Review of the branch plasma/declarative in kdelibs

[Aaron J. Seigo]

On Wednesday, February 23, 2011, Artur de Souza wrote:
> Quoting Ian Monroe <ian at monroe.nu>:
> > So should there be a Qt.components.plasma? Its not really clear to me
> > how Qt.components.meego would be inappropriate for Plasma though.
> 
> Because they will have the look&feel of meego and we have our own look&feel
> :) MeeGo also have some widgets that are only useful when using that
> platform...

note that Plasma supports per-device/target QML files.

that means that if you wish, you can provide a QML file for your Plasmoid that 
is used when on "plasma" and a different one that is used when on "meego". 
this happens 100% transparently to the Plasmoid which just asks for "the UI 
define in the file call foo". Plasma does the work of picking the "right" 
foo.qml file. all that is needed is for the QML files to be locate in the 
correct path(s) in the package.

you can have QML files that are shared for the different targets. e.g. you 
could have a QML file that is used regardless of platform, plus one if running 
on MeeGo or Plasma or $WHATEVER.

very flexible.

this allows us to get around the "but this one piece needs to be different on 
that one device" without rewriting the whole app or even having to create and 
ship different packages.

one package, one code base, multiple UIs for multiple targets.

btw, no other system out there does this right now. and some, including 
handset manufaturers, have tried for years.

so we can have a set of plasma components and a set of MeeGo components on 
different targets and the same plasmoids on each, both getting the most out of 
the platforms. we can also offer "compatibility QML" to the MeeGo Components 
on non-MeeGo platforms.

so from the Plasma perspective, this isn't really an issue. we have a few ways 
of dealing with it. the multi-UI thing is probably one of the most effective, 
however, as it allows target relevant UIs.

-- 
Aaron J. Seigo
humru othro a kohnu se
GPG Fingerprint: 8B8B 2209 0C6F 7C47 B1EA  EE75 D6B7 2EB1 A7F1 DB43

KDE core developer sponsored by Qt Development Frameworks
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