[Panel-devel] icons, files and the desktop

[Sven Burmeister]

On Donnerstag, 20. Dezember 2007, Chani wrote:
> then there's drag&drop:
> -when a file is dragged onto plasma in general, make an icon

I don't agree with this, because IMHO it is not coherent plasma's idea of 
giving users a new desktop experience. If I drop a file or several of them on 
the desktop, I expect plasma to be smart enough to check whether the 
mime-type fits to a plasmoid. As an example, if I drop a picture or several 
of them, they should become a picture-frame plasmoid, including sideshow in 
case of the latter.

Since I hope that having icons as such on the desktop will not become default, 
i.e. I would prefer plasmoids (e.g. recently used docs/apps, ~/Desktop etc.) 
that contain them, there is not even the need to ask whether the user wants a 
plasmoid generated or an icon created. This matches Chani's idea.

So at the current state of my thought dropping a file would work like this.

With desktop/recently used/favourite apps-applet enabled, i.e. the files from 
~Desktop are displayed as group somewhere on the desktop:
- File dropped on that group/applet -> it gets added
- File that has a matching mime-type and is dropped outside that group -> put 
into the matching plasmoid
- File without matching mime-type dropped outside the group -> gets added to 
the group.

Without any file-group plasmoid enabled, files that don't have a to a plasmoid 
matching mime-type get added as buttons. Alternatively this could simply 
trigger the ~Desktop applet. If they match a plasmoid, it is created and the 
files used for it.

Although I do not like the idea, one could introduce different behaviours on 
pressing CTRL, ALT, SHIFT while dropping or create a function that reduces a 
plasmoid to a file, i.e. a picture-frame would become the picture-file it 
displays.

Sven