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List: kde-usability
Subject: Re: KDE Control Center
From: Uno Engborg <uno () webworks ! se>
Date: 2002-08-08 18:51:13
[Download RAW message or body]
Gerold J. Wucherpfennig wrote:
>-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>Hash: SHA1
>
>Some suggestions about restructuring the KDE Control Center.
>
><intro>
>
>Imagine to be a computer newby who's looking at the KDE Control Center
>for the first time.
>
>You look at the 15 top level items on the left:
>- - Advanced
>- - Desktop
>- - Email
>- - File Manager
>- - Help
>- - Look&Feel
>- - Network
>- - Panel
>- - Peripherals
>- - Power Control
>- - Sound
>- - System
>- - Web Browser
>and
>- - Window Management
>
>And you see that most of these items have even subitems!
>
></intro>
>
Some problems:
The Look&Feel entry could be regarded as a broader term for most of
the other items.
So if we have other items e.g. Desktop, that item should control all
aspects of the desktop.
I think that most items in the Look&Feel could be moved to top level
items that directly relates
to what the user can see on the screen. And the original Look&Feel
item could be renamed
to "General Settings" and contain items that controls general
settings like color schemes.
I would suggest the following top level items;
-Applications&Components
I really wish this item wasn't necessary. But somebody
pointed out that the control
panel was the only place where some embedded components
could be configured.
This item could potentially be very crowded with
subitems if many applications
decides to place controls in here. Maybe it could be
solved by having sub items
showing all, most frequently and latest used
applications.
Anyhow this is the place where configuration for
konqueror, konsole and
News Ticker would go.
-Desktop
Here is everything that the users sees when no
applications are started configured.
E.g all the items you find in the KDE 3.06 control
center ("Appearance, "Behavior",
"Paths", "Trash" and "Virtual Desktops") and also
configuration for the Panel and
Desktop Sharing.
-Fonts
This could perhaps be a sub item in General settings.
But as many people complain that
it's hard to handle fonts in X11, I suggest making it an
item of its own to make it easier
to find. Under this item all aspects of fonts should be
handled. That is both general
font setting and font installation.
-General Settings
Here we handle things that apply to all of KDE, e.g
Icons, File Associations
Colors, Launch Feedback, Alarm Client, Screen Saver, and
Style
-Network
Here we handle network client configuration like Lan
Browsing,
Preferences (Should probably be renamed to "Advanced"),
SOCKS,
Talk configuration and Windows Shares.
I suggest removing E-mail from network as this is more
related to
the user than to the network, and should be handled in
Personalization
-Personalization
Things like Accessibility, Address Book Configuration,
Country and Language, Email, Crypto, Passwords,
Session Manager, Spell Checking
-Peripheral Units
Keyboard, Keyboard Shortcuts, Mouse, Printing Manager,
Camera
I also think that MIDI units should go here rather than
under Sound.
-Sound
Sound server, System Bell, System Notifications
-System
Power Controls, Date & Time, Login Manager and
configuration
for various servers that normally is not handled by
specialized
user interfaces. E.g. people might want to add a samba
kcontrol
or a NFS kcontrol. I really don't know what the "CGI
KIO Slave"
or the "XML RPC Daemon" does but I guess they belong here.
Normally only root would need to use the controls under
"System"
-Window Settings
Here we handle window behavior and Window decoration.
I also suggest that the Task bar settings is handled
here as it can
be used to handle windows.
As you can see I have omitted the "Web Browsing" item as it in the
current KDE refers
to konqueror, and the user may prefer another web browser. And the
settings can just
as well be done from inside konqueror. The same applies to file
browsing. But in this case,
I think it would be useful to still have File Mapping available in the
control center as
they be more generally useful. Therefore I put them under "General Settings"
One other thing if some developer actually takes a look at the code. It
would
be nice if controls were selected by single clicks, even in double
click mode.
That way it would be more consistent with the behavior of the konqeror
file browser tree. It would also make keyboard navigation possible.
<slightlly off topic>
However, I don't think that the main problem with the Control Center is
the ordering
or grouping of items. But rather that many controls contained in it is
too complex.
E.g many controls contains lots of tabs. So my suggestion for the future is
to try to divide those controls into less complex ones. E.g like the Desktop
control was split up in KDE 3.1 alfa. When this is done the Control Center
Could look something like this:
--Applications&Components (new top level menu)
+-Konquerer
+-Konsole (moved here from Personalization)
+-News Ticker (moved here from Network)
--Desktop
+-Apperance
+-Background
+-Colors&Patterns
+-Wallpaper
+-Advanced
+-Behaviour
+-Paths
+-Trash
+-Panel
+-Arrangement
+-Hiding
+-Apperance
+-Menus
+Desktop Sharing
+-Access
+-Network
--Fonts
+-Fonts (moved here from look and feel, should be renamed to
"Font Chooser")
+-Font Installler (moved here from "System")
+-Fonts
+-Settings (Should probably be renamed to "Advanced")
--General Settings (Renamed Look&Feel)
+-Icons
+-Theme
+-Advanced
+-Colors
+-Launch FeedBack
+-MIME types
+-Screen Saver
+-Style
+Style (Should perhaps be renamed to General)
+Effects
+Micellaneous
+-Theme Manager
+-installer
+-Contents
--Network
+-Lan Browsing
+ -Lias demon
+-ResLISA daemon
+-lan:/ & rlan:/ configuration
+-Preferences (Should probably be renamed to "Advanced")
+-SOCKS
+-Talk configuration
+-Announcement
+-Answering Machine
+-Forwarding
+-Windows Shares
--Personalization
+-Accessability
+-Country & Language
+-Crypto
+-Email (Moved here from Network)
+-Passwords
+-Session Manager
+-Spell Checking
--Pheripheral Units
+-Camera
+-Keyboard
+-Keybooard Shortcuts (Should probably go somwhere else)
+-Mouse
+-General
+-Advanced
+-Mouse Navigation (Should be renamed to something
better)
+-MIDI (moved here from sound)
+-Printing Management
--Sound
+-SoundServer
+-General
+-Sound I/O
+-System Bell
+-System Notificationss
--System
+-Alarm Client
+-CGI KIO Slave (What does this do?)
+-Date & Time
+-Font Installer
+-Login Manager
+-Apperance
+-Font
+-Background
+-Sessions
+-Users
+-Convenience
+-XML RPC Daemon
--Window Settings
+-Taskbar
+-Window Behaviour
+-Window Decoration
</slightly off topic>
Regards
Uno Engborg
["smime.p7s" (application/x-pkcs7-signature)]
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