Yes, the blank space next to the name is for the user icon. If you set one in systemsettings “about me” you can see it also in KDM. A good idea would be to have a set of funny icons to randomly choose from, instead of leaving it to blank as default.

Given your first point, I’m not sure you “get” the whole thing.. I’m sure KDM is far from “done”, but the reason your “name” is in there 3 times is because you decided to pick your name as your username. pick something else and it won’t show up three times.

what the list actually shows is the user’s Real Name, and username. The username is what you have to use to login, hence it will get put in the username text box if a user entry is selected.

On mine I get “Thomas Fjellstrom” and “moose” in the left hand list, and “moose” in the username field. Pretty obvious once you know whats going on.

Thanks for having a look at KDM. Like Thomas F. pointed out, the “names” don’t bother me to (because I have another login name as well) but you are right with all your other arguments. I’m looking forward to any improvement into these directions.

hello!
I agree with the points made by david, i hope the developers can take his advice and improve kdm (which is already very good). I encountered another minor bug: there seems to be no graphical way to change the color of the mouse cursor in kdm. The changes to the cursor made from systemsettings only apply to the rest of kde, not to kdm and in the kdm systemsettings “page” there’s no way to select a different cursor color

Quick ideas:
1. To switch to another user perhaps it’s enough to mark the loged in users in the userlist (green point or green line around the picture, …)
2. On OK or LOGIN and CANCEL button would be nice. As well as reboot or shutdown. There is still enough space on the login screen so not everything has to be hidden in a pull down (or even new) menu, without cluttering the screen too much.

P.S.: I like the username field to log in as root quickly (I know, as kubuntu user you don’t need that). But I can also live without one.

“Restart X Server: I would like a different, less techy label,”

I don’t agree with this one. Naming it something different just hides what is actually being done, “Soft restart” would say completely nothing to me.
I think the wording as it is ok here, because usually you don’t need this option. In the rare case that you need it, you probably know that you want to restart the X server, so it is good that it says just that.

“Console Login: this option really makes me mad.”
I think it’s nice that this option is there. I agree that adding some hints how to come back or maybe moving to an “Advanced” submenu (maybe together with the “Remote login”) might make sense.

Alex

Well… the user thing has been mentioned often enough by now, but there are a few other things i’d like to comment about.

a) the console login – sorry, but saying it shouldnt be present at all in kdm? See how users demands can be different – i would hate it if this option disappears. You might have a point with the confirmation dialog tho.

b) XDMCP – PPL that don’t know what XDMCP is wont use it, end of story. Those who know will know what to do. I dont see any reason why KDM should give it some fancy name, because thats just how it is called and GDM names it the same. You are right about the visual representation tho – it’s plain ugly

Personally i always liked GDM more, because it is damn flexible theme wise. KDM themes always look about the same.
So in general i agree, KDM – as it is the first thing the user sees – should look and feel much more like something that makes the user want to see more.

A few weeks ago I also thought on how to improve kdm and its integration into kde in general. The ideas are a bit different of what the topic is, but anyway. Now following, an idea to improve/alter the log in process.

Use case 1)
Edgar has a notebook which he uses at home as well as at university. Last night he was playing “world of goo” for quite some time. Because he didn’t want to miss the great music which comes along with goo, he had the sound turned on. He also likes the start jingle of kde and therefor he has switched system sounds on. Normally, before he takes the notebook to university, he disables the sound using kmix to not annoy all the other students. But since it was late last night he has just forgotten to do so. Staring on kdm while sitting in a lesson he now thinks: “How wonderful would it be to be able to mute my kde from kdm.”

This leads to a switch at the log in screen which triggers the mute setting of e.g. kmix.

But there is more to come because it is somewhat arbitrary to only set the
sound. Why not set the widgets on your desktop or the wallpaper. Lets have a
look at the widgets.

Use case 2)
Anna has to do a presentation at work. Normally, just for motivation, she has
configured a few ‘Picture Frame’ widgets showing to her the pictures taken at the last holiday in random order. Some of them are not to be seen by the whole work group. But, as we all know, the projector has to be connected to the machine before X comes up, and therefor, everyone can see her desktop before she fires up the great ‘Okular’ to do her presentation.
But what if she had configured not only one widget set, but lets say one for
work, another one for presentation, and a third one for using the machine at home. This can easily done using the ‘Activity’ feature of kde. But staring at
kdm, just as Edgar did before, she now thinks: “How wonderful would it be to be able to choose the appropriate ‘Activity’ at the log in.”

This leads to present all activities of a user at log in time, and also to a
security problem. Because not everyone who has physical access to the machine should be able to see all activities configured for a user, this joice should be made after the password has been confirmed. This in turn consumes one more user interaction for the log in, which is not desired.

A way to combine use case 1 and 2 would be to allow the user to configure (log in) profiles which can be selected from within kdm. I think, such profiles are not easy to integrate well into kde, because they interfere with the concept of ‘Activities’. Anyways, perhaps some of this ideas are useful for redefining the kdm user experience and its integration into kde.

David, I think this article does make a lot of sense. Though, I have a couple of opinions that I would gladly share here.

1. As for “Switch User” option – I think one needs to know what is the username into which he or she wants to switch. Why? – Security. So, I would place an input field there.
Thinking systhematically KDM’s possibilities, including the list of existing users, must be regulated by some kind of security framework.

2. I am in strong opposition to remove XDMCP option. I have my primary working machine – a notebook with ArchLinux and a second one – home/multimedia server with Kubuntu. So, instead of having 2 monitors near me I just log in remotedly to that Kubuntu box. It is really veeeeery convenient.
At the same time I agree that XDMCP thing lacks proper design and explanations, especially when it comes to new users.

@Peppe Caizzone , how many times did you use console login the way you described here? Because I suspect that it is just `theoretical` explanation and not really used by and end user (even pro users).

While I reckon most of the issues you found are problems that should be fixed, some of the proposed solutions are not that good.

For instance, I strongly disagree with removing the graphical shortcut to the console. However, moving it to a new tab and providing some user information and instructions about how to get back to KDM would be an excellent improvement.

Very pleased to see someone thinking abou8t this stuff. There are some good replies here too. Lots of useful input.

Don’t remove useful “techie” features but instead think about how to make them less confusing for other users:

(1) yes, a tooltip for restart X-server would be much better than giving it an unclear name.

(2) I frequently go from KDM to console and back. This option belongs here. But again more information could be useful. If there is a confirmation dialogue, I’d like to see a “don’t show me this again” button/checkbox. Maybe just place this under an “administrator” menu.

(3) I donn’t use XDMP but I’m sure those that do feel the same way about it I do about console login.

(4) The good thing about having menu items stay in place even when they are pointless (e.g. switch user) is that the user can learn where they are, it can be confusing when things appear and disappear. That is not to say that that is the only way to do things, but it is worth taking into consideration.

Also… making “techie” stuff more difficult makes it even harder for non-techioe users to achieve those things. e.g. if they are told they need to log in to the console to install a graphics driver, or that they should restart X for such and such a reason.

@Quique “For instance, I strongly disagree with removing the graphical shortcut to the console. However, moving it to a new tab and providing some user information and instructions about how to get back to KDM would be an excellent improvement.”

@Wolfgang Mader

Great stuff: Silent startup, that is something that should have been invented years ago. I’ve often found myself looking for a pair of headphones just do I won’t annoy/wake up people up when I turn on my laptop.

Just a small thing I noticed yesterday, when you type the wrong password in the Login dialog it resizes to make room for the comment “Wrong username or password”. This behaviour gives a very nervous feeling. I think it would be better to have a slightly lager dialog with room for text to show up.

100% agree with you, hope some really good looking and usable kdm comes out following the points mentioned here.

Good post, cheers.

I agree it is messy, a new user should not need to ask HOW, I think bare-bones log-in with gradual reveal if necessary. The intelligence should be working behind the scenes, making it appear this is really simple, without being showoff smart.

Could you not just click on you name button and a password field is revealed (if necessary). All you are doing is identifying yourself, and proving it with a password.

As much as I hate tree-views, if, and only if the user has more than one profile (Home, Work, Mobile…), then a plus/triangle/tree-expand button appears to allow then to select an alternative profile. Or perhaps the profile is selected before the user, but I’m not sure how this logical to the user – my mobile phone has profiles, but I do not know how to select them – I can change the ringer to silent or vibrate with a couple of button presses of the volume up/down buttons (how logical?). Depending on the size of the screen, you probably only want tree-view when the number of user-profile buttons exceeds a certain number.

Do we need both a power-off and restart buttons, surely a non-technical user only requires power-off, but most computers have a special button for this, so a button on the log-in panel/screen is unnecessary.
Remote log-in, could the machine name be a button to select a host, may be that is not obvious. May be the user would just have another profile.

User picture/icon – why not a sound as well.
A finger-print reader or smart-card reader could select the user, then they enter their password.

Console log-in is probably only for the root user, and this can be reached via Ctrl+Alt+F1 or some-such key combination.

The log-in panel/screen would be configurable by the administrator, so widgets could be added for power-off, find a remote host, dial-up/hang-up, clock, etc.

Surely, every computer has a root/Administrator log-in, there does not seem any point in hiding it.

I would remove “Restart X Server” button completely. I don’t think anyone who doesn’t know enough about X Server will ever have a need to restart it. And, those who do know a bit about it would probably know how to type ctrl+alt+backspace, don’t you think?

The other button I would remove is “Console login”. Whoever needs console login will know how to type ctrl+alt+f1 or something and probably wouldn’t need the console login button.

As for user selection, I don’t really think that user selection and username input box are both needed. As you said, if I wanted to login as root, I should be able to activate the input box in some way (for example below the users there could be a field named “advanced” or “other users” that would activate the input box).

As for the sessions, I don’t think you are right. Maybe Kubuntu is wrong for installing only KDE? In my distro there is blackbox installed by default so that it can be used as failsafe. Maybe kubuntu could do something like that. It is not like blackbox (or fluxbox or …) takes a lot of space.

And, about user icons. The kdm default is that user icons are installed by admin. I think the default should be that the icons are defined by users.

I think the console menu option should fire a dialog asking for authentication and then launch a konsole in top of KDM. From there I could Ctrl+Shift+N and open several virtual consoles, oposed to Ctrl+Shift+Fx which is too limited. There are also some buggy graphical drivers that can freeze while switching from Graphical to console or vice-versa.

Visually, there could also exist the possibility of having animated themes in KDM. Maybe it should be default in most distributions when the computer is a desktop or when laptop is powered. I mean, there could be some snow effects while users don’t log in.

I feel the login manager is very static, where it shouldn’t be. Same for desktop background. Some might want to have an animated desktop background, but I don’t think it is an option today. I’m still trying to get my panel background to be transparent just like I was used to in KDE 3 series.

Considering the layout of KDM, I think the menu could be replaced by tabs. One tab for login, another for additional configuration. Another for expert users, etc.

These are just some suggestions for improvement. Actually I don’t use KDM, but automatic login instead, since I am the only user of my desktop PC.

“those who do know a bit about it would probably know how to type ctrl+alt+backspace, don’t you think?”

Ubuntu have seen fit to block the functionality from there next release, they say that nobody should have to use it (it isn’t in OSX or Windows) and it is too easily activated by mistake (three keys at once makes me doubt that). I think this is a bad decision until they make the desktops bulletproof stable.

First thanks for your time to review the stuff

“I would like a different, less techy label, something like “Restart graphical environment” or even more nebulous like: “Soft restart”. In any case, this should be grouped together with the other shutdown/restart options.”

I don’t agree. Please don’t rename it! “Soft restart!” tells me nothing about what it does. does it restart the graphical manager? does it restart my whole PC? Or does it restart the X server?

“My name appears 3 times in the same login dialog”

That is just because you put your name often enough into several fields. Into your real name, and then into your user name. And then as username into your last login. It’s not KDM’s fault.

“To access root or hidden users I would rather prefer to have a button that activates the username field in case it’s needed.”

Please do not! A user login textbox is the most basic thing you would expect from a login manager. Having just the Listbox with usernames you are confused like hell.

“this is useless because there’s only one registered user.This option would make sense only if there were two or more users and one is already logged in. Even so it would probably be better to just click on another user icon/name and type the password to switch.”

I don’t agree. That will login you on a second time, but won’t switch to an already created session. It will again just be confusing as to what will happen. Will it ask you to switch, or will it login a second time?

My 2 cents

Instead of explaining to normal users what “X Server” is, why not to explain techies what “Soft restart” means (with a tooltip or something)?
e.g.
“Restarts only the graphical environment.
———————-
In Linux systems the graphical environment (X Server) is not tied to the core, so it can be restarted independently.
This is useful because ….”

IIRC both the ctrl+alt+backspace as well as the ctrl+alt+Fx shortcuts can be disabled via xorg.conf.
If that’s the case, and that functionality wouldn’t be there in kdm, then there is no obvious way left to do this. I really think it must stay there. It can very well go to some “advanced” area.

“Instead of explaining to normal users what “X Server” is, why not to explain techies what “Soft restart” means ?”

Because this voids existing knowledge.
I (as computer guy) had to set up WLAN for some guys under Windows. They had different WLAN set up tools. Some of them called things by their name “WEP”, “WPA2″, etc., some used “friendly” descriptions, as “Setup for a home computer”, “Setup for a small business”. These friendly descriptions didn’t tell me anything, I had to guess. Different applications/devices can chose to use different friendly descriptions. The advantage of the “techy” description is that it says what the thing is about. The WLAN router knows its “WEP”, the computer knows its “WEP”, the computer guy knows its “WEP”. If the WLAN router would say “Use medium-security encryption” (instead of WEP) and the set up tool would say “Use encryption for a home computer” (instead of WEP) the non-techy user wouldn’t know whether both mean the same thing, and also the expert user would have no chance to know whether they mean the same thing. If both would just say “WEP”, they would be using the same “official” language, and at least the expert user would know what it’s about. Otherwise both the expert and the non-techy user are left guessing and assuming.

Alex

I wouldn’t use kdm if it didn’t have that option!

I hate to say this but OS X is the only OS that does this really well, why not take pointers from them?
Smooth transitions, simplicity, etc, etc.

@Alexander
“IIRC both the ctrl+alt+backspace as well as the ctrl+alt+Fx shortcuts can be disabled via xorg.conf. ”

If someone has disabled it, there should be a good reason (managed environment, or X server is perfect no nned to restart it as Ubuntu folks seem to want in the next release). So? Why you should be able to restart it from KDM anyway? If you really want that option, simple enable again the key combination.

I mean: what’s the purpose of “restart X”?