At 03:30p -0600 09/07/2006, Google Kreme didst inscribe upon an
electronic papyrus:
One thing that is odd is when you click an item in the drawer,
nothing happens. I mean, nothing at all. And when you double click
it, you get the appropriate pref pane, but no indication of where to
look. Wouldn't it be possible to 'highlight' the right area with a
nifty quartz affect?
And some of the items will point to the same pref pane, so it might
make sense to group these somehow. Though I can't think how right
now, so never mind there.
I thought up searchable prefs five years ago. :-D
In fact, I envisioned "dynamic" pref panes, which would be created on
the fly based on your query. Such would be visually boring, being
"designed" by the computer, but then they would be supplementary to
the predefined panes.
See my original idea:
--- begin forwarded text
Date: Sat, 8 Dec 2001 14:50:37 -0700
To: apple-hi-developers
From: Walter Ian Kaye
Subject: Re: Questions and Comments on Preference Panels
At 12:11a +1100 12/09/2001, Jamie Curmi didst inscribe upon an
electronic papyrus:
[...]
The System Preferences Panel, for example, uses a full window of
icons, with a "toolbar" at the top for placing frequently used
options. Each option brings up a dialog in that window - removing
the list of options.
Hmm. Now that you've got me thinking about this, I've come up with a
somewhat Star Trek-like idea: keyword search for preference items, so
the user doesn't have to know where the programmer placed the option.
Example:
Preference Keyword Search
[network.....][v] <Search>
would bring up any preferences relating to networking.
(the [v] could be a popup of preset categories and/or recent searches)
With all the different icons for System Preferences, which Apple
segregated into arbitrary categories (which /they/ think makes
sense), it can take a while to find the right icon. If keywords were
attached to each preference item, the problem of "Where do I go to
set xyz?" can be neatly solved. In fact, this could also be used to
access any "power user" features without cluttering up an interface.
Howzzat?
[...]
-Walter
--- end forwarded text
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