Created attachment 101888 [details] System Settings - Desktop Effects - Controls 1. Go to System Settings 2. Workspace -> Desktop Behavior -> Desktop Effects I expected to see a list of effects with the same control (i.e., checkbox) in front of the effect to indicate whether the effect is on/true or off/false. Instead different effects have different controls to indicate whether they are on or off and it isn't clear why. There are 3 different types of controls on the Desktop Effects window. Looking Glass, Magnifier, Magic Lamp, Desktop Cube Animation, Fade Desktop use radio buttons to control on/off. Background Contrast and Blur use the indeterminate-checkbox (I had to look that one up) to control enable|disable. The box contains a checkmark if on, nothing/all-white if off, and a filled in rectangle if it is not on or off which looks like a disabled checkbox (feature not available). All other effects use the standard checkbox which are either checked or not checked.
Having the same control would be wrong. Radio buttons indicate exclusive options, checkboxes indicate any number can be selected.
Created attachment 101907 [details] Desktop Effects: a list of effects with checkboxes to turn on or off (In reply to David Edmundson from comment #1) > Having the same control would be wrong. > > > Radio buttons indicate exclusive options, checkboxes indicate any number can > be selected. Exactly... In KDE platform Version 4.14.2_System Settings 4.11.11, they were all checkboxes. Desktop Effects were (are) located: System Settings -> Workspace Appearance and Behavior -> Desktop Effects -> All Effects (please see image). If I want/wanted a particular effect, I turned it on via clicking the checkbox and a checkmark appeared. If I didn't want a particular effect, I turned it off via clicking the checkbox and the checkmark would disappear and I'd have an empty checkbox (not on). In KDE Framework 5.26.0_System Settings 5.8.2 (Suse Tumbleweed), The Desktop Effects Window, shows me a list of effects that I can: (1) turn on or off (same, sort of. control is checkbox, indeterminate-checkbox, radio button. confusing.) (2) watch video help (new. interesting.) (3) display configurable options (same. ok, understand what the ui means.) (4) display information (same. ok, understand what the ui means.) It is (1) above --- Some times the control to turn the effect on or off is a standard checkbox, indeterminate-checkbox, or a radio button. A radio button indicates to the user, choose only one of many in a group. If a group is the header: Accessibility, Appearance, Focus, Tools, Virtual Desktop Switching Animation, Window Management, then even within a group the controls are different. To take a specific example. In the Accessibility Group, why is Invert a checkbox to turn on or off, but Zoom is a radio button to turn on or off? If we ignore that they are in the same Accessibility group, they look the same --- they both have (2), (3), and (4). Invert: Inverts the color of the desktop and windows Zoom: Magnify the entire desktop
> To take a specific example. In the Accessibility Group, why is Invert a checkbox to turn on or off, but Zoom is a radio button to turn on or off? If we ignore that they are in the same Accessibility group, they look the same --- they both have (2), (3), and (4). Because there are three zoom effects: zoom, magnifier and looking glass. One can only use one of the three, not all at the same time. Thus it's a radio button selection which ensures that if you enable zoom, the magnifier gets deselected.
(In reply to Martin Gräßlin from comment #3) > > To take a specific example. In the Accessibility Group, why is Invert a checkbox to turn on or off, but Zoom is a radio button to turn on or off? If we ignore that they are in the same Accessibility group, they look the same --- they both have (2), (3), and (4). > > Because there are three zoom effects: zoom, magnifier and looking glass. One > can only use one of the three, not all at the same time. Thus it's a radio > button selection which ensures that if you enable zoom, the magnifier gets > deselected. Ohhhhh.... Looking Glass, Magnifier, and Zoom are actually a subgroup of Accessibility. How about, mutually exclusive options should be grouped with their own group heading. In this case, "Accessibility Magnification". An example would be like "Virtual Desktop Switching Animation" group that exists already if you scroll down the list. In the Appearance Group, why do Background Contrast and Blur have a different control from Fade, Fall Apart, Glide, etc?
If it were that simple we would have done it. We spent quite some time on that ui and we think that we came up with the least evil solution. The problem with what you similar is that it effects cannot be grouped like that. There is always an exception. Fade and glide are open and close effects while fall apart is only close. Scale in its only open. Very difficult to group.