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List:       kde-usability
Subject:    Re: more background dialog madness.. bwuhaha
From:       Uno Engborg <uno () webworks ! se>
Date:       2003-02-01 1:41:02
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On Friday 31 January 2003 19.47, Aaron J. Seigo wrote:
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>
> hi all.
>
> ok, so all the background layouts i've come up with suck. i'm a moron who
> doesn't want KDE simple or usable. and kscd sucks major rocks.
>
> there's nothing like taking stock of popular opinions (and a couple pints
> ;) to help me return to my basic sense of humour and remember why i'm doing
> all of this.
>
> so, while enjoying the golden bottled dew of Sleeman's <somethingorother>
> ale i looked at the background dialog again and decided that there was an
> odd arrangement of groups between the main page and the advanced options.
>
> the icon text colour is an oddity on the main interface, as it has nothing
> to do with the other two items there. but the blending on the advanced page
> DOES have relevance to the picture(s) / colour(s) selected. in fact, w/out
> blending having both pictures and colours makes less sense than it should.
>
> if/when we move to having the colour halo around text on the desktop, a
> sensible default (white halo around black text?) will likely mean that 99%
> of people will never adjust their text colour.
>
> so i switched those two groups. this also allows the login manager to show
> blending options as well...
>
> i also made the groupings in the main page follow this order: picture,
> color, blending. why? because i am guessing (and could well be wrong since
> i arrived at this purely by guessing) that most people open this control
> panel will want to change the picture, with fewer wanting to change the
> colours.
>
> i also moved all the QWhatsThis into the designer files themselves as this
> makes auditing them that much easier and quicker to change (esp when moving
> widgets between them)
>
> because the icon text colour may be hidden and the programs want a very
> wide listbox the advanced dialog has the monitor picture in a slightly
> different place (lower right corner)
>



That was much better!
Some suggestions for the BGDiolog_UI:
	

 Switch places for the "Backgroun Picture" group and the "Bacground Color" 
group. That way related settings will be grouped together. And as most people 
read from top to bottom they will aslo see tha least complex controls  first

Now that we have the groups ordered into:
"Background Color"
"Background Picture"
"Blend Picture  With Background Color"

we see that the two lower groups both deal with pictures, perhaps it should 
have bin made just one group. But no! That would make it far too complex. So 
my suggestion is instead to move the "Blend Picture With Background Color" 
group to  the "Advanced Options" just below the "Background Program" group.


Now if we look at the "Advanced Options" dialog. First I'm not sure that you 
need, or eve should have the Monitor image in this dialog.  Having it in both 
the main dialog and the sub dialog could confuse users of which dialog they 
are using.

I also suggest that you put the "Memory Usage"  group last after the "Icon 
Text" as I think more users will understand how to use the  "Icon Text" 
settings  than the  "Memory Usage" settings.  Assuming the user reads in the 
top down he will not spot things he is not familliar with until last.


But as I said before it would be even better to move the "Icon Text" selection 
to the "KDE Components"->"File Manager"->"Appearence" tab. I very much doubt 
that peple will find it in this place.
In either case it the name must be changed from "Icon Text" to "Desktop Icon 
Text" or the user will think that it applies to all icons.


Regards
Uno Engborg


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