tool activate()

[Casper Boemann]

On Tuesday 22 March 2005 13:54, Boudewijn Rempt wrote:
> A first shot
>
> * tools must be kpart plugins.
yes

> * tools must be able to add themselves to a toolbar.
> * tools must be able to demand being placed in certain section of the
> toolbar (selection tools, paint tools).
yes

> * Every pointer must be associated with a tool. A certain tool can be
>   assocated with zero, one or more pointers.
yes

> * Every tool must have a tool widget that is plugged into the control box
>   (and, by the way, the widget shouldn't be wider than, say, 275 pixels,
>   because I'm going to make a hard fixed width for all dockers.)
It shouldn't be a requirement. I mean it should be ok for the tool to not have 
a control box.
And the 275 pixel limit is a bit problematic as it depends on font size and 
screen size. But we need to limit it somehow.

> * When a pointer becomes active (i.e., on mouse down, stylus-down), the
>   tool must become active, and the widget swapped. The widget should stay
> up until the next pointer comes active, or the current pointer is switched
> to a tool.
Havn't got a tablet, so can't tell if this is intuitive or not, but it sounds 
ok.

> * The design we made a month ago for the toolbox should be our guide for
> the user interface; additionally, the control docker should have a tab with
> a a frame for every pointer that shows its associated tool.
wasn't that just the gui for paint op or did I miss something.
The thing about tab in control dockes seems ok, as long as no tabs are visible 
when only a single pointer is attached.

> I see no reason, judging from these points, to use the kxmlgui structure
> with .rc files and KActions for our tools. Tools are not added to the menu
> anyway, so there's only one place for the action to do its work.
I think this is very dangerous. The transform tool I'm working on is in 
photoshop attached to a menu and I was considering to do the same as it could 
be said to belong to the edit menu.

> Is there something I've forgotten?
Probably. First shots are rarely perfect :)

And though my reply might seem like a lot of OKs I'm worried that our thoughts 
of integrating tools and paintops might be limited by a quick design.

Are paintops plugins? If not then they should be - shouldn't they?

This is a big topic - certainly post 1.0

For now I think I'll commit the namechange from activate() to intro(). Is that 
ok?

-- 
best regards / venlig hilsen
Casper Boemann