Applets - to maintain aspect ratio, or not?

[Michael Rudolph]

On Tuesday 08 January 2008 13:18:39 Sebastian Kügler wrote:
> On Tuesday 08 January 2008 13:12:10 Alex Merry wrote:
> > Currently, resizing plasma widgets (are we calling them widgets or
> > applets now?) by default maintains aspect ratio.  If you want to
> > freely resize them, you have to know the "magic" key of CTRL.
> >
> > Lots and lots of people have told me this is (a) annoying, (b) not
> > easily discoverable and (c) completely inconsistent with just about
> > every other gui element (think windows, for example).
> >
> > So what do we think about making it freely resizable by default,
> > and having a magic key (probably ALT for consistency with KOffice)
> > to maintain aspect ratio?
>
> Given that 'in theory' applets should be able to maintain a sensible
> aspect ratio, I'm for keep-aspect as default when resizing. I played
> around a bit, and often I resize applets. Then, in case the aspect
> ration gets screwed (which is really a bug in the applet), I press
> CTRL and change that as well.
>
> I'm not strongly concerned about it, whatever works best for the
> casual user should be default though. (D'oh!)

Hello everyone,

wouldn't it be possible to use some sort of snapping mechanism? So as 
long as the user drags the applet handle along the imaginary diagonal 
he would keep the original aspect ratio, but if he tore the handle away 
from that imaginary line, he could freely resize. This way one wouldn't 
need a modifier key at all and had also a future-proof interaction 
metaphor once touch- and gesture-controlled input devices come around.

Just my two cents.

michael