[GSoC] (One more) Proposal for Plasmate

[Aaron J. Seigo]

On Tuesday 31 March 2009, Yuen Hoe Lim wrote:
> > Please, if you have any ideas for the "git timeline" or for the
> > previewer, don't be shy to share it with us =D
>
> The simplest previewer would probably be using plasmoidviewer,

we already have a previewer started in playground; showing a plasmoid in a 
little window by itself is a tiny amount of code, really. :)

> with temporary installs.

don't need to; we know where the code is on disk, and you can just pass that 
path directly to the Package which would then be used by the Applet object to 
run the widget.

> So you'd have a 'preview' button of sorts. The user
> would write code, click the button (or use a hotkey), and we'd do a
> temporary install and display with plasmoidviewer.

fortunately we can do it seamlessly.

> This is already in line with what normal IDE's do :P

it's probably best to not think of plasmate as an IDE. it's a content creation 
tool, with more in common with flash design studio applications. it has more 
in common with a word processor, for that matter.

no file saving, no project management, no compiling, one click publishing ... 
all of these things are not what you'd want in an IDE, but will be what makes 
plasmate even remotely useful to the target audience :)

> I have no idea at the moment how much more
> powerful than this can we make the previewer (I don't think pseudo-realtime
> is easy nor useful enough to justify the effort)

rejoice, because it's trivial to do.

> About the git timeline I don't personally think it needs to be a very
> elaborate widget

agreed

> (or in fact even a widget that looks like a timeline). It

it doesn't have to. but this is probably the most natural representation.

> could just be something list-like that readily reflects order and looks
> kinda pretty, with points that are readily selectable and that, say, shows
> information on mouse-over.

it could be, yes, and that'd be ok for a first run at it. a lot less intuitive 
and pretty than an actual timeline though.

> I think the diff information idea is great
> though, and shouldn't be too hard to do :P

probably not too difficult; but harder than some of the other things you've 
listed in this email, especially if done the way it was suggested ...

> So I was thinking of having a
> separate interface dedicated to save point browsing, where users can select
> save points from a list/timeline interface to browse the project files as
> they were at that save point, with diff-like colour indicators in place.

makes sense.

> I have incorporated these thoughts (together with some ugly UI mockups :P)
> into my proposal draft. Please take a look and give me some feedback if you
> have the time :)
>
> The draft is here : http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dvjmcm4_16hjv6txcf

some comments:

* in the welcome interface mockup, there's no way to select between a plasmoid 
and a dataengine (or a theme, for that matter)? the name is the second thing 
you do, choosing what you want to make is the first thing.

* in the welcome interface mockup, "continue working" is the last item on the 
page when it probably should be the first thing; the most common thing someone 
will do is continue working on something they started. if they haven't started 
anything, we don't need to show that in the interface and then the most common 
thing to do is start a new project. important should be last.

* if the user needs an embedded terminal to make plasmate useful, something's 
horribly wrong :) it's all based on managing the contents of a Package and 
that's all automated / automatable

* Export -> Publish

* Save -> Create Savepoint

* for the diff viewer, we could probably use the kdiff kpart that comes with 
kde if it's available on the system (otherwise just show it in a plain text 
editor, i suppose)


-- 
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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