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List: kde-devel
Subject: Better Layout for KControl-Modules
From: Torsten Rahn <torsten () kde ! org>
Date: 2001-04-01 10:41:27
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We got a lot of feedback at our KDE-Demopoint at CeBit. By far the
most-requested features were:
- Improving Stability/Performance/Decreasing the number of bugs.
- Getting KOffice ready for Real-World-Usage.
Another issue that became more and more obvious recently is that our
KControl-dialogs still focus too much on advanced users. Fixing this issue is
much more important than adding any new feature because: How does a new
feature help if nobody knows how to enable/disable/configure it in KControl?
For general solutions to address this issue you might want to read:
http://lists.kde.org/?l=kfm-devel&m=98595799707280&w=2
Today I went through KControl and looked for specific solutions to present
the settings in KControl in a way that is more newbie-friendly.
Unfortunately I don't have enough time to fix all these issues myself.
Therefore if you feel responsible for/created one of the following
kcontrol-modules, please read the information below:
File Browsing -> Filemanager
----------------------------
Appearance (Rik was right here and I was wrong): Getting rid of "Standard
Font" and "Normal Text Color" by putting "Filemanager Text" into "Look&Feel
-> Colors -> Widget color" might be the best thing to do.
Other: This tab should be removed: "Show network operations in a single
window" should go either in "Behaviour" or into "Network -> KDE protocols
Information". Also "Terminal program" appears for Konqueror-Settings as well
as in the Kicker-Settings. There should only be one place which specifies
which terminal should be used for all applications.
Help -> Index
-------------
This looks a bit crowdy. Adding a second Tab "Program Locations" which
appears behind the "General tab" might be a good idea as the paths should be
set automagically and user-interaction concerning this should only be
necessary in case of failure.
Look & Feel -> Desktop
----------------------
Desktop: Looks overcrowded:
"Show Preview for:" should go into a tab "Previews" in File-Browsing -> File
Associations. Malte is probably already working on this.
Appearance (Rik was right here): Getting rid of "Standard Font" and "Normal
Text Color" by putting "Desktop Text" into "Look&Feel -> Colors -> Widget
color".
Groupboxes named "Behaviour", "Clicks on the desktop" and "Paths" would look
much more tidy here ("path" could be removed from each item then and would
make the dialog look more tidy).
Look & Feel -> Panel
--------------------
General: terminal application should be set globally for the whole desktop.
(Same as in File Browsing -> File Manager -> Other).
Look & Feel -> Style
--------------------
This dialog is too long and incoherent in the topic it is dealing with.
I would propose to rename it to "Widgets" and to create two Tabs within
"Widgets" (like in "Icons"):
"Theme" and "Advanced".
The following items aren't really widget-properties to the user, so:
- Move Antialiasing to "Fonts"
- Move "Menubar on top of the screen" to "Desktop" (Makes sense as there are
many people who search for Mac-menubar/Desktop-menubar find one of them and
think the other solution (which they might have been searching for) isn't
implemented.
Except for the Widget-themes everything else should be moved to the
Advanced-tab.
Hint, hint ;): The Theme-tab should contain an import-button. *duck*
Look & Feel -> System-Notifications
-----------------------------------
The current dialog resembles a very good "advanced"-tab. It would be nice for
the newbie if there was a
Tab for newbies in the first place which only shows the available
Notification-themes ("Minimalistic", "Visually impaired", "Aureal impaired",
"KDE-Standard").
The current dialog should appear as an advanced tab behind the "Theme"-tab.
Network -> KDE Protocols Information
------------------------------------
(should be renamed to "KDE Protocols" to keep it short. "Information" is
redundant because that is what kcontrol is about and because there are
settings in the second tab now, so this dialog is not about information only
anymore.
Network -> LAN Browsing
-----------------------
Way too much text here. Modules aren't supposed to be indepth-manuals. Most
of the text should be moved into the "Help"-Section on the left or into
tooltips/the whatis-feature.
Also kcontrol contains scrollbars for me using the default-size. This should
never be the case for kcontrol-modules.
Network -> SOCKS
----------------
The Radio-Button-text "Custom" should be renamed to "Custom library" with an
indented lineedit/open-filedialog-icon (like on the bottom in Look&Feel->
Icons -> Theme ) right below it (being still inside the while groupbox as it
belongs to it).
Network -> Talk Configuration
-----------------------------
Answering Machine: A groupbox around "Adress:, Subject:, First Line:" would
be nice. That way one wouldn't need to mention "Mail" each time. The Groupbox
could be named something like "Anwering Mail".
That way one would have a much cleaner layout and it would be much easier to
see at once what the dialog is about.
Forward: Way too much text here. I see the point of having a direct
explanation in the dialog. But this could look much friendlier using the
following solution:
There should be a Textbox below the "Forward method"-Combobox. This Textbox
only contains the information for the Forward-method which is currently
selected (So the text changes each time a different Forward-method is
selected).
Peripherals -> Mouse
--------------------
Two Groupboxes "Pointer" (with "Accelaration"/Treshhold" inside) and "Drag
and Drop" (with "Start Time"/'Start Distance" inside) would be nice here.
Personalization -> E-Mail
-------------------------
This dialog is too long and looks too detailed on the first glimpse.
Solution:
"Incoming Mail" and "Outgoing Mail" should be two tabs of a tabwidget at the
bottom of this dialog.
Also the buttons are too long and therefore look ugly. "settings ..." is
redundant as "Settings" is, what kcontrol is about.
There is no default set for the radiobuttons (which looks broken).
Personalization -> Newsticker
-----------------------------
Putting "Scrolling" into a seperate tab might be a good idea.
Sound -> Sound Server
---------------------
As soon as more stuff is being added, a tab "Quality" might be a good idea.
Web Browsing -> Enhanced Browsing
---------------------------------
Possible Bug: Adding another web-shortcut (sdb:) didn't work for me. Does it
for anyone else?
Web Browsing -> Proxies & Cache Settings
----------------------------------------
"Settings" is redundant in the name as this is what kcontrol is about.
The radio buttons for the cache-settings should appear vertically alined
under "Use Cache".
This would look better and wouldn't make kcontrol too wide in languages which
use longer words.
Web Browsing -> Style-Sheet
---------------------------
Too many groupboxes (Especially if you think of the case that visulally
impaired people might want large fonts which wouldn't be displayed properly
with the current layout).
Solution: Rename "Use accessibility stylesheet defined below" to "Use
accessbility stylesheet in the 'Customize'-Tab" and move all
Groupboxes except for the "Stylesheets"-Groupbox to a new "Customize"-tab.
Web Browsing -> User Agent
--------------------------
The Dialog suffers from the cockpit-dilemma.
All the new "Add"-checkboxes are only there for finetuning. Most of the time
the useragent-strings should work w/o the need to tune them this way.
Better Solution: Remove the Customize-Group-box and simply add a Button
"Customize ..." below the Text: "Current User Agent String: Mozilla/5.0
(comp.; Konq.orwhateveritis)".
After pressing the "Customize"-Button a dialog should pop up which contains
all the nice "Add"-checkboxes which have been added recently.
-------
Thanks for your attention :)
Tackat
PS: I also added these Suggestions to TODO in kdebase/kcontrol.
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