Version: (using KDE KDE 3.3.92) Installed from: Compiled From Sources OS: Linux kpersonalizer should have a dialog that enables the user to select a suitable standard font among several alternatives. Motivation: Proper font size and shape is crucial to the perfect desktop experience. Yet there is no way to automatically guess the best font size and shape, since this depends on monitor characteristic (quality), eye sight and the physical layout of the work desk. So instead, a dialog could be included in the startup wizard (=kpersonalizer) that addresses this. I imagine something like this: ****************************************************************** * Please choose the font you find most readable for general text * * * * The brown fox jumped over the spotted fence * * The brown fox jumped over the spotted fence * * The brown fox jumped over the spotted fence * * The brown fox jumped over the spotted fence * * The brown fox jumped over the spotted fence * * The brown fox jumped over the spotted fence * * The brown fox jumped over the spotted fence * * * * More fonts Bigger fonts Smaller fonts * ****************************************************************** The dialog could initially include perhaps 3 fonts (2 anti aliased) in say 10, 12 and 14 point sizes. Pressing the "More fonts" bottom would double the included font shapes, while the "Bigger fonts" would increase the included font sizes by three (to 13, 15 and 17), and smaller to 7, 9, and 11. I will take a shot at this myself when 3.4 is well out of the door, unless you all think it is a stupid idea.
Regarding default fonts, bug #98392 maybe related
CVS commit by staikos: Come up with a database of sane settings for different configurations as per kde-core-devel thread and bug reports, and well, the ugliness I get when I start KDE for the first time. If you like this idea, please contribute. I'm willing to write the class once we have a large enough database. CCBUGS: 100011 A README 1.1 A defaults.txt 1.1
This is a very good idea indeed. There is one more uglyness in default KDE: The crowded toolbars with the many small icons. Yes, I know this has been discussed many times before, but the toolbar issue might be solved in the same way as the font idea does: Present the user a choice between three toolbar profiles: * Nice big toolbar icons with text underneath. Because of the big icons, only the most important icons should be visible. * Medium sized toolbar icons without text. More icons should be visible. * Small icons, with the full jungle of icons that is presently in KDE 3.x. With these profiles, anyone can have whatever he/she likes best. The only thing we need for this is that every toolbar icon gets a new property that specifies which profile it belongs to.
Hi, this is a REALLY great idea. Especially the toolbars. For beginners, there should not be more than five to six icons on any toolbar, otherwise people will feel confused. For example, Konqueror's default toolbar could look like this: Back Fwd Up Home Reload URL: [______________________][v] [xxxxxx] where [xxxxx] are view mode dependant toolbars that change depending on what kind of URL is being browsed. (I have configured Konqueror to show me - zoom +/- buttons, the ActionList "ViewMode" dropdown, Print, and KGet icon for web browsing - zoom +/- buttons and the ActionList dropdown for file management (sadly, the ActionList does not have an icon at the current time) When I use Gwenview's KPart for browsing image directories, Gwenview's "< >" buttons (back/next) appear next to the URL. And so on. The default configuration does not need anything more, IMHO. Any more icons just confuse a new user - and often still confuse me. And later on, you can still add toolbars and buttons as you see fit. Regarding toolbars, the text beneath the toolbars should be at most double as long as the toolbar itself. This needs the cooperation of all i18n maintainers. An especially bad example is KMail, where some toolbar text is so long that you have almost no room for more icons if you don't use 1280x1024 maximized. (see my wishlist Bug 101182) Other applications have the same problem regarding toolbars because often, the same text strings are used for toolbars and for menus. Regarding fonts: I would suggest using the Bitstream Vera font series as a default font. It is freely available and (should be) installed by default on most Linux distributions, and for other Unices one could fall back to Helvetica or similar fonts. Thank you for initiaing this project! Jens
Could the people who want different toolbars for different experience levels please move to another bug? It's quite unrelated to this bug, which is about having a KDE-start wizard page that enables the user to choose a font(size) that suits his or her eyesight, personal preference and so on. Thanks!
Hi! Kpersonalizer will not be improved with new functionalities. It is only mantained for fixing existing bugs. I'm sorry. Regards.