Re: control center plans, etc.

[Jonathan Blandford <jrb redhat com>]

Chema Celorio <chema ximian com> writes:

> On 20 Jun 2001 11:44:38 +0100, Dick Porter wrote:
> > On Tue, Jun 19, 2001 at 07:16:03PM -0400, Havoc Pennington wrote:
> > > 
> > > Hi,
> > > 
> > > I'm considering implementing a simplified control panel scheme as
> > > discussed in this thread:
> > > 
> > >   http://lists.eazel.com/pipermail/nautilus-list/2001-May/003210.html
> > > 
> > > Basically there are just a few simple features:
> > > 
> > 
> > I think the whole control centre concept needs a complete revamp.
> > 
> > Instead of just being able to tweak settings of individual components,
> > there ought to be "task-based" settings too. For example "set up desktop"
> > would start with colour schemes and themes, gmc or nautilus, some settings
> > for the file manager, and maybe some panel configs; another task might be
> > "set up palm pilot", which would do the device config then go through
> > conduits.
> 
> I am not sure about this for the timeframe we want to do it. I think
> this should be revisited after we have a control center that is beeing
> used out there. Windows XP removed the "task based" control center from
> their previous beta for some reason (or at least we could not find it
> anymore), maybe it didn't worked well in usability testing.

I know I found it fairly confusing.  There were three or four ways to
get to the same little popup window, with varying degrees of
indirection, and for a more complicated task (configuring hardware) it
took like 5 or 6 clicks to find things.

I think a better plan is something like a help application with a bunch
of User FAQs that show the user how to do things/take them to the actual
dialog.

Thanks,
-Jonathan