Bug 70288

Summary:	allow the resetting of single programs' configuration
Product:	kcontrol	Reporter:	Hauke Laging <hauke>
Component:	general	Assignee:	Daniel Molkentin <molkentin>
Status:	RESOLVED UNMAINTAINED
Severity:	wishlist
Priority:	NOR
Version:	unspecified
Target Milestone:	---
Platform:	openSUSE
OS:	Linux
Latest Commit:		Version Fixed In:

Description Hauke Laging 2003-12-13 12:30:13 UTC

Version:            (using KDE KDE 3.1.4)
Installed from:    SuSE RPMs

A problem which probably every computer user encounters from time to time is that a single application has certain problems after restarting the computer (usually without any obvios reason).

These problems can usually be "solved" by deleting/renaming the respective configuration file. This does delete all configuration work, of course, but at least the application starts up again without crashing (or whatever the problem may be), the configuration can then be done again and the user can continue to work.

This "solution" is no problem for most users who know what a shell is - but many (becoming more) do not.

Thus my proposal is to add a feature maybe called "configuration reset/problem helper" to the control center which would allow the user to reset (i.e. delete/move) the configuration file without searching for any geek who can tell him or her which file it is and what to do to get rid of it. Another advantage would be that then there was a standard way how to handle the old, (probably) corrupted files which would allow somebody with the necessary know-how to complete the new configuration based on the old file later.

I think that this feature would (luckily) be used quite seldom but

a) it should be very easy to implement
b) (mostly) every time it was used it would be a huge improvement of the situation for the user

Having such a feature Joe User would once again lern that *nix is different from Windows - reinstall would not be the only option any more (for somebody without any technical knowledge). KDE obviously does a lot do become attractive for those people without any technical background.

Comment 1 Hauke Laging 2006-12-26 13:44:09 UTC

Years later I would like to add two improvements of this proposal:

1) Configuration files usually are not very big so it shouldn't be a problem to have a folder (hierarchy) where the last configuration for each application known to be working ist stored. Thus the user could easily switch back to a working application without completely resetting the configuration.

2) It could be offered to restore the app's configuration from a backup. The user would be asked for the path to the user's home directory in the backup. Then the respective file(s) could be copied.

Comment 2 Andrew Crouthamel 2018-09-04 18:02:34 UTC

Hello! Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but this project has been unmaintained for many years so I am closing this bug. Kcontrol has been replaced by System Settings in Plasma. Please give the latest version of that a try, and open a new bug in "systemsettings" if you continue to have an issue. Thank you!