Re: [Usability] desktop lacks "Display properties" or " Screensaver - Power" options on right-click context menu

[Jacob Beauregard <jake13jake comcast net>]

On Monday 23 April 2007 04:39:57 am Ross Burton wrote:
> On Sun, 2007-04-22 at 17:23 +0530, shirish agarwal wrote:
> > ok, see the thing is simple. The panel is too full to accommodate 2
> > more icons.
>
> It doesn't need to.  If someone does a particular task very frequently,
> they can add applets/launchers to the panel.  If that is the case, the
> space on the panel is well used.
>
> > In fact I'm of the opinion that we need to somehow open up the
> > right-click context menu so users should be able to put any
> > capplets/launchers they use quite a bit.
>
> That is what the desktop and panels are for.

What would be the problem with giving more flexibility to the interface of 
something as basic as desktop management, as a whole?

>
> > A lot of people like me who come from windows would be looking for
> > things in familiar places.
>
> We don't cater for Windows users, we cater for GNOME users.

You offer an argument similar to not using a QWERTY board. Why do we have an 
icon of a floppy disk for saving anyway? My laptop doesn't have a drive for 
that :(.

The question is, what is the familiarity of most GNOME users? Is it in Windows 
or in GNOME itself? Do GNOME users even utilize the right-click context menu, 
and would adding such an element to that context menu be a constraint to the 
GNOME population?

Chill out, and at least pretend you actually know what you're doing.

Note that added flexibility would make the questions above a little bit less 
relevant (though, I'd still probably leave it to Windows-Wannabe distros to 
modify their own default settings to accommodate their users).

>
> > The modesetting display capplet in notification tray, the whole of
> > display properties so one can change things on the fly, seeing a
> > movie, seeing a .pdf etc. hence atleast to me it makes sense.
>
> Why would you change resolution manually when you want a movie, or read
> a PDF?  I'm still struggling to see a use-case for frequent resolution
> changes.  I change resolution relatively frequently (when I connect my
> external monitor), but I have a tool which changes resolution, font
> size, wallpaper and so on in a single keypress.

Yea, I've got that external monitor case, too. There are also a few games that 
like to add constraints to the resolution you can use.

>
> > I find it extremely challenging to traverse through 3 menus in order
> > to get a simple thing done, hence if the display capplet is there
> > which has everything from brightness, contrast,
> > resolution-modesetting, themes etc. it would be pretty cool
>
> Brightness and contrast are monitor settings, GNOME can't control those.

Would a device driver possibly have control over these?

>
> That leaves resolution and theme.  Thomas Wood is working on an
> Appearance capplet which covers themes, colours, and fonts.  I've been
> planning on adding ICC profile selection to the Resolution capplet which
> would make it a Display capplet.

If I wanted to switch my res from 1680x1050 to 1280x1024, would GNOME be 
responsible for handling when my screen gets stretched rather than certain 
parts getting ignored (I really doubt it, but such a thing could probably be 
hacked anyway).

>
> Ross