Re: Control center and capplet merging

[Bill Haneman <Bill Haneman Sun COM>]

Luka said:

> Il giorno lun, 27/06/2005 alle 17.08 +0100, Calum Benson ha scritto:
>
> > > ...
> >
> > One advantage it would have would be for accessibility... it's pretty  
> > > common to want to change both together if you need a High Contrast  
> > > Large Print theme, for example.  (And personally, the first thing I  
> > > do when I install a Linux machine is to change both the font and the  
> > > theme, and then I pretty much never touch either of them again, so  
> > > I've always wanted them in the same dialog anyway...)
> >    
>
> This is a personal "taste", and I suppose you are an experienced
> computer user as everyone on this mailing list. The last time i opened
> the Font capplet to change something was... humm.. 2 years ago... 
>
> IMHO it's better to keep them separated for average (and sub-average)
> users, so they can simply discover them. Reading Appearance in the
> Preferences list, do you think everyone can figure that it's the place
> to tune fonts?
>  
Well, I think we will continue to disagree.  I have certainly seen users 
who were confused by the fact that fonts weren't included in the Theme 
capplet.

> > > I see that a separate Accessibility capplet is proposed as well,  
> > > though, so perhaps this wouldn't be an issue any more anyway,  
> > > depending on its precise contents.  (Although I'm not sure if  
> > > capplets that affect values in other capplets are such a great idea  
> > > either, but that's probably a separate argument...)
> >    
>
> Well, for this kind of needs i was thinking about something like the
> attached mochup[1]. Of course it overlaps the Theme, Font and Background
> capplets, and sets more keys with a single widget[2], but if you need to
> setup an environment for impaired users it's quick and simple.
>  
I don't agree with your assessment #2 below, about 'same size' 
everywhere, or that Sans is always the right choice.  There are for 
instance special fonts (one is called 'Tiresias' and I believe it's 
free/open) designed for visual problems.  But of course one size doesn't 
really fit all.

I think that an even better solution for this is a sort of "user 
profile" capplet that does something similar, but goes even further, to 
change the gconf/Xsettings defaults for a whole load of things at once 
(not just visuals).  This would be useful outside of accessibility, 
especially if users could fine tune and store these profiles for 
later.   So for instance, you could select the choice for "high contrast 
with magnification"  (assistive tech support, fullscreen magnifier, high 
contrast theme, different window manager behavior perhaps, etc.), or 
"high visibility" (high contrast, larger versions of fonts, using a font 
selected for easy visibility, simple background), etc.  Or "onscreen 
keyboard user", or ...

Or "laptop user" (fonts/theme suited to LCD display, different power 
settings, etc.) or "presentation (1024 x 768)" with font and theme 
settings that look good when projected, etc.   And of course this would 
be ideal for shared logins like kiosks and libraries etc., you could 
lock down or hide most gconf keys and expose only the 'profiles' 
mechanism, or at least use profiles to re-set the system to reasonable 
defaults if someone tweaks things all weirdly.

regards

Bill

> 1. Strings suck, I know
>
>
> 2. i.e. I believe that activating the "Using computer I've difficulties
> with font size" option, the system should use Sans font at the same size
> everywhere (window border, desktop, applications..)