Re: User Interface of the X Configuration Tool
On 5/29/07, Sebastian Heinlein <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Hello Desktopers, > > the new and shiny GTK frontend to displayconfig (the x configuration > part of the KDE admin suite named guidance) has got some usability > issues. I would like to start a discussion about this to get your input > and comments. Very cool stuff, btw. > > Currently the dialog is separated into three tabs: > > - Display mode (allows to change the resolution, rate of each screen) > - Dual head (allows to configure a dual screen setup) > - Devices (allows to choose drivers and monitor models) I would have a single tab, with a window showing the montor(s) and the settings below that, ala the monitor tab in Windows. One other thing that I would keep from the Window dialog is the ability to display a big "1" and "2" on the monitors, to make it clear which is which. And before you all jump me, I am not suggesting we keep the entire windows dialog, merely those bits. Corey -- ubuntu-desktop mailing list ubuntu-desktop@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-desktop
Re: User Interface of the X Configuration Tool
On Tue, 2007-05-29 at 20:12 +0200, Sebastian Heinlein wrote: > Hello Desktopers, [snip] > > You can get a recent feisty package of displayconfig-gtk here: > > http://glatzor.de/filesink/displayconfig-gtk_0.2 > +20070523ubuntu2_i386.deb Is there a source package or AMD64 by any chance? > > Furthermore some older screenshots can be found on the Internet: > > https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DisplayConfigGTK [ship] signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part -- ubuntu-desktop mailing list ubuntu-desktop@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-desktop
User Interface of the X Configuration Tool
Hello Desktopers, the new and shiny GTK frontend to displayconfig (the x configuration part of the KDE admin suite named guidance) has got some usability issues. I would like to start a discussion about this to get your input and comments. Currently the dialog is separated into three tabs: - Display mode (allows to change the resolution, rate of each screen) - Dual head (allows to configure a dual screen setup) - Devices (allows to choose drivers and monitor models) You can get a recent feisty package of displayconfig-gtk here: http://glatzor.de/filesink/displayconfig-gtk_0.2 +20070523ubuntu2_i386.deb Furthermore some older screenshots can be found on the Internet: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DisplayConfigGTK The problem is that this layout behaves quite bad in the current use case: Setting up a new monitor for dual screen use. At first you have to go to the devices chooser and select another model, then back to the dual head tab and choose the right mode. Most times you will forget to go back to the first tab and change the resolution before clicking ok ang logging off and in. Furthermore it is quite hard to identify monitors on the first tab if you have got more than one graphics card. So the a solution could be to merge the display mode and devices tab to single tabs of which each would represent a single graphics card: http://glatzor.de/filesink/dcg-gfxbase.png If you want to the new/other user interface on your computer (displayconfig-gtk needs to be installed before): bzr branch http://glatzor.de/bzr/displayconfig-gtk/gfxbase/ cd gfxbase ./displayconfig-gtk --data-dir=data There is the objection that identifying screens by graphics cards is quite geeky, since most users only know of the screens that they see and not internal cards. Hopefully most systems would only have got one device. And the people that bought a second card for dual screen are used to the technical terms. If there would be only one device and one output the user would only get one device tab and the screen selector on the left would not show up. So the new interface could scale well. http://glatzor.de/filesink/gfxbase-single.png I am unsure if we should remove the dual head configuration tab at all or only make it insensitive in single screen mode. On the one hand users that connect a second screen later on another computer would know where to search for, but on the other hand users that perhaps for all time will only sit in front of one monitor will be bothered with more technical and complex issues. If the second tab is invisible we could even hide the borders of the notebook or perhaps exchanged them by a separator: http://glatzor.de/filesink/gfxbase-stripped-down.png Although I designed the dialog I am still a little bit confused by the multiple screens layout and I heard this from others too. This could be related to the screen selector. But improving it can be quite hard, since we are limited in space that can be used by the main window and therefor the screen selector: the dialog has to fit on a 640x480 screen. Currently the model name of the screen is available twice: one time in the selector and one time on the device/model chooser. Currently the device chooser label uses ellipsis and therefor does not consume too much space. It would be nice if would not to duplicate this text. Would using numbers for the outputs make more sense? Moving the selector to the top seems to get us into space troubles. By the way the driver name on the lowest selector will be replaced by a human readable and longer name in the future. In the near future I plan to add location/profiles support to the window. That would allow you to manage different X configurations and easily switch between e.g. your home and work setup. See this and the previous screenshot: http://glatzor.de/filesink/gfxbase-profiles.png I would be appreciate your input, comments and suggestions. Regards, Sebastian P.S.: To avoid any XRandR 1.2 questions: Primarily we will use the traditional approach by xorg.conf modifications. But we plan to implement an instant apply function using XRandR 1.2 as far as possible. -- ubuntu-desktop mailing list ubuntu-desktop@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-desktop