How about an instructional video on every aspect of KDE? It could be a multi part series, like a video wiki. That would really help people that are visual learners.
Thank you for being one of the few Linux UA-camrs talking about the issue of UX shortcomings on Linux. As a fellow UX Designer, it's always frustrating to see others hand-wave these real problems away when they're likely the types who already just think programmer art and haphazardly-populated menus are good enough for everyone.
Agree with this all. But unfortunately what I fell and see is that most UX/HCI people just talk/write a lot but very few actually progress from that and actually help people like KDE with actions that improve the software that programers craft. Hopefully we see more joining and helping in future.
that's funny. the reason why I switched away from M$office to LibreOffice back in 2007 was that stupid ribbon interface, and I hate hamburger menus just the same. I'm glad there're still apps out there with the traditional paradigm (menu+toolbar)
@@JureRepinc Honestly the most contributors in FOSS are not UX designer. Most people are just into programming and since many projects are either developed by one person ahead or a bunch of people without any proper management, you just end up with a bad UX in most cases. That's just the flaw of decentralized development you have to take for its other advantages... The best bet is that you have one contributor/maintainer either developing most parts alone or merging every contribution properly together, so that you end up with a consistent UX. Then it's still a matter of question whether this one person actually knows how to design UX. It's kind of a miracle that FOSS has become so damn good in all this time. But it needed a lot of iterations in most cases. For example look at how often they completely reworked the UX for Blender. They recently refreshed Inkscape and Gimp a few years ago as well. Then these applications are even designed to be used by visual users. So it's more likely they have contributors interested in this topic, potentially caring about UX design. All of this struggle is a good reason for me to like GNOME a lot. Because their team of contributors contains multiple UX designer which give a direction how applications should work for most other contributors. So you end up with at something which is consistent. Sure, not everyone likes this design but that's not the point when it comes to usability. When it comes to KDE, I'm not sure whether there is actually a consistent design in the background or any plan. I know they patch/fix a lot recently but as a developer, I have still no idea where they are heading. I really hope they can get this more clear with Plasma 6 and it's not just an upgrade from Qt 5 to Qt 6. Because Qt itself doesn't provide any proper design guidelines. ...and that's the issue I see for UX designers "not joining and helping with KDE". How should they help if there's no preferred direction? Users can customize everything. So the typical KDE user will replace any adjusted UX anyway? There are a lot of reasons to keep you away from KDE as front-end developer in my opinion. ^^'
@@csehszlovakze then beware - the kHamburgerMenu is taking over KDE... At least if you're already using something with a menu it will stay like that, but for new users/new apps - it'll be hamburger by default.
@@guss77 yes, I made my concerns about that known, and they don't plan on phasing out traditional UI any time soon. if they do, Trinity Desktop still exists 😂😂😂
User instruction is the most undervalued branch of software development. In one of the companies I worked for, we had one person on a team of 6 devs that did ONLY manual writing and customer instruction content creation. He had a full days work every day of the week. Tweaking, fine-tuning, getting everything exactly right and making sure it remained understandable. Really admired the guy for it.
In open-source software Because people who use it, are usually from a more technical stand point, because they do it for free, they do it for sb like them, and I think either companies or govs need to fund these more seriously, or dont nag about obfuscated cool stuff opensource community makes
The feature I love in KDE connect is that the audio pauses on my PC when my phone rings, and then starts again when the call is finished. So simple, but I love it.
Probably a buggy mess for the first year, then an absolutely amazing experience beyond that. Don’t get me wrong I love KDE but it takes a while for it to stabilize
I expect 6.0 to be basically a switch over to the QT6 Tool Kit. This will bring big changes under the hood, but the parts we see will come with 6.1. If some things are ready for 6.0, they will get put in, so there may be a few.
I now know why activities exist in KDE thanks, maybe they should rename it to “rooms” as it is a level upwards from desktops. This way they can advertise it easier, you can have a gaming room, an Office/workroom, a dressing room and so on. It still feels like inspection, perhaps desktops you can save and restore are enough?
I litterally was planning to try and learn how to make a Gnome Extension because I like Material Shell but really wanted a iOS style thing for focus modes and it was only just now that I found out KDE has that.
6:00 in addition, KRunner can also do Unit conversions and calculator stuff. I think the devs have expected users to check on the KDE Userbase if ever they want to know more about things.
Oh it can do so much other stuff. It has extensions too. It can do fancy stuff like fetch your passwords from your password manager of choice or play music on your favourite app through custom extensions
You don't need to check the user base. There is a question mark button next to the keep open button that explains what everything does. Of course it can't fit entire paragraphs in there.
frankly, as a daily user of krunner, i do think that it's a big problem; krunner is feature rich but i still don't know how to use most of the more advanced features
This is the one advantage of distro-hopping: you notice features you really like but didn't know existed. And once you know those things exist, making them happen on your distro of choice is blissful. Terrific video
Been using KDE Plasma Fedora as my daily driver for years. I discover new features constantly. This keeps the KDE experience exciting and new. Amazes me when 1st time users complain about options! Great video!
well, when I first dabled in KDE not too long ago, the sheer amount of customizability options was a bit much, honstely. It can get very overwhelming at first
@@ichbrauchmehrkaffee5785 I honestly don't understand why the amount of choice is overwhelming. You don't have to try all of it, just what you are going to use. Unless you mean it was hard to find what to use.
I don't ever understand when people complain about "too many features", as Nick does once in a while ;-) More options is always more good, as long as you keep it organized and consistent - which KDE has really been working on hard, and been very successful at!
@@bennypr0fane no one said its a bad thing. Its just that people are little overwhelmed with all the setting options and possibilities and the fear of screwing up and not being able to reset your system back to the stable stage. I was a gnome user and kde had too many options for me. But once i made the switch, i took my time to explore every inch of what kde has to offer. Now i feel that they can always add new stuff! So people just need a little push that's all.
Great video. KDE plasma is by far the best desktop I've ever used, because I spent some time to customize for fun, and now it just feels ... like home. Because it's customized exactly to my personality. The video tutorials are a great idea, but it's not fair to ask the coders to make those, the community should help out (like you are here). It can be overwhelming to spend a lot of time/effort to get a feature working, and then to also have to make a slick video explaining it. The community should lean in and help with that part. Like you did here, very helpful!
I think a general video about Tiling would help a lot of people. There are many Gnome users who would kill for tiling but don't know about Tiling Assistant. Also KWin's tiling capabilities are awesome
Most people who come from Windows to a KDE based distro are so used to not being able to customize their DE they think what they see is what they get and nothing more. Excellent video.
@The Linux Experiment I think that could be a great feature to fully debut alongside KDE Plasma 6 and let users know about it from the beginning. It would solve so many issues and that alone could be a HUGE factor in KDE Plasma 6's adoption. Heck, I love KDE Plasma 5, but I want more users to be able to use it!
I hope kde developers read your comment. Manjaro gnome distro had also a layout manager. I think it can't be that difficult to code. Even mate has one.
I'm surprised you missed on my most used feature! You can select some text from browser (or anything else) and drag it onto your desktop and it will stick there like a note!. ... Sticky Note! I use it all the time when I'm completing my assignments or homework. I go to several websites and put relevant info on desktop, then I construct my answers or reports accordingly. Probably other people can find different applications to this. I think it's pretty cool and exclusive to KDE
i also love that selection is saved in a clipboard while kde has another separate cliboard with history. Makes it really easy to copy or find previous copied stuff. Took me ages and gogling to understand there are 2 clipboard
I used KDE since almost 10 years now, and I genuinely never understood what an activity is. I always thought it was a weird replacement for virtual desktops. Thank you for explaining it.
I like Plasma Activities, but a major missing feature is the ability to have different panel configurations for each activity. Hope this gets fixed some day.
I think one of the biggest issues KDE has with its settings is choice overload. The settings page has so many menus each with nested menus inside nested menus all with tons of checkboxes and options that you just feel overwhelmed by the amount of things you can screw up, so you just avoid touching anything there. i'm not saying that they have to reduce options and user choice, but to present it and structure it differently in a friendlier way
You're completely right about the overload. I've used KDE in the past but ended up overwhelmed by the configuration options. Now I'm using Fedora with the vanilla version of another DE precisely because I want to focus on my work and not on learning a DE.
@@blbezcc there is - when you open system settings, you get a welcome page with 5 things that you can change and then you can close that. Everything else that you want to change, you can do as part of the workflow - for example, want to change audio settings? Click the speaker icon on the tray, and if you want to customize more than what the widget offers, a "settings" button there will take you directly to the audio settings page in system settings.
They need a good search function for settings, one that is better than what they have! Keep the options, just make them easier to find and maybe show a list of adjusted settings so you can copy a configuration between users or machines.
Another cool thing about activities is that the menu remembers different "recent docs" and apps per activity. So it keeps things clean it's really like a different user profile at a click of a button.
I love KDE Plasma. I switched to Kubuntu like two weeks ago and I can't count the number of times I went "I wish I could do this... Oh wait there's a setting for it?!" in comparison to the lack of options/customizability I felt on other distros or Windows. I agree on the fact that there should be some sort of interactive guide for all the features because even I am confused/overwhelmed at some stuff, even though I'm very curious and I usually spend a lot of time tweaking settings based on my preferences or needs (that's why I prefer Vivaldi as a browser x) )
I tried Xfce4 the other day but KDE is so much better to transition from Windows and having all those options built in, without the need for additional dependencies is a big plus for me. Thanks for showing some features.
With all those amazing things that KDE can do, I would really like to see an easy import export settings that can be used in the way where if I install KDE on a different system I can easily import my settings. Nothing is more frustrating than setting up everything perfectly, and then having to do that again and again and again.
Not only the system, but also the official YT channel of KDE should put some cool desktops and explain how to do it step by step. Such as short video sharing, or a YT channel dedicated to sharing kde's customized desktops, to collect all kinds of desktops.
I wanted to switch to a mac but I hate the fact that it cannot be repaired or upgraded. Got a reasonably powerful windows laptop, installed linux with kde. Man, KDE and gnome are the two absolute best DEs out there
Thanks for bringing up this theme! As a long time (kinda) Plasma user, I really appreciate it 🙂 Plasma is both functional and light. It really should have larger userbase. It has so many features, that even I, as a person that get used to Plasma, do not know about, probably, 70% of them.
I heartily agree. Especially with your proposed solution about theming. It would be a great idea if they had pre-cooked options for making it look even more like windows or exactly like Apple, maybe big screen / tablet, etc
Hi, here a Plasma 5 user for a while now. You're absolutely right!! My first impression about KDE was that it was too complex and too broken for me (It was KDE 4). Too many options and didn't know what do most of them. Now, after I spent lot of hours digging and actually understanding most of his options (and improves), I found that it has been able to adapt to my workflow while it was changing across years without having to change my Desktop Environment because that. Just knowing what settings to touch and having lot of fun nitpicking my configurations. I absolutely agree that Plasma 5 has become a very powerful Desktop but quite unintuitive to Discover (pun intended). They made lot of improvements in that way tho, but still not enough yet for newcomers.
your timing is perfect, I legit just moved from buggy gnome env ( fedora ) to KDE env ( EndeavorOS ) and im loving so far, the amount of simply working components on my arch distro is insane and the customization is limitless with KDE
@Samy Fedora isn't great though. I've had much worse experiences with Fedora compared to EndeavourOS, both with KDE Plasma. Sadly, EndeavourOS is the best option for me as a KDE Plasma user.
As a seasoned KDE user, I completely agree with you! I've at least tried most of the features that KDE has, but that's after using the damn thing since 2018. KDE is so powerful, and beginners should be aware of what possibilities are lying ahead of them.
wow, as a KDE user who didn't know these features existed - a few of which I've always wanted in a DE, and I have them! - I thank you for this description. Or should I say expose' (that's supposed to be an accented e but I haven't figured out how to do accented characters on Linux without copy and paste!)? ETA: Aha! I have figured it out: exposé! I was pressing the compositor key and the accent/single quote key simultaneously when I should have been pressing them sequentially! I never would have figured that out if it wasn't for The Linux Experiment!
This video helped me so much! I wasn't too familiarized with KDE when I tried it and I found it so overwhelming. This made me consider giving it a new try.
I still have my Ubuntu Studio KDE drive, and what really baffles me is how the Linux community is always stereotyped with the dreaded Terminal criticism, while KDE is right there not advertising that KDE Plasma allows anyone who cares to be Indiana Jones or Lara Croft, to change anything into something else without ever opening Konsole. GUI settings buried away where only developers or preexisting users would find them. And KDE could really do with a Settings Bookmarking system so we can find commonly used features and options again.
Been using the KDE spin of Fedora for several years. I love-love-LOVE Activities in KDE. Powerful thing about Activities is that they can contain multiple Virtual Desktops logically organized with Activities as well. And yes... not too much information on this out there. PLUS, I can navigate the Activities and Virtual Desktops quickly and efficiently via keystrokes alone. KDE though, has REALLY been hurting me with the buginess of multiple monitors. It pains me, sometimes quite acutely, but I LOVE KDE spin of Fedora SO MUCH I will remain a dedicated user!!! Say NO TO FLYING CARS!!! What a monstrously terrible ideal/concept!! Cars should be relegated to underground tunnels!
I switched from popos to kde neon recently. I couldn’t before because it had many bugs but somehow they fixed most of the bugs. It’s has become sooo much stabler.
I would like a stable distro with KDE Plasma, but that sadly doesn't exist without Snaps right now, so I use EndeavourOS, even though it's a rolling release distro because that's the only option I like (Debian is too old, Kubuntu, Ubuntu Studio, & KDE Neon all have Snaps, and Fedora doesn't even work for me, whether it be on Nvidia or AMD GPUs) that is usable for me.
Many, many thanks for this video! I just switched from a long-term hardcore GNOME user to KDE Plasma two days ago and I'm completely blown away by the fine visuals and possibilities - and also a bit overwhelmed. So your video comes just at the right time for me. I haven't had a look at KDE in over 10 or more years, and my memories were not good ones. But now KDE is a stunningly beautiful, fluffy desktop - and much more elegant than the chunky, clunky GNOME. I think I'll stay.
Seeing as that I've been finding myself consistently on Desktop Mode on the Steam Deck, this is some extremely useful information and I'm glad they are starting up the welcome app. This is an amazing step forward for the Linux Desktop
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I think you could have also shown the plasma-browser-integration package which adds stuff like media control for browser windows into the desktop environment (also works in Gnome I think).
KDE is magic, is miracle. It's lighting years ahead ANY other desktop environment. Gnome or Windows not coming even close to beauty, customization, integrity and level of KDE . THE BEST desktop environment barely used by 1% of all PCs' desktop users and this is shame and tragedy at the same time.
Installed Arch a few days ago, chose KDE cause I liked it on the steam deck and heard it has tons of options, so more control for me. This video exposed a lot of things I didn't even brush in KDE, so yeah a better explanation of it would go so so far in improving its usage. I also do think the UX of the settings and whatnot could be improved a ton. The quick settings home page really isn't enough to let users know what they can do, and there isn't anything leading people to truly check out the user made options for themes and stuff out there. Its been fun to dig in, but it feels like something is missing between the existence of KDE and the knowledge of usability of it. Hopefully a robust welcome app can fix that.
In my opinion the default KDE themes are very outdated, especially the dark theme. They have already realized that having too many options is sometimes more of a hindrance than a help, so they have changed the system settings to show fewer options if the user wants to. I particularly prefer Gnome's design guidelines, even though KDE has a lot more options, at the end of the day I have so much trouble customizing KDE that it's not worth it, and some customizations look amateurish.
Wow Dude! Great video! It just inspired me to wonder of KDE based distro which could present such things during install - for example imagine such scenario: -user boots live environment, -clicks install OS, -installation continues in background completely, -interactive tutorial app teaches user how to use KDE. -when user decides to reboot after installation, he is asked if wants customisation be moved to just installed OS or fresh start
OK, you talked me into it. I'm a Gnome user but I'll give KDE another try. But to me, KDE always seemed like a shopping cart full of groceries. Yeah, someone with the time and skill can probably make a great meal, but a lot of people just want to eat a default dinner and get back to work.
The funny thing with activities from my experience- after so many years using it I once found that you can pause activity and its apps to preserve resources and switch from work setup to leisure. And next day unpause it and got it in the same stage as left. I learned that by accident. They make it on purpose like dark souls hidden lore?
Unbelievable! TLE is absolutely right. I'm very happy with choosing KDE Plasma, but had NO IDEA all that power and versatility was available. It's a game changer for me to discover all this. A powerful workhorse has laid hidden that I will now make my daily driver over MS Windows. Thank you TLE!... PAY ATTENTION TO TLE's MESSAGING KDE TEAM... You missed the boat.
I’ve actually used all the features mentioned in this video. And I only started using Linux 2 years ago. Though I chose KDE specifically because I wanted to tinker with and customize it so I’m not the average user. Also there’s one feature that I hate that KDE is missing. The ability to disable the edit mode. Once I’ve dialed things in I don’t want to have to deal with the edit mode any more. Accidentally deleting my main task panel has happened to me multiple times now. Let me “lock” it
Also, KDE has a nice thing called Baloo. When it works, it works. When it doesn't - RUN!!! (and you won't notice it untill it's too late and your journal is flooded with coredumps while you're out of swap space while your processor melts through your motherboard)
I love KDE for years and thank you for bringing the message that today, the problem is not in functionality anymore, but in guiding users with existing one.
I always used gnome and it’s good but 4 years ago I ran into KDE and I figured out that with a few customization it becomes much more productive because it does and fits exactly your needs. I think that’s the goal of a DE, right!? Nice video, I’m pretty sure KDE community appreciated it and it will help a lot of people to start using KDE and of course also the community to improve it.
I know all of this, and 100% agrees. For the past two years, whenever talking about KDE, I recommend Garuda and Feren, because I leaned SO MUCH MORE from them than I do reading stuff. They have interesting configs, and I just learn how to replicate that. And that should NOT be the way it works. Ubuntu Budgie did this much better and Kubuntu Focus was at least on the right steps. I think and official risiOS or Fedy-like welcome app would be a good step for KDE to take, and merge the FerenOS pre-loaded layout switcher to mainline KDE. It should, at least, help not waste all these power KDE has.
I had never thought about this as a problem because I dig-into my KDE settings and spent many hours tweaking things to be just how I like them. This was eye-opening to how much a new user could be missing. It’s all what makes KDE hands-down my favourite DE of any OS, period. All that tweaking has resulted in a user interface that fits me like a glove and lets me interact with my computer FAST and get things done, unlike MacOS, Windows, Gnome, whatever.
That's honestly what has turned me away from KDE multiple times now. It can be virtually anything you want it to be, if you can find your way through the cluttered mess that is the deeply nested, incoherent settings menu. So often I ended up googling how to change a certain setting, only to be directed where I never would've thought to look. There are more shortcuts than I can shake a stick at, but again they're defined all over the place. Some are in a centralised location, others are close to the setting/tool the belong to.
couldn't agree more. Sometimes you google for the location of a setting and when you find out it's location you usually go 'wth... but why' 😂 Sometimes you partially see their logic for putting it there but don't agree with it, sometimes you don't see the logic at all.
what would be great and almost solve this issue (but not sure how feasible would be technically speaking) would be to have a bottum in the configuration panel, something like 'configurate mode'. that once you click it. if you hover over something with the mouse example action button menu it colorize it, and then by clicking over it, it would exit this 'configurate mode' and it will show all the options that modify the action button menu in one place all together. I remember when i used for the first time kde, i was looking to attache the menu bar to the windows (instead of the mac style where the menu is unconnected to the window and it is in the upper edge). and as i did not know how it was called it was quiet difficult to know how to search for this even by googling it. like at the end I found it obviously, but neverthless this took way more time that it should have.
Been using linux desktop exclusively for 12 years. Never changed any GUI settings / themes. Out of the box is perfect to me, but its always good to know that the desktop is yours so shape as you please.
I totally agree. Just played around with KDE a bit. All the bits and pieces are there, but the defaults are far from well-designed. For example, the default animations are too long and make the whole desktop feel sluggish, and the default layout is basically a Windows copy. It's possible to create an awesome environment, but it's so easy to mess everything up. Some things that should be easy are hard instead. For example, I have to visit many different places to change the overall look and feel of the desktop. There are global themes, but I can't save my own changes there. I can download complete themes, but there's no obvious way of removing them again. All this makes me tinker with different things, trying to craft my optimal UX, but only getting 90% there. But then I also don't want to start over because I have already put so much effort in configuring things. This leaves me back as an unhappy user, thinking "I bet it could do what I want, I just don't know how". I still think KDE has a lot of potential, and I'd love to see more adoption and success for the project. But it's not for me just yet. Let's see what Plasma 6 will bring to the table, I'll give it a try for sure!
Makulu is also based on Ubuntu. Instead of KDE, it is based on Gnome. As you mentioned in this video, it offers many preset desktop layouts, accessible easily anytime during any customizing. KDE, released as KDE Neon, released about every week with the latest KDE, is extremely bare boned. No tutorial is included. No readily available settings, no setups are really offered. As you explain, KDE is changing so fast that the experts cannot arrange tutorials. This is similar to learning something from a technical college, compared to the same material from a highly ranked research university. The research university does not really have any teaching staff. Research and development only. Makulu is a talented young man, a solo operation. The offerings show this limitation. There are many Gnome operating systems that they to offer candied Gnome based operating systems. KDE seems only to have a barely modified "KDE Neon" called Kubuntu. Microsoft Windows 10 & 11 has very many independent "tweaks". These tweaks add further eye-candy. None have the power and flexibility of KDE. Linux unfortunately does not attract many application developers, compared to Microsoft. Linux still needs to sort out Wayland, Nvidia, Ext4, btrfs, and the confusing range of application containers: appimage, snap, flatpak, or the horrible & tedious compiling from raw source code.
KDEConnect was the 1st mindblowing thing I saw when I installed KDE for my 1st time. Doing virtualy anything at distance with my phone.... Just amazing, little bit bugged for SMS, but everything else is soooo great
I loved using the Activities during lockdown, I was on KDE Neon and using Windows as a VM for work and had it and Teams and whatever web apps I needed on an Activity I called "Work" just like this video. As soon as I done with work I would switch to my one called "Personal" and carry on with my own stuff as if nothing happened, super fluid, super easy and so good I sometimes forgot about it and thought "Oh crap I need to load all my work stuff again" - No I don't. Switch back and I'm back in everything I need.
This was a great video and I learned a few things that I will go take a better look at the next time I log in. Now, if I were one of the developers my next comment would be, “Thanks you for the excellent video. Welcome to the project. Feel free to use your video as a template for your contribution. We’re looking forward to your first video/article helping us to tackle this issue. It’s great to see sincere people jump in and volunteer their time to help move this project forward. Feel free to bring a few others who would be willing to volunteer their time and resources to help you out. We look forward to what your team has to offer.”😁
I started using Linux during the start of the covid-19 and I think I discovered a lot of the things on KDE by accident. Krunner was one of those happy accidents.
KDE hides so much of its power because if it could show all of the options several screens would fill up. However, anyone who installs a DE or WM should first examine all the configuration/settings apps and try everything before getting down to productive work or installing more apps!
Thanks for explaining the "Activities" feature. I'd seen it before and never understood why you would want to use it when you have a heap of virtual windows anyway? Now it makes more sense. I never use the alt-space KWin search as you can click anywhere on the desktop and it pops up as you start typing anyway. It's one feature I find most useful and a drag when I have to go back and use Windows on the occasion. I think when they release a new versions of KDE, an intro video or link to one would be a great option showing you how to use the new features.
Great video! I've been saying this for years now. KDE is by far the most powerful DE but after several years of daily use I still find things I didn't know existed. They really do need to do a better job of showcasing their features and power.
KDE connect, I have known about it and used it, but I am still lost. Your video shed more light on that. Will experiment more. :) Only major gripe I have is that the connection is lost once my phone locks. I really do not want to keep my phone unblocked the whole time. Maybe I am being stupid. Lol
What if there were a way to package different settings into a "behaviour pack". A bit like a theme but instead of changing how the desktop looks it changes how the desktop works. They could even be packaged with themes to give a complete ecosystem change in one click.
This video is proof that Plasma needs more documentation. With your video, i learned about few things, such as KWin scripts. Thanks for the video! Subscribed, and liked!
Very Valid Video. I certainly hope that the KDE developers are considering it. I think if they need help, they should let us know. But your video should be sent to KDE!!!! Cheers Patrick
Thanks for this video. 20 page setup isn't an issue once people can skip it. Garuda has a good example for what kde can do. An optional setup assistant is what it needs. People can setup once then delete or use it when you want to make more changes or create custom themes.
4:40 _Shake a Window to minimize the others_ - This was the most advertised feature of Windows 7 (IIRC) and also THE most useless feature EVER! Why somebody would actually copy a "feature" like this is only something I can explain with straight up masochism.
I recently found that that not only can you invert colours of your entire screen (useful for white screens, turning them black), but you can invert the colour of only specific windows. So if I have one window with dark colours, and one that is white, I can just invert the white one, leaving both windows dark. Amazing!!
Wow! I've been using KDE for decades and I learned more about the hidden features from this video than I have in all that time! I used to like Gnome because of the customizeability but then it killed a lot of that so I switched to KDE and have been happier. My main desktop mostly stays Enlightenment, but my other machines are all KDE. I could never figure out the point of Activities... why not call it Window Groups?!? Funny non-descriptive names are not helpful for discovering cool new things, but work fine when most people have already heard about them.
Fascinating. I had no idea that an "activity" could have its only desktop background (unlike "virtual desktops", which cannot). Ok, I just made two very-different looking "activities". Thanks for the tip!
I was amazed at trying Kubuntu! KDE has so many settings and customizations! I feel like I'm in a candy shop! But I have my reservations about indicating it for newbies or work. You do need so much time to understand what you can do and what you can't. Some frugal things like "send to desktop" are less intuitive than doing that on Gnome, for example. I miss the block button with a pin or password to prevent accidental customization. KDE has so many good things that it's a shame that not many people know about some good stuff. Ps: Maybe I didn't find that button, but who knows? So many options to explore.
Naomi Wu said it best, "I just jump around, whatever does what I need most and easiest, none of them are paying my rent so I have no reason to be loyal to an operating system" I quote her as I think she really hit home, I use windows primarily on my my desktop, Linux on my servers, I use what works best for me in the environments I use. Ok, ok, what does this have to do with KDE, simple, I have used KDE for well over 10 years, I dont just around because it does what I need, doesnt change around like gnome did and try to be a touchy feely os. just plain and simple and works - Its like linux users care more about the os and desktop more than actualy using the product and getting work done, like gamer tards who care more about the LED color in the case and coolant color versus actualy using their computer.
You actually nailed the problem with KDE. The developers put a lot of thought into the design and implementation of these features and it is very unfortunate that people don't even know they exist. The other destops pale in comparison to this particular one in terms of flexibility useability and everything else.
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Hold on, you use Proxmox? Why don't you make a tour of what server you use and what you run on your server
since you're already a pro video maker, you should make a full feature tour and contribute it to the project!
no
How about an instructional video on every aspect of KDE? It could be a multi part series, like a video wiki.
That would really help people that are visual learners.
KDE lacks an easy way to access QT theming, leaving you stuck with a light QT theme while the rest is dark...
Thank you for being one of the few Linux UA-camrs talking about the issue of UX shortcomings on Linux. As a fellow UX Designer, it's always frustrating to see others hand-wave these real problems away when they're likely the types who already just think programmer art and haphazardly-populated menus are good enough for everyone.
Agree with this all. But unfortunately what I fell and see is that most UX/HCI people just talk/write a lot but very few actually progress from that and actually help people like KDE with actions that improve the software that programers craft. Hopefully we see more joining and helping in future.
that's funny. the reason why I switched away from M$office to LibreOffice back in 2007 was that stupid ribbon interface, and I hate hamburger menus just the same. I'm glad there're still apps out there with the traditional paradigm (menu+toolbar)
@@JureRepinc Honestly the most contributors in FOSS are not UX designer. Most people are just into programming and since many projects are either developed by one person ahead or a bunch of people without any proper management, you just end up with a bad UX in most cases. That's just the flaw of decentralized development you have to take for its other advantages...
The best bet is that you have one contributor/maintainer either developing most parts alone or merging every contribution properly together, so that you end up with a consistent UX. Then it's still a matter of question whether this one person actually knows how to design UX.
It's kind of a miracle that FOSS has become so damn good in all this time. But it needed a lot of iterations in most cases. For example look at how often they completely reworked the UX for Blender. They recently refreshed Inkscape and Gimp a few years ago as well. Then these applications are even designed to be used by visual users. So it's more likely they have contributors interested in this topic, potentially caring about UX design.
All of this struggle is a good reason for me to like GNOME a lot. Because their team of contributors contains multiple UX designer which give a direction how applications should work for most other contributors. So you end up with at something which is consistent. Sure, not everyone likes this design but that's not the point when it comes to usability.
When it comes to KDE, I'm not sure whether there is actually a consistent design in the background or any plan. I know they patch/fix a lot recently but as a developer, I have still no idea where they are heading. I really hope they can get this more clear with Plasma 6 and it's not just an upgrade from Qt 5 to Qt 6. Because Qt itself doesn't provide any proper design guidelines.
...and that's the issue I see for UX designers "not joining and helping with KDE". How should they help if there's no preferred direction? Users can customize everything. So the typical KDE user will replace any adjusted UX anyway? There are a lot of reasons to keep you away from KDE as front-end developer in my opinion. ^^'
@@csehszlovakze then beware - the kHamburgerMenu is taking over KDE... At least if you're already using something with a menu it will stay like that, but for new users/new apps - it'll be hamburger by default.
@@guss77 yes, I made my concerns about that known, and they don't plan on phasing out traditional UI any time soon. if they do, Trinity Desktop still exists 😂😂😂
User instruction is the most undervalued branch of software development. In one of the companies I worked for, we had one person on a team of 6 devs that did ONLY manual writing and customer instruction content creation. He had a full days work every day of the week. Tweaking, fine-tuning, getting everything exactly right and making sure it remained understandable.
Really admired the guy for it.
In open-source software
Because people who use it, are usually from a more technical stand point, because they do it for free, they do it for sb like them, and I think either companies or govs need to fund these more seriously, or dont nag about obfuscated cool stuff opensource community makes
Those people are worth their weight in gold.
If only we could convince our bosses that documentation matters.
@@aryanmn1569 Why would "govs need to fund these more seriously"?
The feature I love in KDE connect is that the audio pauses on my PC when my phone rings, and then starts again when the call is finished. So simple, but I love it.
It doesn't for me - but that would be dreadful.
yep it's pretty good
@@a1nosweat Each to their own. But why would you want audio playing if you're on a call?
@@AndyGait I DJ
@@a1nosweat Then turn it off 😂
Can't wait to see what the KDE team has for plasma 6.
The biggest feature will probably be qt6 which could bring various performance improvement
Me too!!
Probably a buggy mess for the first year, then an absolutely amazing experience beyond that. Don’t get me wrong I love KDE but it takes a while for it to stabilize
I expect 6.0 to be basically a switch over to the QT6 Tool Kit. This will bring big changes under the hood, but the parts we see will come with 6.1.
If some things are ready for 6.0, they will get put in, so there may be a few.
@@act.13.41 but when can we expect this? Any official roadmap?
I now know why activities exist in KDE thanks, maybe they should rename it to “rooms” as it is a level upwards from desktops. This way they can advertise it easier, you can have a gaming room, an Office/workroom, a dressing room and so on. It still feels like inspection, perhaps desktops you can save and restore are enough?
I love this tbh
I litterally was planning to try and learn how to make a Gnome Extension because I like Material Shell but really wanted a iOS style thing for focus modes and it was only just now that I found out KDE has that.
6:00 in addition, KRunner can also do Unit conversions and calculator stuff.
I think the devs have expected users to check on the KDE Userbase if ever they want to know more about things.
Yeah, maybe! They should present all of that more visibly, though
Oh it can do so much other stuff. It has extensions too. It can do fancy stuff like fetch your passwords from your password manager of choice or play music on your favourite app through custom extensions
@@ChonkyWantsACat I just cited a single example, but it can do a lot more, yes.
You don't need to check the user base. There is a question mark button next to the keep open button that explains what everything does. Of course it can't fit entire paragraphs in there.
frankly, as a daily user of krunner, i do think that it's a big problem; krunner is feature rich but i still don't know how to use most of the more advanced features
This is the one advantage of distro-hopping: you notice features you really like but didn't know existed. And once you know those things exist, making them happen on your distro of choice is blissful.
Terrific video
"KDE, HIRE THIS MAN!"
But seriously, Nick could work as a "KDE Ambassador".
Been using KDE Plasma Fedora as my daily driver for years. I discover new features constantly. This keeps the KDE experience exciting and new. Amazes me when 1st time users complain about options! Great video!
well, when I first dabled in KDE not too long ago, the sheer amount of customizability options was a bit much, honstely.
It can get very overwhelming at first
@@ichbrauchmehrkaffee5785 I honestly don't understand why the amount of choice is overwhelming. You don't have to try all of it, just what you are going to use. Unless you mean it was hard to find what to use.
@@Sitwayen look up "paradox of choice".
This is a lot more common than you might think.
I don't ever understand when people complain about "too many features", as Nick does once in a while ;-) More options is always more good, as long as you keep it organized and consistent - which KDE has really been working on hard, and been very successful at!
@@bennypr0fane no one said its a bad thing. Its just that people are little overwhelmed with all the setting options and possibilities and the fear of screwing up and not being able to reset your system back to the stable stage.
I was a gnome user and kde had too many options for me. But once i made the switch, i took my time to explore every inch of what kde has to offer. Now i feel that they can always add new stuff! So people just need a little push that's all.
Great video. KDE plasma is by far the best desktop I've ever used, because I spent some time to customize for fun, and now it just feels ... like home. Because it's customized exactly to my personality. The video tutorials are a great idea, but it's not fair to ask the coders to make those, the community should help out (like you are here). It can be overwhelming to spend a lot of time/effort to get a feature working, and then to also have to make a slick video explaining it. The community should lean in and help with that part. Like you did here, very helpful!
I think a general video about Tiling would help a lot of people. There are many Gnome users who would kill for tiling but don't know about Tiling Assistant. Also KWin's tiling capabilities are awesome
Most people who come from Windows to a KDE based distro are so used to not being able to customize their DE they think what they see is what they get and nothing more. Excellent video.
What would really help is a KDE Plasma layout chooser like ZorinOS or Ubuntu MATE has. I think it would really show off what KDE Plasma is capable of.
Yeah, it would be pretty great to onboard users
@The Linux Experiment I think that could be a great feature to fully debut alongside KDE Plasma 6 and let users know about it from the beginning. It would solve so many issues and that alone could be a HUGE factor in KDE Plasma 6's adoption. Heck, I love KDE Plasma 5, but I want more users to be able to use it!
I hope kde developers read your comment. Manjaro gnome distro had also a layout manager. I think it can't be that difficult to code. Even mate has one.
I'm surprised you missed on my most used feature! You can select some text from browser (or anything else) and drag it onto your desktop and it will stick there like a note!. ... Sticky Note!
I use it all the time when I'm completing my assignments or homework. I go to several websites and put relevant info on desktop, then I construct my answers or reports accordingly. Probably other people can find different applications to this. I think it's pretty cool and exclusive to KDE
Damn I didn’t know about this one!! That’s great!!
holy wow is that cool!
i also love that selection is saved in a clipboard while kde has another separate cliboard with history. Makes it really easy to copy or find previous copied stuff. Took me ages and gogling to understand there are 2 clipboard
I used KDE since almost 10 years now, and I genuinely never understood what an activity is.
I always thought it was a weird replacement for virtual desktops.
Thank you for explaining it.
I like Plasma Activities, but a major missing feature is the ability to have different panel configurations for each activity. Hope this gets fixed some day.
Yeah, I think they want to revamp them in Plasma 6
@@TheLinuxEXP Revamp ≠ remove. Check the 35th issue on the Plasma Workspace repository in KDE's GitLab instance.
XFCE should take note of your video as well, it's a lot more flexible than people give it credit for.
I think one of the biggest issues KDE has with its settings is choice overload. The settings page has so many menus each with nested menus inside nested menus all with tons of checkboxes and options that you just feel overwhelmed by the amount of things you can screw up, so you just avoid touching anything there. i'm not saying that they have to reduce options and user choice, but to present it and structure it differently in a friendlier way
You're completely right about the overload. I've used KDE in the past but ended up overwhelmed by the configuration options. Now I'm using Fedora with the vanilla version of another DE precisely because I want to focus on my work and not on learning a DE.
Yeah but some people (including me) absolutely love that.
But I think there should be some "simplified settings"
@@blbezcc there is - when you open system settings, you get a welcome page with 5 things that you can change and then you can close that. Everything else that you want to change, you can do as part of the workflow - for example, want to change audio settings? Click the speaker icon on the tray, and if you want to customize more than what the widget offers, a "settings" button there will take you directly to the audio settings page in system settings.
This has been the issue with KDE. Allow a minimalist install.
They need a good search function for settings, one that is better than what they have! Keep the options, just make them easier to find and maybe show a list of adjusted settings so you can copy a configuration between users or machines.
Another cool thing about activities is that the menu remembers different "recent docs" and apps per activity. So it keeps things clean it's really like a different user profile at a click of a button.
I love KDE Plasma. I switched to Kubuntu like two weeks ago and I can't count the number of times I went "I wish I could do this... Oh wait there's a setting for it?!" in comparison to the lack of options/customizability I felt on other distros or Windows.
I agree on the fact that there should be some sort of interactive guide for all the features because even I am confused/overwhelmed at some stuff, even though I'm very curious and I usually spend a lot of time tweaking settings based on my preferences or needs (that's why I prefer Vivaldi as a browser x) )
I tried Xfce4 the other day but KDE is so much better to transition from Windows and having all those options built in, without the need for additional dependencies is a big plus for me. Thanks for showing some features.
With all those amazing things that KDE can do, I would really like to see an easy import export settings that can be used in the way where if I install KDE on a different system I can easily import my settings. Nothing is more frustrating than setting up everything perfectly, and then having to do that again and again and again.
There is
@@torkin4119 what is?
You can just copy the files in ~/.config folder. Nowadays all KDE tools store their settings in there.
Not only the system, but also the official YT channel of KDE should put some cool desktops and explain how to do it step by step. Such as short video sharing, or a YT channel dedicated to sharing kde's customized desktops, to collect all kinds of desktops.
I wanted to switch to a mac but I hate the fact that it cannot be repaired or upgraded. Got a reasonably powerful windows laptop, installed linux with kde. Man, KDE and gnome are the two absolute best DEs out there
Thanks for bringing up this theme! As a long time (kinda) Plasma user, I really appreciate it 🙂
Plasma is both functional and light. It really should have larger userbase. It has so many features, that even I, as a person that get used to Plasma, do not know about, probably, 70% of them.
I hate how many apps are only designed for Gnome like that's the only DE. Discord's notification badges have been broken for a while for example
I heartily agree. Especially with your proposed solution about theming. It would be a great idea if they had pre-cooked options for making it look even more like windows or exactly like Apple, maybe big screen / tablet, etc
Hi, here a Plasma 5 user for a while now.
You're absolutely right!! My first impression about KDE was that it was too complex and too broken for me (It was KDE 4). Too many options and didn't know what do most of them.
Now, after I spent lot of hours digging and actually understanding most of his options (and improves), I found that it has been able to adapt to my workflow while it was changing across years without having to change my Desktop Environment because that. Just knowing what settings to touch and having lot of fun nitpicking my configurations.
I absolutely agree that Plasma 5 has become a very powerful Desktop but quite unintuitive to Discover (pun intended). They made lot of improvements in that way tho, but still not enough yet for newcomers.
Nice! Lets see if I can put some of this to work.
Finally someone actually says out loud what users quietly sit and wonder about. Thank you Nick!!
your timing is perfect, I legit just moved from buggy gnome env ( fedora ) to KDE env ( EndeavorOS ) and im loving so far, the amount of simply working components on my arch distro is insane and the customization is limitless with KDE
I used Fedora for many years with KDE. Works great. An desktop environment is no reason to change the distro.
@@Samy-sx6kn exactly fedora offers a KDE version as well so idk why they didn’t use that
@@ezra1369 it's probably due to the fact it is at the bottom of their website unlike their fedora with gnome
I recently moved to EndeavourOS myself. Loving it.
@Samy Fedora isn't great though. I've had much worse experiences with Fedora compared to EndeavourOS, both with KDE Plasma. Sadly, EndeavourOS is the best option for me as a KDE Plasma user.
As a seasoned KDE user, I completely agree with you! I've at least tried most of the features that KDE has, but that's after using the damn thing since 2018. KDE is so powerful, and beginners should be aware of what possibilities are lying ahead of them.
wow, as a KDE user who didn't know these features existed - a few of which I've always wanted in a DE, and I have them! - I thank you for this description. Or should I say expose' (that's supposed to be an accented e but I haven't figured out how to do accented characters on Linux without copy and paste!)?
ETA: Aha! I have figured it out: exposé! I was pressing the compositor key and the accent/single quote key simultaneously when I should have been pressing them sequentially! I never would have figured that out if it wasn't for The Linux Experiment!
This video helped me so much! I wasn't too familiarized with KDE when I tried it and I found it so overwhelming. This made me consider giving it a new try.
I still have my Ubuntu Studio KDE drive, and what really baffles me is how the Linux community is always stereotyped with the dreaded Terminal criticism, while KDE is right there not advertising that KDE Plasma allows anyone who cares to be Indiana Jones or Lara Croft, to change anything into something else without ever opening Konsole.
GUI settings buried away where only developers or preexisting users would find them. And KDE could really do with a Settings Bookmarking system so we can find commonly used features and options again.
It has that (kind of): when you open KDE settings, on the bottom of the right panel you will see all the most used settings.
Would be cool if you did an in depth kde guide. :)
I could do that!
Yepp thats the Blessing and the curse of KDE. Limitless power and yet no idea how to use it for the user 🙏
Been using the KDE spin of Fedora for several years. I love-love-LOVE Activities in KDE. Powerful thing about Activities is that they can contain multiple Virtual Desktops logically organized with Activities as well. And yes... not too much information on this out there. PLUS, I can navigate the Activities and Virtual Desktops quickly and efficiently via keystrokes alone.
KDE though, has REALLY been hurting me with the buginess of multiple monitors. It pains me, sometimes quite acutely, but I LOVE KDE spin of Fedora SO MUCH I will remain a dedicated user!!!
Say NO TO FLYING CARS!!! What a monstrously terrible ideal/concept!! Cars should be relegated to underground tunnels!
KDE is my favourite. I would like a bit more stability and UX polish
Its very stable if you dont touch any of the features he just talked about
@@obvious_giraffe8386 I use these features all the time and my desktop is very stable. I'm running Fedora KDE spin.
I switched from popos to kde neon recently. I couldn’t before because it had many bugs but somehow they fixed most of the bugs. It’s has become sooo much stabler.
Yeah, they improved stability a lot!
kubuntu Lts is rock solid
@@Sahil-cb6im yes but i would like the stable 22.04 Ubuntu base and the latest kde version
I would like a stable distro with KDE Plasma, but that sadly doesn't exist without Snaps right now, so I use EndeavourOS, even though it's a rolling release distro because that's the only option I like (Debian is too old, Kubuntu, Ubuntu Studio, & KDE Neon all have Snaps, and Fedora doesn't even work for me, whether it be on Nvidia or AMD GPUs) that is usable for me.
@@moose43h That's just KDE-Neon distro, have you tried it? Its Ubuntu LTS and KDE desktop rolling release.
Many, many thanks for this video! I just switched from a long-term hardcore GNOME user to KDE Plasma two days ago and I'm completely blown away by the fine visuals and possibilities - and also a bit overwhelmed. So your video comes just at the right time for me. I haven't had a look at KDE in over 10 or more years, and my memories were not good ones. But now KDE is a stunningly beautiful, fluffy desktop - and much more elegant than the chunky, clunky GNOME. I think I'll stay.
You could do a Concise in-depth tutorial about the KDE Plasma
haven't heard of Khronkite yet, but I heard about Bismuth.
Seeing as that I've been finding myself consistently on Desktop Mode on the Steam Deck, this is some extremely useful information and I'm glad they are starting up the welcome app. This is an amazing step forward for the Linux Desktop
I think you could have also shown the plasma-browser-integration package which adds stuff like media control for browser windows into the desktop environment (also works in Gnome I think).
best thing they got so far is Niccolo Ve and you, to inform us about the capabilities
the predefined layouts is a really good idea imo
I 100% agree. Like with what ZorinOS & Ubuntu MATE do, but with KDE Plasma instead of GNOME or MATE.
KDE is magic, is miracle. It's lighting years ahead ANY other desktop environment. Gnome or Windows not coming even close to beauty, customization, integrity and level of KDE . THE BEST desktop environment barely used by 1% of all PCs' desktop users and this is shame and tragedy at the same time.
As someone who is just trying Linux with KDE, this is much appreciated!
Installed Arch a few days ago, chose KDE cause I liked it on the steam deck and heard it has tons of options, so more control for me.
This video exposed a lot of things I didn't even brush in KDE, so yeah a better explanation of it would go so so far in improving its usage. I also do think the UX of the settings and whatnot could be improved a ton. The quick settings home page really isn't enough to let users know what they can do, and there isn't anything leading people to truly check out the user made options for themes and stuff out there. Its been fun to dig in, but it feels like something is missing between the existence of KDE and the knowledge of usability of it. Hopefully a robust welcome app can fix that.
In my opinion the default KDE themes are very outdated, especially the dark theme. They have already realized that having too many options is sometimes more of a hindrance than a help, so they have changed the system settings to show fewer options if the user wants to. I particularly prefer Gnome's design guidelines, even though KDE has a lot more options, at the end of the day I have so much trouble customizing KDE that it's not worth it, and some customizations look amateurish.
Wow Dude! Great video! It just inspired me to wonder of KDE based distro which could present such things during install - for example imagine such scenario:
-user boots live environment,
-clicks install OS,
-installation continues in background completely,
-interactive tutorial app teaches user how to use KDE.
-when user decides to reboot after installation, he is asked if wants customisation be moved to just installed OS or fresh start
9:10 How many microphones is that????
OK, you talked me into it. I'm a Gnome user but I'll give KDE another try.
But to me, KDE always seemed like a shopping cart full of groceries. Yeah, someone with the time and skill can probably make a great meal, but a lot of people just want to eat a default dinner and get back to work.
The funny thing with activities from my experience- after so many years using it I once found that you can pause activity and its apps to preserve resources and switch from work setup to leisure.
And next day unpause it and got it in the same stage as left.
I learned that by accident. They make it on purpose like dark souls hidden lore?
To me, Activities is one of the more powerful tools Plasma has. I used it a lot.
Unbelievable! TLE is absolutely right. I'm very happy with choosing KDE Plasma, but had NO IDEA all that power and versatility was available. It's a game changer for me to discover all this. A powerful workhorse has laid hidden that I will now make my daily driver over MS Windows. Thank you TLE!... PAY ATTENTION TO TLE's MESSAGING KDE TEAM... You missed the boat.
KDE features was well advertise back in 2010's
I completely agree with you, I was just writing a comment saying KDE needs a welcome app and a layout switcher when you mentioned it
Totally agree. And I say this as a full time KDE user. I have never understood the use of spaces 🙋🏻♂️
I think KDE should take a look at this video. You have a point and great ideas
I’ve actually used all the features mentioned in this video. And I only started using Linux 2 years ago. Though I chose KDE specifically because I wanted to tinker with and customize it so I’m not the average user.
Also there’s one feature that I hate that KDE is missing. The ability to disable the edit mode. Once I’ve dialed things in I don’t want to have to deal with the edit mode any more. Accidentally deleting my main task panel has happened to me multiple times now. Let me “lock” it
i think Xfce has a lock feature ? or was it LXQt ?
Thanks for this! I've used KDE for more than 10 years and I had no idea about Activities. I'm starting to use that already tonight!
Great video
Also, KDE has a nice thing called Baloo. When it works, it works. When it doesn't - RUN!!! (and you won't notice it untill it's too late and your journal is flooded with coredumps while you're out of swap space while your processor melts through your motherboard)
I love KDE for years and thank you for bringing the message that today, the problem is not in functionality anymore, but in guiding users with existing one.
I always used gnome and it’s good but 4 years ago I ran into KDE and I figured out that with a few customization it becomes much more productive because it does and fits exactly your needs. I think that’s the goal of a DE, right!?
Nice video, I’m pretty sure KDE community appreciated it and it will help a lot of people to start using KDE and of course also the community to improve it.
I know all of this, and 100% agrees. For the past two years, whenever talking about KDE, I recommend Garuda and Feren, because I leaned SO MUCH MORE from them than I do reading stuff. They have interesting configs, and I just learn how to replicate that. And that should NOT be the way it works.
Ubuntu Budgie did this much better and Kubuntu Focus was at least on the right steps. I think and official risiOS or Fedy-like welcome app would be a good step for KDE to take, and merge the FerenOS pre-loaded layout switcher to mainline KDE.
It should, at least, help not waste all these power KDE has.
I had never thought about this as a problem because I dig-into my KDE settings and spent many hours tweaking things to be just how I like them. This was eye-opening to how much a new user could be missing.
It’s all what makes KDE hands-down my favourite DE of any OS, period. All that tweaking has resulted in a user interface that fits me like a glove and lets me interact with my computer FAST and get things done, unlike MacOS, Windows, Gnome, whatever.
That's honestly what has turned me away from KDE multiple times now. It can be virtually anything you want it to be, if you can find your way through the cluttered mess that is the deeply nested, incoherent settings menu. So often I ended up googling how to change a certain setting, only to be directed where I never would've thought to look. There are more shortcuts than I can shake a stick at, but again they're defined all over the place. Some are in a centralised location, others are close to the setting/tool the belong to.
They really need to offer features in a clearer way
couldn't agree more. Sometimes you google for the location of a setting and when you find out it's location you usually go 'wth... but why' 😂 Sometimes you partially see their logic for putting it there but don't agree with it, sometimes you don't see the logic at all.
what would be great and almost solve this issue (but not sure how feasible would be technically speaking) would be to have a bottum in the configuration panel, something like 'configurate mode'. that once you click it. if you hover over something with the mouse example action button menu it colorize it, and then by clicking over it, it would exit this 'configurate mode' and it will show all the options that modify the action button menu in one place all together. I remember when i used for the first time kde, i was looking to attache the menu bar to the windows (instead of the mac style where the menu is unconnected to the window and it is in the upper edge). and as i did not know how it was called it was quiet difficult to know how to search for this even by googling it. like at the end I found it obviously, but neverthless this took way more time that it should have.
Been using linux desktop exclusively for 12 years. Never changed any GUI settings / themes. Out of the box is perfect to me, but its always good to know that the desktop is yours so shape as you please.
I totally agree. Just played around with KDE a bit. All the bits and pieces are there, but the defaults are far from well-designed. For example, the default animations are too long and make the whole desktop feel sluggish, and the default layout is basically a Windows copy. It's possible to create an awesome environment, but it's so easy to mess everything up. Some things that should be easy are hard instead. For example, I have to visit many different places to change the overall look and feel of the desktop. There are global themes, but I can't save my own changes there. I can download complete themes, but there's no obvious way of removing them again.
All this makes me tinker with different things, trying to craft my optimal UX, but only getting 90% there. But then I also don't want to start over because I have already put so much effort in configuring things. This leaves me back as an unhappy user, thinking "I bet it could do what I want, I just don't know how".
I still think KDE has a lot of potential, and I'd love to see more adoption and success for the project. But it's not for me just yet. Let's see what Plasma 6 will bring to the table, I'll give it a try for sure!
Makulu is also based on Ubuntu. Instead of KDE, it is based on Gnome. As you mentioned in this video, it offers many preset desktop layouts, accessible easily anytime during any customizing.
KDE, released as KDE Neon, released about every week with the latest KDE, is extremely bare boned. No tutorial is included. No readily available settings, no setups are really offered. As you explain, KDE is changing so fast that the experts cannot arrange tutorials.
This is similar to learning something from a technical college, compared to the same material from a highly ranked research university. The research university does not really have any teaching staff. Research and development only.
Makulu is a talented young man, a solo operation. The offerings show this limitation. There are many Gnome operating systems that they to offer candied Gnome based operating systems. KDE seems only to have a barely modified "KDE Neon" called Kubuntu.
Microsoft Windows 10 & 11 has very many independent "tweaks". These tweaks add further eye-candy. None have the power and flexibility of KDE. Linux unfortunately does not attract many application developers, compared to Microsoft.
Linux still needs to sort out Wayland, Nvidia, Ext4, btrfs, and the confusing range of application containers: appimage, snap, flatpak, or the horrible & tedious compiling from raw source code.
KDEConnect was the 1st mindblowing thing I saw when I installed KDE for my 1st time. Doing virtualy anything at distance with my phone.... Just amazing, little bit bugged for SMS, but everything else is soooo great
I loved using the Activities during lockdown, I was on KDE Neon and using Windows as a VM for work and had it and Teams and whatever web apps I needed on an Activity I called "Work" just like this video.
As soon as I done with work I would switch to my one called "Personal" and carry on with my own stuff as if nothing happened, super fluid, super easy and so good I sometimes forgot about it and thought "Oh crap I need to load all my work stuff again" - No I don't. Switch back and I'm back in everything I need.
This was a great video and I learned a few things that I will go take a better look at the next time I log in.
Now, if I were one of the developers my next comment would be, “Thanks you for the excellent video. Welcome to the project. Feel free to use your video as a template for your contribution. We’re looking forward to your first video/article helping us to tackle this issue. It’s great to see sincere people jump in and volunteer their time to help move this project forward. Feel free to bring a few others who would be willing to volunteer their time and resources to help you out. We look forward to what your team has to offer.”😁
You're totally right, Nick! It's sad that developers are not very userfriendly
I started using Linux during the start of the covid-19 and I think I discovered a lot of the things on KDE by accident. Krunner was one of those happy accidents.
KDE hides so much of its power because if it could show all of the options several screens would fill up. However, anyone who installs a DE or WM should first examine all the configuration/settings apps and try everything before getting down to productive work or installing more apps!
Thanks for explaining the "Activities" feature. I'd seen it before and never understood why you would want to use it when you have a heap of virtual windows anyway? Now it makes more sense.
I never use the alt-space KWin search as you can click anywhere on the desktop and it pops up as you start typing anyway. It's one feature I find most useful and a drag when I have to go back and use Windows on the occasion.
I think when they release a new versions of KDE, an intro video or link to one would be a great option showing you how to use the new features.
Great video! I've been saying this for years now. KDE is by far the most powerful DE but after several years of daily use I still find things I didn't know existed. They really do need to do a better job of showcasing their features and power.
KDE connect, I have known about it and used it, but I am still lost. Your video shed more light on that. Will experiment more. :)
Only major gripe I have is that the connection is lost once my phone locks. I really do not want to keep my phone unblocked the whole time. Maybe I am being stupid. Lol
What if there were a way to package different settings into a "behaviour pack". A bit like a theme but instead of changing how the desktop looks it changes how the desktop works. They could even be packaged with themes to give a complete ecosystem change in one click.
This video is proof that Plasma needs more documentation. With your video, i learned about few things, such as KWin scripts. Thanks for the video! Subscribed, and liked!
Very Valid Video. I certainly hope that the KDE developers are considering it. I think if they need help, they should let us know. But your video should be sent to KDE!!!!
Cheers
Patrick
Dudes be like "KDE is ugly and doesn't do what I want" my brother in Christ, you use Gnome
Thanks for this video. 20 page setup isn't an issue once people can skip it. Garuda has a good example for what kde can do. An optional setup assistant is what it needs. People can setup once then delete or use it when you want to make more changes or create custom themes.
4:40 _Shake a Window to minimize the others_ - This was the most advertised feature of Windows 7 (IIRC) and also THE most useless feature EVER!
Why somebody would actually copy a "feature" like this is only something I can explain with straight up masochism.
Superb explanation of Activities - I finally understand how to use them and oh boy, are they great. Thanks bunches for this!
I recently found that that not only can you invert colours of your entire screen (useful for white screens, turning them black), but you can invert the colour of only specific windows. So if I have one window with dark colours, and one that is white, I can just invert the white one, leaving both windows dark. Amazing!!
KDE connect is the coolest thing ever. Love that KDE supports Windows. Love their stuff.
Wow! I've been using KDE for decades and I learned more about the hidden features from this video than I have in all that time! I used to like Gnome because of the customizeability but then it killed a lot of that so I switched to KDE and have been happier. My main desktop mostly stays Enlightenment, but my other machines are all KDE. I could never figure out the point of Activities... why not call it Window Groups?!? Funny non-descriptive names are not helpful for discovering cool new things, but work fine when most people have already heard about them.
Fascinating. I had no idea that an "activity" could have its only desktop background (unlike "virtual desktops", which cannot). Ok, I just made two very-different looking "activities". Thanks for the tip!
I was amazed at trying Kubuntu! KDE has so many settings and customizations! I feel like I'm in a candy shop! But I have my reservations about indicating it for newbies or work. You do need so much time to understand what you can do and what you can't. Some frugal things like "send to desktop" are less intuitive than doing that on Gnome, for example. I miss the block button with a pin or password to prevent accidental customization. KDE has so many good things that it's a shame that not many people know about some good stuff.
Ps: Maybe I didn't find that button, but who knows? So many options to explore.
I just use default Kde with openSUSE light theme
Naomi Wu said it best, "I just jump around, whatever does what I need most and easiest, none of them are paying my rent so I have no reason to be loyal to an operating system"
I quote her as I think she really hit home, I use windows primarily on my my desktop, Linux on my servers, I use what works best for me in the environments I use. Ok, ok, what does this have to do with KDE, simple, I have used KDE for well over 10 years, I dont just around because it does what I need, doesnt change around like gnome did and try to be a touchy feely os. just plain and simple and works - Its like linux users care more about the os and desktop more than actualy using the product and getting work done, like gamer tards who care more about the LED color in the case and coolant color versus actualy using their computer.
KDE's motto - "Simple by Default, Powerful when Needed."
I've been using KDE since the KDE 3 days on (if I remember correctly) SuSE 9. It has been a journey :)
You actually nailed the problem with KDE. The developers put a lot of thought into the design and implementation of these features and it is very unfortunate that people don't even know they exist. The other destops pale in comparison to this particular one in terms of flexibility useability and everything else.