Bespin, was: Bespin on k-c-d

[Thomas Lübking]

Hi everyone,
I'd like to take this over here then, as it's merely unrelated to k-c-d.


Ok, as the window layout is already configurable, the remaining item (regarding 
bespins runtime patches) are the genreal UI desktop integration and especially 
the MainToolbar.

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1st off as a technical detail, i want to point out that there is a way to use 
the style for custom widgets / elements and KStyle has convenience functions 
for this.
So it is possible to rely on the widget style to paint things and use a custom 
fallback in case the style doesn't support this element.

---

2nd:
what bothered me (and apparently others) most was the alien look (the amarok 
svn skin)
This might be the default way on windows and a do understand the branding 
aspect in this, but it makes things unconsistent.
If one wants to go with skinning, that's ok, but it should be complete, i.e. 
cover the entire application and dedicated customizable, as this is the main 
point about skinning.

3rd: i attached a screenshot of what amarok currently lools on my desktop, as 
i will likely refer to this now and in the future, so you maybe should have 
seen it.
I modified the svg skin, paint a gradient on the background of the main 
toolbar, forced native slider painting and replaced the volume slider with a 
dial.
The dash on the right side toggles the minimode (i.e. hides the data section, 
shrinks the window horizontally and verticall and tunrs into a "+")

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Some thoughts, explanations:

I admit a strong preference for inverted elements, but on the toolbar it 
seemed even more reasonable as it introduces a visual split between the data 
section (local music, filebrowser, playlist) and the interaction section (user 
I/O)

The info label was added above the position slider mostly because of the gap.
imho one can very well make use of the titlebar for this info, but due to the 
gap it's pretty disconnected from the rest of the UI and therefore not 
realized as part of it.
On the other hand i took the opportunity to make use of the 4th dimension to 
show information in a comprehensive way (the label fades between artist, title 
& runtime) - this can be done on the titlebar as well (well, minus the fading)

I dropped (ie.e QWidget::hide() the right side time label as i saw few reason 
for this, as
a) the remaining time can be estimated from the current time and the runtime
b) the label  toggles timing direction on click anyway.

In fact, i would preferably use a dynamic and more integrated info section 
anyway.
In particular separate the input from the output, that is:
Display time/progress & some track info (+analyzer output, but i don't know 
about the stage of this in phonon) unless the user enters the section with the 
pointer, then fade out the information and fade in the input elements 
(prefv/playpaase/stop/next, a slider rather than a progress indicator, the 
volume slider, elements to rate and bookmark on the current track)

Regards,
Thomas


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