UI polishing: config dialogs

[Sam S.]

Hi developers!

Am I correct in assuming that with the recent KDevelop application menu
restructuring, the "polishing-the-UI-for-final-4.0-release" phase has
officially begun?
Since you already seem to be tackling the last outstanding major usability
issues such as session managment (the latest kdevelop from SVN is the first
time that working with sessions in a computer program has ever felt
"natural" and just made sense to me - congratulations!), I thought I'd
instead give some input about some of the smaller
quirks/edges/inconsistencies I encounter when working with KDevelop as a
"normal" user.
The bug tracker didn't really seem appropriate for this kind of list of
small suggestions, so I hope it's ok that I post them here on the mailing
list... (please tell me if this is not the case.)

So here is a list of suggestions for KDevelop's configuration dialogs... (I
know that's only a small part of KDevelop, but you have to start somewhere,
right?):

   - "*Settings >> Configure KDevelop...*" dialog:


   - Window title should probably read "Configure KDevelop" rather than
      "Configure - KDevelop"
      - Page titles (bold-lettered text at top of each configuration page)
      should be more consistent. Right now, 4 pages use "Configure X
settings", 2
      use "Configure X", and 1 uses "X Settings". Probably, "Configure
X" would be
      best for all pages (in the case of the "Projects" page, it could be
      "Configure Projects behaviour" to not confuse with configuring specific
      projects).


   - "*Project*" page:
         - *page caption* (the entry in the page list on the left) should be
         "Projects" rather than "Project" to make it clear that these are not
         settings belonging to the current project, but settings for
how KDevelop
         handles projects in general. (Same goes for all occurences of
the string
         "Project" inside that configuration page)
         - "*Schedule all project files for parsing*" checkbox
            - should be moved to "Background Parser" page
            - should be given a more descriptive caption, e.g.
            "Automatically start parsing all files belonging to open projects"
         - *add an informational QLabel* telling the user that this is not
         where Project-specific settings are configured, and point to
where you can
         do that.


   - "*Language Support*" page:
         - "*Additional Information For Current Item*" could use explanatory
         tooltip
         - "*Minimum project size for simplified parsing*" spin box should
         show units ("files") inside spin box, not just in explanatory tooltip


   - "*Plugins*" page:
         - "*CMakeDocumentation*" list entry should rather read "CMake
         Documentation"
         - "*KDevQtHelp*" list entry should rather read "Qt Documentation"
         (since all other plugins also show a descriptive name here)


   - "*Background Parser*" page:
         - *add an informational QLabel* briefly explaining to the user what
         the background parser is and what it is needed for


   - "*Source Formatter Settings*" page:
         - *page caption* should be "Source Formatter" (without "Settings"),
         to conform to the other configuration pages
         - "*Add Kate modelines*" checkbox could use explanatory tooltip


   - "*Project >> Open Configuration*" dialog:


   - Window title should probably read "Configure Project X" rather than
      "Configure - KDevelop"


   - "*Editor >> Settings >> Configure Editor*" dialog:


   - Window title should probably read "Configure Editor" rather than
      "Configure - KDevelop"

I realise these are all very trivial and they're certainly no showstoppers
for a release.. But they might just make the difference between "working &
usable" and "working & really well polished".

Cheers,

Sam
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