plasma-mid (Mobile Internet Device)

[pinheiro]

A Monday 25 August 2008 02:22:23, Aaron J. Seigo escreveu:
> hi all..
>
> some of us huddled together at Akademy on the last day and discussed what
> we'd like to do for things like the Nokia N Series and EEE PC computers, or
> as they are more generally known "mobile internet devices" or MIDs.
>
> in the meeting we came up with a few action items:
>
> 0. create a plasma shell for MIDs
> 1. create a specialized containment
> 2. create a full screen app launcher
> 3. create a control bar applet that could replace window title bars
> 4. create an expanding/collapsing area for notifications and tray icons,
> aka "systray"
> 5. create artwork for all this specific to the devices
> 6. research!
>
> here's some more detail on each:
>
> Shell
> ===
> you may have noticed that there is now a kdebase/workspace/plasma/shells
> directory; in there we now have 4 directories containing 4 different kinds
> of shells: desktop, screensaver, plasmoidviewer and mid.
>
> plasma-mid is essentially a stripped down version of desktop: it only has
> one view, the view (MidView) is very simple, the corona (MidCorona) has the
> start of a custom loadCustomLayout with a single containment .. and that's
> about it.
>
> it supports command line options for desktop, width and height which means
> you can work on it initially without a scratchbox or other similar set up.
>
> App Launcher
> =========
> the app launcher needs to be full screen (modulo the control bar). for a
> first draft we're going to try a layout with a category listing down the
> left and nice large fingerable buttons representing launchable actions on
> the right. simple, effective, beautiful. that's the goal anyways =)
>
> Control Bar
> =======
> this will contain a title for the current application and buttons for home,
> put away and quit. it will also contain on the right hand side the MID
> system tray, which actually won't really be a system tray as much as a
> place for really small applets (battery, network status, etc).
>
> Ivan has worked on a similar concept for a project he is working on; it is
> in playground/plasma/applets/embedded-ivan/titlebar/ .. we should look into
> Ivan's work here.
>
> Systray
> =====
> we should be able to simply re-use the existing systray+notifier plasmoid
> for this! it will need some additional work, such as implementing a new
> icon type that is really just a wrapper for a plasmoid and implementing
> expand/collapse to show/hide icons. this will have use on the desktop as
> well, so it's time well spent
>
> Artwork
> =====
> as this all comes together, we're going to want some new artwork. my
> thoughts are that we should have artwork that:
>
> * is pre-sized to the device screen (no scaling of the wallpaper should be
> necessary for instance)
> * harmonizes with the hardware itself, so it looks like it all belongs
> together
>
> obviously, this part is device specific. i'd like to start by targetting
> the N810 so we have a first example of what can be done.
>
> Research

Yes I have been playing around with ideas for it and the sorts, one thing that 
i would like to get your opinon would be mouse gestures... like control 
plamoisd that pop up wen your mouse (phinger describe a certain movment)
so we could control stuf like zoom and rotate in a more continuous/phinguer 
friendly way...
   



> ======
> some research topics will include:
>
> * will a KPixmapCache for Plasma::Theme help start up times?
> * how to integrate with special buttons on these devices?
> * how to do configuration and applet addition?
> * how to most effectively present a widget dashboard area?
>
>
> thoughts, ideas, scary warnings, complaints, etc?



-- 

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