Hi Steve.

Steve Litt - 23.12.23, 13:51:01 CET:
> Other than drag and drop, I'm trying to figure out why some people
> prefer using a Desktop Environment over just a Window Manager and a
> bunch of a-la-carte applications. So two questions:
>
> 1) What benefits do you see besides drag and drop?

Consistent look and feel. It is all nicely integrated with one another.
Regarding Plasma and KDE: The ability to configure it the way I like it. I
can make it mine. Usually without editing configuration files. I edit a lot
of configuration files on servers which I never install with a GUI since I
last set up an X2go machine. But for desktop applications I just like to
use them and customize without reading heaps of manuals for configuration
options just by using my intuition on where to find settings. And they are
all structured similarly in KDE applications. For example my main Plasma
desktop does not have a visible toolbar anywhere. It has several, but they
are all hidden and certain screen borders. So I have complete screen
estate for application windows.

<blatant marketing for activities>

I do use activities in Plasma. Like when I write on an article or book, I
have all applications needed for that open in an activity. Like Dolphin in
the right directory, Kate with a suitable project which contains all the
necessary files, Okular to view the rendered PDF, things like that, Konsole
as command line. If I like to engage in the activity I open it and Plasma
opens all the stuff. All the windows at the position I left them, Kate with
exactly the file I edited last, the cursor exactly at the location I left
it, Okular with the PDF at exactly the page I viewed before. And once I am
done I close the activity and Plasma saves the state of all the windows
and applications to open them at a later time again. It is awesome.
Unfortunately it does not really work with non KDE applications. For
example Firefox would open again, but it has forgotten the tabs I had
open. However all the KDE applications restore exactly as I left them.
They needed quite some time to get activities right, but meanwhile I don't
even know how and why I used a computer without that feature. I bet still
quite some people are not even really aware of that gem in KDE. I do have
some activities open at all times, like a communication activity for mail
and messenger, a play area for games, a system area with Konsole for shell
access, and an information area with RSS reader, however that overlaps a
bit with the communication activity. All of them have different back drop
images so I immediately recognize them.

Even completion order in KRunner and in KDE apps adapts to activities with
settable privacy settings on how long to keep any history, per activity of
course. Also of course all of this is just stored locally.

</blatant marketing for activities>

I also like the window manager KWin. Lower screen border opens composite
with all windows, I can search a window with keyboard or quickly select
the right one with mouse. It even has some nice touches of a tiling window
manager with some kind of automatism in there. When snapping windows into
an area of the screen by dragging them to a border of the screen it takes
into account another snapped window. When I move the window border next to
the other window it adapts the other window as well. For example I have
two windows side by side. If I make the left window larger at the right
side, KWin automatically adjusts the right window accordingly. It does not
yet work perfectly in all circumstances, but it is a new really neat
touch.

Upper border has quick access to activities. Left border on main screen
which is the laptop screen has window list, application menu and some
applets like clock and the usual systray stuff. I rarely use the
application menu. Starting an application is just Alt-Space, type three
chars, enter, done. Auto complete can use some improvements like the
ability to select an order of completion sources, however that has been
implemented for the upcoming Plasma 6 already.

I have to admit, their marketing slogan "simple by default, powerful when
needed" is to the point. If you just open a Plasma session and click
around for a little bit you are not likely to discover more than 5% of the
sheer power hidden beneath. That might be a bit of an issue for new users:
Not all of those great features are in plain sight.

> 2) How important is drag and drop in the way you use your computer?

I use it often enough. Between Dolphin windows. To put a file as attachment
into a mail I write. To drag a screenshot as attachment into a mail
without saving it into a file first. Things like that. As I just tested I
can even drag a mail into the mail composer window of KMail and it
automatically adds it as an attachment. That why I can forward a bunch of
selected mails quickly and easily.

Just yesterday I marked a bunch of files from different directories in
Dolphin and told it to make a ZIP archive. I also love how I can just
press F4 in Dolphin to have a terminal embedded. Often enough when I like
to move certain files whose filenames match a pattern, I just press Alt-F4
and type a "mv" command in there. Dolphin has a function for that, but I
am quickly by command line, probably cause I did not look up the hot key
for the pattern matching function. Or press F3 for a Midnight Command like
second pane in the current window.

I think it is similar to how I always worked since I started using an
Amiga. In AmigaOS you can drag and drop as well, often quite neatly so.
They called the GUI in AmigaOS Intuition. For a reason. As I received my
first Amiga, an Amiga 500 with 512 KiB of RAM and one disk drive, I was
able to figure most of how to use it out without even reading the manual.
And mind you it was the first computer I used that had a mouse in addition
to the keyboard (and joysticks) as input device. The manuals were really
nice addition as I dug deeper into command line access. They had really
fine and quite complete professionally printed manuals back then.

I love complex command calls and command line access. But I also love the
ability to just intuitively use a computer and have things work like I
expect them to. Plasma / KDE application match that quite close and I
often enough can adapt it where needed. Both ways of using a computer have
their use cases.

That has been a long writing. Maybe it transports some of why I use a
desktop environment and some of why I use Plasma and KDE applications. I
do use some other applications. I am not happy with the state of web
browsers, but I mostly use Firefox cause I still can adapt it best to my
privacy needs. And for work I use Evolution for mail, cause it can cope
better with Microsoft 365 (not my choice and I am certainly not a fan of
it) and in general is a quite fine and stable mail client. More stable than
KMail or well… Akonadi. KDEPIM is still a pain point with KDE and I think
mostly due to Akonadi. That is why I usually install Thunderbird for other
users. Its not perfect either, but at least it works more stable. On the
other hand I still use KMail myself. I have more than a million of mails
in more than 100 folders in there. Several accounts as well.

Ciao,
--
Martin