Are you disappointed with the feature regressions in Plasma5?

English Open Chat
#1

As many of you know, I am deeply disappointed with the removal of the feature that allowed different backgrounds and different widgets on multiple Virtual Desktops, a serious regression in the workflow environment for me (loss of productivity as I see it), and loss of the ability to show off by flipping them with The Cube (the latter is eye candy, but still desired).

There are additional rumblings about other disappointments in the move from KDE4 to Plasma5. If you miss some feature or action that is now gone, list it in your response here.

#2

I’m not sure of the benefit of this Poll, as it really only has one answer.
Like if the government put up taxes and start a poll to ask if people like or dislike the increase.

People are likely unhappy with the changes made, me included.

What we can do is be a force for change ourselves by involvement with the KDE project

My Box is now back on 13.2 (which I had not deleted) and continues it’s near flawless running.

#3

While user’s may not be happy with this regression, the underlying reasons have been reasonably well explained by developer Martin Gräßlin

https://blog.martin-graesslin.com/blog/2015/10/some-thoughts-on-the-quality-of-plasma-5/

He has suggested that other capable third parties could fill the gap at some stage in the future. The KDE team don’t have the resources apparently.

I agree on that in general. But users have an expectation and they have the expectation that if we as KDE provide a feature, that it has to work correctly and without limitations. If one is not able to provide this, it might be better to not provide it at all.
Of course this opens up the possibility for 3rd party providers. A “different wallpaper per virtual desktop” can easily be provided through a wallpaper plugin as a 3rd party solution.

#4

Yes, in the end that is the only approach that can lead to a constructive outcome here.

#5

To add one.

I want to set displaying short date to YYYY-MM-DD. In earlier KDE settings I could do that because the interface offered that format as one of it’s options.

Now the interface offers me an endless list of all countries of the world :?.
What am I supposed to do with that? Starting at the top and try them out until I find one that produces YYYY-MM-DD?

#6

In random order no less. How much work would it take to display the list in alphabetical order?

#7

You are correct.

But in fact I do not care. A useless list stays useless, sorted or not.

#8

YES, i am also disappointed !!!

So many lacks of features are doing that i don’t know how to replace my old 13.1 .
And i am confused because i was waiting for 42.1 to replace it.
And i don’t know how to find a correct desktop for every day use.
I also need some good desktop to run a small company at home.
13.1 with kde4 was good for that, but 42.1 with plasma5 is not good.

Many features are missing on plasma 5, such as

  • the favorite launcher with a click on the desktop,
  • the BII window decoration,
  • the bold for highlight characters in Misc Fixed font in konsole
  • klipper doesn’t display a long list of the last cut/copied text (only 10 last)
  • the systray doesn’t obey me when i want to force him to display the battery state, the network state or any other systray element
  • there were also some strange behaviors at the beginning with the network applet, which seems to be repaired.

This really too much.

Moreover, Leap also has some other flaws like fail2ban which doesn’t work anymore unless you change the systemd logger.

We have a real problem here.

#9

The change away from different backgrounds did not much bother me.

I had used different backgrounds. But I switched to making them all the same, around 6 months into 13.1. So, by the time Plasma 5 came out, I was prepared for that change.

I’m more bothered by the change of menus. I have followed Wolfi’s suggestion, of copying a file in “/etc/xdg/menus”. And that improved things. But if I set it so that middle click on the background opens an application menu, then I get a menu where every web browser is called “Web browser”. In KDE4, they used to be “firefox”, “chromium”, “konqeror” etc. Now I have to guess by their relative position in the menu.

#10

I have to disagree with you, here. First, it inspires some discussion, and this Forum is listed as

 **Forum: Surveys/Polls**

 Share opinions about various topics

I added the red highlighting to show this is germane.

In addition, there is not only one answer. If nothing you use is missing, the Don’t Care is a good choice. I agree, I doubt if there will be very many who vote for “Pleased with the regressions”, but there are all kinds here, and someone just might feel that way about it, so it is included.

Note that, at the time I write this response, the Don’t Care is leading in the polls, though it is early at this time. That may well be the heads-on winner of this poll.

Yes, I – and a few others – have been vocal about the Virtual Desktops issue, but there might only be about a half dozen or a dozen of us, just very vocal. Or, there may be a huge number of us. The only way to get a sense of that is with this poll.

Like if the government put up taxes and start a poll to ask if people like or dislike the increase.

Believe it or not, the government will get a percentage of “Like the Increase”. I know quite a few people who are happy to pay their taxes in return for the benefits, as counter-intuitive as that may seem at first thought.

People are likely unhappy with the changes made, me included.

Then vote accordingly.:wink:

What we can do is be a force for change ourselves by involvement with the KDE project

Yes, and that is actually the bottom line, is it not?

I have begun exploring the possibilities here. I must say I am impressed with the KDE Community’s “Get Involved” pages, just phenomenal and easy to follow, with lists of resources, tutorials and mentors. Heads and shoulders – sad to say – above the openSUSE “Get Involved” pages.

(BTW: I have sent e-mail to highly-talented individuals in the openSUSE community asking for their help to guide me at getting involved in openSUSE development, but I have not received replies. I also made queries about other ways of contributing to openSUSE, and again no response. Yesterday, I made a faint query at KDE and received almost instant e-mail response and a great deal of encouragement, with pointers to great tutorials and starting points. Seems to me the openSUSE community needs to work on this a bit, if they really want more contributors.)

My Box is now back on 13.2 (which I had not deleted) and continues it’s near flawless running.

Similar to me, but I am on 13.1, flawless and super-productive. I had thought that 12.3 was the ultimate, but 13.1 has turned out to be my best experience yet with openSUSE.

Will I move to a later version? On at least one of my machines, for certain, and maybe on most. My main machine will stay on 13.1, though, until I find a solution to the desktop issue that satisfies me. And, yes, I am hunting for solutions, including exploring ways I might contribute.

#11

… well, that should help improve your grade in Geography class … lol!

#12

Okay, but many of these are not regressions, instead are bugs or items being worked on. I hope those who vote actually are able to distinguish between what is a regression, and what is a bug, as that makes a difference in this poll.

I thank you for your feedback, and I am finding this interesting.

#13

The difficulty (and dislike) I have with all such polls (of many different toics) is the deliberate limiting of the scope - where such typically is necessary for the questions in the poll. When the forum was created years ago - I was not in favour of a section on polls, but it was put in place by popular demand and I thought it best to go with the majority on this forum area (despite my dislike for such).

wrt the subject of this specific poll, one may agree in the end wrt disappointment with Plasma-5 feature regressions … but I think one could change the topic on a poll (any poll) to most areas about unhappiness wrt feature regressions on any subject and there will be those who state they are disappointed. It tends to be the nature of many users to want more features - so it stands to reason they will be disappointed with feature regressions.

The move to Plasma-5 and KDE goes because the majority (all ? ) of the developers no longer were supporting KDE-4. Ergo there was no real choice her for a long lasting version of KDE as KDE-4 could no longer provide such. The vast majority of KDE users pay NOTHING for KDE. They just take and use. Yet polls such as this do not mention (nor even provide a link) to address that - wanting something for nothing - wanting long life support but not mentioning KDE4 support had stopped - and hence uninformed users who see such a poll as this can jump to the wrong conclusion.

Having expressed my podium view wrt a strong dislike for most polls (of which this is no exception) I do note the link to Martin Gräßlin’s view on this was interesting and my thanks to deano_ferrai for posting such. https://blog.martin-graesslin.com/blog/2015/10/some-thoughts-on-the-quality-of-plasma-5/
.

#14

Very well said, and very good points. I appreciate your input. And, of course, this is not about openSUSE, as the direction of LEAP is a promising one, and there was simply no choice but to go with Plasma5. KDE4 simply is not an option with openSUSE going forward, since it is essentially EOL, as you again point out here and as is pointed out in many other places.

Although you do not like polls, contributions to the discussion such as yours in this post are the main goal I had in mind when creating this poll. Both the pros and the cons are important elements of the discussion, and it is good to get them wrapped into this single thread so all points of view can be presented, discussed, and considered.

It is educational and provides the opportunity to point out facts and information that may not have been considered otherwise.

Bringing it all together in one place, like this, is much better than having “sound clips” here and there in scattered threads. (And, yes, I admit to having indulged in that practice, :shame: which is why I decided I wanted to bring it all into focus in its own thread.

The poll is just a starting point, and so far I think the results in the discussion are proof it was worth it.

And, yes, in reference to deano_ferrari’s provided link, I was planning on posting a thank you for that, something we might not have seen if I had not started this poll. Yes, I followed the link and found it interesting and educational. I hope to see more such contributions, both pro and con, here in the future.

Thanks again for your input, and thanks to all who have and who might in the future add their input to this thread.:wink:

#15

As with almost every poll: be aware of what the results represent, before drawing any conclusions. Since you do not specify “feature regressions” in the poll itself, the results mean nothing IMHO. You can see that reflected in the replies.

#16

I am not very interested in the poll, because that will be of course a very biased one (as most polls in real life).

But the discussion is interesting as it gathers several points where people are disappointed in on thread.

Some above discuss if these points people are disappointed about are “regressions” or not. That may depend on the definition of “regression”, but IMHO it is not very important if they are regressions, bugs, features, or simply "we do not offer that anymore"s. It is about things users used for years and now, on what they see as an update of the product, are simply gone. And remember, some of these things that are simply goen, were existing from before KDE existed.

Another point made is, you did not pay for it, thus why do you complain (to formulate it very blunt). That is also not the subject IMHO of this thread. The subject is that some of us are disappointed. Users want to use their computers to get some production, where in many cases production is definitely something different then instaling and testing new versions. Installing and testing new versions is simply an annoyance you have to go through now and then. And when then, during testing, it means that the way you did your production work for years is hampered by the removal of basic things, you are disappointed.

For many it means

  • visiting forums like these (or KDE’s) to find out if others see the same and if it will be repaired in due time or is gone forever;
  • checking how long your existing openSUSE version is still supported: how much time do I have left to find a solution’
  • start finding out if other DEs offer what you need.
  • either if you decide to live with the new KDE or with another DE, inform and retrain your users (even if you have only one end-user, yourself), you must train yourself to do your day-today work different).

No, the word “disappointed” is IMHO a very low-level word to express the frustration one might have. And I hope this thread gathers more of those points found by others, because I have stopped testing Leap 42.1 and the new KDE, it taking to much resources.

#17

So have i.
And i regret it, because i need a good working environment, like 13.1 is.

#18

Agreed. It could have been better worded. But, in all honesty, I really am not interested in the actual results of the poll. I just used it as a place to collect the discussion together.

In reality, I am not looking for an actual result other than the discussion.

As for points such as some make, about actually attacking the KDE Devs (or, even less valid, the openSUSE Devs, who did not make the KDE decisions), I actually believe that is counter-productive and mostly unjustified. The Plasma5 Desktop is not a commercial product, as already pointed out in this thread, and we do not purchase it. In the end, we must be gratefull for what we get to benefit from for free, even if we have some dissatisfaction with it.

I do find this discussion makes me stop and rethink the situation, which results in some backtracking on my own attitude. I think it may have the same effect on others, and so I think it is a good discussion.

There is no such thing as an accurate poll, IMHO, yet the results of this thread might provide a lot of insight and more understanding of what actually goes on in these decisions.

#19

Every single point in this posting by Henk is something I agree with 100%. See, this is what I was looking for, and so clearly stated in this post!

Thank you, hcvv:)

#20

BTW: I also think – and hope – that this thread might inspire a few more people to roll up their sleeves and pitch in.

I have not programmed in a few decades, other than some minor scripting. I programmed in ML (hand assembling!) and Assembler (PDP-11, 6809e, 8808, 68020, 68030, 80286, 80386), Pascal/Turbo Pascal, and – of course – Basic.

Early on, though, I was led in a different IT direction and left programming behind. I had some wiz’s to assign any programming projects to, so it was ridiculous for me to do any of it.

However, now that I am retired, I have time to explore new things. This thread – and a couple of things I explored before starting this thread – has me poking my nose in a C++ text, getting ready to crash-course myself.

Maybe it will help spur others along, and maybe we will get a few more FOSS contributors out of this, especially for openSUSE?

That would be an excellent result of this discussion.