Simple improvements to current installer.

[John Layt]

Hi,

While we debate the future for standalone installers, I think there's
a few simple things we can do to improve the existing installer in the
meantime.  These suggestions come from my helping a new user over the
weekend to install some edu apps from scratch.  Some problems were
down to finding the installer through our websites which I'll address
elsewhere, but seeing the installer through the eyes of a complete
newbie to KDE made a few simple problems rather obvious.

The single best thing we can do is to add a choice of "Standard" or
"Advanced" mode at the start as is common with Windows installers.  We
already have the option on the second run to use the previous "basic
settings" (a confusing term itself), and I see little reason we can't
do the same for the first run in Standard mode, defaulting to "stable
latest" from winkde.org.

In the picklist for apps, we use group and package names like "kdeedu"
and "kdesdk-kioslaves" which are largely meaningless to new users and
I doubt would make any sense to a non-English speaker.  These should
be replaced with proper names like "Education".  The package notes
could also be improved.  The Language and Spelling groups should use
the actual language name rather than package names.  We probably
shouldn't refer to "Packages" either.  Longer term, sourcing these
details from the AppData files would be preferred.

The picklist itself could be more usable, especially if in a Standard
mode.  The Action column really should be the first column, and we
should remove the version number.  I'd suggest adding two more group
buttons for "Games" and "Education" on the left to reduce the
"Applications" list size, and I'd also remove the smaller module group
names like kdetoys and kdemultimedia that only have 1 and 3 items
under them.  Longer term, an icon grid layout may be more
user-friendly, but for now adding the icon may be an option.

I think we could also leave out more packages in the Standard mode,
kde-workspace and kdeplasma-addons especially, but things like
kioslaves and strigi analyzers are meaningless to new users and should
be hidden, being automatically selected as required.

The confirmation dialog for extra dependencies should also be skipped,
we don't need to tell new users stuff like that.  Alternatively, don't
show the package list and just ask for confirmation to download XX MB
data.

The final screen should probably also direct users to UserBase and Forums.

Scripty now supports native Qt translation files so it shouldn't be
much work to get the installer translated now.  A new langauge
selection panel could be added at the start of the installer that
could also default the langauge packages to be installed.
Alternatively just default to the current system ui language.

The Windows menu folder is called "KDE Release" which doesn't make
much sense to new users, "KDE Software" or "KDE Applications" may make
more sense. I'm also not sure if a full tree hierarchy in the menu is
useful, especially as most people will install only a few apps.

Any thoughts on these suggestions?  I'm willing to help out with
coding them, but it may be quicker for someone more familiar with the
code to take the lead.

Cheers!

John.