Context View Bookmarks

[Leo Franchi]

On Wednesday 07 October 2009 02:22:26 Nikolaj Hald Nielsen wrote:
> Some people have been asking about the usefulness of the Context View
> bookmarks that I added yesterday, so I thought I had better explain my
> reasoning behind this feature. There are a few reasons why I added
> this, and I will try to cover them below.

(this whole email assumes the context browser bookmarks work as promised---
currently there are a few bugs that make them hard for me to use)

I think we should separate the two functionalities, and their respective 
supporting points. I agree with having an implementation of Context Bookmarks, 
it makes doing some stuff behind the scenes much easier, and can be used in 
writing a stateful context view (i think it's attacking a nail with a 
sledgehammer, but whatever).

But I question more the use of the "add bookmark" button in the context 
toolbar. I don't think your point that "well we have playlist and collection 
bookmarks" holds any water---just  because they have them, doesn't  mean it is 
logical for the CV to have them too. Features for features' sake don't make 
sense.

So we're left with the "switching between multiple sets of applets" piece of 
support.  While I see the use of this, I disagree for a few reasons:

1) We don't have that many applets. I rarely find myself wanting to see a 
completely different set of applets that fill up the CV---that is, replace 
*everything* at the same time. I can fit ~3-4 applets on the CV at once 
depending on what I have open, and I can't think of 8 applets I want to see 
during any amarok session, let alone 12 or 16.

2) It is a sort of halfway-point between the CV as being stateful and the CV 
as being a blank slate upon which you place applets ad-hoc. If I have a bunch 
of saved configs, which are variations on each other, should I switch between 
them, or switch what applets I am showing manually? It feels like it's giving 
too many ways to accomplish the same thing, leaving the user confused.


Anyway, I see a lot of uses for the internal implementation of the bookmarks. 
As you navigate through a service in the Internet browser on the left, for 
example, it could load a Context Bookmark that would show some specific set of 
applets. Etc. I just disagree with the user-facing button.

leo



-- 
Leo Franchi                             (512) 775 5637
Tufts University 2010

lfranchi at kde.org
leonardo.franchi at tufts.edu