KFlowRects proposal (planned for next Monday)

[Matthew Woehlke]

Maksim Orlovich wrote:
>>> Why? KPixmapSplitter is used by apps, and has a nice simple, documented
>>> API.  It's not clear to me that your generalized class is useful.
>> I'm confused... KPixmapSplitter is useful *because* it forces you to
>> define the container in the form of a QPixmap?
> 
> A more general API is not always better. 

True, perhaps, but in this instance the specialization does not seem 
beneficial, but rather artificially limiting.

> For starters, one has to be able
> to find the class. KPixmapSplitter is very findable. No one is likely to
> look at KFlowRects.

Well, feel free to suggest a better name :-). KGetSubRect maybe?

The problem I have is that KPixmapSplitter... doesn't split pixmaps. 
Based on the name and the class introduction, I would expect to feed it 
pixmaps and get out smaller pixmaps. IMO, discoverable or no, the class 
is badly named.

> Do you see any other applications for the generality?

Sure. For instance, the desktop icon arranging code is likely very 
similar (except that the flow bias is vertical instead of horizontal). 
Of course we don't /have/ icons on the desktop any more, but hopefully 
I've made my point :-).

List views of course have very similar functionality, although they 
probably use the full-blown Object per item model. But I absolutely can 
imagine other applications.

Anyway this is partly academic because it seems there will not be a 
library class in 4.0 (I would still be interested in dropping on on the 
wiki as Nick suggested, however).

-- 
Matthew
People say I'm going insane. I say, "what do you mean, 'going'?".