Panel Configuration

What:
The panel is just the bar that usually appears along the bottom of the screen. It holds the K-menu, the clock, buttons for quickly running programs, the taskbar and often much more.

Naturally the panel has many configuration options. These are accessable via the KDE Control Center under "LookNFeel"->"Panel" or via the K-menu, "Configure panel"->"Preferences..." menu item.

Inside the KDE project the panel is known as the Kicker.

The Problem:
The KDE Usability Team felt that the configuration dialog box was often cluttered, poorly laidout, overly complex and with poor text labels.

Also support for new features targetted for KDE 3.1 needed to be added.

The Solution
Each configuration tab for the Panel was put through an iterative process of redesign, critisism, and refinement on the KDE Usability mailing list. Different designs were made and presented on the mailing list where people could discuss the pros and cons and also suggest improvements and different ideas which were then tried out and integrated into the new design.

Below are screenshots showing the original tabs on the panel configuration dialog box along with the new design.

Position Tab

Original	Improved
Click on the images to view at full size in a popup.

The most obvious change to the position tab is the addition of custom widget graphically shows the position and alignment of the panel on the screen, instead of using radio-buttons and text as per the old design. Instead of using text and expecting the user to mentally visualise the effect of the current configuration, the new design simply shows it to the user.

Look & Feel Tab

Original	Improved
Click on the images to view at full size in a popup.

The main improvement in the new design over the old one is a much simplier and less crowded layout. Also in the old design there was no easy way to quickly scan through the list of available background images without having to manually selecting each one in turn using the pulldown list. The new design solves this problem by placing a preview of the each background image directly in the pulldown list itself. Now the list of available background images can be quickly scanned by just opening the pulldown list. This also had the effect of saving space and eliminating clutter.

Hiding Tab

Original	Improved
Click on the images to view at full size in a popup.

The original tab is very busy and cluttered. Apart from a general clean up, and improved text, the follow specific changes were made:

Having two "Hide Animation" controls ("Manual" and "Automatic") was found to be one too many. These two controls were combined into just one.
"Hide Button Size" was removed from the tab completely on the grounds that very few users need it. It is still configurable though by modifying a config file.
Support for the different Hide Modes that will appear in KDE 3.1 was added.

Menus Tab

Original	Improved
Click on the images to view at full size in a popup.

The ability to choose the format of items in the K menu has been added in the new design. Although it may not appear so, the improved design actually contains more functionality that the original. The complexity of the original has been greatly reduced by using more appropriate user interface components and by combining previously several components into one. For example, "Maximum browser menu entries" is now just a single spin box, and all of the controls for the different kinds of menus have been combined into a single list.

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