RE: Desktop Preferences/System Configuration

["Eugenia Loli-Queru" <eloli hotmail com>]

>in terms of a restructure

It might be a good idea to re-categorize the preferences yet again, however
it might also be the right time to rethink the preference system as a whole.
Instead of being a menu I would personally much prefer the way Apple does it
with OSX (and also how Ximian adopted the same idea for XD2). My husdband
while at Be, Inc. also developed a similar way to OSX for its preferences
system in 2001.

I had nothing better to do tonight and so I put a quick mockup together...
Here it is:
http://www.osnews.com/img/5568/prefs.png
Such a system would allow distributions and OSes to include their own
preference launchers in the appropriate categories and would also allow them
create their own categories if needed (for example, in my mockup I have
"System" and the current gnome "Advanced" pref menu put together which might
not be best for all OS products). Third party application developers' pref
launchers would go under "Other". The Preference window would launch
instantly from a menu shortcut in the gnome root menu, no need for nested
submenus. Double-clicking on an icon (preffered size: 32x32) would load its
respective pref panel in its own window.

When I created this mockup earlier I wasn't entirely happy with it because
there are quite a few icons already and distros adding more would just
create yet another "kde control center fiasco". I believe the key to the
problem (in both my mockup and Glynn's effort for menu restructuring) is the
fact that many preference panels should not exist but instead be integrated
on existing panels. For example "Keyboard shortuts", "Multimedia keys",
"Input/Internationalization settings" (or anything else relevant
distributors ship) maybe should be reworked and launch on the same
preference window as the keyboard panel. "Users and Groups" (not included w/
Gnome), "Login Screen Setup", "Login Photo" and anything else relevant
shipped by distributors/OSes should all go under the same panel too somehow
(named "Accounts" probably). Also, "Theme", "Appearance", "Fonts" and maybe
even "Windows", should be integrated in an intelligent way (for example,
notice the accessibility importance that both Fonts and Theme carry, however
they are not part of "Accessibility". GConf might be of help here to let
different preference panels "loan" settings from others).

Currently, I see a lot of fragmentation in the current selection of
preference panels. Someone did a pref panel and then someone else in a
different time and place created a related but not the same panel and
because both were critical for inclusion, they got included with Gnome
instead of restructuring the one to get inside the other and create an
cleaner experience for the user.

Sincerely,
Eugenia