Change the default settings of Kubuntu to improve the first time user experience

Wed Jan 23 11:11:29 UTC 2013

I will do at home some mockups of some little changes that might help
Kubuntu look and fell even more cool than OSX :)


2013/1/23 AG Alex <alex at alexgrafic.it>

>  Hi everyone, I'm a new member with few years of experience using
> Kubuntu..., please be patient with my English, I'm still working on it....
> I'm writing to talk about *Users First Experience improvement in Kubuntu*,
> which is not the best we can do at moment especially for First Time Users,
> in my opinion of course.
>
> The current default configuration of Kubuntu (until 12.10) seems to be
> targeting just experienced users, which once installed a new system doesn't
> have any problem to build its own environment around its needs, but they
> wouldn't have any problem to do it even with a much more full functionality
> default configuration, while for a new user of Kubuntu it will be
> impossible even to simply imagine the powerful of the KDE environment with
> current default settings.
>
> So why don't we change the target of the default settings to aim the
> Newbbie needs instead of experienced users, they can anyway customize and
> set up everything they need in few steps. I mean, a bit of "sacrifice" for
> experienced user could become something really helpful for New Users.
> Even much better of course would be to gives, if possible, a choice during
> the installation process to set the Environment in few different ways, one
> could be"Minimal Basic Functionality" (for experienced Users), other could
> be "Fully Functionality Mode" (to show the real power of KDE) , other again
> could be a kind of "Learning Mode" where in my opinion Activities can
> become very helpful, and so on.....
> But I'm not a developer and maybe it's impossible to do it, or maybe it
> will be possible just having a much more centralized configuration system,
> where would be really nice to have a set of tools to export and share any
> aspect of any single part of of the DE configuration (but maybe in other
> post we can talk about it).
>
>
> Talking about *New Default Settings optimized for first time Users*,
> involves of course few different aspects like default packages installed,
> default desktop environment include plasma and plasmoids, and than default
> activities where to show many different aspect of KDE functionality
> combined with the best applications of Kubuntu repositories.
>
> *Default Packages:*
> In my opinion there are few change to do on default installed packages,
> simply because some application are not ready yet to be used, or in some
> other case, very useful tool are not installed by default.
>
> *Applications:*
>
> *Rekonq*, is not ready yet and I cannot see any good reason to use a "not
> ready yet software" as a default application, especially because we are
> talking about the *Default Tool to Access the Web*, which is a 90% daily
> use of computer for most of the people out there.
> I know, there is an installer launcher of Firefox and it's really simple
> to use, but in my opinion after hours of installation in some case, is
> really disarming do another installation and write password , simply to
> surfing the web in a  reasonable way, isn't ? I mean, there are few great
> software out there, are open source, stable, powerful, already on
> repository, every day more used......, why don't use one of it by default.
> Are we sure the best solution is to propose a not ready yet software to do
> the job ?, even because in my case it means to have any link clicked in
> Thunderbird opened in Rekonq , even if I change the default browser on
> system settings to use chromium (it seems to works just if is already
> opened).
>
> *Dragon Player*, is a good player but maybe there are some other great
> software like vlc already in repositories, which can gives to the users a
> much more complete and powerful solution to play with multimedia contents,
> and I'm pretty sure vlc is one of the first installation "extra" once
> complete the Kubuntu one, for many users.
>
> Talking about *Utility*, there are few nice utility right on the
> repository that could be installed by default, and for utility like
> Ksnapshot already installed would be much better to use a launcher on some
> panel, where would be nice as well to have some software to screencast the
> desktop, or even nice tools and some time essentials (depending on your job
> type), like Kruler, KcolorChooser, KCharSelect and so on..... I mean they
> are really small and so essential tools in some cases that really makes the
> difference.
>
> We want talk about* Yakuake* ?, I think there isn't better way to always
> have as much konsole instances as you need in a practice and nice way, and
> for new people, would be the easiest way possible to access the konsole
> when asking support on IRC and someone of us will say "..ok just pass those
> commands on the konsole.." just pressing F12 in the default Yakuake
> installation.
>
> *Plasmoids:*
>
> There are many good and useful plasmoids on repository, which can be very
> handy to gives a much more complete idea of what actually can be done in
> Plasma. Just to mention few of them *Quick Access* should be much more
> used on default desktop in my opinion, pointing for example on Document,
> Images, Videos, Music and Download folders, using few instances of it.
> Another interesting plasmoid to show could be *translatoid* , which is a
> really useful tool when multilanguage contents is your daily works. A
> calcuator, a converter, and everything can gives a better ideas about what
> can be done in plasma in a quick and easy way.
>
> *Activities:*
>
> Actitivities presets should be based only on application already installed
> by default, and to have some basic example of content in some cases can be
> much more comfortable to immediately understand the purpose of an activity.
> Activities presets with example contents, can be used as well for a kind
> of teaching purpose, well I guess some basic note or even few html pages to
> explain something visualized in plasmoids like Web Browser, next to the
> applications you want to teach opened with example already loaded, would be
> easier for anyone willing to learn any kind of knowledge. *
> *
>
> * Functionality:
> *
>
> I fill really comfortable with some "extra functionality" enabled like
> rolling up and down a window just within the mouse wheel, can be very
> useful if you used to work with a lot of opened tasks. Talking about
> buttons on the window decorations I use a lot the button to "keep Above
> Others", and I'm quite sure most of the new user not even knows it can be
> done, instead once is there it's really easy to understand how and when to
> use it.
> Another fancy and some time useful features that can be enabled by default
> is the ability to change the transparency of a window just pressing ALT and
> rolling the mouse wheel.
>
> I guess a second panel on the top of the screen can do most of the job I'm
> talking about if well equipped with plasmoid and applications launcher, and
> would be very easy to remove for the people don't like or don't need it,
> you don't think so ?.
> And if using *Activities* even the* top panel* (with plasmoids and
> launcher) *could be combined* with opened applications and desktop
> plasmoids for any Activities , would even be funny to create Activities to
> do tasks complete of documentation, example and so on....., nicely managed
> with plasmoids in a kind of "tematic top panel".
>
> To gives you an idea about how I'm used to work in Kubuntu, here an
> example of my current desktop<http://www.alexgrafic.it/images/examples/myDesk.jpg>, which maybe is to much customized respect the default
> one <http://www.alexgrafic.it/images/examples/defaultDesk.jpg>, but maybe
> something in between could be the right solution for the default
> configuration of Kubuntu.
>
> Well, I think to be my first post on this mailing list I already wrote too
> much, but hopefully I could make you understand why I consider so important
> the first impact arriving on a completely new Operating System, especially
> if the system we are talking about has a lot of great and useful features
> to be showed.
> I hope so because the current default settings of Kubuntu does not express
> so much of the KDE + Ubuntu combination potentiality, like instead should
> be in my opinion.
>
> I hope I haven't bored you, and that do you agree with some of my idea to
> improve the first Kubuntu experience, and if so , we can talk about it as
> deeply as we needs.
>
> Thanks for reading me, and much more for the amazing work you always did
> keeping Kubuntu alive....
>
> Alex
>
>
> --
> kubuntu-devel mailing list
> kubuntu-devel at lists.ubuntu.com
> Modify settings or unsubscribe at:
> https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/kubuntu-devel
>
>


-- 
Pozdrawiam, T. Dudzik
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/kubuntu-devel/attachments/20130123/bc4ab99e/attachment-0001.html>