KDE's New Swipe Gesture Makes Windows 11 Look Bad (neowin.net) 65
"Microsoft has been struggling to reach a state of convergence between tablet and desktop ever since Windows 8 and the original Surface," argues Neowin, adding "If we're using Windows 11 as a barometer of their progress, they'll likely never get there...."
But meanwhile, writes Slashdot reader segaboy81, "KDE's new swipe gesture is awesome. It's about 1000% smoother than the overview in Windows 11 and the swiping mechanism is easier, too. Is KDE getting better for tablets?"
From Neowin's report: Starting in KDE Plasma 5.25, users with touch screen devices will be able to enter their tasks and virtual desktops overview by simply swiping down from the top edge, but with a special twist. The scale of the windows directly follows the path of your finger. The result is every bit as fluid as you might imagine. While you can achieve the same result in Windows 11 with a simple three-finger swipe up, this implementation looks great and performs great too.
But meanwhile, writes Slashdot reader segaboy81, "KDE's new swipe gesture is awesome. It's about 1000% smoother than the overview in Windows 11 and the swiping mechanism is easier, too. Is KDE getting better for tablets?"
From Neowin's report: Starting in KDE Plasma 5.25, users with touch screen devices will be able to enter their tasks and virtual desktops overview by simply swiping down from the top edge, but with a special twist. The scale of the windows directly follows the path of your finger. The result is every bit as fluid as you might imagine. While you can achieve the same result in Windows 11 with a simple three-finger swipe up, this implementation looks great and performs great too.
Oooh it scales! (Score:5, Interesting)
That's it. That's what Windows 11 is missing. Everything else is fine, but KDE is better because the task view scales with how far you swipe. The future is here ladies and gentlemen. We've discovered all we need to discover. If you're not using KDE's new swipe gesture you may as well be using DOS.
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This isn't the first time I've heard good things about KDE. So the question is, why aren't either of the top GNU/Linux distros (Fedora/Redhat and Ubuntu proper) using it as their default desktop?
That's a really good question. In the past I would have put it down to polish but recently GNOME started to suck fucking rocks in the reliability department for me. I installed Pop!OS which came with a weird and stupid dock with poor configurability, which turned out to be a fork of another dock which actually had the feature I want (ability to have the icons pinned to the top of a dock which is itself pinned to the right side of the screen, ala NeXT.) Unfortunately, the original version is buggier than the
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Nearly all distros ship with KDE in their repos. Didn't take much to install the KDE meta package on Fedora 35 and away I went. Been using KDE for several months now, and I quite like it because it is still very configurable and I can make it act the way I want it to, unlike Gnome. My needs are very traditional and I don't need activities, client-side decorations, or tablet functionality or Mac-esque appearance. The only trouble I have is that there are odd issues with Kwin on Wayland still--focus follow
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The answer probably lies in the fact that news headlines and soundbites don't make a good UI. This is another classic example. I've tried using KDE for a tablet as little as 6 months ago and it was utterly garbage. Yay they have gestures, but the interface doesn't change to the touch context making using fingers just utterly pointless.
Hence the sarcastic post. It scales! Whoop de fucking do. This is the KDE equivalent of the Notepad settings button in Windows 11. Don't know what I'm talking about? https://w [theverge.com]
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What does "the interface doesn't change to the touch context" mean? You can't use the gestures? The only PC in the house with a touch display is still running Win7 but I plan to convert it to Linux soonish, so this is relevant to me.
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Likewise, I'm curious to hear more. I'm currently using Gnome 3, which I abhorred as a non-touch desktop, but sort-of almost like for a touch desktop.
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They probably mean that the UI doesn't change itself to work well with touch screens. I got the Steam Deck recently and it comes with KDE installed and I noticed right away that the UI doesn't scale itself to work well with touch input. I would have to try 5 times just to hit the tiny close button on the window.
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I use an environment with keyboard, mouse AND a touch screen far more than I use one with touch alone. All those interfaces that change TOO much for touch just feel handicapped to me.
It's been a long time since I tried KDE. Maybe I would like it again?
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So the question is, why aren't either of the top GNU/Linux distros (Fedora/Redhat and Ubuntu proper) using it as their default desktop?/quote>
Simple: Unlike the locked-down Windows "GUI", on Linux a window manager is just considered a window manager and not that important. Use any you like of those that get shipped with your distro. Personally, I use fvwm and are quite happy with it. It is not the default, sure (Debian, Gentoo), but the config I use is about 30 years old and exactly what I want. It is still more modern than Windows will apparently ever be. That is another thing: On Linux, the user supplies the config, whatever the distro ships is just an example. And once you have done a config you like, you can use it for a long, long time.
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And once you have done a config you like, you can use it for a long, long time.
Unless all your favorite software gets abandoned :) I used to use compiz, emerald, and AWN to produce a really fantastic desktop with all the best features of OSX, Windows and Linux. But then all three of those programs were abandoned (compiz wasn't literally abandoned AFAIK but it might as well have been) and even today they still don't work right. Compiz explodes continually, for example.
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Simple: Unlike the locked-down Windows "GUI", on Linux a window manager is just considered a window manager and not that important.
That is a pretty dumb comment. In a functional OS the windows manager is the single thing the user will interact with. If that isn't in good order then the entire OS may as well not exist. No doubt you're a console veteran and have a different view, but that really just shows how out of touch you are with how people actually use their computers.
The window manager is the OS as far as 99.9% of users are concerned, and KDE determines the look and feel of user interaction.
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5 main reasons why kde isn't more successful:
1- the old QT library license problem... KDE use QT and it had a non-gpl license. Not a huge problem, as i think it would only affected commercial tools using it, but it was enough to some people (most linked to redhat) complained a lot and pick up gimp gui toolkit and released the GTK as the "perfect" replace for QT. QT owners also fix the license issue and now QT is own by a foundation IIRC... but that starts the 2 main linux toolkits, QT and GTK, each with the
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yes, but no more dev and financial support for kde and the mandriva distro lost most of their market share
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Re: Oooh it scales! (Score:2)
Because it tries to be Windows like, but it's just a shittier Windows-like interface. Similar to how GNOME users can experience a shittier Mac-like interface.
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Re: Oooh it scales! (Score:2)
I think it's because the design philosophy of Macs is to remove shit while the design philosophy of Windows is to organize shit into things like toolbars with dropdowns with flyouts, etc. The former - when done poorly - leads to apps that are missing some lesser used features. The latter - when done poorly - leads to a mess.
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NIH
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Missing things is not much an issue with Windows 11, if anything, is the excess of shit it has.
Many of the "features" windows 11 have used to be literally how crapware and malware acted in the 90's and 2000's.
I remember having to struggle to remove a search bar daemon tools installed in the taskbar because it just used a lot of space for nothing much in return, and now on windows 10 is a default thing.
Also "hide known file extensions" is horrible and still default on windows after many, many, many years.
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Well, MS is a quasi-monopoly. What do you expect? Basically no monopoly in history has ever produced good innovation or even good quality implementations of the state of the art. And with MS, it is 100% the user's fault. MS was always incompetent, but the users are what made MS big and fat and lazy.
Re: Oooh it scales! (Score:1)
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didn't the company that had a monopoly on making monopoly make the best implementation of monopoly?
They didn't have a monopoly on monopoly-like games, though. There are tons of clones with different themes than rental ownership.
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They at least produced consistent user interface guidelines [microsoft.com], which you can count on nearly all Windows desktop applications following.
Yes. Because following crappy broken UI guidelines is just such a big plus.
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Like it or not all desktop UIs of today have been influenced by Microsoft because they were on the Motif WG. That's why Windows 3.0 and later and mwm/Motif have virtually identical windowing behavior. And therefore gnome, and KDE too, and so on and so forth. Only a small handful of counterexamples remain, most notably OSX. We have been trained to expect things in a certain layout, and that layout is common to Windows and all mainstream non-Apple Unix interfaces (although GNOME is always trying to dick it up
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Also "hide known file extensions" is horrible and still default on windows after many, many, many years.
I used to agree with this, until another poster made me remember that most people are near computer-illiterate. That is, they'll rename a file, including it's extension (ignoring the helpful warning), then complain to IT that their files no longer work (this happened to him many times, apparently). You can I tend to think of functionality like this as power users, so of course we want to see extensions.
What might be a saner option, I think, is for the rename functionality to ignore the extension by defaul
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What might be a saner option, I think, is for the rename functionality to ignore the extension by default.
BS. You and I both know that the "saner" option for those that can't figure out extensions is to give them Etch-A-Sketches and leave the real computing to those of us that know what we're doing. But business can't work like that.
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Many oses at least select just the file name to make typing erase all but the extension, but if you want to go "extra safe", you could do "change name" and "change extension" separate functions, and even make the OS give you a list of known extensions.
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and no doubt it works as beautifully as the article says it does!
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I would be more interesting to know if KDE works well on a tablet. Most desktop operating systems don't.
Windows Swipe (Score:2)
Three fingers to reach the Ctrl, Alt and Del areas of the touch screen, amirite?
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The Windows key is conveniently located for the head of your cock to rest on as well. Progress.
So KDE copied BB10? (Score:2)
Yeah, swipe with scaling in 2013.
Please fix bugs, instead of adding features (Score:2)
While kde has come a long way, I'd appreciate it if they would invest time into fixing bugs.
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What's your pet bug? I just started using KDE (I've tried it before, but never liked it before, like I do now with current Plasma) and want to know what to look out for.
My pet bug with Firefox is that on Windows it sometimes stops making new connections until I reload it. And I'm running the same addons on both Windows and Linux, where it doesn't happen...
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Well, the implementation of google drive support is really lacking. Dolphin, and kwrite get google drive support, but calligra office not.
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The problem is that such things are implemented at the kde layer and not the vfs layer, so only apps using the kde libraries can access virtual filesystems like google drive.
If you mount google drive at the vfs layer (eg using fuse), then everything will be able to access it - even cli programs.
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Can't connect email apps without to Office 365 Exchange server without installing additional packages and jumping through hoops. I'd like it to just connect like apps on my Android phone (non-MS) can do easily and with no fuss. Perfect and bulletproof working with Weyland (and fix it so I can have my 4K and regular 1980x1024 monitors scale properly together so that I don't have microscopic fonts on one and normal on the other, or normal one and giant on the other. Windows handles this already, like a champ.
Gun meet foot (Score:2)
M$ has been shooting themselves in the foot over and over again. Mandatory auto updates being one which left a very bad taste in the mouths of those about to give a presentation to an auditorium filled with people. This particular idea was drawn out in crayon, I'm sure.
Companies are born, and companies die. Standard Oil isn't around anymore.
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Microsoft lost the way of a simple usable interface when they messed up the desktop windows in order to support touchscreen environment of mobile devices, but nobody in their right mind would even think about a Windows phone today and a Windows pad is also pretty much out of the question.
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They don't care. They own a fuck ton of gaming IP now, they have arguably the leading "cloud" platform, they have the most popular and common office suite on Earth - Now with more bullshit analytics and forced interactions with Teams!
Windows monopoly ain't what she used to be - there are other total lock-ins available now instead (Google/Apple ... all of which are, sadly, more popular than all the linux distros combined).
But they still get a healthy tax on the overwhelming majority (81.7%) of computers sol [geekwire.com]
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M$ has been shooting themselves in the foot over and over again. Mandatory auto updates being one which left a very bad taste in the mouths of those about to give a presentation to an auditorium filled with people. This particular idea was drawn out in crayon, I'm sure.
Companies are born, and companies die. Standard Oil isn't around anymore.
Unfortunately MS is still going strong. Apparently the pain it inflicts on its users is nowhere near enough. Some even ask for more.
Re: Gun meet foot (Score:2)
Yep, I bet you love an idea of Windows going into update when somebody is about to give that slam dunk presentation and now cant.
Did you know this has a really bad effect on employees down the line, maybe someone like YOU? No presentation=possible layoffs (including you).
I don't know about you (Score:2)
But I gave a feeling this is the year of Linux on the desktop :)
Who cares (Score:1)
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Who cares? For 90% of users, including most software developers, Linux or Windows or ChromeOS, are just a quick stop before getting to a Chromium-based web browser or VS.Code.
I don't really care about the UI/UX of the OS anymore - and it is liberating!
Even for the rest of the population, the OS is just a quick stop before getting to your Game library.
No.
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Not quite yet, but we are getting there, hopefully.
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Even for the rest of the population, the OS is just a quick stop before getting to your Game library.
Nah, I have to spend a bunch of time dicking around in the OS when the game library app crashes. Right now Steam on my Windows machine is starting on launch like it's supposed to, except none of the UI elements appear. When I kill it and start it again then it comes right up, albeit occasionally not logged in — because Steam is fucking lame, and sometimes when you kill it, it loses its shit. Seriously, all these years later and Steam is still total fucking amateur hour.
Geeze (Score:1)
Windows 11 doesn't need any help looking bad.
Making Windows Look Bad (Score:2)
That's not hard to do. KDE has been making Windows look bad since KDE 1.
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Prior to Plasma KDE UI has always been a mess. I got pissed off at GNOME not working right though and tried KDE again and it finally got smoothed out and decluttered. KDE made itself look bad until Plasma.
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And yet KDE has never achieved more than low single digit market share, almost as though evangelists' opinions don't match those of the vast majority of people.
Re: Making Windows Look Bad (Score:2)
KDE has always and forever been a bad clone of the Windows design guidelines.
Look bad? (Score:2)
Win11 *IS* bad!
1000% smoother... (Score:2)
Ok (Score:2)
Well, there are people who have succeeded in making other window managers work under Windows. So if KDE could be so ported, essentially using only the low-level components in Windows and throwing out the rest, you'd have Windows with working swipe.