KDE 3.4 Control Center UI Review

[Frans Englich]

On Sunday 13 February 2005 17:31, Waldo Bastian wrote:
> KDE 3.4 Control Center UI Review

Nice work :)

> - With the current default size of 800x600, 49 modules out of a
> total of 79 modules do not fit in the window. 

With even taking the discussion on testing resolution into account, this is a 
big problem. What I think is important to notice, is that it's not a slip 
from a developer or two, but is a large, general problem. E.g, if someone 
writes a KCM, the chances are it has this bug out of the box. What the cause 
is, one can wonder; perhaps it is a lack of interest; it is given low 
priority; it is unnoticed; or the solution is too hard to find.

I'm wondering what the solution is to this. Benjamin wrote a test which 
automatically detected it -- did people fix their KCMs then? No, that test 
withered away in the repository. Will this UI review help? Perhaps some, but 
not what I think is needed. It soon will be just another thread here on kcd, 
and the bugs will be creeping back in those which was corrected.

I see this bug as an organizational problem.

Open source makes egoism gain the community -- we scratch itches which 
everyone has. Do we KDE developers have this itch which many of our users 
have, that a dialog doesn't fit on the screen? Most developers have good 
equipment, a good display. Why should they then care, or even notice?

In other words, I think the reason to the problem is a lack of developer 
focus, and if you want this fixed in a scalable, long-term way, you'll have 
to give it focus. Somehow, make the developers start to care.

I see one solution: wrap dialogs in scroll bars. This way, if the real problem 
doesn't get fixed, users will at least have a bearable experience(in the 
sense that they actually can click the ok/cancel buttons).

But it will be fixed, because the scroll bars are annoying like a poorly 
designed web page: the developers will have it up-front themselves, and they 
will receive bug reports.


Cheers,

		Frans