Fwd: Re: [Panel-devel] Superkaramba applets configuration

[Matt]

On Tue, 21 Jun 2005 19:24, Marc Cramdal wrote:
> Hello,
>
> This post is about SK applets configuration.
>
> Currently, some applets like Liquidweather++ uses context menus for
> the configuration. I find this not very usable : when you want to
> configure it the first time, you have to right-click, then browse
> through menus many times. So why not provide some kind of generic (and
> eyecandy ;-)) config dialog for Superkaramba applets which would have
> all the config options in the same dialog ?

This is an interesting topic, which I've done some thinking on lately.  
Currently, in superkaramba (in my view), the only practical way to get any
gui based configuration into a theme is with the configure menu, and
kdialogs.  However, you are right, in that this is not an ideal solution from
a usability perspective (not that I'm a usability expert by any stretch of
the imagination).

The reason I say that this is the only practical solution is that I think it
is important that themes are as self contained as possible - ie don't require
additional applications/libraries installed to provide such core
functionality as configuration.  There are solutions out there, such as
kommander (from kwebdev), or py-kde, but both require separate
applications/libraries to be installed.  The "configure" menu in superkaramba
comes with the app itself, and kdialog is part of the base kde install, and
so should be available on every desktop that superkaramba is installed on.

The new text input stuff for superkaramba may provide some ability to
 increase the config options for superkaramba, but I think that the
 opportunities to turn these into a useable config dialog will be limited.

I agree that one of the goals of superkaramba for kde4 should be to provide
some facility for a config dialog.  However, I can also see a lot of issues
around this.  I've seen the way dashboard for OSX does it:

http://www.apple.com/macosx/theater/dashboard.html

which has some appeal.  However, the number of config options in liquid
weather is significant, and would ideally require a number of different
widgets to be a "useable" config dialog - for example a combination of radio
buttons, drop down lists, sliders, and text input boxes.  I don't know
whether it would be possible to provide an API that gives access to these
functions in a useful way - although I know nothing of c++ and qt
programming, and this may be easier than I think.  I don't think that there
could be a uniform dialog "format".  This would mean that the tools to build
the dialogs would have to have a reasonable level of flexibility to build a
tool that is relevant to the theme.

The other thing to bear in mind is that it will be important to make sure
 that non-programmers (like me) can create themes as well, so the method for
 building config dialogs will need to remain relatively straight forward.

I think that this is an important aspect to bear in mind as superkaramba
 moves forward, and would be interested to hear what the developers think.

Matt