replacing kcontrol with system settings

[Ellen Reitmayr]

On Friday 15 June 2007, Krzysztof Lichota wrote:
> Ellen Reitmayr napisał(a):
> > On Thursday 14 June 2007, Boudewijn Rempt wrote:
> >> And after years of claiming that
> >> having ordinary and advanced buttons wasn't a solution, that's just what
> >> system settings provides.
> >
> > unlike kcontrol, systemsettings wants to guide the user to set up the
> > most important parts of the work environment.  that's the information
> > given on the first tab. to make systemsettings be a real alternative for
> > kcontrol, we still had to provide the more advanced settings.
>
> My main problem with system settings (and the reason I am using kcontrol
> not systemsettings) is that it does not provide easy to use search
> function.
>
> In kcontrol, I am not using tree view at all - i just type keyword (for
> example "font" if I am looking for font installation module) and I see
> all matching terms, select the term and I can go to the proper kcontrol
> module right after that.

something similar was also intended but skipped due to missing development 
resources. the original suggestion was to provide more detailed hits in a 
drop-down menu. as we couldn't accomplish this, we went for the simple "1 hit 
in ..." label. 

> In system settings I can type "font" in search, but:
> 1. I do not get search terms, so I cannot differentiate between changing
> fonts or font installer.
would be fixed by text completion

> 2. I get 1 result in General and 1 in in Advanced. Now - how am I
> supposed to know if font installer is in General or in Advanced? I have
> to go to each matching icon, click it, check if it is there, click back,
> etc.
use direct link in text completion, and put titles of fitting sub sections to 
each hit (either in a tooltip or directly into the interface (set maximum 
number of displayed titles so it won't get cramped))

> 3. Marking modules with matching terms by greying out other modules does
> not really work for color-blind people. For others is also not
> convenient, I would prefer to see only sections and items which are
> matching.
i agree. also, there are some icons which don't use much color and it's hard 
to recognise if it's greyed out or not. I prefer a different background color 
to highlight them.

> IMO systemsettings search should be changed to work as in kcontrol -
> type some text to see matching terms, click on term to see matching
> modules (probably with sections delimeters for clarity). And matching
> modules from General and Advanced Tab should be on one page, so that I
> do not have to switch to other tab to see its results.

The problem with that kind of search is that you lose the context of a 
setting. when you type "font installer" in kcontrol, you are directed to a 
page but you don't know where it belongs to. keeping the context enhances 
learnability. i think your issues can be solved in the current search 
approach.


/el

-- 
Ellen Reitmayr
KDE Usability Project
usability.kde.org
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