GUI framework in kde4

[Jakob Petsovits]

On Sunday, 2. July 2006 22:41, Hamish Rodda wrote:
> On Sunday 02 July 2006 21:56, Ingo Klöcker wrote:
> > - Will the new framework include configurability of context menus? If
> > yes, then this would allow us to strip down the context menus in e.g.
> > KMail by removing all actions that are seldomly used by normal users
> > (I'm counting on the usability team to tell us which actions we should
> > remove). Power users could then still put everything they want into
> > their context menus. And we could close all those wishlist items a la
> > "I need this and that in the context menu".
>
> It is technically feasible... just how it would be presented to the user
> for configuration would be an interesting challenge (turn on an "edit mode"
> then click a configure action in the context menu?)

How I think this could be doable:

- As suggested before, editing is done by drag-and-drop.
  You open the window containing the actions ("Configure Toolbars & Menus")
  where all actions are sorted into categories.

- If that "action window" is open, everything editable is in edit mode,
  which means:

- Clicking on toolbars only marks them (maybe showing the appropriate
  description in the actions window) but does not execute them.
  Dragging toolbar buttons into some invalid space removes them from the
  toolbar, and dragging actions from the actions window to the toolbar adds
  that action.

- The same for menus, only that the menus have to be opened before:
  Clicking on a regular menu or right-clicking on some item with editable
  context menus opens that menu in "edit mode", where you can drag and drop
  the actions from and to that menu. For regular menus, you don't necessarily
  have to open them before starting to drag the item, it also opens when you
  hover above the menu label for a second or so (like dragging items over the
  taskbar, which brings the hovered window to the front).

- Of course, drag-and-drop can also be done between toolbars and other
  toolbars, or toolbars and menus, or menus and other menus.

- Closing the actions window ends the "edit mode" and closes any open menus.

Cheers,
  Jakob