The future of Calligra Active

[Thomas Pfeiffer]

On 13.03.2013 21:28, Jaroslaw Staniek wrote:
> On 13 March 2013 19:56, Shantanu Tushar Jha <shaan7in at gmail.com> wrote:
> Cool and sweet :)
> Regarding splitting, I'd like to ask to discuss the following:
> a QML app is typically consisted of many pages and uses the Loader
> element to fully dynamically instantiate a component. Is there
> anything that stops us from allowing both scenarios: support for all
> document types in a single process, and support for one app per type?
> If not, let's the apps' creators have the freedom to decide.

What do you mean by "let's the apps' creators have the freedom to 
decide"? If you mean for example we may have Stage and Words in one 
application, but Sheets in another, than I fear that may create 
inconsistencies and confusion, unless the difference is completely 
transparent to the outside world.

> The decision is sometimes dependent on:
> - performance (having one process that stay cached in the background
> can be positive, depends how high-end the device is and what's the OS)

Not my turf, you guys know that better then me ;)

> - UX guidelines (separation is sometimes welcome, when apps are
> emphasized, in other cases, like PA, there's
> document/content-orientation)

I understood that the document-viewing components were created so that 
you can have a separate application for each platfrom, which I think 
makes sense. Calligra Active will have many PA-specific things (like 
Share/Like/Connect support, interfaces for task workflows, etc.) which 
would not be of much use on other platforms. So I think it would be good 
to have as many reusable components as possible and recombine them to 
optimized applications for each major platform you want to support.

Precisely because PA is not app-centric, it makes sense to split 
Calligra Active up, as you don't need a common shell but only a UI 
called specifically to view or create a certain kind of document.

What we need for PA is something that answers to "Create a text document 
with template Business Letter, sender address ABC and recipient address 
DEF".

> In QML as we know, with proper separation of data structures (i.e.
> when components do not interfere) it's possible to insert and "app"
> within another "app" and that's almost for free.

That probably won't be used in Plasma Active for the above reasons, but 
it's good that you have that flexibility, of course.