Re: Replacing control center menus

[Steven Brown <swjb interchange ubc ca>]

Dan Winship wrote:
> On Wed, 2006-12-13 at 13:36 +0000, Calum Benson wrote:
> > On Tue, 2006-12-12 at 14:51 -0700, Scott Reeves wrote:
> > > I find the filter feature significantly helps with the “too many
> > > capplets” issue.  One strength of the new shell is it dynamically
> > > displays the filtered list of choices as you type (and <enter>
> > > launches when you are down to one).
> > As I commented yesterday, this can actually be counter-productive, as it
> > means you don't get to learn the initial position of the icon you're
> > looking for so you can just find it visually the next time.
>
> Are you actually likely to use any given capplet enough times that you'd
> be able to remember where it was between uses? From what I remember of
> OS X, I always had to look around a bit to find the capplet I was
> looking for.
>
> Also, I don't remember if we're looking at including the SLED
> application browser as well, but it works exactly the same way as the
> control center does wrt searching, and doing highlighting rather than
> filtering wouldn't work well at all there (since there are several pages
> of apps).
>
> -- Dan

I recall from my Windows days that I had to look through the entire list 
manually each time.  Not fun... especially when there weren't any 
categories.  Also, the position could change with the addition or 
removal of items.  I think it's more important for the user to learn the 
category that the capplet is in, and looking at the screenshots, it 
looks like the filter results are displayed under their respective category.

It might also be nice to have some sort of indication that new capplets 
have been installed and a one-click filter to show them.

It also looks like it does not just search the name, but has some sort 
of tagging.  From the screenshots, typing "keyb" will display the 
capplet named "Shortcuts."  I think this is also good, as it may teach 
the user of *related* settings they can change, and give them a shorter 
list to look through if they cannot find what they're looking for in the 
initial capplet.

Oh and hi.  :)  First time poster, long time lurker.  This is, I 
believe, my first post on this list.

-- Steve