remove or keep the activity view in the window list

[Aaron J. Seigo]

On Friday, September 23, 2011 14:17:54 Thomas Pfeiffer wrote:
> On Friday 23 September 2011 13:41:50 Marco Martin wrote:
> > On Friday 23 September 2011, Thomas Pfeiffer wrote:
> > > > ok, let's run with it as-is for now and i'll play a bit today with
> > > > how
> > > > the activity view is presented in the listing.
> > > 
> > > I'd also vote for keeping the homescreen in the window strip (or what
> > > was
> > > the official word for it? We definitely need to get our glossary written
> > > down soon!), for the reasons Marco mentioned: The homescreen should not
> > 
> > +1 ;) probably something like peek or task peek since the whole panel
> > would
> > be peek and launch
> 
> I think Aaron already had ideas about the names, we just all (including
> himself) kept confusing them during the sprint ;)

i had personally settled on "home screen". it's what it is often called on 
other devices, it's where you start off at, etc. however, Fania was not happy 
with that name, so i'm in a bit of a limbo over it :)

Fania used the term "activity view" which is good for me. we do need to get 
consensus on this VERY soon, however.

> > > Another thing: I'd really like to see the ability to switch back to the
> > > last window shown when pressing the homescreen-button to the right of
> > > the
> > > bar again after switching to the homescreen. Being able to switch back
> > > and forth between homescreen and application easily would be pretty
> > > nice imo.
> > 
> > would let a really fast workflow yeah :)
> > (wouldn't there be problems with a button that changes its function btw?)
> 
> Maybe we'd need to change the icon to indicate that, but I'm not sure.
> Compare it to alt-tab. It switches both ways between to windows as well.

i don't want to work on this anymore for Plasma Active One, since the best 
idea i can think of requires a lot more work. what would be nice is for it to 
become a software version of the "Back" button seen on many phones these days.

iow, it would send a message to the current app, if any, to go "back" one 
step; if the app does not have anything to "back" to (or doesn't support this) 
then it would return you to the home screen.

one of the current limitations of the "back" on current devices is you never 
REALLY know what it will return you to and it is easy to pile up a HUUUUGE 
list of things in the "back" that are no longer relevant to you.

for now, i'd like to just leave it as-is and consider working on this as a 
bigger project sometime in the future.

an easier change would be to let the button change its icon depending on where 
you are:

* when in an application, it shows the contour logo and brings you to the 
activity view

* when viewing the activity, it shows the old "grid" icon and when tapped 
shows the peek and launch

i'm a little concerned about a button that changes its UI like that, but it's 
plausible and the kind of change that could be made quite easily. i'd defer to 
Fania before attempting it, though. Fania: what do you think?

-- 
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 Development Frameworks
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