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List:       kde-usability
Subject:    Re: System Preferences
From:       Benjamin Meyer <ben+kdeusability () meyerhome ! net>
Date:       2005-02-04 2:59:11
Message-ID: 200502040301.23134.ben+kdeusability () meyerhome ! net
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> > You are talking about konqurors settings.  Why would knoqurors settings
> > belong in kcontrol?  They are application settings and have no place in
> > kde.
>
> There settings in Web behaviour that influence KDE as a whole.
>
> For example, Web Shortcuts affect KRun everywhere, not just in Konqueror.
> The history sidebar settings also affect the Universal Sidebar. The Plugins
> section affects anything that uses KParts.

looking at them again... nope they all seem very konqurish to me.  Plugins 
looks like netscape/mozille plugins... and the sidebar is in... yup konq 
again.  The only thing I pulled out was the proxy sense that is used by 
kopete, kmail and just about every network applications (it really shouldn't 
be in Konq).

> > Well this is just named badly.  It isn't KDE performance, it is konquror
> > performance.
>
> There is a "System" tab in here too.

The kbuildsysco option?  They thing that if you turn off will pretty much bork 
you desktop.  How many here even know what it is?  I really don't think that 
should be a gui at all.  It is like an option to not turn on X11.  If you 
disable it you wont realize it to a lot later when you have problems and have 
no clue how to fix it.  Yah it is a cool thing to know for a system 
administrator who want to deploy KDE on a read-only remote desktop, but not a 
option for users in a gui next to "Change background image".

> > How about this? (ignoring the little errors) Each of the four tabs on top
> > have around seven items.  Took me about two minutes to make the change.
> > (yah good code base to work from)
> >
> > http://www.icefox.net/gallery/pictures/2005/System%20Preferences/system_p
> >re ferences_tabs2.png
>
> I think this is somehwhat ugly - a drill in would be much nicer.

Sorry that was the best I could do from your description.  I look forward to 
finding out what a drill is.

> > The real downside to it is that it suddenly is very hard to search.  You
> > have to manually go through each tab to see what is "active".
>
> That is assuming you have absolutely no idea what you are doing. If a user,
> even a new user who has only been using a computer for 1 day, does not know
> which of those root categories the setting should be under, they should
> *probably* not be messing with it anyways.

Ok, how about something *really* simply.  You want to change the time format.  
Rather then 12 hour days you want 24.  If you go to System/Date & Time you 
don't find it there and so you search for time which shows 
internationalization.  This is a perfect example of something that everyday 
users would want to do and *would* do and even for a newbie they should be 
able to do it.  If you only ever display 7 items to the user there is little 
point in having a search.

> Also - that "Search" isn't really a search - it is a filter. When I type a
> word in there, and it shades a module, I have no idea *why* that module is
> being shaded, so the shading is of little use, other than eye candy.

Good point, any better ideas of what to call it?

> For example, say I am trying to change my desktop background color. I type
> "colors".
>
> This filter would shade all icons ecept "Background" and "Colors" - now,
> where do I go to change this?

Well for that example appearance and desktop both show up.

> The same thing happends with all kinds of keywords, and it is the same
> broken "search" in the current KControl. The search is only useful if you
> know what the modules underneath the icons do in general - and if you
> already know that, why are you searching???
>
> The search needs to provide a *context* along with the filtered choices -
> It needs to describe the matched keywords as they relate to the KCM. In my
> above example, "colors", it could say by each icon
>  "Allows you to change the background color"
>  "Allows you to change system wide colors"
>
> There - now I know *exactly* what KCM I need.

Kinda like in OS-X's spotlight. :)  It has a dropdown along with the 
highlighting and from the dropdown you can select something.

> I know the API does not provide this right now, but if we are looking
> toward the future, this is really what is required.

Flesh out a few ideas, I agree the keyword system is a little lacking.

-Benjamin Meyer

-- 
aka icefox
Public Key: http://www.icefox.net/public_key.asc
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