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Whiskers

Retired Staff
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    CSS God

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Recent Profile Visitors

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  1. Ridge Racer 1 and 2 are both well worth picking up imo. Fun arcadey goodness, and a surprising amount of content for handheld racing games of the era. Also great soundtracks. The LocoRoco games are worth checking out too. And the two God of War games (Chains of Olympus and Ghost of Sparta) are pretty great.
  2. Banned for having a username I always read as covfefe
  3. The refresh button should be part of the GUI by default. Sure you can add it yourself, but it's completely hidden away beneath 3 submenu levels. I'd argue Linus' issues with handling the file are just as much a Dolphin / KDE issue as it is a Linus issue; imo the UX for this task is poor and you shouldn't use the notification centre for showing important info relating to your current task. There's a reason it's been standard across almost every popular OS going back decades to show a pop-up progress bar / info window prominently near where you are carrying out the related task. There are ways to design it to be less clunky and intrusive whilst still sufficiently informing the user of what's going on; Dolphin / KDE's approach doesn't satisfactorily do this imo. You just said yourself that we all do things slightly differently and Linux is tailored for that. But then when Linus wants to do things differently on Linux, you're suggesting he's wrong to do so. I don't think that's entirely fair. If Linux is supposed to be welcoming to users of different tastes, experiences, and needs, I don't see why that should exclude users with a Windows background. There's nothing wrong with a few accommodations here and there that make life a little easier for users transitioning to Linux, so long as they don't intrude on the experience for those who are already very familiar and confident with Linux. Even something as simple as adding in "snipping tool" as a search alias for a given screenshot utility can help. That's a fair point. It can definitely be difficult to discern what's truly "intuitive" and what's just accommodating established expectations. And "intuitive design" has long been a bit of an empty buzzword in UI, UX design and related areas. I still think it's important to do what we can to make interfaces that make sense for new users though, whether they're new to computers entirely or just new to Linux. Good points. I hadn't even considered the desktop context menu example, I could indeed see that causing some confusion / frustration for ex-Windows users. That said it's very easy to find your way to the display settings so I don't think it's too inconvenient or confusing to people. It's also an instance, imo, of Windows having a bizarre and arbitrary way of doing something which wouldn't be intuitive at all unless you're already used to it. Ultimately it's a matter of balance. I feel sometimes we're a bit too diametrically opposed to the idea of doing something "the Windows way", or even accommodating Windows users. But I also feel there are plenty of things in most Linux distros and software that are outright unintuitive, even to those who've never used Windows before. One important note though; research data from the Windows 95 era isn't guaranteed to be entirely relevant / accurate now. User familiarity with and expectations for computer programs and interfaces were vastly different then; computers were still relatively new to consumers, and they were yet to become entirely commonplace. And of course smartphones, which have had a massive impact on user familiarity and expectations with tech and software in general, didn't exist. The "baseline" expectation of users in 2021 isn't comparable to that of ~1995 because as a whole we're so much more intimately familiar with using computers. To me, it seems more intuitive that a button meant to show you the desktop does so with as few catches as possible. By trying to pre-empt user intent, I think it risks confusing / frustrating users who don't use it as the designer expected. I mean that's kind of unavoidable to a point in UI design but hopefully you can see what I mean. Imo, it'd be better to have the Windows-like approach by default and allow users to choose the current approach if they prefer it. It could be that I feel that way because of baby duck syndrome, but I've almost never used the button before so I don't think so. I think optimally it should be designed to be accessible to both. Which is a bit hand-wavey I know, but I think it's important to not just copy Windows' way of doing something, or just design something to be intuitive to those who've never used a computer before. It's all about balance, again. And of course there's a third part to that balance; the existing Linux crowd. I'm not advocating for a paradigm shift in Linux UI and UX design which completely ignores current user expectations and preferences, just that it should be a little more cognisant of and accommodating to those who are new to Linux. Absolutely. And it's only getting more difficult, as so many people's experiences and expectations are being shaped by daily interactions with their smartphone or tablet. There are kids and even teens now who've been using a smart device almost every day of their life. Leads to some interesting questions as to how things will further develop for desktop OS design I think.
  4. Linus isn't the only user with a large screen. But even if he was, that doesn't make this good UX design. Not all users can be assumed to have perfect peripheral vision for one, so I don't think it's a great idea to show important information relating to the user's active task nowhere near where they are carrying that task out. I think it's also not optimal UX to represent an incomplete file visually as a complete file with a gibberish file extension. The way Windows handles this isn't great either, but is at least good enough that it's unlikely to cause this kind of user confusion - and owing to it displaying a prominent progress bar window on top of everything, it's less of an issue anyway. I don't agree. I don't think it's fair to suggest that's what Linus is doing, and I don't think it's reasonable to frame the issue as "Linux not behaving like Windows". That's really not the issue. Linux doesn't have to copy Windows' experience to accommodate new users. It needs to have an intuitive and accessible UI and UX. Windows itself has a notoriously flawed UI / UX; it's a schizophrenic kitbash of decades worth of inconsistent and sometimes downright dreadful interface design. Copying it outright would be silly. Linux should never settle for being as good as Windows; it should be so much better! Linux can be needlessly unintuitive and poorly communicative to new users at times. Things have improved considerably over the years, but there can still be little things here and there that are just obviously designed with insufficient consideration for newer or less technically inclined users. I think Linus' videos are highlighting that quite well.
  5. Whiskers

    Hello All

    Thanks! I've been away for the last year for health reasons I'm afraid (not covid, thankfully). But I'm feeling a bit better now so should be sticking around again, hopefully.
  6. I'm glad things have calmed down a little, but just as a reminder - please be civil and respectful to one another on the forum. Insults and snide comments, veiled or otherwise, aren't acceptable. It's completely unnecessary to resort to vitriol and anger over a difference of opinion. If you have a concern with the state of moderation in a given thread or section, specific or abstract, please talk to a member of the mod team about it. If there's anything we can do to improve the forum we're interested to hear it. And if something / someone is breaking the forum's rules, please use the report button to alert us to it. The site is moderated by a group of volunteers; ultimately, we can't individually vet each and every topic and post. We rely on the community to inform us when there's a problem so that we can take the appropriate action.
  7. Totally agree. I like using CLI personally, and it can be incredibly powerful; it has many advantages over a GUI for various tasks, and when you've learned how to use it effectively it can be much more efficient and powerful than a GUI can be without becoming a monstrous nightmare of buttons, dropdowns, and submenus on submenus. But it's also extremely unintuitive, very offputting to those who are less technically inclined, and for some tasks it can be less efficient or capable than a well designed GUI can be. And ultimately, regardless of how efficient or powerful either CLI or GUI is on paper, it's entirely meaningless if it doesn't work for the user. Some users fly with CLI, some with GUI. Important and common functionality should, optimally, never be exclusively tied to one or the other. It is indeed ironic given the nature of Linux itself that there's a bit of a prevalent determination in the community that things must only be done one way, and that users who wish to do it a different way are wrong. Choices are good; catering to varied user tastes and preferences is entirely a positive move.
  8. True, yeah, there'll be some people who do. But I don't think many reasonable people do. That said - if we can start tackling the problems we've been discussing, I don't doubt we'd see Linux's reputation amongst those people improve. We'd no longer be giving them an inch, so to speak. Damn. Yeah, stuff like that just happens too often unfortunately. Yep. Like I said before, toxicity should be called out in every community. And thankfully it's only a minority who act in this unpleasant way, which makes it much easier to deal with. I'm hopeful things can improve as Linux gains more momentum in the desktop OS space, and especially amongst gamers. That could be pivotal to shaking a lot of things up for the better. We'll get there eventually. Things have improved drastically over the years already; just the fact that there are distros focused on trying to be more user-friendly and intuitive is a great step forward. And we've seen a massive amount of excellent documentation and resources posted online to teach newcomers about Linux fundamentals, principles, etc. And with prominent people like Linus bringing attention to some of the shortcomings in the Linux experience for new users / ex-Windows users, there's increased attention on these issues - and hopefully better chance of them being properly addressed now. Just remember there's still a heck of a lot to be optimistic for!
  9. I don't think anyone's painting the entire community with the same brush - I'm part of the Linux community myself, and I don't consider myself toxic (at least I hope not!). The Linux community is massive, and full of a great many talented and friendly people. I'm confident in saying that the toxic and arrogant ones are probably a very small percentage of the overall group. The problem is, even a small group of toxic people can have an enormous negative impact if their behaviour isn't addressed. And it's altogether too common in the Linux community (in my experience) for toxic behaviour and attitudes to be expressed, and then never challenged or called out. There's always plenty of excuses or justifications for it when it's discussed - but they're justifications and excuses for toxic, condescending, and insulting behaviour. It needs to be called out and addressed more I feel.
  10. You're entirely free to have a discussion. You're just not free to be a dick while doing it. If you want to discuss the specifics of that you can send me a private message.
  11. Thread cleaned. A reminder for everyone to please be civil and respectful to one another when discussing a difference of opinion.
  12. Thread locked. Please do not post duplicate threads; you previously posted the same topic here.
  13. I disagree. The Linux community has long had a serious problem with arrogance and elitism which just isn't present in the same way in the Windows community in my experience. If anything, a better comparison would be the Apple community. Both have a ridiculous issue with treating newer / less knowledgeable users with contempt, condescension and venom. If a user has an issue with a feature or bug they're often told that it's not a problem and that actually they're doing things wrong and need to go learn how to do it the right way. Heck just look at how some have responded to Linus and Luke's series; I've seen comments in complete opposition to fixing the kind of problems they're raising because they believe that Linux shouldn't cater to "gamerbros", and that new users just need to "learn Linux". Some people seem to find it a genuinely insulting prospect to cater to ex-Windows users in Linux, which is just crazy to me. Imo, it's important to call this out because it is such a problem. And sure, it should be called out in the Windows and Apple communities too when it happens. But Linux in particular has long had a unique problem wiht this and it needs to be called out so things can change. The gatekeeping and elitism just isn't right.
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