Control Center must-fix draft

[Seth Nickell <snickell stanford edu>]

========Interaction / Organization Issues=========

1) The confusing "[Try] [Revert] [OK] [Cancel]" system has been replaced
by [OK] [Cancel]. The
problem is that the user's ability to preview changes has been lost,
reverting us to Windows 3.1
preferences dialogue functionality. To get a taste for what they are
changing users must make
all their changes and then exit the dialogue by pressing [OK].

After some discussion, and a re-evaluation of the existing dialogue
proposal, we propose the
control center use "[Help]         [Undo] [Done]". Help is optional, but
of course desirable.
Undo only undoes the last change. Done closes the dialogue. All
preferences should take effect
as soon as the user changes them.

Previews of many changes may be unnecessary since the Control Center
preference panes are
not modal, and their changes take effect immediately. That means users
can try them in the
area they are interested as soon as the change is made.

2) Sawfish preferences need to be completely reworked. Most of the
options should go away, or
be deprecated into an "advanced user" system (even that is of dubious
value for many of Sawfishs'
options). The user should not be exposed to the notion of the "Window
Manager". That means that
most of the remaining sawfish preferences will need to find better homes
than "Window Manager".
What is "window cycling", "shade hover", "miscellaneous", "matched
windows", etc ?!?

3) Default applications needs to use the same "backend" as the File
Types & Programs capplet.
It should be a beginner's window into the same settings as file types &
programs sets. That also
means that File Types & Programs needs to be extented to include URL
handlers.

4) We assume the Sawfish appearance capplet will go away in favour of
metathemer.

5) Capplets should have their name in the window title bar

6) The bell settings under keyboard should be in sound, or at least
better explained (it took
us a while to figure out what the heck that tab was for). Better yet,
the bell tab should
be removed altogether or moved into the cracklets section of the control
center.

7) The sound capplet as it stands today should be removed. Having a
beginning user preference
for "enable sound server startup" is archane. If it really needs to
exist (yes, I have toggled
this myself, because libesd is broken and causes applications to hang if
it finds a broken
server...a fix is in CVS so we just need a release of libesd) it should
be in the cracklet section.
(That said, I can think of useful things to have in a sound capplet, its
just that the existing
items aren't it :-)

8) The HTML Viewer should not be in the main section. In fact, it should
use GTK+ font preferences
by default, and probably shouldn't exist at all. How can the user know
what changing "HTML viewer"
will change? It probably won't change their web browser, but it'll
change applications like 
Evolution. That's an archane technical detail, don't expose it. Its ok
if we find a more
general way to express this that controls other similar text (not just
GtkHTML text) and have
a central place to set fonts.

=========Icon Issues========

1) The "Main" icon currently uses a body part. Body parts (hands, arms,
feet, heads, eyes) should
be avoided because various cultures will find them offensive or
insensitive. In user testing the
toolbox icon faired well, so perhaps either a toolbox or just a tool
itself should be focused
on. There is really no need for the hand (plus the way the hand is
holding the wrench looks
very agressive).

2) Background Icon is hard to understand. "It looks like a tiny drawer
is overlayed over the
monitor" is what Suz perceived the icon to be. We suggest having a
simple monitor with a
background suggesting an image, and a simple window open on the desktop
to differentiate it
from the screensaver icon. Also, the monitor doesn't look very much like
most monitors, it
looks more like a Mac Classic or an iMac (rounded edges, no stand, big
area for buttons), 
but that is a minor gripe. The paintbucket isn't a bad idea, but it
would be better to have it 
a little larger. We suggest having a simpler monitor (buttons on the
face etc are extraneous) 
that looks more "right" shapewise, with a flower background (tigert's
daisy background would 
work nicely), and perhaps a simple window floating above it (perhaps
not, not sure how it 
will look), and a large drippy paint-bucket in front of the monitor
(perhaps with the handle
of a paintbrush sticking out of it or something).

3) The Default Applications icon looks like the classic installer icon.
The imagery of the
floppy and the CD communicates user installation more than "selection of
applications to
fufill particular tasks". The name is also not entirely clear.

4) Screensaver Icon. The floating hand is bad for the same reason as
(1), however even aside
from that I don't understand what this icon is communicating. We suggest
using something similar
to the logout icon. In user testing many users guessed that the logout
icon was in fact to
activate a screensaver. The stars/moon look has already been used in
other environments to
suggest screensaver, and users are familiar with it so we suggest
perpetuating that. Same
suggestion on making the monitor look more like a monitor.