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List:       kde-usability
Subject:    Re: Configuration dialogs
From:       David Laban <alsuren () gmail ! com>
Date:       2005-09-25 11:31:06
Message-ID: 200509251231.06759.alsuren () gmail ! com
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On Sunday 25 September 2005 11:38, fourhead wrote:
> Hmm, I don't exactly know how you mean that. When you say that you click
> somewhere and a menu pops up, what do you mean? A context menu? A
> configuration dialog?. 

Sorry, I will try to clarify. What I'm basically proposing is a helper applet 
that helps you *find* the relevent configuration information. 

You know the little "?" button on the title bar of most config windows? You 
click it and it puts a ? next to your mouse, then you click somewhere and it 
brings up a tooltip. If we had a button on the kicker, with a spanner on it 
that did a *similar* thing, but with a context menu with entries that link 
you to all the configuration dialogues that could possibly change the 
appearance/behaviour/position of that widget.

That way, you can always go to the same place when you want to comfigure 
anything, but rather than being presented with a text based tree view, you 
get a visual "point and click" based search that will narrow it down to 10 
configuration dialogues that are sorted by relevance. (it would tie in quite 
nicely with the "create, communicate, configure" menus in that mock-up that 
was posted to the list on friday) 


> I'm not sure if this would add more complexity than 
> you think. I'd just put a "configure" button into the toolbar which opens a
> clean, simple config dialog, not this mess that you find today. Some
> programs have 5+ entries in the "Settings" menu. This is just a mess. It
> should be kept simple. You should offer the most needed config topics on
> the main page, and have something like an "Advanced" button that extends
> the dialog so you can make some further settings if you really need them.

I disagree with you on this. The current system of having lots of specific 
entries in the settings menu makes it easy to pinpoint what you need. There 
is a *lot* of configuration that can be done in a KDE app, so having just one 
configuration menu with all the "needed" topics would be an information 
overload, and "advanced" buttons are unpredictable because the user doesn't 
know what's going to be hidden behind them (I think it's the general 
concensus on this list that they're a usability disaster)
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