[Kde-accessibility] kbstateapplet: Plasma integration directions

[Sandro Giessl]

Hi guys,

recently I've started to use sticky modifier keys. It was inconvenient
to get to know about kbstateapplet which currently lives in playground,
and its UI is annoying because it uses lots of panel space (compared to
win7 which displays all sticky key states within one systray icon,
kbstateapplet uses 5 times more space and its indicators are less
intuitive, IMO).

There's a related bug https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=165402 - (it
seems like distros can live with packaging kbstatesapplet from plasma
playground, so at least downstream distro bugs have been resolved by
now). The attempt to move kbstateapplet to kdebase failed:

> Revision 963596 - Directory Listing 
>  Modified Mon May 4 22:59:10 2009 UTC (5 days, 21 hours ago) by aseigo 
> move back to playground; the UI is horrific, the code is ancient and
> apparently it has no developer to be its constant companion

What's needed to fix those two outstanding points? Some thoughts and
questions which might help getting me a rough idea about requirements:

- All kbstates information should (I think) be made available as plasma
data engine. There's sticky keys status, locked keys, mouse status,
AccessX status. Mouse status and most keyboard status data sources seem
to be there already.
Whould AccessX be a separate data engine, or should another data engine
(Keyboard?) be extended?

- UI Fixes?
The indicator icons aren't quite self descriptive at the moment. The
strict indicator grid layout could be made to resemble the
hardware/virtual key positions.
Maybe an iconified miniature version of
http://www.cip.ifi.lmu.de/~giessl/clip//1274628870070161346.png could be
used for sticky keys indicators?

Is there any gain in making the kbstate applet UI theme'able?

Can plasma applets be added automatically by the kaccess task, or is
this only possible using system tray icons?
What's plasma's policy regarding when to use system tray icons vs. when
to use applets?
Like KDE's systray icon for switching keyboard layouts, shouldn't the
accessibility key status be shown automatically when activated (opposed
to requiring to add a plasma applet to the panel manually)?


Thank you and bye
Sandro