tasks-refactor issues

[Christian Mollekopf]

Hi, 
sorry for my absence, the swiss army needed me ;-)

Although i read both aarons and marcos mails i will use this one to
add my ideas.


> From: aseigo at kde.org
> To: plasma-devel at kde.org
> Subject: tasks-refactor issues
> Date: Mon, 22 Sep 2008 23:38:01 -0600
> 
> hi ...
> 
> so i've been playing with tasks-refactor now for a bit and here's a list of 
> issues i've come across:
> 
> smaller things that can be fixed easier:
> 
> * the config dialog is .. well .. reversed =) the labels are on the right and 
> the controls on the left. the dialog must be reworked to be HIG compliant
> 

yep...

> * actions must not be named things like "Start/Stop grouping this program" 
> (e.g. in ProgramGroupingStrategy::strategyActions) but reflect the actual state 
> of the action
> 
> * ProgramGroupingStrategy::toggleGrouping shows we have some API issues in the 
> new libtaskmanager additions. from reading that method it is completely 
> unclear what the interplay between blackList, handleItem, closeGroup and add. 
> this must be sorted out either with proper commenting of the method (which is 
> anything but clear) or by fixing the code to read clearly (the preferred fix)
> 

Unfortunately i don't know how i could fix the code but i will add the
documentation of the function. To make it clear right away, if ProgramGrouping is enabled
and you don't want for example Konqueror being automatically grouped, you can hit the "Stop groupig this Program"
option which calls the toggleGrouping() function. This will add Konqueror to the blackList which will
prevent the ProgramGroupingStrategy from grouping Konqueror windows.
You can reenable it with the "Start grouping this program" option which calls
toggleGrouping() again.


> * defaults for the tasks widget: sorting by alpha and grouping my program 
> should be on. no sorting/grouping is a bit silly and manual management is not 
> something most users will crave (though it's awesome that the option is there)
> 

i will trust in your experience with users =)

> some not-so-small things:
> 
> * we're going to want to have a "only group when full" option in there
> 

yeah, cool idea

> * multiple rows are still missing
> 

yes, yet to be added. I was thinking of subclassing LayoutWidget (it isn't a widget anymore, actually...) from 
QGraphicsGridLayout and adding some variables where we can set a fixed collumncount or  a maximum count of collumns
which would be automatically added or removed as needed.


> * i'm getting a consistent crash-on-exit with program grouping is on
> 

me too...

> but we have a biggers issue with the new widget than above, mostly to do with 
> user interaction. here are the outstanding issues i see:
> 
> 
> * all grouping interaction is done via the context menu. this is a non-
> starter. there absolutely must be visual feedback on this, e.g. an arrow to 
> expand collapsed groups

I'm not sure if i got this right. Do you mean, that it isn't obvious that items can be grouped
by dragging them with alt pressed (i agree) and that there should be a context menu for this action,
or do you mean that there should be a different way for expanding/collapsing than the contextmenu (i agree as well)?

> 
> * when a group is expanded, it becomes a cloud of little icons in about the 
> same space as original button. the icons are not recognizable.
> 

Yes i experimented a bit with the setStretchFactor function of QGraphicsLinearLayout but i couldn't get it to work....

> * i had no clue how to trigger manual grouping
> 

Yep, it done by dragging with alt pressed, but i agree this isn't obvious at all =)

> 
> so ... how to interact with grouped items ... 
> 
> expanding groups:
> 
> * a single click on a collapsed group could expand it
> 

I know that you don't like the cycling mechanism very much aaron, but i do (and marco apparently also) =) 
(although its maybe really more the developer in me that likes it...)
The order is kind of predictable because its exactly same as shown in the expanded group.

> * an expand arrow when clicked could could expand it
> 

Since its maybe hard to hit a rather small expand arrow we could add it, but keep the current fuctionality
with double clicking? Another idea i had for expanding and collapsing is a group widget border that can be grabbed
and pulled that the group expands or collapses.

> * something else .. ?
> 
> showing expanded groups:
> 
> * we could do it like in kicker and show a popup with the grouped window 
> inside that popup.
> 

I thought we could show such an expanded group widget instead of the tooltip, when you keep your mouse
over the group for a sec or so.

> * an expanded group could overlay other buttons, temporarily 'taking over' the 
> tasks widget
> 
> * an expanded group could push other buttons aside, giving the buttons inside 
> as much room as buttons not in the group (making an all-groups-expanded 
> taskbar as cluttered as the current bar)
> 
I would really prefer if a taskbar with all groups expanded is as cluttered as the old one.
If  you just want to temporarily access a task you can do it with the tooltip like popup

> * something else .. ?



best regards and thanks for your effort

Christian
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