Re: [Usability] user levels, etc.

[Steven Farrier <webmaster xke com>]

I thought I would give you all another perceptive on this whole issue on the 
number of settings in the Gnome Control Center. I have been using Debian-sid 
with Gnome/Sawfish as desktop for the past 5 months.  I thought the Gnome 
Control Center is fulled of tons and tons of worthless settings. When I think 
of a Control Center I think of Display Settings, Network Settings, stuff like 
that. Some of the things in the Control Center are useful like File Types and 
Programs, URL Handlers, Keyboard, Mice. But alot of it is just adjusting "eye 
candy". BTW I am aware that Ximian Setup Tools is making progress on things 
like Network Settings and Display Settings.

I have gone through changed several of these settings. But it seems the 
reason I was changing them is because the some of the defaults are terrible.

I changed the theme, in the default theme you have those terrible check and 
selection boxes. The Raleigh theme is supposed to be what Gnome 2.0 will look 
like, it is much better :).

Another problem was the windows would cover the bottom task bar so I managed 
to find the settings which makes the task bar always on top. But doing this 
caused the menu bar on top would sometimes cover the top window bars. If that 
happened it was not possible to move the window. Another problem with the 
menu bar gnome puts on top is that I often when I want to go to the window 
menu I would find myself going to the top menu bar instead because they look 
so similar.  I just ended up removing the top menu bar.

Another problem was when I created a new window the new window would appear 
slightly below and to the right of the original. This would be a problem 
because often this meant that most of the windows controls would be outside 
of the screen. I fixed this by making the display title buttons mimic Mac OS 
X. The Mac OS X buttons are all on the left side. This made sure those 
buttons were on the screen.

The Last problem I had was the Tasklist would group together one apps windows 
into one if that app had more then three windows. If I had four windows I 
then had to find my way through that menu. I would suggest you make this 
limit ten.