Hello,

SystemSettings has both Apply and Default buttons. Each setting touched has to be Applied or Discarded. I find it a redundant task to have to Apply when I change settings. I can always hit default if I don't like something. What do you guys think?

Thanks.

Every single KCM is designed to run standalone. The system settings are just a wrapper plus navigation for all KCMs. And if you switch from one module to another you have to apply changes therefore (instead of having one Ok on closing the SySe).
Alternatively, you could as well apply any change immediately. However this behavior would rather be known from MacOS. And it makes an undo button necessary to allow the intended forgiveness.

Heiko Tietze wrote:Alternatively, you could as well apply any change immediately. However this behavior would rather be known from MacOS. And it makes an undo button necessary to allow the intended forgiveness.

There is a lot of redundancy is SystemSettings. There is Help in top panel and a help button in left-corner-bottom-panel. There is Default and Undo/Reset. And Apply.

On top of that you have to Apply or Discard even if you haven't actually made any changes. For example, change decorations from Oxygen to Plastik and back to Oxygen and it will ask you to confirm except for the fact that you went from Oxygen to Oxygen. There is no actual value change.

donniezazen wrote:

Heiko Tietze wrote:Alternatively, you could as well apply any change immediately. However this behavior would rather be known from MacOS. And it makes an undo button necessary to allow the intended forgiveness.

There is a lot of redundancy is SystemSettings. There is Help in top panel and a help button in left-corner-bottom-panel. There is Default and Undo/Reset. And Apply.

On top of that you have to Apply or Discard even if you haven't actually made any changes. For example, change decorations from Oxygen to Plastik and back to Oxygen and it will ask you to confirm except for the fact that you went from Oxygen to Oxygen. There is no actual value change.

Things like the double 'help' are already being looked at in the system-settings push (I believe). The systemsettings tool is just a wrapper, and right now it's being redesigned.

On the latter issue it's more of a technical challenge; when a value is changed it marks it as 'dirty', but when you change back it can't necessarily re-mark it as 'clean' because of how varied the KCMs are. Ultimately the confirmation dialog isn't perfect and can be 'fooled' easily into thinking there are changes, and it takes a 'safe than sorry' approach. There are fixes, but the work involved is impractical for the payoff and adds significant complexity. For the current infrastructure in place, I think asking to confirm a 'non-change' isn't terrible. It's just one of those things that can't be realistically looked at until 'down the road'.

As Heiko mentioned settings could be immediately applied, but the issue with that is the fact that several options are 'dangerous', so ultimately only a few things (like changing wallpapers) could be applied immediately without risk. So it still doesn't solve the issue as a whole.