applet browser: code complexity in the data model

[Aaron J. Seigo]

On Tuesday 30 June 2009, Ivan Čukić wrote:
> The example from the computer-life that is symmetric is the task-bar (or,
> even, better - dock) - you can close the windows from it although it is
> used to open/activate them.

there's a 1:1 relationship between the entry on the taskbar or dock and the 
item it interacts with.[1] the bubbles could indeed give that 1:1, but:

* we'd need a way to identify "this bubble means that widget over there"

* you can reasonably only have so many bubbles in a circle; it's an edge case 
but it's one we'd be creating for ourselves

* it add more "stuff" to this interface, small stuff which will be easy to 
accidently hit (though that can be mitigated by having them "grow" on mouse 
over)

also, one of the original ideas that went into designing plasma was that it 
would treat items as real-world objects as much as possible. there are 
obviously areas we don't do this for one reason or another, but it's the 
general idea.

really, instead of arguing against this feature, we ought to be collating 
reasons _for_ this feature. the primary reason from pre-4.1 is gone (widgets 
were easy to lose) which leaves us with the symmetry concept[2].

anything else?

random idea: if we really want a Remove Widget UI, maybe it should re-use the 
Add Widget UI but instead of showing available widgets it should show all 
running widgets using the same display style.


[1]  the exception is right clicking on a window group in the taskbar.

[2] and personally i think removing things via an 'Add..' interface is pretty 
odd

-- 
Aaron J. Seigo
humru othro a kohnu se
GPG Fingerprint: 8B8B 2209 0C6F 7C47 B1EA  EE75 D6B7 2EB1 A7F1 DB43

KDE core developer sponsored by Qt Software
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