KDE/kdevplatform/plugins/quickopen

[Andreas Pakulat]

On 19.03.09 15:57:24, Dan Leinir Turthra Jensen wrote:
> On Thursday 19 March 2009 15:20:47 David Nolden wrote:
> > Am Donnerstag 19 März 2009 14:39:38 schrieb Andreas Pakulat:
> > > You'd have the same problem if you'd use the form that we have now, apply
> > > it onto a QWidget and put it into a QDialog with a layout. The reason it
> > > worked with QDialog is that when you resize it inside designer a resize()
> > > call is added to the generated code. So every time someone would resize
> > > the dialog in designer and save that we'd have a different size on next
> > > start, how good is that?
> >
> > Ah yeah exactly, the size was determined by the designer. I don't see
> > what's wrong with that approach.
> >
> > > Oh and btw, 800x400 is _not_ a reasonable size, it spans the whole screen
> > > on small laptops or monitors. Something like 550x350 seems a lot more
> > > reasonable.
> >
> > Well it is a modal dialog, and when the space is used in a useful way, then
> > that makes the size reasonable. And since the quickopen list can contain
> > very long file-paths, or even whole function signatures, the largest
> > possible size that keeps the dialog usable for everyone and does not
> > introduce too much whitespace is reasonable.
> >
> > Since you even the smallest netbook has a screen resolution of at least
> > 800x480, something like 760x400 would be a reasonable size.
> 
>   This seems as good a time as any for me to bring up the idea of making this 
> dialogue a not-dialogue, but rather a search field, sitting in the top-right 
> corner of the window (in the style of so many other search/filter fields). 
> Other than it being more difficult to implement than popping up a dialogue on 
> a keypress, is there any reason not to do this that i am not aware of? :)

One problem with this, shown by various kate bugreports, is focus. Users
do not always agree with the application about where focus should be going.

Other than the find-dialog from kate it doesn't hide any important
information and its a "type something into then hit a button" kind of
dialog, not something you use very long. Its more like the file-open dialog
than a find dialog.

Andreas
 
-- 
Your object is to save the world, while still leading a pleasant life.