[Panel-devel] Plasma Desktop: Drop Forwarding

[Aaron J. Seigo]

On Thursday 16 June 2005 08:02, you wrote:
> > it seems obvious to drag juk's control buttons to the panel or desktop
> > and get the proper applet
>
> I don't think it's so obvious.
> At least, I know that my sister (who have computer basis), will never try
> to drag the buttons onto her desktop, or she will discover the feature, but
> by mistake.

yes, i haven't done any work on the in-application GUI representation yet. i'm 
trying pretty hard to keep the process separated out into:

	0 concept
	1 technical sketch
	2 graphic design
	3 usability and technical design
	4 implementation

the idea is to prevent implementation details from clouding the process of 
exploring the possibilities. we're somewhere along steps 0-2 for most 
elements of Plasma, and in the case of application driven plasma components 
probably 0 or 1.

> > btw... with basKet... i think there is a lot of obvious synergy between
> > it and the desktop and panels. if you plan on working closely with these
> > things in KDE4 it may make sense for you to be on this devel list.
>
> For the moment I don't have thinked a lot about desktop integration of
> BasKet. I'm currently concentrated on making a new engine that will allow
> more power (both awaited useful features and eye-candy).
>
> But I don't see how it could benefit to the desktop.

it's not so much about benefiting the desktop so much as it's quite important 
to design the system to be able to service the needs, current and future, of 
applications and users. it's harder to do this without actual use cases =) 
basKet seems like an obvious use case and one that has the potential to push 
the boundaries of required/desired desktop capabilities.

> > ah, i should also add that we already have the necessary QDragObject
> > classes in libkicker to do this even today given an applet and an
> > application that links to libkicker.
>
> Ah? Interesting...
> You mean that I could ALREADY do what I want?
> Are there any docs to do that?

matt broadstone has actually started on some documentation for libkicker, but 
it's very early stuff, so .. no =P but what you want to look at is 
AppletInfoDrag in kdebase/kicker/libkicker/paneldrag.h ... you need a kicker 
applet and an AppletInfo object that was created using the applet's .desktop 
file, and then you can place it anywhere on the panel(s) ... desktop 
integration of the same will happen with Plasma. current limitations:

	- libkicker is not a public library
	- AppletInfoDrag is new for 3.5
	- there is no way currently to pass parameters to applets using DnD. =(

i assume you'd need the latter, and this is exactly why i would like to work 
closer with people actually using this stuff as it helps define needs

> BTW, is this list also talking about the future of the Universal Sidebar?

no ... i'm trying to keep myself to one massive revolution at a time ;)

> A lot of users ask me to integrate the program into it but the API is very
> limited, so I could also help in suggesting a better one...

yes, the sidebar sucks. there's a google bounty for it that a couple of people 
submitted proposals for, so hopefully something comes of that. but one way or 
another the sidebar needs to be re-thought completley for kde4

-- 
Aaron J. Seigo
GPG Fingerprint: 8B8B 2209 0C6F 7C47 B1EA  EE75 D6B7 2EB1 A7F1 DB43
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