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List:       kde-core-devel
Subject:    Re: RFC: System Settings categorisation overhaul
From:       Jacopo De Simoi <wilderkde () gmail ! com>
Date:       2009-10-03 22:07:59
Message-ID: 200910040007.59611.wilderkde () gmail ! com
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> One thing that also needs to be done (and "going through all \
> systemsettings' .desktop  files sounds like a terrific opportunity) is \
> adding keywords so they're easier to  find from other places (like \
> KRunner). It might also mean removing keyword from  lower-level items to \
> not pollute the matches too much.

Sorry for the long posting, but this ^^^^  is imho what the most important \
part of this work would be. Categorizing modules is something quite \
intrinsically very personal, and sometimes we, as devs, need to make \
choices which are completely arbitrary. Sometimes there are the "developer \
point of view" and the "user point of view" which are in clear contrast, \
sometimes they are not; sometimes it is just a matter of growing accustomed \
to someone else's categorization, which, when changed, leads to frustration \
and angry comments like "wtf did you do to kcontrol?". 

----Long story:
Categorization (or a tree [0] if you like) does not provide a good way for \
organizing the huge quantity of settings that we give the users access to. \
In contrast, a graph ([1])  seems to me more useful to expose the concept. \
Of course the big deal with trees is the ease of navigation; almost \
everybody is used to deal with trees, starting from their very own Document \
folder. On the other hand, how are you supposed to navigate a graph? Two \
guys answered this question 11 years ago coming up with Google; KDE is \
today making use of Nepomuk, which as far as I understand, aims to create \
connections between pieces of data of different nature scattered around the \
computer and even outside and be able to expose them in a natural way \
(which is currently _the_ big problem with it for a lot of people afaiu).  

What do we do when we don't find the option we want in systemsettings? we \
fire up a browser, write "keyboard layout setting kde4" on google, find \
hopefully the right page in a few tries, go back to systemsettings, follow \
the right sequence of categories and.. we get it.  Why shouldn't we take a \
shortcut?

----Short story:  
We should put _much_ more emphasis on the search box; put it in the middle \
of a white page with a colored writing on top (ouch it has been patented! \
[2]) and the user will not miss it. Just type "keyboard layout", hit enter, \
the top result would be the right one, and done.  Following category trees \
is very 1995, searching is just 2010. People now are a lot more inclined to \
"google around" than to parse information given by hopefully meaningful \
names, which then in practice might be far less meaningful than intended \
simply because of translation issues. 

----Before you flame me:
Now, obviously this is not going to work, as maybe the biggest problem is \
that we cannot have a keyword for every single word that every single user \
will ever use as a query. On the other hand think about the benefits: the \
user wants to change something in particular (e.g. "Desktop Effects", or \
"splash screen", "automounting"), which is usually something very concrete \
and much easier to fully and uniquely translate than "Workspace" "login \
settings" "external devices".  By making the KCM modules themselves with \
their keywords exposed to the user via a search facility, we can completely \
forget about a hierarchical structure and think of categories as "tags", \
rather than folders.

In practice what I suggest is the following: 
1) Put the search box somewhere obvious, above the categories, but /inside/ \
the white frame, to make clear it's part of the game and not some external \
"I'm never gonna use it" accessory. Give keyboard focus to it, invite the \
user to try it out. 2) Consider categories as tags, not as folders, make ss \
look as a web browser rather than a file manager, so that we can have one \
kcm "linked" by more than one category (keyboard layout accessible by \
"locale setting" and "keyboard and mouse", for instance)

Sorry again for the length of this post, but I do believe that we could \
change this in a way that we won't need to change again in a few months \
time and which is non-disruptive to the user. 

  --J

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree_(graph_theory)
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graph_(mathematics)
[2] http://valleywag.gawker.com/5350982/google-patents-worlds-simplest-home-page



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