Klaus Kaempf wrote:

"Then, either integrate all the KDE Control Center desktop/theme/artwork elements into YAST or - my preferred option - lose the Control Center duplicates from YAST... but don't have both! YAST is excellent for handling hardware but by overloading it with all these other functions, its developers have created a monster. YAST has become too VAST (Very Awkward Setup Tool)."

http://www.raiden.net/?cat=2&aid=376

--- SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, GF: Markus Rex, HRB 16746 (AG Nürnberg)

That guys doesn't do a difference between user preferences and system management tasks. None of kcontrol tasks require root. A user can live without yast, but not without kcontrol, the opposite is false. Duncan -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: yast-devel+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: yast-devel+help@opensuse.org

On Wed, 2008-02-13 at 11:58 +0100, Duncan Mac-Vicar Prett wrote:

Klaus Kaempf wrote:

...

"Then, either integrate all the KDE Control Center desktop/theme/artwork elements into YAST or - my preferred option - lose the Control Center duplicates from YAST... but don't have both! YAST is excellent for handling hardware but by overloading it with all these other functions, its developers have created a monster. YAST has become too VAST (Very Awkward Setup Tool)."

http://www.raiden.net/?cat=2&aid=376

--- SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, GF: Markus Rex, HRB 16746 (AG Nürnberg)

That guys doesn't do a difference between user preferences and system management tasks.

That distinction is often not very clear either and often is a reflection of the underlying technology - printers being a good example - rather than how the users uses them. Also a role based yast that allowed users to "sync" their user preferences to the system (for instance timezone) would eliminate some problems Timezone: Europe/London [x] Make this timezone the system default Or something to that effect. -JP -- JP Rosevear Novell, Inc. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: yast-devel+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: yast-devel+help@opensuse.org

On Wednesday 13 February 2008 17:57, JP Rosevear wrote:

...

That guys doesn't do a difference between user preferences and system management tasks.

That distinction is often not very clear either

Regrettably, yes. It can be hard to understand for users why setting the system time is a privileged operation -- until they get it explained. Yet, that doesn't change the fact that there is such a distinction between per-user settings and system settings. And this is what those two different kinds of control centers reflect.

and often is a reflection of the underlying technology - printers being a good example - rather than how the users uses them.

Well, where do we draw the line? The user of a standalone home PC with one printer can rightfully claim that this is HIS printer and that he can do whatever he pleases with it, so it doesn't make sense for him to acquire root privileges to administrate that printer. That printer might also be a network printer because it's so much more comfortable to work with the laptop from the living room couch and work over Wi-Fi. It's still his, and he's still the boss. See where this is heading? Printer...network... all of a sudden, you find yourself in a corporate environment where things get administered in a lot less anarchic ways. There must be rules and order. System settings vs. user settings are coming back with a vengeance. You see, in a simple example everything is - well - simple. Who would have guessed. But that's not the real world.

Also a role based yast

Apart from that increasingly becoming a buzzword (with an extra score of bingo points), exactly how would it help? Do we abandon all privileges and permissions, becoming much more Windows-like in the process? (And inviting all kinds of intruders, of course?) Or do we still at least tell the user that whatever he is about to do is a privileged operation and ask at least his confirmation (not necessarily his password or a special "I, the XY subsystem admin" password)? I'd be mighty pissed if some too-clever software would simply install some piece of software without asking me while I am surfing the web, just because I happen to also be a "can install software" sub-admin. Adios, security. So yes, very, very likely (hopefully nobody here argues this) we still have to at least ask for confirmation. But that again means showing that evil system vs. user distinction. I vote for being honest. There are things that are system related, and we should not try to disguise that fact. It's OK to make things easier, but please let's not try to be too clever. The user (in his capacity as administrator) has the last word. Yes, for some users this will be a learning curve. On the downside, they will have to learn new concepts. On the plus side, they will be more knowledgeable afterwards.

that allowed users to "sync" their user preferences to the system (for instance timezone) would eliminate some problems

Timezone: Europe/London [x] Make this timezone the system default

IIRC we only have that distinction between system clock on UTC vs. system clock on local time so that a parallel-bootable Windows doesn't get confused. If you don't have Windows on that machine, leave the system default (UTC), preferably also set up NTP, and you can set your desktop to whatever time zone you like. That "system default" time zone you described above would be another workaround around somebody else's (Windows) problem. CU -- Stefan Hundhammer Penguin by conviction. YaST2 Development SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, GF: Markus Rex, HRB 16746 (AG Nürnberg) Nürnberg, Germany -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: yast-devel+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: yast-devel+help@opensuse.org

On 13/02/2008, Duncan Mac-Vicar P. wrote:

I completely agree,

But I don't think mixing kcontrol with YaST is the way to go. You can't say YaST is a monster and suggest to make it even more confusing.

YaST is right now complex because a desktop user does not care about having the cluster setup together (or at the same level of importance / visibility) with setting up a printer or adding a software repository, and that is what we have to fix.

It is important to organise the modules well, In my opinion, though ,the fact that: - It is implemented with YaST platform - It requires administrator privileges Should not dictate where the user finds some particular configuration options within the desktop, as neither are things that are immediately obvious. At the moment if the user wants to change the time he or she has to either realise that it is a YaST module, or that it requires root privileges and so decide to look in YaST control centre to find the option. With something like kiwi it's less obvious that either condition applies. Just because some things require higher privileges should not dictate the users' workflow. Authorisation can be obtained when required, preferably as late as possible. I suspect the only way to actually find where the best place to expose settings is is to sit some people without even knowledge of the existence of YaST down at a blank desktop with some configuration tasks, and see where they try and locate them. -- Benjamin Weber -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: yast-devel+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: yast-devel+help@opensuse.org

Dne Thursday 14 February 2008 11:41:24 Andreas Jaeger napsal(a):

Just one caveat: Please keep non-GNOME/KDE systems in mind. On systems with plain X or only a text console you want to reach everything and not lose functionality that is currently duplicated with the desktop control centers,

Well, if one does not want to waste disk space with installing GNOME/KDE libs (s)he does not need for any other purpose and yet use X + some lightweight WM (windowmaker, icewm), maybe we could adjust our scripts to start graphical version of plain old text-mode menu, as you can see on attached screenshot And since we now support adding icons to various widgets, to beautify this menu we could possibly append the smallest size icon to each of those selection box items. Just a thought ... frozenB. -- \\\\\ Katarina Machalkova \\\\\\\__o YaST developer __\\\\\\\'/_ & hedgehog painter

How much work is to create such version? I would like to see how that works.

Uh, I did not expect somebody could actually like the idea ;-) Adding icons to the items is trivial. Tweaking /sbin/yast script to start graph. version of text-mode menu if we have neither GNOME nor KDE desktop is probably not that trivial, but still doable Maybe I could try to put modified control center for non-KDE/non-GNOME users to some of the alphas and see how people like it. It is very simple to revert the change if they don't ... B. -- \\\\\ Katarina Machalkova \\\\\\\__o YaST developer __\\\\\\\'/_ & hedgehog painter