Review Request 116648: Split into one KCM for Desktop Effects and one for Compositing

[Thomas Pfeiffer]

On Friday 07 March 2014 15:12:43 Jos Poortvliet wrote:
> On Friday 07 March 2014 13:37:22 Martin Gräßlin wrote:
> > On Friday 07 March 2014 13:07:06 Jens Reuterberg wrote:
> > > Sry for perhaps breaking etiquette with review requests.
> > 
> > No that's just fine, but it would be better if you used the web frontend
> > to
> > keep the discussion in one place and you just lost the kwin mailing list
> > :-)> 
> > > The
> > > KCM are at this moment a hot topic and one of the many issues
> > > is fragmentation vs merging of subject.
> > 
> > Well this change has nothing to do with the fact that it is a hot topic
> > :-)
> > We discussed this month probably even years ago that we want to split this
> > KCM. Given that we are approaching alpha 1 I decided to sit down and make
> > it happen.
> > 
> > > The main issue is that the settings are, as it is, an extremely
> > > hostile area for new users. The sorting is arbitrary but justified
> > > through technical reasons (Like having two separate
> > > appearance segments) and the idea of splitting them up into
> > > an "advanced" section and a "basic" section has been met with,
> > > perhaps to some, healthy skepticism ;)
> > 
> > In this case it's not really an advanced vs. basic. It's two orthogonal
> > things. One KCM is to configure the "effects" - a better name would be
> > "plugins" because that's more what it is. The other KCM is a very
> > technical
> > thing about how KWin performs the rendering. One could even think about
> > not
> > adding it to system settings at all.
> > 
> > From the experience of the last six years where it was not split we
> > learned
> > that most users just want to configure the effects and if they change
> > other
> > settings they mostly break it, because they don't understand what it does
> > and think they can fine tweak it. They only got those settings because
> > they
> > thought it's related to the effects, which it isn't really.
> > 
> > > But this is just such a split. Having a compositing and desktop
> > > effect as two separate areas so that one of them, the more
> > > technical section would be held isolated from a user only
> > > makes sense if it actually signals this shift:
> > > 
> > > Having two titles, one "Desktop Effects" and one "Compositing"
> > > doesn't tell the user anything except "darn it they split it into
> > > two things again for no reason".
> > 
> > I don't think so, users are interested in the Desktop Effects but not in
> > the compositing settings. Those who are will understand why it's changed
> > and will approve it.
> > 
> > > If they have to be split into two, I suggest renaming them into
> > > something more correct instead of something precise - like
> > > "Eye candy" and "Compositing KWM system", one being
> > > extremely childish and fancyful and the other unecessarily
> > > technical and complex. Signalling accessability with one, and
> > > distance with the other.
> > 
> > I'm certainly fine with adding better names but "Eye candy" is a no-go.
> > Our
> > Effects are not about eye candy - Present Windows is everything but not
> > eye
> > candy. If we go for such a name it causes a backslash.
> > 
> > My suggestion would be to go in the direction of "Windowing System
> > Plugins"
> > for Desktop Effects, for Compositing I don't know a better name, just that
> > it may not include KWin or KWM :-) But yeah not showing in systemsettings
> > is an option. Probably the best fitting name is "Compositor" which is the
> > established technical term for this kind of applications.
> 
> Too add to this, as I've dabbled trying to 'clean up' systemsettings: the
> kwin systemsettings KCM was actually one of the biggest issues as it mixed
> hardware settings (like render backend etc) with behavioral settings and
> pure look- stuff. The plugins still mix behavioral (eg  zoom, present
> windows, even usability ones like magnifier and track mouse) with pure
> esthetic ones (magic lamp, explosion effects).
> 
> I am therefor very glad with Martin tackling this as well as the move to QML
> in general as that might make it possible for somebody eve at my skill
> level to make (small) adjustments.
> 
> Of course - you could argue the entire approach is wrong here. Instead of
> trying to expose the abilities of our window manager in one or several
> places (which is inevitably what these KCM's do, no matter how you organize
> them), a proper design should start from what an user needs to do (adjust
> accessibility settings, change behavior or theme) and bring things in these
> areas together no matter what underlying application, tool or framework
> actually does the work.
> 
> But that would certainly require quite a bit of work and changes all over
> which would then have to be maintained in several places, I suppose. GNOME,
> to their credit, seems to manage to do this - it has never been our
> strength :(
> 
> Also, I can't make such a design (no clue whatsoever) nor do I care much
> personally (I can deal with Kwin,  just fine) so I feel a bit bad about
> dumping this as a problem in this discussion. Still, I think we should be
> aware of it.
> 
> To not end on a low note, let me repeat again: Martin, thanks for this
> change. It is a step forward, no matter what comes next (or not).

I agree that the split is a good thing, and it seems we're all on the same 
page here.
As for the more general System Settings discussion: Please have a look at this 
thread in the VDG forum where we're discussing the issues you're mentioning:
http://forum.kde.org/viewtopic.php?f=285&t=119951
Feel free to join this brainstorming if you like!

Cheers,
Thomas