Review Request: Desktop Settings Theme Details

[Aaron J. Seigo]

On Monday 06 October 2008, Jamboarder wrote:
> > From: Aaron J. Seigo <aseigo at kde.org>
> > of course, if you only create a cool clock face or a cool panel,
> > everything else defaults back to the default theme. you don't have to
> > create a "full theme" even today.
>
> Just a quick note that this only allows for say a cool clock - default
> combination.  The theme author, by omitting other theme items is really
> creating a default + cool clock theme, not just a cool clock.  The user is
> unable to use any theme other than default with the new cool clock.
>
> I just thought it might be worth mentioning in case it might be a blind
> spot.

yep; as i said, "i do see an advantage to allowing people to create just 
individual pieces and have other[s] put them together"

> As a side note, is the intent for the current Desktop Settings dialog to be
> converted to a kcm so it can be found in System Settings? 

not at this point. i waffle back and forth on the issue, but the biggest problem 
is that these configuration dialogs come from the containment and wallpaper 
plugins that are in context .... which makes it hard to do with an external 
kcm.

i did something like this with kicker's kcm, though on a much more trivial 
scale (just multiple panels, and all with the same configuration options), 
using dcop and it was never perfect due to various quirks in communicating all 
config changes in both directions. this could have been solved by a 
configuration system that notified of changes, but we've increased the problem 
in plasma by not even having the same configuration pages for all containments 
or wallpapers. that means even with configuration syncronization and change 
notification, we'd have to load the appropriate plugins into the kcm and get 
them to populate the kcm.

there must be a decent solution to this, but i'm just not seeing it yet =(

> I've had an
> occasional mental rhubarb trying to figure out where it would go if it
> were.  This probably reflects the problems you mentioned.

yeah....

> Thanks again for your help and feedback and I'll try to get this new kcm
> into kdereview as quickly as possible,

cool =))

ah, one thought: do you think it would make sense to have some sort of 
registry system for the theme elements so that your dialog could just read in 
a config file or something that describes the configurable theme elements? that 
way we wouldn't have to adjust the dialog when the theming changes, and third 
party additions to the theme could show up as well.. 

that increases the complexity of your project a bit .. i wonder if it is worth 
it? what do you think?

> Andrew (I'll shut up now) Lake

Aaron (I'll try not to make things even more complicated) Seigo

-- 
Aaron J. Seigo
humru othro a kohnu se
GPG Fingerprint: 8B8B 2209 0C6F 7C47 B1EA  EE75 D6B7 2EB1 A7F1 DB43

KDE core developer sponsored by Trolltech

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