decentralising options

[Joschi <joschi-gnome eds org>]

There seem to be two camps of people when it comes to user configurabile
options.  Some think the best interfaces are those that follow the One
True Way method (Mac) and some think that everyone should be able to
chose
their own path in every detail (Enlightenment).  I tend to aggree with
the
E crowd, but I can see the point that having endless screens of
configurable options is unwieldy and overwelming.  I still don't know
what
half the options in pine do (but am glad they are there).  I was
sitting here thinking about this and realised that i think that the main
issue is the attempt to centralise endless option in one place, i.e. the
control center.  Perhaps it would be better to have more extensice use
of
context sensitive properties menus per widget to distribute the options
in
more meaningful places? 

For example, a while back someone suggested mimicing the Win98 taskbar
where it minimises the topmost widnow if you click on the icon for it.
Some people would love this, but it would bother me.  But if we had
options for every detail like this in the control center I'm not sure I
could find it.  Wouldn't it great to be able to right click on that
widget, go to the properties menu and select that option?

Perhaps the tree system that the CC uses now will handle cutting down
the ammount of information fine, but I fear it could turn into a windows
registry like mess.

Does anyone agree, or is this a non issue for most of you?

---
Joshua W. H. Steiner - joschi@eds.org - http://eds.org/~joschi

"Either that wallpaper goes or I do."
  - Oscar Wilde, last words