Formal complaint concerning the use of the name "System Settings"

[David Jarvie]

On Wed, July 27, 2011 8:33 am, Oswald Buddenhagen wrote:
> On Tue, Jul 26, 2011 at 11:24:26PM +0200, Ambroz Bizjak wrote:
>> Alternatively, there would be "System Settings (KDE desktop
>> configuration)" and "System Settings (GNOME desktop configuration)",
>> possibly the text in parentheses being subscribed instead. This is a
>> little less confusing, but still confusing compared to just "System
>> Settings" and "GNOME System Settings", where "System Settings", the
>> native tool, is clearly preferred.
>>
> i would argue that thomas' solution is better, because it is more
> explicit. your automatic preference for the desktop's native settings
> app is counterproductive for the user, because he sees "ah, system
> settings" and "wtf is this?". he ignores the latter, and is frustrated
> by the result. in thomas' variant otoh he sees *two* "wtf?"s, and *has*
> to research it, understand the underlying problem. this is a requirement
> of the reality we present him with, so that outcome is *good*.

The Ossi solution: the more wtf's the better ;)

Seriously, I think you make a good argument - two wtf's are better than
one to prompt the user to eventually find the relevant system settings
application. In the ideal world, of course, there would be zero wtf's,
i.e. the default system settings application would configure all the
settings required.

Mind you, as Thomas has pointed out, without coordination between
translators, Ambroz's scheme could also result in two wtf's in some
languages, which rather than being a bad thing, is probably a good thing.
(It is impossible to guarantee that all translations will be coordinated -
sending an email round translators might help to fix things at the time,
but what about future translations (e.g. for new languages) - how could
you ensure that they would also be coordinated?)

-- 
David Jarvie.
KDE developer.
KAlarm author - http://www.astrojar.org.uk/kalarm