(patch) Review Request: Fancy-schmancy Kickoff layout tricks for dissident panel placements

[Marco Martin]

On Tuesday 26 February 2008, Celeste Lyn Paul wrote:
>
> (From the mailing list) "Mis-tab-switches are annoying, but less annoying
> than always having to go over the less important tabs to get where you want
> to be.  In the scenarios where you have reversed order (5,6,7,8 according
> to the comment at the top of setLauncherOrigin()) your search algorithm
> goes from O(1) to O(N)."
>
> (^ Yet another argument for click-tabs by default.)  It's one thing if by
> through our arguments we reach a consensus and decide to do alternate
> ordering of the tabs, but I don't want to see us making a bad design
> decision to fix a design problem somewhere else in the interface (what I
> call "band-aids").

for the click-tabs vs mousehover question: i would use this simple patch that 
makes switch the tab with click and on mousehover only when the left mouse 
button is pressed already.
example: the user presses the mouse button to pop up the menu and moves the 
mouse over another tab with the button still pressed and the tab changes 
automatically, a behaviour common in popup menus, but when the user don't 
know exactly what he is searching probably he had released the mouse (ok, 
it's only a my sensation) so it doesn't activate a tab by error.


Cheers,
Marco Martin

>
> - Celeste Lyn
>
>
> -----------------------------------------------------------
> This is an automatically generated e-mail. To reply, visit:
> http://mattr.info/r/224/#review201
> -----------------------------------------------------------
>
> On 2008-02-26 05:00:51, Will Stephenson wrote:
> > -----------------------------------------------------------
> > This is an automatically generated e-mail. To reply, visit:
> > http://mattr.info/r/224/
> > -----------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > (Updated 2008-02-26 05:00:51)
> >
> >
> > Review request for Plasma.
> >
> >
> > Summary
> > -------
> >
> > KDE 3 Kickoff amends its layout according to the direction the popup is
> > appearing relative to the launcher button.  This patch adds this to KDE 4
> > kickoff and extends this behaviour to improve the ergonomics of kickoff
> > when its launcher is not in the standard position.  This was a TODOs for
> > KDE 3 kickoff that never got done.
> >
> > from Launcher::setLauncherOrigin(): (ui/launcher.cpp)
> >
> > Determines optimum layout according to Fitt's Law: (isn't invoking Fitt's
> > law turning into a special case of Godwin's law for usability
> > applications?)
> >
> > Assumption 1: The hardcoded tab order defines a desirable priority order
> > Goal 1: TabBar alignment is perpendicular to direction of mouse travel
> > from launcher to target, to prevent mousing over non-target tabs and
> > potential unnecessary tab switches Goal 2 the movie: Tabs are ordered by
> > decreasing priority along the mouse travel vector away from the launcher
> > Constraint: The search widget is different to the tabs and the footer is
> > of lowest priority so these should always be situated furthest away from
> > the origin
> >
> > This gives vertical tabs when Kickoff is used in a vertical panel, and it
> > reorders the tabs so the Favourites tab is always closest to the
> > launcher, etc.
> >
> > NB I haven't hacked the paint code to draw the tabs in non-South layouts
> > yet, I suck at painting and maybe someone else who doesn't would be able
> > to write this elegantly.
> >
> >
> > Diffs
> > -----
> >
> >   /trunk/KDE/kdebase/workspace/plasma/applets/kickoff/applet/applet.cpp
> >   /trunk/KDE/kdebase/workspace/plasma/applets/kickoff/ui/launcher.h
> >   /trunk/KDE/kdebase/workspace/plasma/applets/kickoff/ui/launcher.cpp
> >
> > Diff: http://mattr.info/r/224/diff
> >
> >
> > Testing
> > -------
> >
> >
> > Screenshots
> > -----------
> >
> > Launcher northwest, panel TopEdge
> >   http://mattr.info/r/224/s/21/
> > Launcher SE, panel BottomEdge
> >   http://mattr.info/r/224/s/22/
> > Launcher NE, panel RightEdge (my desktop layout)
> >   http://mattr.info/r/224/s/23/
> > Launcher NW, panel LeftEdge
> >   http://mattr.info/r/224/s/24/
> >
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> > Will
>
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