[Kde-hardware-devel] Re: [KDE Usability] Re: Display Management Design

[Matt Rogers]

On Tue, Jul 26, 2011 at 2:58 PM, Alex Fiestas <afiestas at kde.org> wrote:
> On Tuesday, July 26, 2011 11:25:14 AM Matt Rogers wrote:
>> So I've read through this several times and, in general, it gets it
>> right most of the time. However, I have a few questions.
>>
>> Does the dialog that pops up when a new display is connected only
>> displayed when the monitor isn't something that's already been
>> configured at least one?
> When the monitor has been configured, the kded will use that configuration
> instead of popin up the plasmoid
>

excellent!

>> Why does there even need to be a dialog at all? Why not just activate
>> the display to the right of the current display and set it to the
>> preferred resolution? If it needs to be changed, then it can be done
>> through the KCM.
> Well,  there is no "need" of it, though based on my experience with screen
> configuration I don't always want to "extend my desktop", so why do it int he
> first place?
> With the dialog you get to decide what to do.
>

I get that it may not be the thing to do all the time, but why not
make activation of the new display and set it to the right of the
current display the default?

In other words, have the software be opinionated about it's initial
configuration. Don't make the user choose all the time just because
it's not the right thing to do 100% of the time.  It doesn't even have
to be to the left or to the right.

>> The current KCM mockup is too crowded. I don't have a new  mockup for
>> this, but IMHO, it makes more sense to split the KCM up into two tabs.
>> One with display arrangement, the other with display configurations.
>> I'll see what I can come up with in the next few days for this but
>> don't count on anything.
> You can use evolus Pencil to do it, I will attach to the wikipages the files I
> did.
>

I need more time than I need software. Could you spare me a little bit
of your time? ;)

>> Will plasma start recognizing the dual display setup as one giant
>> screen and set the wallpaper to the new screen to the same as the
>> current screen? If not, it should.
> I won't do it since plasma containers scare me a little bit... but that may be
> nice, yes.
>

and has the potential to make a huge impact and make people go "look!
This thing just put my wallpaper on my new screen too! that's so
awesome!" - which should be what we should strive for in our software.
I hope you'll seriously reconsider doing it, even if plasma containers
scare you a bit. :)

>> Regarding the force dpi question, we should just "force" the DPI to be
>> the same as the existing screen so there are no issues with font
>> rendering between the screens.
>
> I don't know if DPI is per screen or waht... is something I have to study :/
>
> Thanks for your feedback :D
>

No problem. :) Thanks for listening.
--
Matt