Alternative to review mode

[Wonderer0]

Please confirm these before moving forward

• I have searched for similar suggestions and have not found a duplicate.
• This is an improvement to an existing feature (not a new feature request).

Describe your suggestion

When trying to create a custom ISO file I found difficulties editing Optimize and Customize settings because Winhance was in Config Review Mode, as described below. This is to suggest an alternative way of using imported settings while editing settings in the normal way.

@memstechtips
You seem to be considering implementing a 'Config Creation Mode' feature (#422), and others have requested the ability to reset values (#467, #347), all fairly recently. So I thought I ought to jump in and suggest these ideas now before it's too late, even though I am a Winhance newbie.

Current behavior

When I was trying to use Winhance to create a custom Win11 ISO file from Win10 without changing my current system in any way it was in Config Review mode after importing the Recommended Config. The way the review procedure works for Optimize and Customize had two difficulties:

• The only choice for each setting was to apply or not apply the imported setting. There was no way to choose any other value (e.g. for UAC level, timeouts).
• Users have to go through all the settings individually, even if they know in advance they want to apply or reject all in a large group of settings.

Proposed behavior

General principles

• The same method of editing the settings is used whether they are going to be used to:
  • Modify the current system.
  • Create a custom autounattend file or ISO file.
  • Create a config file or edit an existing one.
• The user can always see a 'baseline' value for each setting.
• The source of the baseline values would depend upon the task being carried out:
  • Modifying current system - current values.
  • Creating an autounattend or ISO file - The default Win10 or Win11 config file, as appropriate.
  • Editing a config file - From the original config file
  • Creating a config file - User choice: current system values, or any config file.
• The user can optionally see 'guideline' values, either imported from a config file or the current system settings.
• The user can edit individual settings (using sliders etc) while being able to easily compare each against its baseline and guideline (if present).
• The user can quickly and easily change individual settings, or groups of them, to their baseline or guideline values.

Design Suggestions

Each setting would have its baseline, editable, and optional guideline values stacked on top of each other so that it's easy to compare slider positions at a glance.

Having the baseline and guideline values implemented as disabled controls would make them easy to compare to the editable control at a glance, but it might be nice to be able to select a baseline or guideline value just by clicking on it. However having buttons that look like sliders would be extremely confusing. It may be better to make them selectable using a pair of radio buttons.

Choosing baseline and guideline values for a group of settings could be speeded up by having:

• A checkbox against each setting.
• A master checkbox for each group and/or subgroup of settings (e.g. "Privacy & Security" and/or "Security"), similar to in the Software & Apps section.
• Buttons to set all the selected settings to their baseline or guideline values.
  The labels on the buttons could depend upon the task being carried out, e.g. 'Reset to current', 'Reset to Windows default', 'Set to config-file-name'

It could be useful to have the baseline and guideline sources displayed clearly somewhere near the top of the screen.

A further feature could be to have filters to show only those settings where their editable value is different from their baseline or their guideline value. The former could be useful for users who want to keep most of the baseline values (e.g. current system) and just double check the few they have changed, and the similarly latter for those who want to accept most of the guideline values (e.g. Recommended) and just double check the ones they had decided not to accept.

Benefit

• It would remove the restriction that each setting can only be left as it is or set to the imported value after a config file has been imported.
• It would enable fine grain control over individual settings where required, but enable all the settings in a group to be set in a couple of clicks.

Additional context

No response

[memstechtips]

Targeting this for release v25.