Showing messages 1 through 5 of 5.

• Twitchy Finger
  2004-04-28 17:04:25  elanthis [Reply | View]
  
  
  The problem is, there's no reason to even _have_ most of those advanced options. Why does the software need some hundreds of different behaviours (which even a small number of options will result in, given the possible combinations) ? The vast majority of options can just be cut out entirely. And that isn't "dumbing down." That's picking the one behaviour that works for everyone. You won't always be able to find that one behaviour in every case, but you can cut out the vast majority of crap out there.
  
  You can also combine a lot of options. If you have ten options, but users almost always use only three particular combinations of those options, just make one option with three choices that selects among those three behaviours.
  
  Another good idea is to share options where possible. Find a set of apps that all have a similar option to control a similar behaviour. Make that option something centrally configured across the whole desktop. Less total options, plus as a side benefit the desktop becomes easier to configure for both novices and power users.
  
  Yet another idea is to identify when,where, and why particular options are used. For example, many options are things that are generally only configured once. Those options don't need to be in the same place as the options users might need to change two or three times a day. (i.e., don't put "show files as icons vs list" right next to "show hidden files" - the former a user picks once for their preferred style, the later needs to be changed a lot to filter out or display hidden files.)
  
  KDE preferences could indeed use a lot of organizational love. The organization for most of those preferences is somewhere in /dev/null. They aren't needed. They're superfluous.
  
  The "advanced" vs "novice" user debate is an entire myth. I'm a developer; I can work magic on code in over 20 languages to do all sorts of things. Most users can't even grok the basics of how a programming language works. Clearly I'm an advanced user of development tools. On the other hand, I fire up a word processor maybe twice a month, and I barely know how to use one. And when I do, I know the parts/features of the word processor I use like the back of my hand, and the other parts are completely alien to me. How do you decide what options are advanced and which aren't? You can't make it a desktop wide choice because users are advanced or novice in individual tasks, not with their entire computer. You can't even do it per-app because, again, it depends on which tasks in that app the user is advanced with. (I can use mail in Evolution very effectively, but I don't know jack about managing group calendars, organizing tasks, etc.)
  
  This is one reason there are so many apps that do basically the same thing. Galeon vs Epiphany? Exact same thing, yet each is appealing to a totally different set of users. That's largely a single "option" that toggles between two different application behaviours; install Epiphany or install Galeon. KDE vs GNOME? I can make them act a lot like each other, but they're still different. If you don't like one, use the other. One single option that makes a world of difference. A lot of users love Midnight Commander. Does that mean Konquerer/Nautilus should have a ton of options to act just like MC, or like some hybrid that 3 users out of ten million prefer? No, it means the users that like MC should just use MC. Users that like whichever hybrid can use the file manager that mimics that hybrid. Try to make a file manager that works for everyone, everywhere, and you end up with a bloated confusing monstrosity that works decently for very few people. Not good.
• Twitchy Finger
  2005-01-16 20:29:26  miggins [Reply | View]
  
  
  Those options don't need to be in the same place as the options users might need to change two or three times a day. (i.e., don't put "show files as icons vs list" right next to "show hidden files" - the former a user picks once for their preferred style, the later needs to be changed a lot to filter out or display hidden files.)
  
  
  
  This just shows how convoluted our interaction with computers has become. That someone would need to show and hide "hidden files" that many times a day. Those files are not really hidden then, are they.
  

• Twitchy Finger
  2004-04-28 13:47:54  suman_karumuri [Reply | View]
  
  
  The three levels of options is very good and being an advanced user of computer i am very much afraid to touch KDE control enter because of the vast number of options it throws at my face.
  Some other suggestions would be
  1)3 modes of options ( but 2 modes is good enough as 3 modes may confuse users)
  2)The options are more technical in nature and wording may be improved and the options can be rephrased for easy understanding.
  3)instead of a tree the normal icons used by gnome and windows would be better.

• Twitchy Finger
  2004-04-28 10:03:06  js171864 [Reply | View]
  
  
  Jono, this issue is what I am thought about, as well. And I've got the same idea as you...to have 2 or 3 schemas/modes. In fact 2 modes would be easier to impelment and maintain. Finally since many of us had the same idea, it may be reasonable.
  
  I'll try to test it one day, at least within Kexi Project.
  
  Jaroslaw Staniek
  
• Twitchy Finger
  2004-05-18 10:30:59  ebresie [Reply | View]
  
  
  Would this be kind of like the Profiles found in the Java environment relating to the versions of Java? You have the standard edition, the enterprise edition, the micro edition?
  
  Or would this also be like the attributes set in X-Windows application environments with each attribute being a string made up of the application and the underlying attributes. But then this turns into a flat file, registry type of thing....how to you manipulate these things..?