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Deprecate KMessage*::sorry

Friedrich W. H. Kossebau requested to merge work/kossebau/deprecatesorry into master

When introduced in 1999, it was meant to be used for "small problems", whereas "error" messages were meant only for "important things":

if your program detects the action specified by the user is somehow not allowed, this should never be reported as with error(). Use sorry() instead to explain to the user that is action is not allowed.

This concept of a light-weight error type for "Not allowed" has not made it into other recent user-querying KF API, like KMessageWidget or KNotification. Other toolkits are also not known to feature a similar thing.

Then there are some principle issues, at least with the current design:

  • A "warning" sign should be used before a problem is hit, not after when it is too late.

  • The "Sorry" text is on the border of (not only) KDE HIG, which asks

    Use an informal and friendly tone, but not too informal or humorous.

    where it might be a tad too informal for some in a UI

So merging the "sorry" API into the "error" API should

  • make KF API more consistent in itself
  • avoid issues with "warning" sign and "Sorry" language
  • less complexity by less choices to make (right API to use?)
  • be less exotic compared to other toolkits/libraries

Ideally also software would check if actions are possible in advance and not let the user try to do things which are known to fail.

Did some test porting of current users of the "sorry", adding the MR here later.

@dfaure @teams/usability @teams/vdg

PS: That related quotes from art changed over time in tone from "I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that." to "Computer says no" is not related, is it? ;)

Edited by Friedrich W. H. Kossebau

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