On Monday 22 April 2002 14:41, Aaron J. Seigo wrote:

> there are indeed some options where this is probably the best thing. but it
> would be better IMO to try two other approaches first:
>
>  o make the existing configuration options more accessable through better
> layouts, descriptions, simplifications etc ...
>
>  o move the more esoteric settings into an "Advanced" tab or dialog

I can't help but come up with the advanced settings in IE (tools->internet 
options->advanced). If you take a look at it you'll see it has a tree of 
advanced options, all of which can be either toggled or selected (checkboxes 
and radiobuttons). Now, as far as I can tell the config files used by KDE's 
config system aren't defining any valid choices for configureable options, 
right ? This means that implementing the radiobutton-style selection in an 
advanced options dialog wouldn't be easy, as the valid options have to be 
hardcoded in the dialog design (as they are now if I recall correctly).

Ultimately we would be able to generate the interface from a specification 
that defines which values are allowed for every option (in this particular 
config). When this is possible, it's also possible to have the feature where 
the user indicates his/her skill (to, lets say kpersonalizer) and have all 
the configure dialogs setup appropriately (with more or less advanced options 
in place).

We could also just 'manually' adjust every config dialog in KDE to make them 
have an advanced tab or something - but this is obviously a hell of a job.

Jelmer Feenstra


