Hi,

I am Budgie user at home, and KDE at work, and I wanted to share something that I really cannot appreciate nor understand for years:

Why all the KDE applications have weird and non-consistent naming instead of being called simply what they do ?
(with a kde- or plasma- namespace)

Why you make (new or not) users guess that the file explorer is called dolphin, why (one of) the player is called Dragon-player, why the screenshot utility is called Spectacle and the list goes on... ?

This is honestly so messy.... Even plasma has to feature subtitles under the names of programs to help people understand...

Gnome project, a few years ago started to rename their subprograms gnome-files, gnome-screenshot, gnome-xxx... and this is CLEAN and a good idea to copy !

KDE is a ecosystem, and a good ecosystem should defines rules to show consistency and reliability for a clean workflow, and save people the need to google to find out that the tool they're looking for is called KwhatthecKpluspluslol.

Of course some dedicated applications like Krita by example can have a custom names, but since when integrated utility tools needs such a treatment ?

Maybe it's time to let the egos off and start replacing the personal choices by choices that would benefit everyone instead...

I can point out that neither Chrome nor Firefox have anything to do with the web, but nevertheless they are used.

Technically all applications you mentioned (Dolphin, Dragon, Spectacle) are not part of Plasma, and they are not different from Krita in that regard.

This has come up a few times before and generally no action has been taken on this.
One major concern with naming the apps using Gnome's convention based on what they do is that it makes it hard to identify or distinguish the app. If a user has a problem with web or files, how are they supposed to look it up on the web to find out what files they need to fix? It's a lot easier to find information on the dolphin file manager than on the files file manager.
As I understand it, that the main reason why KDE applications continue to maintain the custom names instead of following in Gnome's footsteps and renaming things with confusing generic names. (well that and insufficient impetus to change)

But most of the time the user doesn't care about the custom name so the launcher just displays the descriptions by default which gets you close enough to just having the generic name (but without the potential trouble from only having the generic name).

Just an example of how cleaner the software ecosystem could be in the shell if decision was taken:

Code: Select all

 
Apper :                      kde-package-manager
Dolphin :                    kde-file
Spectacle :                  kde-screenshot
Gwenview :                   kde-image-viewer
Filelight :                  kde-disk-space
KAppfinder :                 kde-search
KBluetooth :                 kde-bluetooth
KDE Connect :                kde-connect
KDE Partition Manager :      kde-partition-manager
KDE System Guard :           kde-system-monitor
Konsole :                    kde-terminal

KSystemLog :                 kde-log-viewer
KUser :                      kde-users
KWallet :                    kde-wallet
System Settings :            kde-system-settigs

Ark :                        kde-archiver
BasKet Note Pads :           kde-notepad
KAlarm :                     kde-alarm
KCalc :                      kde-calculator
KCharSelect :                kde-unicode
KFileReplace :               kde-file-replace
KFind :                      kde-finder
KRename :                    kde-renamer
KRemoteControl :             kde-remote-control
KTimer :                     kde-timer
Sweeper :                    kde-cleaner
KMag :                       kde-magnifier
KMouth :                     kde-speech-synthetizer


I can't even picture how someone could even think it's not better this way

LOL, I'm with you. Its frustrating to type `syslog` and not get the ksyslog...ugh. Another is `file` when Dolphin is what's required.

Lol, this has been a debate as long as there has been a KDE, pretty much. No matter what sort of naming convention is used, someone will not like it.

Most of us simply don't care, and I will guess that quite a few of us balk at any semblance of doing something simply because Gnome and other similar desktops do it.

fronline wrote:I can't even picture how someone could even think it's not better this way

Then I must say you have an extreme lack of imagination.