UI idea: Turn the status bar into a docker (or several dockers)

[Thomas Pfeiffer]

On Thursday 23 August 2012 15:05:04 Thomas Pfeiffer wrote:
> On 23.08.2012 14:53, C. Boemann wrote:
> > On Thursday 23 August 2012 14:31:18 Thomas Pfeiffer wrote:
> >> Hi everyone,
> >> while discussing the best way to implement the word count in the Author
> >> UI,
> >> I had an idea for the Calligra UI in general.
> >> Flexibility is one of the key advantages of the Calligra UI. One of the
> >> few
> >> UI parts that are currently not flexible is the status bar. That's why I
> >> asked myself: "Why not put the the things currently displayed in the
> >> status bar in one or several docker(s), put these dockers at the bottom
> >> by
> >> default (or maybe someplace else if that works better for a particular
> >> application) and remove the standard status bar?"
> >> This would allow to keep the current layout as default while preserving
> >> maximum flexibility. To me, this is the logical consequence of the
> >> "Flexible UI" paradigm of Calligra.
> >> So, what do you think about it? Did I miss any problems/downsides?
> >> Cheers,
> >> Thomas
> > 
> > I think the main problem I see is that dockers have titlebars that take up
> > vertical space.
> > 
> > Sure it can be removed but then the user looses the configurability. We
> > can
> > then do like Amarok does, but then what dockers should have their
> > titlebars
> > hidden
> 
> True. I think this should not depend on the docker, but on its position.
> How about hiding the title bar when the docker is placed at the bottom?
> Having a title bar would probably look weird then, anyway. But if a docker
> containing status info is placed somewhere else, it should have a title
> just lie any other ones.

Would it be technically possible to show/hide the status bar depending on the 
docker's position? If so, I could think about how to ideally implement it form 
a usability perspective, but I don't want to waste time designing something 
which was not technically possible in the first place.