I like. With standard earbuds the things tend to fall out of my ears, apparently I have weird ears or something.




Disclaimer: I do not work for Sandisk, nor do I work for Skullcandy. They did promise me a "really cool holiday" though for making some promotion. We'll see about that.

many of you have probably seen in passing jeff's blog post announcing camp kde 2010. maybe some of you even remember what it is! well i'll refresh your memory anyway. campkde is the western hemisphere's response to akademy. it is like the little brother that can't stand being ignored so he decides to make things happen himself. it's quite probably analogous to the overlooked friend trying to make himself known.


well, this post is here to remind you. campkde 2009 was one of the best conferences i've ever attended, and I look forward to it happening again. even though a bunch of hackers descended upon some tropical beach resort, we were productive. had you come upon us at 10pm you would have seen a 20odd group of people sitting in chairs a few feet from the beach, drinks in hand, coding or writing or discussing away. the lure of the perfect beach was not enough to tear attendees away from the talks that happened during the day.

this winter campkde 2010 will be held at UCSD in san diego, california. and I should really rephrase that, because january in san diego is not really winter in any real sense of the term. point is, campkde 2010 will be awesome. and you should be there. because a conference is really only as good as it's attendees, and without you, dear kde community, it just won't be the same. so think of the weather, think of the cool kde dudes you haven't seen in a few weeks/months/years, and register now! the homepage is here:camp kde homepage

so, without further ado:






also, i had some spare time... so just in case you guys are going to forget about campkde, here's a nice little scripted plasmoid to tell you when it is:

you can install that from here: kde-look plasmoid page or from ghns in plasma directly!

Remember my Social Media Guide For Free Software Projects? Skreech was so kind to point me to a really great un-example site: Microsoft’s social media page for Windows 7, where they show what people are saying about it. Go take a look.

Now there are a few interesting things to mention about this page.

Quite fast, huh? Lots of people talking about it. Are those messages real-time? Nope. The page is just made to give you the impression they are. I picked a few random ones and got pretty much everything between 3 hours and 8 days old. See the slider at the top? Yea you can slow it down to actually be able to read it unlike the default.

If you feel like it just watch it for a few minutes and watch the same messages appear again. It started to loop after about 10 minutes here.

Now let’s take a look at the actual content of the messages shown. Windows 7 must be the most awesome operating system out there. In the 30 minutes or so I watched the stream there were 2 messages with a slightly negative touch. Every single other message praised it. Every single one. Now call me biased but I don’t believe it. So I had a look at the actual Twitter search page for Windows 7 and Win7. And indeed you find tweets, that are less positive, like this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this or this. They do however have little stabs at Linux and Apple in their selected tweets (”I though Apple had it together but with Win7 out of the door they better get moving.” and similar.). This page seems to indicate that they do indeed filter for family friendliness and so on. Fair enough. But it also says that they do not filter out the negative stuff. Uhhhhm yes you do.

The Facebook messages are taken from the Windows fan page on Facebook. Now my guess is that the audience of said fan page is slightly biased but I’ll let that one slide as there aren’t a lot of good ways to get such messages out of Facebook.

There is probably more but those are the things that immediately jumped into my eye. Please leave comments if you find other gems.

Now the sad thing is: From my quick check of Twitter and Co it seems that Windows 7 is indeed good according to quite a few people. There are indeed a lot of people tweeting about it. There would have been no need to hide behind filtering and sneaky web-apps trying to create an illusion of a lot of communication. This would have been a great opportunity to show what people really think about it and gain credibility. But it failed. It failed to be honest and instead took the secure way. If you want to take the secure way stay away from social media!

Wanna learn how to do it right? Get in touch with me and have a look at buzz.kde.org (which is indeed live and unfiltered and could use some coding help – ping me if you want to help).

Hello goodpeople,

this is a quickreminder for all kdefriendly bug triagers and otherfolks. Ok, I'll stop with the strangetalk now...




We are going to have a Phonon Bugday on the 8th of November, which is really quite soon, if you think about it. Phonon is a very central component of KDE and Qt, but like all software it does contain a number of bugs. It doesn't have to stay this way though

Come join us at our Bugday. Developers, triagers, normal users - you can all be helpful. I'm pretty much convinced that many of Phonon's issues are fairly low hanging fruits that could be fixed rather easily, if we all help out a bit. Also, Phonon's new maintainer Martin Sandsmark is pretty awesome, and I'm confident that with him at the helm we will be able to make a real difference.


Join us!


PS: The event is not actually happening in Buğday, but rather on irc.freenode.net, channel #phonon. Bringing Kebab is totally fine though.