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List:       kde-core-devel
Subject:    Re: RFC: System Settings categorisation overhaul
From:       Darío Andrés <andresbajotierra () gmail ! com>
Date:       2009-10-03 23:41:56
Message-ID: a2c126ef0910031641n3bf73b9fid2104f82e2a5fdd5 () mail ! gmail ! com
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On Sat, Oct 3, 2009 at 7:07 PM, Jacopo De Simoi <wilderkde@gmail.com> wrote:
> > 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. 

You got a nice idea. I like it :), and the "google way" makes sense
(or at least, I feel it that way) , but I can't really discuss/view
this from an user point of view (as I'm not an user most of the time).
so I can't add too much.
I hope you get more feedback about this
Thanks!

Regards
Darío

> --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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