User Interface of the X Configuration Tool

[Sebastian Heinlein]

Am Donnerstag, den 31.05.2007, 20:07 +0200 schrieb Denis Washington:

> Hello Sebastian,
> 
> I like your newest version of the layout very much, great job! :)
> 
> However, I have one question about the dialog: why isn't it 
> instant-apply like the most GNOME dialogs? I guess this has technical 
> reasons, but it would be great if the dialog could be made instant-apply 
> to better fit into gnome (with guards like timeouts after resolution 
> changes, naturally).
> 
> Regards,
> Denis

Hi Denis,

as outlined in the previous mails XRandR is not at the state where we
would require it.

Some caplets try to hide that they cannot do instant applying by just
replacing the apply|cancel|ok buttons by a close or additional an apply
button. But I don't think that this is a good design decision.

Instant applying means to change e.g. the resolution as soon as you move
the slider. This would be great, but it would require really stable
drivers, devices, extensions and server. Since you cannot detect all
failed configurations from the software side, you always depend on user
feedback. But how should this be gathered? Should the user always hit a
special key on his keyboard and if he or she stops hitting the key we
would revert all changes? It just makes sense to apply all changes at
one time and to only ask for user feedback one time. And this is called
explicit apply.

There is currently a Google S.o.C. project about including XRandR 1.2
into GNOME. Here is the blog of the student: http://www.pascals.ca/

Having a working and reliable tool is the highest priority. Currently we
don't have got a tool for the x configuration at all, so even a very
basic tool would still be a great win.

Cheers,

Sebastian