[Panel-devel] Drag'n'drop everything

[Vince Negri]

Pierre D. wrote:
> Hi
> 
> Here is my humble suggestion for plasma :
> - it'd be nice to be able to drag and drop everything to the trash for 
> instance : moving a file of course, but also a device to unmount it, a window 
> to close it, an applet to remove it...

Provided, of course, that dragging to the trash is never the *only* way 
to do something.

An issue is that the "trash" icon has definite connotations: that means 
that if the user drags entity X over the trash, we shouldn't cast around 
too widely to think of something to do with it, and end up with 
unintuitive behaviour. imho, the Macintosh "disk to trash -> eject" is a 
case in point.

Another issue is ambiguity. For example: suppose you have an icon 
representing a USB memory stick, and the user dnd's it onto the trash. 
Does this mean (a) to unmount the device, or (b) delete all the files on 
the stick? The new user to whom the concept of mount/unmount is an alien 
one is probably expecting (b), if he/she's expecting anything.

So in summary, you should be able to drop anything on the trash for 
which there is a "stand-out" obvious corresponding action that matches 
the visual paradigm.

Some worked examples:

Drop an editor window in the trash ->
	- close the window AND
	- save any unsaved changes to a file in the trash

Drop a CD-RW drive in the trash ->
	- check if there is an erasable disk
		- if yes, offer to erase it
		(do we put the contents in the trash can first??)
		- if no, tell the user that the disk contents
		cannot be erased.



> - it'd also be nice to have a kind of box where we can store items (by 
> drag'n'dropping of course) : dropping a window in that box would save its 
> state, and when you take back the window (even after a reboot),the 
> application would be restored in its previous state (problem : how to support 
> non KDE applications ?). You could also drop files, applets... everything in 
> that box, for instance to have every thing related to a project in the same 
> interface.

That sounds very very similar to workspace folders in OS/2's Workplace 
Shell. It's one feature I miss from that OS <sniff>

> What do you think about that ? The first idea is possible, but the second ?

It could surely be done for KDE applications, and would be useful even 
in that form. It's just a variation on the session manager. The data 
would be stored in a directory, though whether the visual presentation 
is as a directory (as it was in OS/2) or something more distinct like 
dennis p's "sheets" is something to ponder.