Settings Human Interface Guidelines first draft online

[Thomas Pfeiffer]

On Sunday 01 January 2012 14:30:01 Martin Gräßlin wrote:
> On Saturday 31 December 2011 19:48:10 Thomas Pfeiffer wrote:
> > - Things that are not technically feasible
> 
> Concerning section "Instant Apply", I'm not sure whether I understand it
> correctly. The section talks about that there is no apply button and that
> changes are applied instantly. I understand this as "I click that checkbox
> and instantly the settings are saved and application adjusts itself". But
> the further text is about "don't restart app to apply settings". This makes
> me wonder if you just care about the fact that you should not have to
> restart the application, but when you click "OK" the settings are applied.
> So that it is not instant in the sense as only the checkbox was clicked.

I mean "When I change an option, it's put into effect immediately without 
restarting the application if possible". For applications that need to be 
restarted, the HIG suggests displaying a message asking the user to restart 
the app. Unless of course it's possible that apps restart themselves and 
return to the exact state as before without the user noticing. If that's 
possible, I'm okay with it. But if that's not possible, users should restart 
applications manually.

> If you mean the first one, apply instantly on checkbox clicked, I doubt this
> is technically feasible at least for all applications having the
> configuration interface in a different application (KCMShell). 

Could it be made possible to inform applications of config changes e.g. via 
DBUS or something?