A lot of the options on this tab could use some explanation. Maybe on the page, or by tooltip, or on the help page. For example, "Compositing type: OpenGL or XRender". Why would I choose one or the other. Is there a guideline like "Option X is best if it works"? Ditto for Qt Graphics System. Under OpenGL options, "Use OpenGL 2 Shaders" is pretty ambiguous. Wikipedia tells me OpenGL 4.3 is out. Does this mean you'd use OpenGL 1 shaders if I had it unchecked? Or openGL 3 or 4 shaders? Am I forcing it to always use OpenGL 2 or allowing it to run effects that require OpenGL 2? Use VSync: I know what VSync is .. but why would I care? Will it affect something noticible? Reproducible: Always
(In reply to comment #1) > Ditto for Qt Graphics System. There /is/ a tooltip - it also mentiones GL compositing being the default. > Under OpenGL options, "Use OpenGL 2 Shaders" is pretty ambiguous. There /is/ a tooltip. > Use VSync: I know what VSync is .. but why would I care? Will it affect > something noticible? Currently not. vsync is in a way conceptually broken in kwin. Leaving the ebkac errors out the required information is on "should i use xrender or gl and why" and "what does vertical synchronisation mean" VSync could have a mention about "tearless but lags a frame" notice once it actually works correctly, but the choice about the backend requires a WP/techbase entry. That cannot be reasonably judged or explained in a GUI - no way.
I'm sorry. I apparently had opened the drop-down to view the choices, and the tooltip doesn't display while it's opened. Maybe I could suggest adding a little ? icon next to items with tooltips? I know some programs do that. It might make things more obvious for users who don't use a mouse, too.
Personal opionion: that tab is called "Advanced" for a good reason. If you don't know what it means, don't change there anything. I don't think it's possible to explain these stuff in a way that would allow users to properly understand it. E.g. the difference between XRender and OpenGL. If I would describe it properly it would end in something that users would think XRender is the better choice. All I could think of is adding a warning: do not change unless you know what you are doing. Going the GNOME way is no solution as I need that advanced dialog for development ;-)
The tooltip on the "qt graphics system" dropdown is actually a pretty good explanation, if it was more noticeable. There's no default for the Qt Graphics System, it just stays on whichever value I last selected. I tried to just revert my settings to default, but couldn't figure out what default was. That's why I started trying to figure out what I wanted.
The VSync UI has been reworked for 4.11.