It might be just me, but in case it’s not I’ll leave this here for others to chime in. To me, the KDE desktop system settings seem potentially rather confusing for many, especially for beginners, and I commonly hear complaints from friends navigating the KDE settings.
I think a big reason is the sorting. Some of the grouping seems to be “technically true if you think about it as a technical person”, like “Recent Files” and “User Feedback” being in a section starting with “Security”, and other examples. Some groups also seem to be too large and general.
Here’s some ideas to perhaps improve the situation:
Split “Input & Output” into “Input Devices” and “Output Devices”. The first should contain “Mouse & Touchpad”, “Keyboard”, “Touchscreen” (since that pane handles primarily input), “Game Controller”, “Drawing Tablet”. The other one “Display & Monitor” and “Sound”.
I would move “Accessibility” to perhaps its own “Accessibility” section since it’s kind of important to spot, but perhaps still move it farther below.
Similarly, I would move “Input Devices” quite a bit lower than “Output Devices” since I don’t see how they would be tweaked nearly as much by most beginners. See final ordering I listed at the bottom of this post.
Make a section called “Apps”. It should contain “Default Applications”, “Application Permissions”, and perhaps “Notifications”. Move this section more to the top, since I assume some beginners will be looking for this first over “Appearance & Style” when something goes wrong. See final listing I made at the bottom of this post.
Move “KDE Wallet” from “Security & Privacy” to “System”.
Split “Online Accounts” into its own “Online Accounts” section, and move “Push Notifications” there but rename it “Push Notifications Provider”, since it otherwise might be mistakenly assumed to have settings about how they will be displayed. This doesn’t seem to be the case but rather covered by “Notifications” already.
The remaining “Networking” should probably go way toward the top, perhaps right above “Apps”, since wifi settings is something a ton of beginners will be looking for. I would move “Connected Devices” right below that, since “Bluetooth” is the next thing a lot of people are going to be searching. See final ordering at the bottom of this post.
Rename section “Security & Privacy” to “Privacy”, and move “KDE Wallet” to “System” (since most beginner users won’t even understand what the wallet is, so “System” seems like a good advanced category). Move it above “Workspace” since it’s less specialized and probably more important to a beginner. See final ordering at the bottom of this post.
Move section “Language & Time” above “Workspace” and “Privacy”, since the average beginner will probably care more about this.
Move “Window Management” into perhaps “System”. I would argue it fits well there because it’s a rather advanced category the average user won’t want to tweak much, and “System” largely contains these types of settings already.
(I feel less strongly about this one.) Make a section called “Session”. It should contain “Session” & “Autostart”. “System” keeps the remaining items. Move this section above “System”, since it’s a common convention that “System” is at the far bottom.
If I kept track properly, this creates the following final listing:
“Drawing Tablet” is primarily an input device; it’s output (screen mapping) is secondary; so that’s a bit messy isn’t it?
Also, I would firmly resist an ‘Apps’ section name - it’s way too informal and inconsistent with KDE’s more polite and formal language.
“Push Notifications Provider” will need some clarification - to make sure it’s clearly defined as a ‘backend connector’ and not the ‘notification presentation’ which is handled by notifications… Oh, messy again.
Accessiblity - are you suggesting it be removed to it’s own area, and then move the ‘Disabled Parking Bay’ to the bottom end of the carpark? Making it harder to find defeats the purpose.
Session vs System is hugely problematic - as 'Power Management relates to session behaviour (e.g. lid close actions) and so perhaps merging them into “System & Session”…
Search moving out of Workspace was a great change that KDE made a while back - it absolutely should be in Privacy.
Splitting I/O is probably a good idea - but we don’t want the menu to become More complex, so perhaps subheadings are okay.
However, the most important thing about this monster of an application is that
It has Search.
I would actually be happier if each of the modules also had a separate launcher (I created my own /applications/settings for this, so I can launch my Font Manager as a standalone) for direct launching from the main menu or krunner.
So I will add:
If launched from the main menu, each KCM Module should be launched independently of the main settings window.
However, this in itself is a tough topic; as the UI Limitation of the modular design prioritizes a unified and beginner friendly view - for discovery… It does inherently prevent viewing multiple modules (e.g. ‘Fonts’ and ‘Font Management’) side by side, but then it’s more complex to a nOOB finding ‘Font Management’ in the menu as ‘Settings’ as well as separately as an ‘Application’… but now we’re getting into dangerous territory, as this evokes memory of the MS ‘Control Panel’ which could switch views to an icon view which now looks like an appealing option.
“Apps” is what both Windows and Android and I think also macOS use. I think it makes sense to go with what people recognize, and I don’t think normal non-power users nowadays regard it as informal. But I guess I don’t deeply care if it’s “Applications” instead.
The “Drawing Tablet” was simply a mistake, I corrected it.
My apologies for “Accessibility”, it can totally be at the top if people want that, everything is a compromise. I certainly didn’t move it to the absolute bottom, and I didn’t mean to offend. I don’t care strongly about its positioning, but somewhere in the middle seems common:
I think having it in a dedicated section will make it easier to find rather than harder, which is what I hoped to achieve.
I think people understand “Session” as the setup of things when it opens up, not as “everything that affects the session in some way” which could encompass basically all other sections. I could be wrong. But based on that, I think “Power” not being in there is fine. I’m curious though what other people think.
I like “Search” being in “Privacy”. I put it in “Workspace” only because that is where it is right now, and I didn’t think it through that deeply. Having it in “Privacy” seems like a great suggestion!
Edit: and I forgot, could you elaborate what you mean regarding the “Push Notification Provider”? I thought “provider” which is a word I added, does the clarification you’re asking for. I’m curious about your thoughts on how to address this, I suppose there could be a better way.
Edit 2: and I feel like “subheadings” increase the visual complexity more than adding more sections, but I could be wrong. I’m in favor of not using subheadings.
Would make sense IF Input & Output was a menu that you had to click to get to a submemu, but everything is laid neatly below it. On top of that they are the first settings you see after Quick Settings so no it does not make sense to split them.
I can agree on this. Have Accessibility above Input & Output.
Again makes no sense to split Input & Output.
Applications section makes sense right under Accessibility.
KDE Wallet is absolutely fine where it is at. If anything make it where the entire unit can be removed / uninstalled by the enduser from right there.
Agree about Online Accounts but not Push Notifications cause those have to do with more than just online storage.
Networking should stay where it’s at.
System is fine exactly where it’s at.
As for the rest of your suggesting simply not well thought out at all.
After some thinking about it, I think I see “KDE Wallet” might still belong better in “Privacy”, and I’m wondering if “Window management” would actually be best put into “Workspace”. What are other people’s thoughts? It’s quite specialized which I think makes it a good match for “System”, but windows are I guess a bit part of the workspace.
that’s absolutely pathetic. I’ve never seen anyone post anything like that on this forum before. can you leave this kind of regressive garbage on reddit please.
personally I’d have an A - Z list with no subheadings.
mostly I open the setting I want from one of the many launcher type things that litter KDE.
idgaf about new users. making things “easy” and “intuitive” leads to weird things like the tooltips including instructions on what middle clicking does, which you automatically read every time the things pop up. it does my head in. can’t get rid of them.
categorisation and taxonification is inherently difficult and personal
why not make them draggable with customisable headings. it’s just a list.
I think an A-Z alternative would be nice, as would be the ability to manually sort entries. Nevertheless, I think a default sorting that most find intuitive is a good idea, as subjective as any categorization is. Hence I’m trying to e.g. use “Apps” and other conventions from other operating systems, if that thought makes sense? I hope it does.
I must confess to having zero friends using Plasma aside from fellow distribution forum members and this forum… I don’t include reddit, as it’s too much of a sheet-show.
Certainly when you have the Search then A-Z listing is a complete waste of time - it only works if you know what the first letter will be, and if you already know what you’re looking for.
You also have direct access via krunner/menu, so this is only relevant to newer users who might open Settings and start browsing… in which case it’s not much of a hassle to simply click each heading in turn to discover what’s there.
Maybe I had issues forgetting ‘Hot Corners’ because it is named ‘Screen Edges’ in Plasma - not a problem, because typing ‘corners’ shows ‘Screen Edges’ settings option in the menu… but that is an extremely strong case for avoiding ‘A-Z listing’.
krunner recent files
krunner user feedback
krunner corner# looking for that setting for what happens when I mouse to the corner…
So I am uniquely unqualified to comment on this topic, because I already have direct access to all settings with absolutely no issues at all… and am almost completely unbothered by the actual layout of the systemsettings categories window which (I am absolutely confident) was discussed at massive length already by developers.
i’m another, relatively new, user that does not have any issues finding the setting i need.
esp since someone kindly pointed out how you can just type what you are looking for onto the desktop and find it without even opening the settings application (thank you, who ever that was).
my only pet peeve is the stuff under configure desktop and wallpaper is ONLY found by the context menu and searching for say “mouse actions”, or “wallpaper” does not take you to it.
Search.