[Panel-devel] Kicker applets and modal dialogs

[Fred Schaettgen]

Hi all,

I have noticed that several kicker applets use modal dialogs without setting 
the parent window in the constructor. The result is that these dialogs can 
get lost below other windows while they leave the whole panel unusable. 
Luckily it is just the about dialog in most (but not all) cases:

colorpicker: about
charselector: about
klipper: config
storage media: about, config
fifteen pieces: about
public file: LMB->new server...
knewsticker: about
moon phase: about
media control: about
trash: about
sound mixer: about

The second problem is about modal dialogs for kicker applets in general. If a 
regular window has an open modal dialog, then the user simply can't give that 
window the focus and the modal dialog will be raised and given focus instead.
If an applet has opened a modal dialog it will be raised and given focus as 
expected. But since kicker doesn't steal the focus of from applications, it 
can be easily overlooked that an open config dialog gets focus when kicker is 
clicked. Maybe a general workaround would be to not just focus the modal 
dialog, but also make it demand attention. I guess this would be a kwin wish, 
or can this be implemented for kicker only?

Oh, and how about getting rid of the "about" menu entries in general and 
adding a button for that in the add-applet-dialog?

Fred

-- 
Fred Schaettgen
kde.sch at ttgen.net