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List:       kde-usability
Subject:    Re: Kcontrol proposal - screenshot
From:       Christopher Young <cyoung () linuxnetworker ! com>
Date:       2002-08-31 22:42:53
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On Saturday 31 August 2002 06:02 pm, Alistair Davidson wrote:
> On Saturday 31 August 2002 22:12, wvl wrote:
> > On Saturday 31 August 2002 22:31, Waldo Bastian wrote:
> > > On Saturday 31 August 2002 08:55 am, Aaron J. Seigo wrote:
> > > > that said, here's my thoughts on this:
> > >
> > > <snap>
> > >
> > > Apart from "let's redesign kcontrol with every release because it is
> > > fashionable", what are the problems with the current kcontrol?

One word.... simplicity.

Kcontrol, although a fine piece of work and great for advanced users, it can 
be simply too daunting to most regular users.  I know that alot of 
intelligent people prefer hierarchies because they seem logical to them, but 
to (IMVHO) most regular users, hierarchies are just too confusing once you 
get more than one layer deep.  All you have to do is read through many of the 
completely sensible ideas that people have (easy access to KIO -based items, 
easy access to floppy/cdrom, etc.) on this list and many of them point at 
avoiding having to go "deep" to get things.

This new control panel idea is one of the things I've been wanting to see in 
KDE since 1.1 (when we started getting REALLY REALLY configurable).  I, 
personally, use and like Kcontrol, but my wife, son, and pretty much all of 
the Windows and Mac users that I install Linux for, bring this up ALL the 
time.

One other point is this new approach would also enable us to allow third-party 
tools (Unix ODBC, Linux-specific tools, Distro-specific tools, etc.) to 
"integrate" a little better w/o having to necessarily use QT (although it 
would be preferable that things be consistent).  These are all just my own 
opinions, but I don't think that I am alone on this by any means.  We could 
provide a very simple framework for third-parties to easily add their stuff.  
This is not to say that Kcontrol doesn't already do this, but I just think 
this is easier.

It's just that sometimes alot of us users get frustrated because it seems that 
certain people manage to shut every idea that someone "outside of the loop" 
has.  It gets really frustrating and also gives the people who say "KDE 
doesn't listen to their users" more and more ammunition.  I have seen many 
good ideas and users who genuinely care about how KDE progresses get easten 
alive and their messages picked into oblivion, simply because it goes against 
something that a select group developed and likes.  Anyway, that is a side 
issue and one that I'm willing to deal with as a user/administrator of many 
users.

With that in mind, if there was one change in KDE I would PUSH and PUSH and 
PUSH for, this is it.

Chris
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