Pin plasmoid sides to edges of containment?

Chris Reeves chris at ev-soft.net
Fri Jun 27 19:29:38 CEST 2008


On Friday 27 June 2008 10:38:37 Michael Rudolph wrote:
> 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

Michael,

That is an interesting approach to the problem. It would eliminate the extra, 
unnecessary, and possibly confusing configuration.

Is there a system planned to allow plasma to determine the meaning and/or 
importance of the plasmoids, and thus apply changes to them as the 
environment changes, or is that still far enough away to have not been widely 
considered? If it has been considered, I would like to hear what the 
solution(s) is. It is a conceptually difficult problem to approach since 
the "environment" can take into account many different factors, obviously not 
just resolution changes. I'm especially interested in the transportation of 
state across a network/connection that has been hinted at before, since that 
would allow the flow of the workspace to follow you from place to place 
without requiring the distraction of getting everything back in its place to 
continue your thought processes.

Or have I misunderstood your response?

Thanks, Chris


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