[Powerdevil] [Bug 383631] New: What exactly does "Even when an external monitor is connected" do?

[Jonathan Wakely]

https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=383631

            Bug ID: 383631
           Summary: What exactly does "Even when an external monitor is
                    connected" do?
           Product: Powerdevil
           Version: 5.10.4
          Platform: Fedora RPMs
                OS: Linux
            Status: UNCONFIRMED
          Severity: normal
          Priority: NOR
         Component: general
          Assignee: plasma-devel at kde.org
          Reporter: zilla at kayari.org
  Target Milestone: ---

I have my Energy Saving settings set to:

[x] Button events handling
           When laptop lid closed [Suspend]
  [ ] Even when an external monitor is connected
        When power button pressed [Prompt log out dialogue]

What does this mean? What does the external monitor checkbox apply to? The
widget before it or after it? It's unclear, and the handbook doesn't say
anything about that checkbox (because it isn't present on all systems, only
laptops). The alignment of the widgets doesn't help understand it either.

It's also unclear that the meaning of the "When laptop lid is closed" control
is actually affected by the following checkbox. It says "When laptop lid is
closed: do something" but actually depending on the checkbox it means one of:

 "When laptop lid is closed and no external monitor is connected: do something"

or

 "When laptop lid is closed: do something"

The problem is that the "and no external monitor is connected" is implied, not
stated explicitly. The checkbox label talks about the opposite case, when it
*is* connected. This requires you to keep in mind an implicit, unstated
condition, then negate it for the checkbox. That's unnecessarily complicated.

I would find it easier to understand if you inverted the sense of the checkbox
and labelled it "Ignore laptop lid being closed when external monitor is
connected".

Maybe you could even move the checkbox first and make the label for the "When
laptop lid closed" control depend on the checkbox, i.e. when unchecked:

  [ ] Ignore laptop lid closing when an external monitor is connected
           When laptop lid closed [Suspend]

and when checked:

  [x] Ignore laptop lid closing when an external monitor is connected
           When laptop lid closed and no external monitor [Suspend]

This would make it unambiguous that "When laptop lid is closed: Suspend" means
exactly that, closing the lid always suspends, unconditionally. And likewise
"When laptop lid is closed and no external monitor: Suspend" is also entirely
clear that the behaviour is conditional on an external monitor being present.
There's no need to combine two conditions in your head.

It's also unclear (and undocumented) what the "Wireless" settings do. The
handbook says "Activate this option to set individual actions for Wi-Fi, Mobile
broadband or Bluetooth connections." but it's not clear what those actions are
in response to. Is it when dimming the screen? Pressing the power button? Or
switching from one power source to another? (Presumably the latter, but it
isn't clear).

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