KDE Programs Naming Convention

[Dotan Cohen]

On 09/01/2008, Colin Pinkney <kubuntu-users at cpinkney.org.uk> wrote:
> On Wednesday 09 Jan 2008, Dotan Cohen wrote:
> > There really should be a movement towards better names. What the hell
> > is K3B? And what program should I burn a disk with?
> >
> > Microsoft has great names: Office for an office suit, Internet
> > Explorer for an Internet web browser, Media Player for a media player.
> > Ask someone off the street what Amarok or Firefox do, and you will get
> > a blank stare.
>
> This is my KDE menu:
>
> http://img88.imageshack.us/img88/1512/menugo8.png
>
> I can't remember if the settings are the default in Kubuntu, but it's
> certainly very easy to put the application description next to the name
> (Right click panel->Panel Menu->Configure Panel->Menus). So what is so
> confusing about this?

Nothing, and that is what I do.

> As other people in this thread have pointed out, there are plenty of weirdly
> named applications on Windows too and people simply get used to them like a
> brand name. In fact if an application gets so popular its name becomes
> synonymous with the application type, like people call PDFs "Acrobat files"
> or say a picture was "Photoshopped".

I say that is a "gimped" photo. It's a great way to introduce the app.
I've never heard "acrobat files" before.

> And have you ever tried Googling for something like 'Media Player'? Yes, you
> get MS Windows Media Player as the top hit, simply because of how many people
> use it since it is bundled with Windows, but that's no good if you're after
> help on a specific KDE media player (and if we're talking about computer
> novices they probably will not know to put "KDE" in their search terms
> either).

I agree that the unique names are good for googling.

> Certainly if there is an opportunity to create a unique name that also hints
> at its functionality we should go with that and I thought there had been a
> slight push towards this for main KDE apps that were being renamed/rewritten
> for KDE 4 although I can't think of any that they have really achieved with
> this.

We'll see. As I'm a heavy Kontact user, I'll be waiting for KDE 4.1 or
so before switching.

Dotan Cohen

http://what-is-what.com
http://gibberish.co.il
א-ב-ג-ד-ה-ו-ז-ח-ט-י-ך-כ-ל-ם-מ-ן-נ-ס-ע-ף-פ-ץ-צ-ק-ר-ש-ת

A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?