[Kde-pim] KMail merged folder properties - Bug 115611

[Jonathan Marten]

The bug refers to merging all of the various dialogues relating to
folder properties - "Mailing List Management", "Expire" and "Shortcut" -
into tabs of a single folder "Properties" dialogue.  Maybe a
contentious issue, but it's been something that has been annoying me
for some time - and not just myself, the bug has 3 duplicates and 115
votes.

I know that the original tabbed dialogue was split up after a
usability study.  However, that was four years ago... since then, more
options have been added to the menus (both menu bar and folder popup),
including some very obscure ones which certainly don't need to be
available with just a click.  The "Properties" dialogue has also been
changed back from a simple dialogue to a tabbed one, having introduced
the "Templates" tab.  Unfortunately both the original study on
openusability.org, and the gmane discussion referred to in the bug,
seem to be now unavailable.

In the absence of specifics from those, I'd be inclined to follow the
general usability principle that context menus should be as brief as
possible and should contain only frequently-used options.  So the
options that are now in the tabbed dialogue should be removed from the
context menu.  If that confuses some people who now expect them to be
there, then they can be reenabled by a hidden option.  All of the
options can be left in the menu bar "Folder" menu by default, anyone
who would like to remove them from there too can edit their rc file.
Those options from either menu will lead to the appropriate page of
the combined "Properties" dialogue.

Prototype screen shots are at:

   http://www.keelhaul.me.uk/kde/popupmenu.png
   http://www.keelhaul.me.uk/kde/props1.png
   http://www.keelhaul.me.uk/kde/props2.png
   http://www.keelhaul.me.uk/kde/props3.png
   http://www.keelhaul.me.uk/kde/props4.png
   http://www.keelhaul.me.uk/kde/props5.png

The final "Maintenance" tab is new; it contains some information on
the folder/index files, and the compaction options.  The potentially
dangerous "Rebuild Index" and "Rebuild IMAP Cache" options are only
here, not in the popup menu - a casual user shouldn't really be using
these options.

Any comments?  If it is worth going ahead, then I'll post the code
changes on reviewboard.

-- 
Jonathan Marten                         http://www.keelhaul.demon.co.uk
Twickenham, UK                          jjm2 at keelhaul.demon.co.uk
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