Re: System Settings Overview Design

[Rodrigo Moya <rodrigo gnome-db org>]

On mié, 2011-10-26 at 12:58 +0100, Allan Day wrote:
> On Mon, Oct 24, 2011 at 5:31 PM, Allan Day <allanpday gmail com> wrote:
> > On Mon, Oct 24, 2011 at 3:23 PM, Bastien Nocera <hadess hadess net> wrote:
> >> On Mon, 2011-10-24 at 12:57 +0100, Allan Day wrote:
> > ...
> >>> I've also heard it discussed that we're not going to show some
> >>> hardware panels if they're not needed, such as the graphics tablet
> >>> panel. Can I ask what the plan is there?
> >>
> >> The plan would be to hide hardware based panels where the hardware isn't
> >> readily available. For example, we would hide the Wacom panel if no
> >> Wacom tablets were plugged in and none were configured via Bluetooth.
> >>
> >> We would still show those hidden panels in the search results, as a way
> >> of discovering the settings, if needed.
> > ...
> >
> > Thanks for the info. According to my calculations [1], you might end
> > up with anywhere between 7 and 13 panels in the hardware section,
> > then. Is that right?
> >
> > The reason I ask is that that kind of variation is difficult to have
> > in a fixed grid and still look nice.
> 
> It's the dynamic content in combination with grouping that's the real
> killer for the layout. I've been thinking about this, and I've started
> to wonder whether the groups are really that helpful. I know I don't
> find them very useful, and I'd be surprised if other people do. They
> can also be misleading.
> 
> I've done a mockup for a group-less settings overview [1], and it
> seems like a big improvement. The regular layout seems to help with
> spatial memory, and the larger icons make identification much easier.
> It also looks nicer.
> 
it indeed looks nicer, and it's true that the grouping, at least to me,
looks confusing, as you have to search through the groupings instead of
just alphabetically. So +1 from me