Version: unspecified (using KDE 4.7.0) OS: Linux I know this has been discussed to death on the KDE mailing lists, and I'm aware that there was a recent reshuffling of how KCM modules are presented to the user. However, now that the KDE 4 series is stabilizing and reached version 4.7, I'm just wondering whether some last kinks could be ironed out. Please don't take this as criticism, but rather rather as the input from a long-time user who appreciates your work and hopes to contribute to the overall polish. Specifically: - What's the difference between "Common Appearance and Behavior" and "Workspace Appearance and Behavior"? If there are to be two sections, why not make the split between "Appearance" and "Behavior"? - What's the difference between "Account Details" and "Personal Information"? Shouldn't these two be merged? - What's the difference between "Application" and "Window" (as in "Application Appearance" and "Window Behavior")? Isn't this the same from the users' point of view? If so, why now use the same word for the concept? - Similarly, what's the difference between "Desktop" and "Workspace" (as in "Desktop Effects", "Workspace Appearance", and "Workspace Behavior")? Isn't this, once again, the same concept from the users' point of view? - Finally, and on a minor note, I note that the icons for "Application Appearance" and "Workspace Appearance" are the same, and the icons "Application and System Notifications" and "accessibility" are visually very similar. Reproducible: Always Expected Results: n/a
As far as I know, there is no intention to change the module organization _again_ (and get critized for "always" changing them). Regarding your questions about differences, you always have to keep in mind that KDE applications can run under different desktop environments, such as GNOME (they even run under Windows and OS X). You can also use the Plasma Desktop workspace, but still use a different window manager, such as Compiz. The separation of those modules need to reflect that, and that's a current technical requirement, not a design decision. In detail: - "Common Appearance and Behavior" and "Workspace Appearance and Behavior": The former configures the applications, the latter the Plasma workspace - "Account Details" and "Personal Information": The former configures your account (think /home/user), the latter is about PIM (Mails/Calendar/Contacts) - "Application" and "Window": Window here refers to the KDE window manager KWin. You cannot configure Compiz there. - "Desktop" and "Workspace": You can have two types of Plasma workspaces: Netbook or Desktop. Ben decides what to do with this entry.
*** Bug 281069 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Created attachment 70687 [details] System Settings Default Window Real world example test case (I just did this). Chimes for startup and shutdown have always bugged me and I always turn them off very shortly after a fresh install. I'm a long time linux and kde user, so I know that I need to pull up "System Settings" (not to gripe that every different distribution handles "non-kde settings" differently). Ok, here is "Systems Settings". Start timer. Ok finally found chimes under "Notifications", after first checking "Workspace Behavior", "Desktop Effects", "Multimedia" (even I knew that wasn't a good fit under "Hardware", and hovering over a few others. Took me 2 minutes 30 seconds, and my personal reaction was mild frustration. To the previous poster who said that always changing things is also a point of consternation-- yes, that's a good point. I think data gathering, which is what I'm trying to help with, should be used to inform the UI designer. Thanks all. Still love KDE.
I always need 3-5 attempts to find the settings where to disable the nasty bouncing cursor. Let's say the sad truth: the systemsettings ordering is a mess. I love KDE too, but I think all the settings, that are so much cluttered just annoy many users.
*** Bug 303530 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Hello, I posted a duplicate because I missed this report that more or less say exactly the same as the original post here. Hear me out, I like systemsettings, I'm grateful for the work done, but, IHMO, actually the end user should not at all "keep in mind that KDE applications can run under different desktop environments". I think that's the problem. If you want to target a broad audience (and I think KDE has the potential to continue to) you can only benefit from avoiding confusing concepts, concepts that makes sense only to devs. Your grandma can already happily use KDE to read her mails. If, by any chance, she want to change the color setup, for instance to get higher contrast, whatever, she should not be asked to understand what is a window manager and what is a desktop. She does not care and she should not care about it. She has pies to bake and whatever. It is great to have a desktop we can fully configure. But why asking users to understand how exactly each components of the desktop interact with each others? What's the point exactly? If, by "technical requirement", you cannot regroup all the stuff regarding cosmetics for instance, then the design is somehow flawed (I dont believe it is impossible to think of a modular approach that handle categories and subcategories). Believe me, this concept of "common appearance" along with a "workspace appearance" is unbearable with. As I wrote in my report: "default applications" is branded "workspace", how is it more workspace specific than locales? Personal info is where I put my name, how does it relate to "appearance and behavior"? I understand there are probably as many ways to organize configuration items than there are users. For me, and I believe for plenty of users, it would however be way less confusing to have subcategories like : - desktop cosmetics (icons, colors/themes of both applications and workspaces, mouse pointers, fonrts, visual effects whatever deals with cosmetics and nothing else) - desktop behavior (keyboard shortcuts, window manager behavior, files association, notifications, accessibility, default applications) - accounts (my account, locales, time, kwallet ) - system and hardware (kdm, etc) (I'm not sure about the network category) I'm not saying it's impossible to come up with something better. But this approach only refers to generic concepts most users could understand. And it completely avoids the questionable concept of "COMMON appearance and behavior" as if there was a common definition of what is common for an audience as broad as KDE's one. Please, don't take this criticism the wrong way :-) Plenty of people I know use KDE because I, among others, told them to give it a try, while they only knew environment like Windows XP and such. I just want to improve their chances of becoming power-users :-) The good stuff is already here, it's just a matter of polishing the UI.
*** Bug 318299 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Mathieu, full ack. I'd just add, that I'm missing kind of an "expert mode" (rarely used options not shown in normal mode) or the posibility to rearrange the whole menu as a user.
This was changed a lot in Plasma 5 after a lot of research and discussing.
I'm using Plasma5 quite a while.... Ok, there are a few improvements here - but in fact it's not very userfriendly to split "compositor" and "effects" and put them to totally different places. (Yes, makes sense at programmers side, but not on user side) Why not put an additional link at "effects" to "compositor" for example - would make sense in other menus as well! Give people more than one way to find specific settings! Why do GUI coders always believe there's only one way to somewhere?! People think different! Or why not make all these Settings groupable by user? Or why don't you give us an "show all" option