[kde-linux] KDE-4.8 "public Beta" Unstable Plasma Panel

[Duncan]

James Tyrer posted on Sat, 31 Dec 2011 17:54:26 -0700 as excerpted:

> So, I installed the current KDE-4.8 BRANCH and again, it should not be
> called a Release Candidate.

> Three icons no longer had their correct icon image but rather had the
> "unknown" icon.  Can't see how this would happen.

Icons?  In a plasmoid?  In the applications menu?  Where?  Which ones?

My first guess would be that this could be due to icon names changing.  
Existing configurations (either per-user or for other apps not updated) 
using the old names would then get the "unknown" icon.  If you had given 
a bit more detail as to where and in what this was occurring and whether 
it was a user-configured location and/or whether it still occurred in a 
fresh user config, it would have been easier to figure out what's 
happening.  At least it would have likely been possible for me to confirm 
whether I see the same issue here on 4.7.95 (aka 4,8-rc1).

FWIW, the rc label looks reasonable here, altho I don't by any means have 
all of kde installed and in fact have neither kdepim nor much of any 
semantic-desktop stuff installed at all, and like apparently most kde 
devs I now consider konqueror only a toy browser and default to something 
else (firefox in my case), tho I do have it installed, so I'd likely fail 
to notice many issues with konqueror, as well.

In particular, I've run both betas and now rc1, and don't see any sign of 
the icon issues you very vaguely mention, with no specifics that I can 
verify further.

> Fixing that, I found a REGRESSION.  That thing that pops up on the end
> of a panel when you unlock widgets is again taking up space.  This has
> been fixed previously.

Hmm...  It doesn't appear to be doing so here.  However, since I'm on the 
4.7.95 pre-release and you're apparently on live-branch, it's quite 
possible they broke something (hopefully temporarily, full release is 
less than a month out...) on live-branch that I'm not seeing in my 
version.

Confirming, a panel's cashew/toolbox does NOT take up additional room 
here.  Sliding the panel size sliders to shrink the panel moves the 
cashew into the plasmoid to its left, so they appear on top of each 
other, as they do if the panel can be expanded further (minimum and 
maximum sliders not set to the same size) but no plasmoid is forcing it 
to ATM (as when for example a panel with a systray plasmoid is set with a 
maximum size to accomodate more tray icons than it has at present, so 
both the plasmoid and the panel are shrunk to a smaller size... the 
toolbox doesn't force the panel wider in that case either, as you appear 
to be suggestion it does for you).

> Might I suggest that there must be a better solution to this than the
> "Panel Tool Box [sic]" (note that in my dictionary that 'toolbox' is one
> word).

Indeed there's a dictionary entry for that here (well, on wictionary, 
which is what I checked), but the word is clearly a compound composed of 
two separate words (wictionary etymology section confirming), and the two 
words both remain in popular independent usage as well, so it might be a 
bit strange, but would be author's preference.  And especially if English 
is a second language for that author, or their dialect has the two 
separate words commonly used together...

Here's the google search "tool box" -toolbox :

http://www.google.com/search?q=%22tool+box%22+-toolbox&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

Looks quite common from here! =:^)

IOW, if that's the level of complaints you're listing, this must be quite 
a good rc indeed! =:^)

> I note that when widgets are unlocked that the menu for icons on
> the panel and the panel contain an additional item: "Remove this ...".
> Couldn't this be handled with an addition to the menu?  Oh wait! it is
> already there under: PanelOptions.  So the: Panel Tool Box [sic] is
> redundant.

Actually, it'd be other locations for those options that are redundant, 
because as has been explained before, the other places the option appears 
are under the control of the plasmoid clicked on (and in the case of the 
desktop/activity toolbox/cashew, there's a user option to use what would 
ordinarily be the right-click menu for something else entirely) or 
otherwise not guaranteed to always be there.

The cashew/toolbox is thus the only consistent place such options can be 
expected to appear (the kdelook IHateTheCashew, cashew-removal plasmoid 
not withstanding... that's not an officially supported plasmoid and while 
they aren't going out of their way to break it, neither are plasma 
authors changing their assumptions, which that plasmoid breaks, thus 
behavior with it is as they say, "undefined").

All that said, I personally find BOTH the whole cashew thing blown WAY 
out of proportion as it's simply not that big a deal to me (as long as it 
works as expected if it appears at all, which it does, here), AND, given 
kde's usual support of user customization, the plasma-dev's insistence on 
it entirely mystifying as well.  Oh, well, as I said, it's unobtrusive 
enough for me that I find it to be no big deal. <shrug>

> After wasting considerable time, I find that there is a new bug.  When I
> lock widgets, the content of the top panel moves to the (my) right
> pushing the right most icon slightly off the edge and leaving a small
> space on the left end.  That would also be a REGRESSION -- possibly
> related to the first one.

Interesting.  I don't see that one here either. <shrug>  But you are 
correct in that it does sound like it's related to the cashew taking up 
space bug.


Just to be sure, since I know you had problems with one of the other 
URLs.  You didn't perhaps fetch and build the 4.7 or (given the change 
noted below) the pre-4.7 branch instead of the 4.8 branch, right?

You did know that they changed the plasma module names for 4.7, right?  
If you're still using the old locations you'd be fetching old pre-4.7 
code!  That would explain why you're seeing old bugs!

According to the gentoo/kde overlay ebuilds and eclasses, the modules are:

kde-baseapps
kde-runtime
kde-workspace

FWIW I believe they were kdebase-* previously.

They're all three git-based (not the older svn):

git://anongit.kde.org/<modulename>

Branch:

KDE/4.8

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman