[prev in list] [next in list] [prev in thread] [next in thread] 

List:       kde-core-devel
Subject:    Re: Captions in KDE
From:       Matthias Ettrich <ettrich () trolltech ! com>
Date:       2000-10-29 9:55:43
[Download RAW message or body]

Sunday 29 October 2000 02:19 wrote Waldo Bastian:
> On Saturday 28 October 2000 14:50, you wrote:
> > On Saturday 28 October 2000 14:37, Waldo Bastian wrote:
> > > If konsole would set the session name as caption, or the current
> > > directory, we would end up with sensible captions like
> > > "/home1/bastian/cvs - Terminal"
> >
> > Well, I have a simple escape sequence in my $prompt var that does exactly
> > this, but kapp appends Konsole instead of Terminal ('cause the mechanism
> > Espen Sand came up with uses apps' names as defined at the construction
> > of the KApp object and not the "Name" field in its .desktop entry).
>
> Well, "Konsole" is the name of the app. The name of the application is not
> "Terminal". The application _IS_ a terminal. We don't have four programs
> called "IRC Client". We have programs called "KSirc", "KVirc" etc.

But people don't use them all at the same time. It's sufficient for an IRC 
client to show the current channel in the caption.

>
> It must have gone wrong with this suggestion from Corel to use more
> "understandable" names. I think this was a big mistake and should be
> reverted.
>
> It's silly to open something with "Advanced Editor". What's next? "Very
> Advanced Editor"? "Super Advanced Editor"? come on! The thing is called
> "KWrite". Maybe that name sucks beyond believe but that's the way it is.

Users don't need the caption to find out what they are using. The caption is 
mainly meant to pass additional information that's used in the window list 
and the taskbar to associate those entries with the actual windows.

I understand that powerusers may want to see the core application executable 
name in the caption to be able to start the application from the shell.

My suggestion is to put another option into kwin 

      [ ] Show executable in caption

and KWin automatically generates window captions like

      mydocument.txt     [kedit]


Would that solve most of the arguments people have against user-oriented 
captions?


>
> To make it easier for users we can append the comment field to the name.
> "KWrite - A powerful text editor". That's what the tooltips in kicker show
> already. (Why doesn't the K-menu have tooltips?)

Because I once added them for KDE1 and  all I got was questions how to turn 
them off...


Matthias

[prev in list] [next in list] [prev in thread] [next in thread]