Proposal for KControl

[Aaron J. Seigo]

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On Saturday 29 June 2002 10:47, Waldo Bastian wrote:
> On Saturday 29 June 2002 05:14 pm, Aaron J. Seigo wrote:
> > if under the settings menu there were a few very clear options: system
> > information, desktop and system settings, look and feel, component
> > configuration (bad words, need something better) or whatever, and each of
> > those contained a subset of those 70+ panels (<20 each) things can be
> > much more managable and much more easily learned.
>
> First of all the settings menu as we know it has disappeared, I'm not sure
> if that is an improvement.

it's now a menuext, obviously ... which is nice for flexibility. i'm with you 
on the feeling that the settinge menu that has replaced it is less than 
fantastic.

> More to the point, what you suggest would be like switching kcontrol to
> icon-mode and then selecting e.g. look & feel?

yes, very similar to that. the icon mode takes up a bit too much space 
compared to the nice compact tree, but that's the general idea.

ultimately perhaps one for look 'n feel, one for information, one for 
component config and one for system/desktop settings.

that would bring the system/desktop (aka kcontrol as we know it) down to ~40 
panels (once the power control panel mania is reduced from 5 seperate panels 
to one, as it logically should be). this is still quite a lot, but would be a 
step in the right direction.

a big source of questions will be what belongs in the component control and 
which in the system control ... some things straddle the lines a bit, but 
nothing that can't be figured out with some coin tossing ;-) 

once that division is in place, further reorganization might be possible in 
each set (e.g. the subtrees, such as why does Help have it's own subtree for 
a single item?) ... and even more eventually it would open the doorway for 
snazzy things like a Look 'n Feel Control that shows a mock of the desktop as 
it would appear with the current settings, and clicking on the various parts 
of the rendered desktop brings up the corresponding setting panel (kind of 
like the colour, background, screensaver and panel previews on steroids). 

but with everything all lumped together as it currently is, these kinds of 
forward movements will be harder than necessary IMO.

KDE is simply capable of so many things it has outgrown a single control panel 
window =)

(oh, and i'm kidding about tossing coins =)

- -- 
Aaron J. Seigo
GPG Fingerprint: 8B8B 2209 0C6F 7C47 B1EA  EE75 D6B7 2EB1 A7F1 DB43

"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler"
    - Albert Einstein
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