The Tasks DataEngine

[Alain Boyer]

Hello all,

First, some introductions as I am new to the plasma-devel list. My
name is Alain and I've been a long time KDE user. Recently, I've found
some time to do some KDE hacking and was attracted to plasma. I've
been following plasma quite closely on the web, in the blog sphere and
on this mailing list.

This led me to take a look at the tasks data engine and applet. I was
surprised to see that they don't talk to each other. My first task (no
pun intended) was to extend the data engine.

My goal is to completely encapsulate the taskmanager library within
the tasks data engine. My theory is that this would simplify the
existing tasks applet and allow the creation of other task-like
applets without re-writing code.

I have some code that adds a custom task DataContainer and Service.
This allows you to interact (maximize, minimize...) with windows using
a service. It works, but it seems like a lot of overhead to simply
minimize a window...

I'm now re-thinking the usefulness/feasibility/elegance of this "use a
service to interact with windows" design. Any comments or suggestions?

Alain.