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List:       kde-devel
Subject:    Re: Superlous configuration?
From:       "Aaron J. Seigo" <aseigo () kde ! org>
Date:       2005-01-06 8:25:02
Message-ID: 200501060125.13281.aseigo () kde ! org
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On Wednesday 05 January 2005 09:16, Damien Uern wrote:
> > now, obviously hiding something so dear to so many in a text file isn't
> > the way to go, otherwise why are we creating a GUI? certainly not to
> > force people to use the command line and text editors. Ah! but we have
> > KConfigEditor! which.... isn't installed with KDE, and which is sort of a
>
> I'm assuming KConfigEditor is kind of like GConf?

yes and no. i'd recommend that you go find out: download it, install it, try 
it, read about KConfigXT which it leverages... or at the very least, wait for 
an answer to your query before going on and drawing conclusions.

i mean, this is a devel list, right? conversation on this list should be 
informed (and informing), rather than a bunch of assumptions, personal saws 
and what not being tossed back and forth. this thread simply continues and 
contines because it's not a developer's discussion, it's slashdot on a 
mailing list! ;-)

> like that. I think these "Set and Forget" one time options should be
> available only in such a configuration program, rather than cluttering up
> option dialogs. That way, a number of tweaks can grow so that most people
> can be satisfied with what the program provides and how it behaves.

this is a bad heuristic. options that are relegated to KConfigEditor are not 
easy to find (ditto for GConf and the Windows Registry Editor).  now S&F (Set 
and Forget) settings that are _commonly_ sought after should be 
_easily_found. settings that are inane, work arounds, truly niche, well.. 
those might be good candidates for sticking them in the backwaters.

but believe me, i've heard enough people complain about how hard it is to 
configure systems that rely on tree based configuration editors. 
navigationally,  they are KControl taken to the absurd level if you think 
about it.

so, no, i don't think that shoving everything out into a hard to navigate, 
hard to find app is the right way to go at all. it's the easy solution 
because other's have done it and so it's "obvious". but let's face it, that 
obvious solution has pretty much sucked for the platforms that have gone that 
way.

> I would *love* to see an app like Konqueror simplified right down by
> default, but allow people to add a whole bunch of stuff back to it if they
> desire. Keep it really simple with really smart and appropriate defaults 
> for novice users and there should be less complaints and less basic
> questions on IRC :) 

... until they are not-novice users and then they bitch and moan. people have 
mentioned FireFox's plugin add ons. this is manageable for a single 
application, perhaps (though it's really more than i'd like to go through and 
speaking with FireFox users on various platforms that seems to be the common 
case), but just imagine if this were applied to the whole desktop.

people are concentrating on this one option in one page of one dialog. if we 
raise our heads a bit we'll notice there are a lot of such dialogs and 
options around the desktop. this is a global problem needing a global 
strategy.

> Some options that need to be changed  a reasonable amount but are fairly
> advanced could be resolved by having flags like this:
>
> [x] Show advanced File view Modes in File View Dialog.
>
> So that some new options become present in the GUI, etc...

configure the configuration? please tell me you're kidding.

-- 
Aaron J. Seigo
GPG Fingerprint: 8B8B 2209 0C6F 7C47 B1EA  EE75 D6B7 2EB1 A7F1 DB43

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