[Panel-devel] Re: Plasmatic widgets

[Fred Schaettgen]

On Monday, 6. June 2005 11:28, Zack Rusin wrote:
> On Sunday 05 June 2005 21:54, Aaron J. Seigo wrote:
> > would it not be possible to raise the entire desktop widget on
> > command? we don't need to raise the widgets individually,
> > necessarily. they can be composited onto a "backplane" raised and
> > lowered as a whole.
>
> Yeah, we could do that, but we already have that with "Show desktop",
> that's how it would basically like. So I'm not sure if that's the best
> option.

The appearance isn't all the same. If you have only a few applets on the 
desktop (let's say a small calendar and a launcher applet) it will produce a 
lot less flicker if the applets are raised instead of all other application 
minimized - especially when this can be done very fast by holding and 
releasing a hotkey.
In that case the user told the system "Show me my applets" and not "Hide 
everything else with the side effect of showing my applets". Raising an 
application also doesn't hide everything else.

The only thing that won't work the same is the desktop context menu - if the 
applets are raised, then the user can only interact with the items, not with 
the plane itself. Well, maybe he could, if clicks on the empty space between 
applets would be passed to the plane, but passing it to the applications is 
probably what people expect.

I just wonder if people want the contents of the raisable plane to be the same 
as the desktop. I guess many will prefer a configuration for the raisable 
plane (what did we call that again? Third layer?) that is more lightweight 
than for the desktop. This would complicate the usage on the other hand, so I 
wonder what's best:
1) Two independent layers. One on the desktop, one activated with a hotkey
2) Two layers, both visible on the desktop, one can be raised with a hotkey
3) One layer, visible on the desktop and raisable

-> 1 Allows for applets that are not shown on the desktop at all. On the other 
hand many setups will require multiple instances of applets to show them both
on the desktop and the third layer, which is not even possible with all 
applets.
Editing: Third layer would be configured idependently from the desktop 

-> 2 Works better with single instance applets.
Editing: Together with the desktop layer, option for each applet (Context menu 
"Raise with <hotkey>"). Maybe drop shadow for raisable applets, no shadow for 
desktop-only applets.

-> 3 Most simple configuration, but maybe not flexible enough.

There will also be demand for applets staying always on top. I don't need and 
like that myself, but others do for sure.

Fred

-- 
Fred Schaettgen
kde.sch at ttgen.net