Settings UI Rejuvenation

[zadjii-msft]

written by @carlos-zamora

@cdobrzynski_microsoft and @carlos-zamora have been working together over the past few months to redesign the settings UI. We've done some user research testing to get some initial feedback. Now we're looking to get some feedback from the GitHub community!

The mockups and notes from our sessions can be found here: #20036
There's some open questions there so feedback on those would be very appreciated.

TODO

• Overall:
  • settings UI is its own window
  • auto-save
  • update iconography to have colors
  • convert toggle buttons (on right side) to check boxes (on left side)
• Startup:
  • add "Launch behavior" and "System & input defaults" groupings
• Interaction:
  • add "Clipboard and paste behavior", "Text selection & editing", and "Window and layout behavior" groupings
• Personalization:
  • add "Visual style", "Tabs and Layout" groupings
• Compatibility:
  • add "Compatibility" and "Rendering" groupings (replace the two separate pages)
• Actions:
  • update styling for each action to be a "setting container" kind of wrapper
  • update styling on "add new" button
  • update styling for key chords
  • add "view all" button for key chords
• Actions > Edit Action:
  • add setting containers
  • new groupings: "key bindings" and "additional customizations"
• Dropdown menu:
  • rename page
  • move preview to right side
• Profiles page:
  • Add navigator for "Defaults", "Color schemes", and individual profiles
    • removes them from top-level elements in the navigation view
• Profile base page:
  • new groupings: " profile", "Visual/UI Affordance"
  • replace toggle switches with checkboxes
• Profile > Appearance:
  • add "Typography settings" grouping

[carlos-zamora]

@mdtauk I'd love to hear your thoughts, if you have the time. 😊

[DHowett]

@carlos-zamora it may be better to use a Discussion (which will be a new freeform place to discuss the changes, fwiw) for the discussion, and this epic issue for tracking the work itself :)

[carlos-zamora]

Moved the mock-ups and notes to #20036

[carlos-zamora]

Summarizing some feedback I've seen from X, Discussion #20036, and an internal mail thread:

• reconsider replacing toggle buttons with checkboxes (source: link)
• update "Drill In" transition with "Entrance" (source: link)
• Compatibility > "Reset" button should be red because it's very destructive (source: link)
• Some people prefer settings as a tab over a window (sources: internal thread, link - Discussion)

Future considerations:

• agentic settings (source: link, internal thread)
• "recently modified" (source: link - X, link - Discussion)

This one's more an implementation detail but I don't want to lose it:

• "confirm close" warning should ignore if the settings window is open (source: link)

[mdtauk]

@carlos-zamora Thanks for the call out, I have posted some of my thoughts based on the mock-ups.
#20036 (comment)

Once it reaches the Terminal Preview stage, I look forward to being able to test using it, and post any additional thoughts then.