Re: Control center and capplet merging

[Calum Benson <Calum Benson Sun COM>]

On Tue, 2005-07-01 at 13:36 +0200, Luca Ferretti wrote:


> This is a personal "taste", and I suppose you are an experienced
> computer users as everyone on this mailing list.

Yes, that's true.  Probably more than most, given my advanced age :)


>  The last time i opened
> the Font capplet to change something was... humm.. 2 years ago...

Well, I guess my point was kind of that I never go there either,  
except when I first install GNOME/Linux, because the default font is  
invariably too big for my tastes.  And I usually want to change the  
theme at the same time, and then leave that alone pretty much  
indefinitely, too.  But you're right, some people probably want to  
play with such things more often, and more independently.  I guess we  
just really need to be sure that we know how many, before we  
undertake any major new design.


> 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, it's worked for Windows and MacOS in the past (although OSX  
doesn't actually allow you to globally change your font at all any  
more).  Admittedly they aren't/weren't actually called "Appearance"  
there, IIRC, but "Display" or "Display and Appearance", or similar.

FWIW, the average (or sub-average) user probably doesn't really know  
what a "Font" is either, unless they do a lot of word processing.


> 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.

Yes, I think we've needed something like this for a while.  A while  
ago we were thinking more along the lines of a wizard, to avoid the  
slight usability misgivings I have about having more than one capplet  
adjusting the same settings.  But either way, I think a 'one-stop  
accessibility shop' is probably worth having.

Cheeri,
Calum.

--
CALUM BENSON, Usability Engineer       Sun Microsystems Ireland
mailto:calum benson sun com            Java Desktop System Group
http://ie.sun.com                      +353 1 819 9771

Any opinions are personal and not necessarily those of Sun Microsystems