KDE Plasma is WASTING its POWER. Let's fix that!

hey everyone this is Nick and we can all agree that KDE is the most powerful desktop environment on any operating system the sheer number of options and customizations lets you make basically whatever you want on that desktop but the problem with that is that users are left to discover All That Power by themselves for example did you know that you can turn K win the window manager into a tiling window manager in two clicks did you know you could change the layout and entire theme of everything in just one click for your whole plasma desktop or did you know that you could have multiple sets of multiple desktop environments all with their different wallpapers and plasma widgets and applications and rules well maybe you do but I can guarantee you that most users of KDE haven't heard of one or all of these features so let's talk about hidden stuff in KDE and how we could make all of that a lot more accessible and how I could make this segue to today's sponsor more accessible as well thanks 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default KDE is super simple with its Windows like layout its menu bars being stripped from most default apps but if you open the settings there are a ton of things you can do visually and functionally you probably already know how you can change the theme for basically everything or how you can change the layout of your panels but there are also a ton of things most people probably don't know about so let's look at a few and then we'll see how KDE can make these more visible so people actually learn about them and maybe use them I mean that's the goal of the developers right to make these things so that people know about them and use them right I'm not crazy so let's start with activities something Katie never really talks about or promotes in any way an activity is a group of virtual desktops you can switch activities easily with a keyboard shortcut and they have their own switcher tool each activity can have it own name wallpaper set of plasma widgets and virtual desktops which means that you can create a work activity with a certain set of widgets that let you work more easily and unless this writing wallpaper and you can create a personal activity where you can have all the anime characters you want as a background different widgets and even different apps running hey if you have enough RAM you could even just start all your work apps during the day and when you're done just leave them open and switch to the personal activity play a while do what you need to do and the next morning when you need to get back to work just switch back to your work activity and everything is just right there how you opened it how you left it it's amazing it's a truly underrated feature that is never really explained or spoken about or demonstrated but it's something only KD does out of all desktops across all operating systems and most plasma users either don't know about it or never tried it because it was never blade now let's talk about K win the window manager slash compositor you might know that kwin will get native tiling features in plasma 5.27 letting you create custom tiling zones and resize and move Windows more easily but you can already do that in plasma right now thanks to custom kwin scripts those can force background blur on certain Windows you can have sticky window snapping so you can resize two adjacent windows in one go there's Cronkite a scribe that turns kwin into a full-blown tiling Window Manager you can maximize new windows to a new virtual desktop like on Mac OS or shake a window to minimize all others the possibilities are virtually endless and all you have to do to access that is find the right panel and the right option and the right button to get some new scripts it's never explained and it's never put forward as an advantage or a feature Now by default KD plasma also has KD connect a wonderful tool that lets you basically replicate what Apple does with their iOS and Mac OS devices you just install the companion app on your Android phone or iPhone and you pair the two on iOS the feature set is limited but it still lets you quickly exchange files use the phone as a touchpad or a remote or run commands but on Android you also get full-on clipboard sharing between the two devices you get the ability to receive phone notifications on your computer and to answer messages directly from the computer as well or vice versa kdeconnect is a super powerful tool that KD installs by default Apple tells you about those sets of features Windows has the my phone app that they also push heavily at setup KD doesn't even tell you it exists doesn't showcase it or doesn't even tell you there's something to install on your phone and that's just a few things most KD users probably never even knew existed they are tons more like K Runner press alt plus space and you get a full-on search box the spotlight of Mac OS if it was hidden and never talked about you can also have an application launcher as a right click on the desktop instead of a context menu you can apply your whole theme that covers the plasma layout the look the application theme the login screen the mouse cursor and More in just one click from the appearance tab you can replace any plasma widget by another through the show Alternatives context menu item you can replicate any desktop from any operating system whether it's Windows 11 or Mac OS or Linux desktop and still I get tons of comments every time I talk about caddy telling me Katie is too much like Windows KDE is too complex KDE doesn't work the way I want and every time I answer would you can change that the thing is no one ever told those new KDE users that these are things that they could do and so all that power is going to waste because while all the options are there in front of the user no one ever makes them realize that they can combine a certain set of these options to make something that works better for them all they see is tons of options not combinations of options so what could KDE do to solve all that hidden power going to waste now fortunately KD developers seem to have understood that problem because they are already working on a welcome application it should make its debut in plasma 5.27 it's extendable by distros to present the things they want and as a first set of pages they will have one about discover they'll have one to donate the project one to Showcase system settings one for the network and one for system updates it's a good step forward but that does not solve our power problem because all these Pages do is tell people about things they they already know they can do on any other desktop or any other OS what it's not telling them is what they can do specifically with KDE here I would take example on what zorian OS does with all the layouts you can apply for example it's one of the biggest users for KDE over gnome changing the layout of the desktop the welcome app should offer predefined layouts to let people know that this is a capability they have offer the default one a Mac OS like one a gnome-like one anything you want and in good KDE fashion you could also have a small help indicator that tells people what has been changed to make that layout possible or even better have a plus button to let someone create their own layout with a nice on-screen tutorial pointing out that by right-clicking a panel you can move it around and resize it and they could show you how to add widgets how to pick alternatives to already existing ones and then give the ability to save that layout to get back to it later basically when you have these kinds of intricate and Powerful systems that depend on the user's creativity you can just tell them that it exists you have to show them how to use them much like in a video game the tutorial should never just be lines of text telling you hey if you click this button you can open this Barrel it needs to be tutorialized by example and it's the same thing for advanced features on a desktop environment you pick the user's curiosity with multiple layouts you very clearly tell them that they can create their own and if they decide to do so you guide them to show them how they can replicate one or create their own now the welcome app should probably also be the entry point for themes KDE has a few out of the box just as a light or dark mode or the midnight mode but you could also use that opportunity to tell people about the get new stuff buttons that permeate all the customization throughout the desktop display all your normal default all-in-one themes and a very visible get more themes button right from the start then the user can understand they can get one click layout plus theme Plus login screens plus mouse cursor combos directly from their desktop and by extension that they can tweak all of these items individually if they are not interested they just skip it with one click if they are interested though then it lets them know that there's a whole community of themes Mouse cursors icon themes and plasma themes and layouts that they could just get out in one click from the appearance settings the welcome app would also be the perfect entry point to talk about KD connect and let users is no there's an app they can install on their phone to get all these amazing stuff again a simple step guided and easy to understand just open the notifications area as well to show people where KDE connect lives and they'll remember that if they want to use it next time and not right now of course not all features should live in the welcome app unless you want a 20 000 Pages intro installation slider like what Microsoft has on Windows which is terrible don't do that for example activities that's not something all users might be interested in but there's still a simple path as well when a user enters the settings for activities or maybe uses virtual desktops for a while you can just prompt them with a small notification easily dismissed and not disturbing or just a simple Banner in the settings that might be related to Virtual desktops just tell people if you use this computer for work and personal use do you want to separate these tasks using activities yes or no if the user clicks no you will never bother them again if they click yes you can have a simple wizard explaining what an activity is what it can do and just helping someone set it up by choosing a new wallpaper a name for the activity telling them how to switch from one to the other maybe automatically adding a plasma widget to their panel to help them do that maybe show them the different plasma widgets they could pick for each activity maybe have a simple UI to decide which app open on which activity a simple guided experience to let users understand first the use case of the feature and second how it works how to use it once it's set up same goes for all K win scripts and all extensions keep the settings Pages separate because that's less confusing for people who are not looking for your scripts but there are more multiple Pages where what a user might actually want to do is find a script to install it except they don't know they need a script for that feature they're looking for a checkbox or radio button if they can't find it they'll assume that it cannot be done but you could also tell them maybe there's a script for you to let you do what you're looking for and that you're obviously not finding now all that power needs explain if people don't know it exists then it doesn't exist and all the time you spent working on these features is wasted because only one percent of your users will ever use them instead of being helpful to 100 of your users okay let's be realistic instead of being useful to maybe 20 of your users but still it if your car could fly you'd want to know that right off the bat right you wouldn't want to find out in a semi-popular YouTube video or in a weird article on a website that is super Niche and small you'd want to know that and if you're the guy who made the flying car you want your users to know that your car can fly so they will actually want to buy and use your car same goes for desktop environments you need to tell people that there are features in there that no one else has and that they can use to make their work to make their computer more productive right now no one knows KD has that and so you're not getting users based on these features all the development time on these features is kind of wasted people who don't wait through the settings or don't look at YouTube videos just don't know what can be done all they see is huge complexity tons of settings and a Windows like layout they don't even know they can change so come on KDE developers you need to explain all that power and every new feature you add should have a clear plan on how it's being communicated to your users and how they can know that it exists and what they can do with it you have the most powerful desktop experience anyone can have whatever the operating system they decided to use and you still get people that don't want to use it because they think it's a Windows clone it's time to change that and it's time to change computers thanks to today's sponsor tuxedo makes laptops and desktops that ship with Linux pre-instop which is obviously a way simpler solution if you want a computer to run Linux on then buying anything that runs windows and praying that Linux will run on it when you buy from tuxedo you know Linux will run on it that's kind of the point and they have a big big range of devices to cover every price point and every need they are all modifiable upgradable Parable you can have your own custom keyboard laser etched on the keys of your laptop your own custom logo laser etched on the back of your laptop they have everything basically for anyone so if you need a new device you want to support linux's development and you want to make sure that what you buy will run Linux head over to the link in the description below buy yourself a tuxedo device they're really good so thanks for watching the video I hope you enjoyed it if you did don't hesitate to like to subscribe to turn on notifications to write a comment and if you didn't like it well there's always that thumbs down button it still works but do tell me why in the comments come on and if you want to support the channel there's a super thanks button underneath this video on YouTube there's a PayPal Link in the description and there are also links to my patreon memberships and YouTube memberships both get access to a weekly podcast every Monday which is exclusive to patreon supporters and YouTube members and you also get to vote on the next topics that I'll cover on the channel so thanks for watching and I guess you'll see me in the next one bye [Music] [Music] foreign

Channel: The Linux Experiment

Views: 91,475

Keywords: linux, open source, distribution, linux distro, linux help, linux tutorial, linux 2022, opensource, free software, linux tips, ubuntu, distro, linux for beginners 2022, open source contribution, linux operating system, kde hidden features, kde activities vs virtual desktops, kde activities overview, kde connect windows, kde connect iphone, kde connect linux, kde connect tutorial, kde connect sms, plasma, kde plasma, kde plasma beautiful, kde plasma features, kde plasma desktop

Id: jzXPEuoiYZM

Length: 17min 4sec (1024 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 13 2022