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List:       kde-core-devel
Subject:    Re: Settings/Desktop crowded
From:       claus wilke <wilke () caltech ! edu>
Date:       2000-03-30 19:33:52
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Hi,

>I have had a think about the entire tree structure and tried to
>organise it more logically from the user's point of view.
>
>I'd like comments on this as I think it's quite important that we
>change the structure before KDE 2. If everyone disagrees, then
>fair enough, I'll just shut up :)

from a users point of view, I like this proposal very much. 

Some minor remarks:
what do you mean by window decoration functions? Something that is called
'decoration' should go under style, right?

This brings me to a point I have been wondering about since the introduction of
the style engine: shouldn't the window style and the widget style be controlled
at the same point (well, currently you cannot control the window style at all
from KControl AFAIK, but I assume that will change at some point)? The
average user doesn't know the difference between the application and the outer
part of the window, which actually belongs to a different application, namely
the window manager. For him, both are 'the application'. Most non-unix-experts
probably don't even know that something like a windows manager exists. 

But then, on the other hand, the window style possibly includes behavior, which
speaks against what I have written above.

Another point: ever since I have been using KDE, I had a hard time finding the
right control module to set the number of desktops and the behavior of the
taskbar, because I almost automatically clicked on 'desktop' just to realize
that it wasn't there. It took me a while until I could remember that these two
things are controlled from the panel, which in itself is in applications. This
problem is to some extend resolved in this new scheme, but only to some extend.
I gues I would still have to look for the taskbar (once somebody writes it for
kicker) under panel, which I now would find under style -> not very intuitive.

If I don't think explicitly about it, I associate the taskbar either with the
windows (as the windows go there when I hide them), or generally with the
desktop, and the numer of desktops, well, with desktop, probably. So I guess
there is the need for an additional top-level category, something like desktop
behavior, in which those things go. One could even go that far and merge this
with window behavior, since, as I said above, the average user does not care
whether the widget he clicks belongs to the window manager, the application,
the panel, or whatever.

Best,
 Claus


-- 
Claus Wilke

Mail Code 136-93, Caltech, Pasadena, CA 91125
Tel.: 626 395 2338, Fax:  626 395 2944
wilke@caltech.edu, wilke@gmx.net, wilke@alife.org

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