[MOCKUP] Taskbar thumbnail grouping

[Steven]

Seeing the taskbar presented for Windows 7, I found it both intriguing
and lacking. For this reason, I'm looking at how to design a grouping
thumbnail taskbar for plasma to best make use of the window management
tools/effects made available in Kwin.

*Auto-ordering of launchers before tasks (or after) would be optional
*In this case, the option of a spacer between launchers and tasks would be given

*Task/launcher duality would be optional (should it be default?)

*The little arrow on top of the previews is for toggling multiple desktop view.

*Text beside icons would be optional (though on by default)
*In the same way, text beside launchers would be optional (esp in
side-panel layout)
*Icons could be moved to anywhere along the length of the plasmoid, or
even to other taskbar sections (I don't know how possible this would
be).
*The red plus over the icon is for adding an instance of the program.
*In text-on mode, the (+) would place itself in-line with the cursor
on hover (or maybe the button would get wider?)
*Clicking the icon might make the thumbnails stay up for more complex
window management (ie grouping and ordering)
*This would allow multiple groups to be visible at a time.
*Alternatively, (and I think this is better) clicking could bring the
most recent app window forward, and double clicking could bring all of
the app windows forward.

*Hovering over thumbnails would peek
*Hovering over the icon would peek at all the app windows, or the most recent
*Hovering over or clicking the app title might expose all the app
windows. (context sensitive to single or multi desktop mode)

*Thumbnails would be draggable.
*Custom groups would go on a subsection that could be separated from
the rest of the plasmoid (like Lancelot) if so desired.
*Dragging a thumbnail to the taskbar might put it in a new group
[TheBlackCat, kde-forum.org]

*Group window management buttons |min|max|close| could go in the
top-right (?) [TheBlackCat, kde-forum.org]
*Cascade and tile might be included somewhere (if they exist in KWin)
[TheBlackCat, kde-forum.org]

*Mouse actions for all components (left click, right click, middle
click, up scroll, down scroll, hover) would all be customizable, and
if the (+) and (^) buttons become redundant, then they should be
removable.

*The over-sized close button on the thumbnails might close the window.
Middle-mouse clicking could also work, but I find that unintuitive.

This was posted on forum.kde.org at
http://forum.kde.org/showthread.php?tid=15259&pid=19186#pid19186
The mockup pictures can be found there.