Toolbox Brainstorming

[Craig Duquette]

I think the toolbox is a cool idea, but I'm not a fan of it's current
design. It seems out of place with the rest of the desktop and doesn't
match the rest of plasma or oxygen's look and feel.

I was thinking we should make the toolbox use the geometry of the
panel instead. We could make it an embeddable plasmoid that took
up 16x48pixels.. it'd be tiny and out of the way.

In the screenshots below the star is the toolbox. When the user
mouses over the icon the current panel dims and the toolbox actions
are drawn on top of the panel.

When the user leaves the geometry of the panel the previous panel
returns. I think this is a cleaner layout. I prefer it to be shown within
the geometry of the panel instead of popping out because the user
knows where the panel is located.. it's always there.

I think the star icon should be replaced with a blue orb. It'd be dim
when inactive, but on mouseover it'd become brighter. It'd look
something like looking at a blue LED in pitch black of night, an orb with a
slight halo around it..

Anyway enough text, here are the visuals...

Normal Panel:
http://home.cfl.rr.com/gamma/images/toolbox_normal.png

Expanded Toolbox:
http://home.cfl.rr.com/gamma/images/toolbox_hover.png

Thoughts?
Craig AKA gamma