Toolbar Config [Was: sane defaults]

[David Faure]

On Wednesday 19 January 2005 14:46, Jakob Petsovits wrote:
> On Wednesday, 19 January 2005 11:19, David Faure wrote:
> > But I don't understand Jakob Petsovits' answer to that. This is about
> > per-user settings, just like toolbar editing.
> 
> I wanted to question the advantage of being able to edit toolbar button
> texts. If this is possible, distributors and users will all go and change 
> their button texts. That makes it even more difficult for telephonic user 
> support or to get something done on someone other's KDE, because you
> can't rely on the same button having the same text.

Well the same happens if users (and/or distributors, but I doubt that)
remove or add toolbar icons - this has a much bigger impact than just relabelling
the text for some icons. We made KDE configurable in many many respects,
so the argument that it shouldn't be configurable in order to simplify user 
support doesn't really hold IMHO. Those who modify KDE will have to do their
own user support, and those who don't want their users to modify KDE can use
kiosk to restrict the possible modifications.

> I think it should be up to the developers / UI designers to name their actions 
> understandable and short (so that they fit in the toolbar). If that is done, 
> there's no reason to let the user change the text just for the fun of it, 
> because it also brings the disadvantage mentioned above.
> Customizing is a good thing, but only if it enhances the user experience.
> Text editing doesn't bring any gains here, I think.

OK I see what you mean, but it currently doesn't work that way. The text of an action
is used both in menus AND toolbar buttons, so it's not possible to have a long text
in the menu and a short text in a toolbar button. Sounds like KAction needs two texts,
e.g. text() and shortText(), with shortText defaulting to text. Patch welcome :)
Adding the property and getter/setter is easy; changing the apps to use shorttexts
everywhere a bit less so :)

-- 
David Faure, faure at kde.org, sponsored by Trolltech to work on KDE,
Konqueror (http://www.konqueror.org), and KOffice (http://www.koffice.org).