I'm too tired to list all changes i was thinking about but here's a few ideas to throw into the pot - maybe a bit old hat or MS centric - Could all the main sections in the left column be Tabs?
We identified a number of problems with that old control center:
(1) There are too many icons in there - way more that can easily be navigated.
Yep, merge a couple of sections and only show icons for items installed. e.g. Miscellaneous section - rename to System Logs: Move "Release Notes" into the Software section Move "Vendor Driver CD" to Hardware/Drivers section Software Section: Group the "Online Update" "Automatic Online Update" and Online Update Config" programs together Hardware Section - rename to Hardware/Drivers: Move Network Devices into Hardware section Don't show icons for hardware that is not in the system, create an "Add hardware" icon that lauches a module that lists all the possibities System section - rename to System Services: Move "Network Services" into this section Don't show icons for services which are not in the system, create an "Add Service" icon that lauches a moule that lists all the possibities Group related icons together Security and Users Section - Split into 2 sections a) Security and Remote mangement b) User management: Move "Novell AppArmor" into the Security section Move "VNC" into the Security section Move "Kerberos" into the Security section User Section: User Management Group Management Sudo (?)
(2) The groups don't always match users' expectations. (E.g., is firewall more related to security or to network?)
(3) It's hard for newbies to figure out what does what.
(3a) Sometimes it's hard to figure out the difference between modules.
(4) It's often enough hard for expert to find things.
(5) It's not exactly pretty.
Back when we designed that control center, we figured it would do its job fairly well. But that was when we only had a small number of modules. And eye candy was less readily available from the underlying toolkits. Time has changed since then. I counted no less than 119 YaST-related .desktop files on my machine (not counting the groups files). That corresponds to 119 icons that have to be presented somehow. That just doesn't scale any more with the old control center approach.
So in the ideal case we would like to have a completely new approach. This is what that "radical change" was all about.
Maybe there is a different way than just placing a lot of icons in a window (with or without groups) and let the user figure out how to deal with it. Carefully taking care, of course, of all kinds of users, newbies as well as experts.
Failing that, maybe somebody has a good idea how to present the modules traditionally in an icon view, but in a way that does not overwhelm everybody when the window opens (the "show all at once" approach) or that leaves the user searching for the right module at most times (the icon groups or even icon tree approach).
This is what that was all about. This is what we ask your opinions for.
CU -- Stefan Hundhammer <sh@suse.de> Penguin by conviction. YaST2 Development SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, GF: Markus Rex, HRB 16746 (AG Nürnberg) Nürnberg, Germany
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