Many of you have probably seen the new touchpad settings for Kubuntu (if not HERE YA GO) which will improve the lot for many users with laptops who fiddle with strange settings right now.



The issue is layout, icons and systems - design a better way to handle settings - align the various settings to one way of doing it and unifying the various boxes present.

The leading dev is Alexander Mezin mezin dot alexander at gmail dot com or you could talk to Rohan Garg directly (the blogpost above)

Ideas and suggestions for a better layout? Post them here and remember to report in!

Ok since no one has dared suggest anything - I might as well do a dirty sketchup of an idea for it. Now remember this is just a sketch to show what I suggest should be done.

First off the Advanced Settings and Test Area are hidden. You inflate them by clicking next to the text and having only the basic settings visible from scratch. Instead of having two separate areas for Pointer Motion and Sensitivity those two are squeezed into one called "Motion".

Adding images and connecting bits that are related by space instead of boxing (like the box borders around the separate areas in the original) the interface can be made to look a tad more welcoming.



In the Advanced bit I removed the sliders. Milliseconds are to most of us completely arbitrary numbers with no real relevance in our lives so having a dropdown menu with "Very Slow", "Slow", "Medium", "Fast" and "Very Fast" made more sense PLUS it makes the settings in different parts of the whole more alike. Instead of mixing sliders, numbers and dropdown menu's I just used Dropdown menu's and semantics instead of numbers.

Another thing I did was to create a sort of insentive to test it. Drag the little happy dude to his home and scroll to reveal Konqi seemed more friendly and and positive. also notice that its not like I blew an insane amount of time on this beyond thinking on improvements - its not very pretty or correct (Like Drag instead of Scroll on Konqi) but it serves as a sketch and example of my ideas



So thats my suggestion... Now to contact Rohan and see what he thinks and if he likes the idea we can go from there - if not, well at least I know I donated a tad of my time to better KDE.

I haven't had a good look at this module yet. But I'm wondering if the first tab should just have all the main settings (maybe just call it 'General'), that the majority of the people will need to change, and the the other tabs could house the advanced settings for each of the other things?

I'm also wondering whether the testing area should be a permanent block underneath the main tab block, so they are both separate. That way you could adjust the settings in any of the tabs and test straight away underneath, rather than having to flick back to front tab? Unless the testing area is only for the features on the front tab.

What program did you use to do the mockups btw?

Oh this is was made in gimp since it was just a quick doodle - sometimes I use inkscape.

Thats a great idea - it makes sense putting ALL the generals in one and call the rest Advanced Scroll or Advanced Click...

So, I've been having a play around in Qtcreator (I seem to be learning new skills being part of this board!)

Very, very early results but here they are.

I think I might be able to cut the module down into just two tabs, though I'd really like to use your graphics Jens, so it might have to be three tabs.

I'm going to work on it some more tomorrow night, but early feedback would be appreciated.

Hahaha well aren't we a reneissance man? To be honest, and this is just my personal taste of course, I prefer to avoid the sliders and just use terms like "Slow" and "fast" for things (in for example the pointer speed). Just to keep the same sort of interaction for all parts of it and make it easier and more consistent. I would also, if possible make more room for every section - make it a tad more airy.

But awesome! Five thumbs up for the General/Advanced settings and twelve thumbs up for the fact that you taught yourself QTcreator

Here is my mockup. The goal would be to provide basic settings in a clear and not overwhelming fashion while providing all the advanced buttons and sliders - even with numerical values if needed - in an advanced tabs. This way, newcomers and lazy people like myself would be able to find the minimal settings we want while advanced users would be pleased by a multitude of sliders and knobs.
http://procrastinationfactory.com/owncloud/public.php?service=files&t=ac97dd0ef9b89bf70fade4220fc173fa

Way-hay! Kudos for the Windows 95 look vincentt. I was going to go with Motif, but I chickened out at the last minute.

I think we can all agree that splitting it into General and Advanced tabs is a good idea, it is also consistent with the mouse module. I'm wondering though if there is enough room in the advanced tab on your mockup for the rest of the settings?

I'm still not sold on having the testing area on the right hand side If I'm honest, most of the other testing / example areas in the systems settings are horizontal.

Anyway, you've given me a few ideas so I will re-work my mockup tomorrow (I was meant to do it on Sunday, but alas, the hours slipped by). Perhaps we can begin to find some more common ground?

Well, as for the win95 look, I did this at work on an old PC runing windows xp...
I will post a follow up regarding the advanced tab. I agree with moving the testing area at the bottom of the page, maybe hidden by default ? The testing area of Ubuntu is quite nice, too.

Here is an updated mockup.
For the sensitive souls here, I previewed it in Cleanlooks style.
First, the advanced tab :

The scroll areas in the preview picture would grow or shrink according to the value selected, and for the palm detection, the orange zone would grow with the range setting and change opacity with the pressure setting.
Next is the Basic Settings tab. The test area is not shown and would pop up when clicking the test button :

The test widget would display an interactive picture (I forgot to add a drag test in this example) :



I may not have put every imaginable setting in the advanced tab, but I think it is starting to get quite complete.

Whoa, I especially like the last design

IMHO the idea is not to stuff every concievable setting into the KCM, but the settings that a user is most likely to use, so it's entirely possible that there are settings in the KCM that are corner cases and can be dropped.

Thanks for all your mockups!

Cheers
Rohan Garg