There is a "thread" at KDE forums ...about "rethinking activities".
https://forum.kde.org/viewtopic.php?f=285&t=126253
I, personally, think that the activites do not need to be rethought I think that there are a couple of simple tweaks and "getting the word out" that need to be done.
Substitute Kubuntu for KDE: Here is what i posted:
###################
I, personally, think that the activites do not need to be rethought I think that there are a couple of simple tweaks and "getting the word out" that need to be done.
I) This post is about two things:
i) how to get the word out
IF THE FOLKS IN LINUX LAND DO NOT KNOW....about "the rethinking" then the situation in and of itself about getting NEW users by "rethinking activities' is an exercise in futility.
ii) GET the ONE thing that the NEW USER thinks would make the "activity" worthwhile RIGHT and be done with it.
BOTH ARE EQUALLY IMPORTANT but the post will begin with "how to get the word out'.
i) The whole gestalt of the "activity" has been a "bugaboo" for years..... I have read literally dozens and dozens of "reviews" of activities and absolutely none actually "described" the intention behind their creation.
Notice that the PROBLEM is not the Plasma desktop it is what the REVIEWERS WRITE about the desktop.
Almost all reviewers could care less about this desktop or that desktop!
What they care about is:
a) people coming back to read their breathless and trenchant reviewsand not another reviewer's work
and
b) CLICKING ADVERTISINGS.
The Newspaper Editor figured out two centuries ago how to ....minimize the "reporter's ego" and maximize money.
This has been forgotten intentionally, or unintentionally, in the modern day of "advocacy journalism" but HERE is the way to get the reader's attention.
The physical placement on the paper newspaper page was this reading DOWN vertically:
WHO
WHAT
WHEN
WHERE
WHY
The reason for this placement is so that the editor could CHOP OFF the bottom parts of the article in the case that A NEW ADVERTISING came in after the article had been typeset ( the old lead fonts that were hand placed).
WHO --- who is the article about, literally, "do I know the person in the car wreck"? ...........not .....the reviewer
WHAT - A new factory is coming to town, what will they make and can I maybe get a job?
WHEN - if it happened within the last few days then it is important to read now, otherwise I can MAYBE save it for later
WHERE - All the IMPORTANT news is "local"
WHY - people could care less why so it is at the bottom..
However, "reviewers" have changed / reversed this...
WHO now means the reviewer
WHAT is BELOW the first advertising
WHEN the dates are removed so that the reader is fooled into when it was written and so it can be easily recycled
WHERE - This is often very hard to determine so that the reader thinks it might have happened near them.
WHY- This is how the reviewer makes her or himself important and so people come back to read more scribblings...
The new sequence is
A) ME
B) What do I HAVE to write so that you will come back and click my advertisers?
So.............ONE PROBLEM with "Linux developers" is that they FEEL IT IS DIGNIFIED to write about their stuff in a formulaic format
It is a THING..............being dignified, and aall welll..you know...
And a prime example is at Distro Watch, most "release announcements" start with something like "We are proud to announce..." ..etc.
SO.............what needs to be done to "get the word out"?
The thing that needs to be done is to decide upon A FEW.......
A FEW...........important things about the Plasma desktop
And.....get them //// out so that they are..... FRONT AND CENTER.... for the new user. OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN...
Especially at three places:
I) In the FIRST VERTICAL BULLETED TEN LINES of a distro watch announcement NOT A PARAGRAPH ..the one .on the first page of DW
II) The first ten vertical bulleted lines of the "description" of the distro on the distro's page at DistroWatch. WITH...a one line "expansion" of each.
III) The first ten vertical bulleted lines n the "landing page" of the KDE site with TWO expansion sentences of each
front, and centre, there should be a VERTICAL BULLETED LIST of AT THE MOST.....
TEN "things that can be done with the Plasma Desktop".
A) the first two or three bulleted items should be NEW even if they are just TWEAKS of what was there before.. but don't SAY that they are tweaks....this is intended for the NEW user.
" We now have a widget to invoke activities"
B) the rest should ALWAYS "the IMPORTANT base items" that are repeated with each announcement.. such as:
"Activities now have a lock feature for applications on them".
"We have a very short "read me" on the desktop to guide you in setting up your first activity and first widget".
HORRORS: What will the reviewers have to write about?
HORRORS: Will we offend the reviewers?
To answer the last question: NO!
This is done to :
a) capture the new user's interest
b) So that the REVIEWERS can easily absorb the information and then TURN IT AROUND IN THEIR OWN PARTICULAR SPIN...AND EXPAND UPON THEM. for their readers.
After all, why do YOU ...like to read a particular reviewer?
Mainly because of the reviewer's writing STYLE..and the "in depth" reporting....
But., the reviewers want the reader to be "slidering down" past ADVERTISINGS....the "good stuff" is at the bottom..
SO.........FORCE the reviewers
to put the "good stuff" THE WHOLE LENGTH DOWN...of their review starting at the top!!
They will write about what is PROVIDED because it is EASIER than digging it out for themselves...
Give the reviewer a "hand up" with the bulleted information and the reviewer can then take the " hand off " and run with it...
everybody is happy!
AGAIN TO REITERATE:
The NONUSER who has READ reviews.... has read TOO MANY TIMES....that the "plasma interface" is ...."hard to understand"... it is "heavy" it is "resource intensive"
By producing over and over again a simple bulleted list of what the plasma desktop can do....
THE CASUAL READER........."gets the big idea" and then can go to the reviewer for the details...
II) How to capture the attention of the NEW USER when FIRST seeing the plasma deskop:
A) a READ ME..... on the desktop front and center.. listing in ten bulleted sentences:
a) This is how you add an activity
b) Look at the widgets and find our new "activity manager" widget that places a link on the desktop for navigating to the activities.
c) how to lock an application to a single desktop
d) others
KISS....keep it simple for a few of the BIG IDEAS that make the Plasma desktop so elegant and easy.
We all know that the huge strength of the Plasma Desktop is the activities.
THINGS RECENTLY DONE RIGHT...
A) the Placement / addition of the widget "activity manager" FIRST THING on the top ... is brilliant...............just brilliant.
B) The whole "panel" at the left for adding activities, is, again, brilliant and very nice looking...really....
THE ONE THING THAT NEEDS TO BE RESOLVED......
In my honest opinion........The problem is that a NEW USER ... thinks INTUITIVELY that if an activity is going to be "better" than a virtual desktop that
it should AT LEAST......lock an app to an activity.
I have a favourite music app that does not have the "normal controls" on the window frame at top, there is NO window frame... to lock it to an activity...
Instead it has a box to tick for "move to such and such a page' but it doesn't work...the thing is on all activities no matter what..
A LOT OF PEOPLE have a variety of "their favorite thing" that do not have this "lock to activity / window / whatever" option.
>>>>>>>So, make it a function of the KDE Plasma desktop.... no matter what the app wants to do.<<<<<<
TO WIT....when the person is making the new activity there should be a TICK BOX. WHEN MAKING IT.,..inserting the title, etc...
......"Do you want to LOCK all applications on this activity to ONLY this activity?" ( Yes / UNDO } ....
IMHO.............if the new user can IMMEDIATELLY FIRST THING.. get a couple of activities set up AND lock the desired apps to that activity.........
The word will get out ....and people will flock to KDE.
##################
I don't know "how far upstream" the thing about "locking activities to this particular activity" "is"...it is probably at the KDE level and not Kubuntu level.
I................personally...................do NOT think that the people at KDE will do much more than read my post and that it will be dismissed...
But....again, depending on just where the "lock to actitivty" is in the stream, maybe it is something that the Kubu devs might consider.
or not!!
woodjustsayinsmoke
https://forum.kde.org/viewtopic.php?f=285&t=126253
I, personally, think that the activites do not need to be rethought I think that there are a couple of simple tweaks and "getting the word out" that need to be done.
Substitute Kubuntu for KDE: Here is what i posted:
###################
I, personally, think that the activites do not need to be rethought I think that there are a couple of simple tweaks and "getting the word out" that need to be done.
I) This post is about two things:
i) how to get the word out
IF THE FOLKS IN LINUX LAND DO NOT KNOW....about "the rethinking" then the situation in and of itself about getting NEW users by "rethinking activities' is an exercise in futility.
ii) GET the ONE thing that the NEW USER thinks would make the "activity" worthwhile RIGHT and be done with it.
BOTH ARE EQUALLY IMPORTANT but the post will begin with "how to get the word out'.
i) The whole gestalt of the "activity" has been a "bugaboo" for years..... I have read literally dozens and dozens of "reviews" of activities and absolutely none actually "described" the intention behind their creation.
Notice that the PROBLEM is not the Plasma desktop it is what the REVIEWERS WRITE about the desktop.
Almost all reviewers could care less about this desktop or that desktop!
What they care about is:
a) people coming back to read their breathless and trenchant reviewsand not another reviewer's work
and
b) CLICKING ADVERTISINGS.
The Newspaper Editor figured out two centuries ago how to ....minimize the "reporter's ego" and maximize money.
This has been forgotten intentionally, or unintentionally, in the modern day of "advocacy journalism" but HERE is the way to get the reader's attention.
The physical placement on the paper newspaper page was this reading DOWN vertically:
WHO
WHAT
WHEN
WHERE
WHY
The reason for this placement is so that the editor could CHOP OFF the bottom parts of the article in the case that A NEW ADVERTISING came in after the article had been typeset ( the old lead fonts that were hand placed).
WHO --- who is the article about, literally, "do I know the person in the car wreck"? ...........not .....the reviewer
WHAT - A new factory is coming to town, what will they make and can I maybe get a job?
WHEN - if it happened within the last few days then it is important to read now, otherwise I can MAYBE save it for later
WHERE - All the IMPORTANT news is "local"
WHY - people could care less why so it is at the bottom..
However, "reviewers" have changed / reversed this...
WHO now means the reviewer
WHAT is BELOW the first advertising
WHEN the dates are removed so that the reader is fooled into when it was written and so it can be easily recycled
WHERE - This is often very hard to determine so that the reader thinks it might have happened near them.
WHY- This is how the reviewer makes her or himself important and so people come back to read more scribblings...
The new sequence is
A) ME
B) What do I HAVE to write so that you will come back and click my advertisers?
So.............ONE PROBLEM with "Linux developers" is that they FEEL IT IS DIGNIFIED to write about their stuff in a formulaic format
It is a THING..............being dignified, and aall welll..you know...
And a prime example is at Distro Watch, most "release announcements" start with something like "We are proud to announce..." ..etc.
SO.............what needs to be done to "get the word out"?
The thing that needs to be done is to decide upon A FEW.......
A FEW...........important things about the Plasma desktop
And.....get them //// out so that they are..... FRONT AND CENTER.... for the new user. OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN...
Especially at three places:
I) In the FIRST VERTICAL BULLETED TEN LINES of a distro watch announcement NOT A PARAGRAPH ..the one .on the first page of DW
II) The first ten vertical bulleted lines of the "description" of the distro on the distro's page at DistroWatch. WITH...a one line "expansion" of each.
III) The first ten vertical bulleted lines n the "landing page" of the KDE site with TWO expansion sentences of each
front, and centre, there should be a VERTICAL BULLETED LIST of AT THE MOST.....
TEN "things that can be done with the Plasma Desktop".
A) the first two or three bulleted items should be NEW even if they are just TWEAKS of what was there before.. but don't SAY that they are tweaks....this is intended for the NEW user.
" We now have a widget to invoke activities"
B) the rest should ALWAYS "the IMPORTANT base items" that are repeated with each announcement.. such as:
"Activities now have a lock feature for applications on them".
"We have a very short "read me" on the desktop to guide you in setting up your first activity and first widget".
HORRORS: What will the reviewers have to write about?
HORRORS: Will we offend the reviewers?
To answer the last question: NO!
This is done to :
a) capture the new user's interest
b) So that the REVIEWERS can easily absorb the information and then TURN IT AROUND IN THEIR OWN PARTICULAR SPIN...AND EXPAND UPON THEM. for their readers.
After all, why do YOU ...like to read a particular reviewer?
Mainly because of the reviewer's writing STYLE..and the "in depth" reporting....
But., the reviewers want the reader to be "slidering down" past ADVERTISINGS....the "good stuff" is at the bottom..
SO.........FORCE the reviewers
to put the "good stuff" THE WHOLE LENGTH DOWN...of their review starting at the top!!
They will write about what is PROVIDED because it is EASIER than digging it out for themselves...
Give the reviewer a "hand up" with the bulleted information and the reviewer can then take the " hand off " and run with it...
everybody is happy!
AGAIN TO REITERATE:
The NONUSER who has READ reviews.... has read TOO MANY TIMES....that the "plasma interface" is ...."hard to understand"... it is "heavy" it is "resource intensive"
By producing over and over again a simple bulleted list of what the plasma desktop can do....
THE CASUAL READER........."gets the big idea" and then can go to the reviewer for the details...
II) How to capture the attention of the NEW USER when FIRST seeing the plasma deskop:
A) a READ ME..... on the desktop front and center.. listing in ten bulleted sentences:
a) This is how you add an activity
b) Look at the widgets and find our new "activity manager" widget that places a link on the desktop for navigating to the activities.
c) how to lock an application to a single desktop
d) others
KISS....keep it simple for a few of the BIG IDEAS that make the Plasma desktop so elegant and easy.
We all know that the huge strength of the Plasma Desktop is the activities.
THINGS RECENTLY DONE RIGHT...
A) the Placement / addition of the widget "activity manager" FIRST THING on the top ... is brilliant...............just brilliant.
B) The whole "panel" at the left for adding activities, is, again, brilliant and very nice looking...really....
THE ONE THING THAT NEEDS TO BE RESOLVED......
In my honest opinion........The problem is that a NEW USER ... thinks INTUITIVELY that if an activity is going to be "better" than a virtual desktop that
it should AT LEAST......lock an app to an activity.
I have a favourite music app that does not have the "normal controls" on the window frame at top, there is NO window frame... to lock it to an activity...
Instead it has a box to tick for "move to such and such a page' but it doesn't work...the thing is on all activities no matter what..
A LOT OF PEOPLE have a variety of "their favorite thing" that do not have this "lock to activity / window / whatever" option.
>>>>>>>So, make it a function of the KDE Plasma desktop.... no matter what the app wants to do.<<<<<<
TO WIT....when the person is making the new activity there should be a TICK BOX. WHEN MAKING IT.,..inserting the title, etc...
......"Do you want to LOCK all applications on this activity to ONLY this activity?" ( Yes / UNDO } ....
IMHO.............if the new user can IMMEDIATELLY FIRST THING.. get a couple of activities set up AND lock the desired apps to that activity.........
The word will get out ....and people will flock to KDE.
##################
I don't know "how far upstream" the thing about "locking activities to this particular activity" "is"...it is probably at the KDE level and not Kubuntu level.
I................personally...................do NOT think that the people at KDE will do much more than read my post and that it will be dismissed...
But....again, depending on just where the "lock to actitivty" is in the stream, maybe it is something that the Kubu devs might consider.
or not!!
woodjustsayinsmoke