Hey there!

First of all, you guys made KDE 5 the best experience I've ever had with Linux (and I've used Linux for almost 14 years now, having tested almost every DE and distro available) on the desktop! Nevertheless, there's always room for improvement, so I thought of finally contributing back to you guys somehow.

In the last five years, I became a software developer (working mainly with Java EE for large industrial automation application here in Brazil, for some large companies) and since I now feel capable enough to venture into the Linux desktop development world, having developed a few small projects myself, I though KDE would be a good place to start, being my favorite DE.

So, as for the design part. Although I'm an advanced user (and KDE suits me very well because of this), I've ever read and heard complaints of KDE being very complicated. By 'complicated' the users I've discussed this with usually mean KDE has soooooooooooo many options it feels like too much to process at once.

On the other hand, we have the "newbie-friendlier" (I don't think it's actually true, keep on reading) smartphone-like DE's like what GNOME has become since version 3, Elementary's Pantheon, the confunsing mess that's Ubuntu's Unity (which has some merits as fas as usability goes, when you get used to it), etc. These, besides being based on GTK rather than Qt, differ from KDE in that they expose much less options/functionality to the user in the GUI. That makes those DE's feel easier to use at first glance. I disagree in that the options should be exposed to the user using the GUI (the user should not need to go to the command line to adjust trivial stuff like their laptop's touchpad sensitivity, etc.) but I don't think that exposing them all at once like KDE does is comfortable for them and it may drive people away from KDE because it's complicated.

And then, we have Windows. What do I think of Windows? Well, the Windows experience in the old times was fairly similar to the KDE experience in that the options were mostly exposed in the GUI, little to no commands had to be typed in the CLI to get things done. Of course KDE was (and is) superior in many, many aspects and was (and is) much more customizable, but there's something Windows has always done that made me feel comfortable with its settings screens (most of the time) which was the (in)famous Advanced settings buttons. Yes, that might add a click or two to perform some actions, but it also makes sense. It exposes just the most commonly used options to the regular user at the same time as it does not hinder the intermediate/advanced user's capability to change more advanced settings using the GUI. At the same time, it's also possible for the beginner to easily explore the interface and become a intermediate user just as quickly as exposing all the options at once.

So, I propose KDE takes a similar approach. Instead of overloading the user with options at every screen, make things simples and move the more advanced stuff to an Advanced Settings window/tab/dialog/page/thing. I may mock up some screens I would change later when I get home.

(This would also fix the few cases where some windows are too large to fit the standard screen resolution of 1366x768 pixels found in most laptops out there).

https://community.kde.org/KDE_Visual_De ... G/Settings

Actually the HIG for settings allready recomends "advanced" settings

fabianr wrote:https://community.kde.org/KDE_Visual_Design_Group/HIG/Settings

Actually the HIG for settings allready recomends "advanced" settings

So, is it already planned for implementation at some point?