[Bug 159480] Hide labels or icons in taskbar

[Todd]

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http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=159480         




------- Additional Comments From toddrme gmail com  2008-03-17 18:40 -------
The main functional differences, at least as far as I can see, are:

1. No labels
2. Programs that have shortcuts on the dock do not appear a second time in the taskbar, having an indicator on them instead
3. Windows and folders only appear when minimized
4. Open programs can be added as shortcuts easily
5. Open programs can have their current state saved to the hard drive

The last one is out of the scope of the panel I would suspect.  4 can be implemented by a right-click item on the icon for open programs ("add shortcut to panel" or something), which is probably a good feature to have.  You are planning to implement grouping, I assume.  At least in KDE 3, if I remember correctly, there were 3 grouping options in a drop-down selector: no grouping, keep related programs together, and group when over a certain number of items.  Adding a fourth item to the drop-down: group except when minimized would handle 3 and is also a useful feature.  I've already covered hiding the label and why I think that is a useful feature on its own and can be implemented as a single checkbox or dropdown selector.  2 could be a single checkbox in the panel options or containment options (since it would probably be a per-panel or per-containment option).  This one is the only one I could reasonably see making a seperate widget to implement since it alters the scope of how the taskbar is used substantially, but a single checkbox in either the panel or the containment options might be easier.

So to implement 4 of the 5 things docks can do we are looking at one additional dropdown menu (or just a checkbox) and one additional checkbox.  The other two can be implemented by adding one item each to an existing dropdown or popup menus.

The real issue is that each of these is a useful feature in and of itself, and people might want them independently.  There obviously has to be a limit to the number of options, but forcing people to use unrelated options as one block limits the versatility of the software especially when those options deal with different aspects of the user experience like these do.  Forcing people to pick largely unrelated options as a package instead of picking options as individual options seems inefficient to me.  I can understand having an advanced file browser and a basic one, for instance.  But forcing you to pick you grouping options, how you add shortcuts to the panel, and taskbar label settings together as a single unit seems fairly arbitrary.  Those options really have nothing at all to do with each other.

There is of course eye candy like zooming and automatic resizing.  Those are different matters entirely and I was not suggesting implementing those.  Other things can be done in a traditional panel.  For instance "stacks" are really just folders that can be expanded from within the dock, or at least they could be easily implemented that way.  KDE 3 could do this, so I assume KDE 4 will eventually.  I assume dragging and dropping of items will be implemented in the panel eventually as well.