Re: Questions regarding Control-Center.

["J. Patrick Narkinsky" <patrick narkinsky ml org>]

On 25 Sep 1998, Owen Taylor wrote:

> Consider what happens when you bring up a capplet, make changes in it,
> and then switch to another capplet, before applying your
> changes. Using notebook tabs for active capplets is an attempt to
> solve a UI flaw in KDE's control panel where unapplied changes can 
> easily be lost.
> 
> Perhaps your objection would be addressed if there was an option such
> that switching away from a capplet with no unapplied changes caused
> that capplet to be closed or hidden. We discussed doing that, but
> decided against making that the default because having notebooks close
> themselves sometimes, but not others probably would be confusing to
> novice users. It could easily be an option in the Preferences.
> (Or could be made the default if it was shown not to be confusing
> in reality)
>  

It seems to me that the best approach would be this: when a capplet is
closed, have it pop up a dialog "This action will lose your changes.  Save
changes now?".  

I haven't looked at the details of how it would work, but I think that's
the correct thing to do from a UI perspective.  I certainly think that
having a 'hidden' capplet open behind the scenes would be a Bad Idea.

Incidentally: do you visualize capplets for non-UI configuration changes?
I.e. a "setup DNS" capplet?  Sorry if this is documented somewhere and I
just haven't found it.

Patrick
 
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If we're to have any luck stanching the vain drain, we just have to 
let nerds be nerds...  Owen Edwards, Forbes Magazine
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