RFC: KToolBox

[Matt Broadstone]

On 9/4/06, Matt Broadstone <mbroadst at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 9/4/06, Simon Hausmann <hausmann at kde.org> wrote:
> > On Monday 4. September 2006 18:06, Matt Broadstone wrote:
> > > On 9/4/06, Olaf Jan Schmidt <ojschmidt at kde.org> wrote:
> > > > [ Frans Englich ]
> > > >
> > > > > Isn't it a usability and accessibility concern that font and styles are
> > > > > hard coded in a class?
> > > >
> > > > Yes, hard coding colours, fonts, sizes or styles leads to accessibility
> > > > and usability problems. The upcoming HIG will contain clear guidelines
> > > > for this.
> > > >
> > > > All existing instances of such hard coding need to be removed for KDE4.
> > > > The idea is to extend the colour schemes and to provide new convenience
> > > > widgets for application appearance configuration to help enforce this.
> > > >
> > > > If you need an additional colour role, then please tell me what exactly
> > > > you need and I will add it to my list.
> > > >
> > > > Olaf
> > > >
> > > > --
> > > > Olaf Jan Schmidt, KDE Accessibility co-maintainer, open standards
> > > > accessibility networker, Protestant theology student and webmaster of
> > > > http://accessibility.kde.org/ and http://www.amen-online.de/
> > >
> > > Yeah the hardcoded stuff will not be there in a later version, the
> > > idea though is that its built of more widgets that allow styling of
> > > the toolbox that was not previously possible. Instead of being made up
> > > of just a single tab its created with a header, base, and footer all
> > > which theoretically can be styled. The idea initially was to have
> > > something like CE_ToolBoxTab CE_ToolBoxTabLabel PE_ToolBoxBase
> > > PE_ToolBoxFooter - or whatever, so you can actually have control over
> > > the look of the toolbox. Remember, the reason I made this in the first
> > > place was because I simply couldn't do this with the current way
> > > things work (though I theoretically could have done it if I made a
> > > QStyle JUST for the toolbox - but this is not ideal imho, styles
> > > should be made to be applied to the whole application).
> >
> > That is btw exactly the reason why Qt 4.2's QWidget has a styleSheet property
> > that transparently enables the style sheet style to permit the use of CSS
> > (with images, etc.) to change the look of an entire widget.
> >
> > I hope we'll have enough documentation and example code ready for 4.2 to
> > show :)
> >
> > Simon
>
> Hrm could I still make the round frame around the qtoolbox this way?
> I'm not sure it would be scalable, and it would certainly be slower
> than painting, correct? I can imagine how much it would suck to have
> all the various web/css tricks people use for rounded corners inside
> Qt (yuck), and we would still have to have a few added classes in
> QToolBox for this to be feasible: we already have a way to style the
> toolbox tab (though not the color of the text, only the boldness of
> the text[I find it so weird that this was provided before other more
> basic functionality], in that tab unless you change the whole palette
> for the widget) so that's OK, but if we were to use CSS tricks in my
> rounded box idea we'd need a way to place a scalable graphic of the
> sides of the box in the middle/viewport section, and then a scalable
> graphic of the bottom of the box in the footer section. See the
> problem is that QToolBox does not provide any access to the widget
> that the children of each tab are parented to, so there is no way to
> style that section (and therefore I can't put the lines for the side
> of the box there). I think the only way to really handle this issue in
> the most generic and powerful way is for Trolltech to add the style
> elements I was talking about a few posts back. I understand its not a
> huge priority (another reason I made this class) because most people
> don't use the toolbox in the first, but once again if we're really
> looking for the most powerful/generic solution that is it.
>
> Matt

Doh, I just realized Simon was talking about my reference to making a
QStyle for the whole app vs single widgets... long day sorry :)

Matt