Pin plasmoid sides to edges of containment?

[Michael Rudolph]

On Thursday 26 June 2008 16:51:05 Chris Reeves wrote:
> Hi,
>
> First off, I'd like to thank all of the people involved in the plasma
> project and KDE in general. My desktop experience has improved much
> in KDE 4, to the extent that it seems like the workspace is assisting
> me instead of just being there or occasionally getting in the way.
> Thank you.
>
> In 4.1 beta2, the workspace started playing well with randr on my
> machine, so I can hook up my 1920x1200 monitor when I get to work and
> unplug it when I'm done to merrily go back to 1280x800. The only
> visual glitch I noticed in the transition, is that plasmoids that are
> in one place on the laptop screen are in a completely different place
> on the larger screen, relative to the sides of the monitor.
>
> It would be a nice feature, I think, to be able to pin the sides of
> plasmoids to certain points on the screen in relation to the
> containment edges. Doing this, it would be possible to make certain
> plasmoids slide to the edge of the screen on a resize, while others
> could be stretched to fill the extra space provided. I would imagine
> that something like a push-pin icon could be added to the sides of
> the plasmoid border to accomplish this. If sides opposite each other
> were pinned, the plasmoid would be stretched. If a single, or
> adjacent side(s) were pinned, then the plasmoid would be kept in that
> same relative position on containment resize.
>
> I don't know if that's a reasonable feature given the potential
> complexities both in code and interface design, and I'm not sure if
> this has been discussed before ( I couldn't find anything on it ). I
> thought it would be better to post it here for discussion before
> making a wish, if it is reasonable idea. If anyone would like me to
> provide a mockup of my vision of how this might work, I'd be glad to
> give it a shot.
>
> Thanks, Chris

Hi Chris,

your feedback is greatly appreciated. Thanks a lot.

You might want to look for "xrandr" and "panel placement" to find 
previous discussions. Those previous discusions are not dealing with 
applets (plasmoids) in general, but with the panel's behaviour (which 
is just a special applet), when the screen resolution changes.

Personally, I'm not really in favour of your suggestion. I don't change 
screen resolution much though, so I can't really know your pain, but my 
criticism is of a more abstract nature anyway.

Your idea, if I may say so, stems from a very brute-force design 
approach. You see objects moving on your screen (when changing 
resolution), and this is breaking your workflow. So the most obvious 
solution might be to stop these objects from moving, to affix them to 
the screen.

The idea of using pins to position applets is very good, in my point of 
view. Because it uses a real world metaphor. But as I said, I'm not 
sure that (fixed) positioning of applets is the solution.

I'm advocating a design approach that tries to identify the root of the 
problem first. Allowedly understanding the root of the problem at hand 
is a rather difficult task, but together we can do it. Here's my take 
on it:

The role of plasmoids on the desktop is ill-defined at the moment. 
Architecturally they are a source of much delight for me, but 
superficially they look like YetAnotherWidgetsystemimplementatioN. We 
sure don't need another OS X dashboard, google-gadgets or superkaramba, 
though they sure look pretty, they are basically a source of confusion. 
Managing windows is hard enough as it is, having an additional set of 
objects (like applets) on your desktop will only make things worse.

Writing yet another widget system really only makes sense, when you have 
an army of talented designers (or, well, if you have Aaron :-). 
Currently we are not even touching upon what is possible with plamsa, 
we are merely recreating what was already there with other widget 
systems (again a rather brute-force design approach).

In the plasma that I envision, the position, rotation and size of 
plasmoids convey meaning. So when you change your screen's resolution, 
the meaning doesn't change and "it" is just applied to the new 
circumstances (the new resolution). For example a plasmoid, that is 
unimportant at the moment might be displayed smaller and towards the 
edge of the screen. If you change your screen's resolution, it is still 
unimportant and plasma will handle the placement and size for you, 
because it knows what this plasmoid means to you. This is also helpful, 
for moving a plasmoid from one contaiment to another (e.g. to the 
panel), or when it is moved from your desktop computer onto your mobile 
phone.

Sorry, Chris, if I sounded like I didn't like your idea. I just think it 
could be improved. But I definitely enjoyed your idea of discussing it 
here, so I hope to now hear back from you with what's flawed with my 
idea :-).

michael