Well, it seems to me that you are talking about different things and both sides are not hearing the other.
I totally agree with Kry: the gnome way is stupid. Because of one simple thing: you loose your freedom to choose. I sometimes want to know all and sometimes want to be ignorant. But I need no stupid programmer to tell me I cannot choose the options I will use when I print. "Oh, lets hide this from the poor stupid ignorant user, he does not know what he is doing..."
That said
I agree with brainolo that aMule interface is bad. It is a copy of eMule, which is originally bad. But in its root, aMule was designed to be a clone of eMule. To change that, would be to write another program.
Usability has nothing to do with configuration options. You can tweak a thousand options, as long as there are sane defaults to them. Or even if the program tries to figure out sane default values. And of course, buttons to restore sane default values
. When I say the interface is bad I mean the way things were originally designed, and here wxWidgets does have an influence.
So, to be practical, this is a list (unpublished until now) of things I consider bad in aMule GUI:
1) There should be a menu interface. Even if just to use the keyboard. I am a keyboard fan, I just use the mouse when I don't know how to use the program. There could even be an option to hide the menu bar for those who like "aMule Classic".
2) aMule should use tabs to swich the views. Code sucks as a result of not using the proper control at the proper place. Not to mention that the user does not exactly expect that behaviour from buttons.
3) The button to clean downloads is a surprise the first time you click it. But you get used to it. I'd rather have it in a toolbar. Maybe with a broom or a mop icon
4) Swiching the upload queue is also in the level of guessing that the program has this feature.
5) Looking at the sources is also a guess that a double click will do something that is not in the right button menu. The mid-button click is also a nice undocumented feature that I use all the time.
6) We rarely use common dialogs where we should, notably to enter file names.
7) The "network" windows is a mess, it mixes servers with networks and application logs. A single connect button is not very appropriate if we have two different networks to connect. Enabling or disabling a network should be in this window, not on "preferences".
Preference windows should have buttons to restore sane defaults
9) And I could go on and on...
aMule/eMule are *very* complex applications. And there has always been programmers that help and/or join the team doing the most amazing things. But where are the programmers that do GUI? In my oppinion, we do not receive many interface contributions from the community because to change aMule interface you need wxDesigner. And in spite of the kindness of the author of the program to give aMule developers a license, the program is not free, so it is not like anyone with an idea can help.
So, yes, I would like to change aMule. But how are we going to prototype? I have real life issues, I can't keep showing a lot of ideas that people can criticize and improove. It will be a long way, but in my oppinion we will have to switch toolkit if we want to go one step ahead. And the only reasonable option I see is QT, a trully multiplatform toolkit with a nice interface designer that could be used to prototype the interface way before its core has been written. Then we could start receiving contributions in that area.
aMule 2.2.0 is delayed. And guess what is the problem? GUI bugs on windows and Mac. How come??? GUI is delaying the app? With so many other complex things to go wrong, aMule core works perfectly, most problems are with the GUI.
We need help folks. We have our lives. We have to find a way to increase the community participation in the development of the application. Otherwise, aMule will fade.